I'm 19, and I've tried a bunch of different side hustles.
I've tested dropshipping, affiliate marketing, flipping, and a few other things, but the one that's consistently made me the most money has been UGC.

I started about 9 months ago, and since then I've earned around $17k creating UGC for brands. Over the last 6 months, the content I've created has generated more than 10M views across different campaigns.

I've also had the chance to create UGC for well-known apps like Picsart and Suno, along with a number of other startups and consumer apps. I'm definitely still learning every day, but after working with a lot of brands, these are the biggest mistakes I keep seeing new creators make.

1. Don't start in the most saturated niche

Almost everyone starts with beauty, skincare, or makeup because that's what they see all over Instagram and TikTok.
Yes, those brands spend a lot on ads, but they're also getting hundreds of creator pitches every week and If you're just starting, there are more other niches with much less competition where it's easier to land your first clients.

2. Stop charging beginner prices forever

Charging $50-$80 for your first few videos is completely fine bc you need a portfolio, testimonials, and experience.
But once you've worked with 5-10 clients and have results to show, your prices should increase too. A lot of creators never make that jump.

3. Negotiate performance-based bonuses

This is probably the biggest mistake I see.

If you create an ad for an app and it's still generating revenue for the company six months later, why should you only get paid once?

Whenever it makes sense, negotiate bonuses tied to performance, based on views or clic, anyway, if your content keeps making them money, you should benefit too.

4. Learn how to communicate

The highest-paid UGC creators usually understand advertising and they know why certain hooks improve retention, why one CTA converts better than another, and what makes people click, buy, or install.
Learning paid ads and consumer psychology has helped me a lot (Just go deep one week watching every YT video)

5. Show KPIs in your portfolio

Brands want proof that your content performs, o if you can show that one of your videos improved CTR, lowered CPA, generated installs, increased ROAS, or became a winning creative, that's what gets clients.

6. Apps are one of the biggest opportunities right now

Everyone wants to work with beauty brands but I personally think apps are one of the best markets in 2026.

These companies spend huge budgets on paid acquisition, which means they constantly need fresh creatives to test.

There are also far fewer creators specializing in app UGC compared to beauty or skincare, so there's less competition and often much bigger budgets.

One campaign with an app alone ended up paying me around $5k, and if I were starting from zero today that's where I'd focus.

A few extra thoughts:

My first videos weren't great and I still cringe when I look back at them, but you get better by making content, getting feedback, and improving with every project.
Every creator you look up to started with zero clients and a terrible portfolio

If you want to start UGC, feel free to ask me anything

I'm not posting this to flex so dont waste your time commenting useless things.

Last week we launched Adwize and we ended up doing just over $15K in our first week,

I've had quite a few people asking what we did, so instead of giving some fake guru tips, I figured I'd just share the things that made the biggest difference for us.

1. Validate before you build talking to 20 potential users and let them tell you what to make.
2. Forget investors at the beginning, take users
3. Talk to your users.
4. Don't start every design from scratch. Borrow layouts, flows and ideas from products that already work.
5. Post every single day on everything, X, Reddit, LinkedIn
6. Build something you'd use, it's much easier to know whether you're solving a real problem.
7. Give people a low-friction way to try it. Our free trial brought in the first testimonials, and those made selling so much easier.
8. Social proof beats features every time.
9. The first 10 customers are by far the hardest, it gets a little easier after that.

If you're building something yourself and you're stuck on any part of the process, feel free to ask in the comments