Replicate

Replicate hired a leading creator as an employee instead of buying posts. Koby Conrad cites Replicate as another company that brought a top creator onto the team, a pattern he also used at Reddit. The advice is to pitch the biggest creator in your niche on a go-to-market role with salary and equity, tied to a mission.

His reasoning is that this is like buying wholesale: the creator learns the product roadmap, iterates on what drives clicks, and is less likely to switch to a competing app. His worked example is his own app, Sunflower, not Replicate. There, Eric (Mr. Impulsive), at 50 to 100 million views a month, became VP of Sobriety before revenue and drives 50 to 100k link clicks a month. Quote: "Just hire them as employees. Don't go to them and be like, I'm trying to buy one post."

Superwall▶ 6:16