alex nilsson
← back to work
creator programs: internal vs. external
I ran two creator programs at the same time and made the call to shut one down. Here's the data behind that decision.
creator strategy
influencer marketing
program design
context
In summer 2025 I had a hypothesis: if we just got more Curtsy videos out into the world, installs would follow. More creators, more content, more reach. Seemed logical.
Turns out it wasn't that simple.
the approach
I didn't kill the external program because it was failing. I killed it because our internal team was producing results the external one couldn't touch.
What it taught me was clear: creators who aren't embedded in your team, aren't paid enough to care deeply, and are posting on their own accounts with minimal oversight are really hard to align with your actual goals. You can brief them all you want. It doesn't mean the videos come out right.
So instead of trying to fix an inherently messy program, I made the case to wind it down and reinvest in something better- a small, tight internal team of content interns we could actually train, experiment with, and build something real with.
the external program
Curtsy’s summer creator program launched July 2025 after a hiring process that drew 1,584 applicants. I selected 61 creators, set a cadence of 8 videos per month, and tracked performance weekly.
The first month looked promising on paper: 345 videos, ~246K TikTok views, and a cost of $7.82 per video... but the cracks were hard to ignore. Quality was all over the place. Creators were posting because they were paid to, not because they cared about the product. The feedback loop was too slow- by the time we flagged an underperforming format, dozens more had already gone out exactly the same way.
I iterated mid-program. We cut the cadence from 8 videos to 4 and added a required feedback loop before each new brief. The views per video improved slightly, but the cost per video climbed to $13.18. The math kept getting harder to justify.
By October I made the call to wind it down. Not a failure, a finding.
monthly program brief (tap to open)
hiring IG post
weekly content brief
creator education
content examples
the internal program
The external program taught me that scale without quality alignment doesn't work. So after winding it down, I hired 5 college-aged creators to join our internal video team- native Curtsy users who were already fans of the app, embedded in our weekly testing engine from day one. By November 2025 we had a tight internal team producing brand content across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest, trained on Curtsy's voice and experimenting weekly.
Then in January 2026 we took it a step further. I wrote a full playbook for a “closet drop” video series. Each creator built their own personal TikTok closet account and filmed drop-style videos driving their followers directly to their live Curtsy closet. The idea was simple: blend the authenticity of a personal account with the quality control of an internal team.
In its first month, the series drove 497K views and 1,693 new users. Best of both worlds.
Here are just a few of the internal team’s top performers:
676 TikTok views • 583K Instagram views
36.4K TikTok interactions • 31.8K Instagram interactions
241K TikTok views • 554K Instagram views
4.3K TikTok interactions • 14.3K Instagram interactions
152K TikTok views • 132K Instagram views
5.1K TikTok interactions • 2.9K Instagram interactions
232K TikTok views • 128K Instagram views
27.9K TikTok interactions • 5.9K Instagram interactions
11.6K TikTok views
1,238 TikTok interactions
47K TikTok views
5.9K TikTok interactions
what I learned
Scale is seductive. 61 creators sounds like a bigger bet than 7. 345 videos sounds more impressive than 97. But none of it matters if you can't control the quality, and quality is really hard to control when creators aren't on your team.
You can't fake product obsession either. Audiences clock it immediately. The internal team outperformed not just because they were talented, but because they were more invested. They understood the product, the experiments, and the goals. That alignment is everything.
alex nilsson
← back to work
creator programs: internal vs. external
I ran two creator programs at the same time and made the call to shut one down. Here's the data behind that decision.
creator strategy
influencer marketing
program design
context
In summer 2025 I had a hypothesis: if we just got more Curtsy videos out into the world, installs would follow. More creators, more content, more reach. Seemed logical.
Turns out it wasn't that simple.
the approach
I didn't kill the external program because it was failing. I killed it because our internal team was producing results the external one couldn't touch.
What it taught me was clear: creators who aren't embedded in your team, aren't paid enough to care deeply, and are posting on their own accounts with minimal oversight are really hard to align with your actual goals. You can brief them all you want. It doesn't mean the videos come out right.
So instead of trying to fix an inherently messy program, I made the case to wind it down and reinvest in something better- a small, tight internal team of content interns we could actually train, experiment with, and build something real with.
the external program
Curtsy’s summer creator program launched July 2025 after a hiring process that drew 1,584 applicants. I selected 61 creators, set a cadence of 8 videos per month, and tracked performance weekly.
The first month looked promising on paper: 345 videos, ~246K TikTok views, and a cost of $7.82 per video... but the cracks were hard to ignore. Quality was all over the place. Creators were posting because they were paid to, not because they cared about the product. The feedback loop was too slow- by the time we flagged an underperforming format, dozens more had already gone out exactly the same way.
I iterated mid-program. We cut the cadence from 8 videos to 4 and added a required feedback loop before each new brief. The views per video improved slightly, but the cost per video climbed to $13.18. The math kept getting harder to justify.
By October I made the call to wind it down. Not a failure, a finding.
monthly program brief (tap to open)
hiring IG post
weekly content brief
creator education
content examples
the internal program
The external program taught me that scale without quality alignment doesn't work. So after winding it down, I hired 5 college-aged creators to join our internal video team- native Curtsy users who were already fans of the app, embedded in our weekly testing engine from day one. By November 2025 we had a tight internal team producing brand content across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest, trained on Curtsy's voice and experimenting weekly.
Then in January 2026 we took it a step further. I wrote a full playbook for a “closet drop” video series. Each creator built their own personal TikTok closet account and filmed drop-style videos driving their followers directly to their live Curtsy closet. The idea was simple: blend the authenticity of a personal account with the quality control of an internal team.
In its first month, the series drove 497K views and 1,693 new users. Best of both worlds.
Here are just a few of the internal team’s top performers:
676 TikTok views • 583K Instagram views
36.4K TikTok interactions • 31.8K Instagram interactions
241K TikTok views • 554K Instagram views
4.3K TikTok interactions • 14.3K Instagram interactions
152K TikTok views • 132K Instagram views
5.1K TikTok interactions • 2.9K Instagram interactions
11.6K TikTok views
1,238 TikTok interactions
232K TikTok views • 128K Instagram views
27.9K TikTok interactions • 5.9K Instagram interactions
47K TikTok views
5.9K TikTok interactions
what I learned
Scale is seductive. 61 creators sounds like a bigger bet than 7. 345 videos sounds more impressive than 97. But none of it matters if you can't control the quality, and quality is really hard to control when creators aren't on your team.
You can't fake product obsession either. Audiences clock it immediately. The internal team outperformed not just because they were talented, but because they were more invested. They understood the product, the experiments, and the goals. That alignment is everything.
← back to work
creator programs: internal vs. external
I ran two creator programs at the same time and made the call to shut one down. Here's the data behind that decision.
creator strategy
influencer marketing
program design
context
In summer 2025 I had a hypothesis: if we just got more Curtsy videos out into the world, installs would follow. More creators, more content, more reach. Seemed logical.
Turns out it wasn't that simple.
the approach
I didn't kill the external program because it was failing. I killed it because our internal team was producing results the external one couldn't touch.
What it taught me was clear: creators who aren't embedded in your team, aren't paid enough to care deeply, and are posting on their own accounts with minimal oversight are really hard to align with your actual goals. You can brief them all you want. It doesn't mean the videos come out right.
So instead of trying to fix an inherently messy program, I made the case to wind it down and reinvest in something better- a small, tight internal team of content interns we could actually train, experiment with, and build something real with.
the external program
Curtsy’s summer creator program launched July 2025 after a hiring process that drew 1,584 applicants. I selected 61 creators, set a cadence of 8 videos per month, and tracked performance weekly.
The first month looked promising on paper: 345 videos, ~246K TikTok views, and a cost of $7.82 per video... but the cracks were hard to ignore. Quality was all over the place. Creators were posting because they were paid to, not because they cared about the product. The feedback loop was too slow- by the time we flagged an underperforming format, dozens more had already gone out exactly the same way.
I iterated mid-program. We cut the cadence from 8 videos to 4 and added a required feedback loop before each new brief. The views per video improved slightly, but the cost per video climbed to $13.18. The math kept getting harder to justify.
By October I made the call to wind it down. Not a failure, a finding.
monthly program brief (tap to open)
hiring IG post
weekly content brief
creator education
content examples
the internal program
The external program taught me that scale without quality alignment doesn't work. So after winding it down, I hired 5 college-aged creators to join our internal video team- native Curtsy users who were already fans of the app, embedded in our weekly testing engine from day one. By November 2025 we had a tight internal team producing brand content across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest, trained on Curtsy's voice and experimenting weekly.
Then in January 2026 we took it a step further. I wrote a full playbook for a “closet drop” video series. Each creator built their own personal TikTok closet account and filmed drop-style videos driving their followers directly to their live Curtsy closet. The idea was simple: blend the authenticity of a personal account with the quality control of an internal team.
In its first month, the series drove 497K views and 1,693 new users. Best of both worlds.
Here are just a few of the internal team’s top performers:
676 TikTok views • 583K Instagram views
36.4K TikTok interactions • 31.8K Instagram interactions
241K TikTok views • 554K Instagram views
4.3K TikTok interactions • 14.3K Instagram interactions
152K TikTok views • 132K Instagram views
5.1K TikTok interactions • 2.9K Instagram interactions
11.6K TikTok views
1,238 TikTok interactions
232K TikTok views • 128K Instagram views
27.9K TikTok interactions • 5.9K Instagram interactions
47K TikTok views
5.9K TikTok interactions