u/KazzyUGC

I officially started pitching myself as a UGC creator seven days ago, and I just booked my first $1,000 project.

I want to be transparent about how it happened because I didn’t send five messages and magically land a client. I pitched around 65 brands and opportunities during that first week:

35 pitches through Bento
20 applications through SideShift
Around 10 pitches through Reddit and X

So far, I’m not a huge fan of SideShift. A lot of the opportunities I saw involved creating fresh social accounts and regularly posting from them. There’s nothing wrong with that model, but it isn’t what I want to build.

My goal is to grow my own personal brand while creating content for brands. I don’t want 20-30 campaign accounts connected to me and all the potential platform, ban and account-security problems that could come with that.

My first deal came through Bento. An agency found my portfolio and initially offered me one video for $240. After reviewing my work, they expanded the project to four raw videos featuring three different products, bringing the total contract to $1,000.

The usage rights are definitely not ideal. They receive broad rights to the content for an unlimited period. I wouldn’t agree to that forever, but for my first UGC deal, I decided the experience, portfolio expansion and opportunity to build a relationship with an agency were worth it.

I also want to be honest about one advantage I had: I was new to UGC, but I wasn’t new to marketing.

I’ve worked in social media marketing and creative strategy for three years and have already created content for several established brands in my niche. I used my strongest previous work, recorded two new UGC-style videos and launched with a portfolio that already looked professional.

That made a massive difference. I wasn’t asking brands to imagine what I could do. I was showing them.

My biggest takeaways from the first seven days are:

Start with the strongest portfolio you can build, even if some pieces are self-made examples.
Apply consistently across multiple platforms instead of relying on one.
Your existing skills still count, even if you’re technically new to UGC.
Read the usage rights before getting excited about the payment.
One strong client can be worth more than dozens of low-paying account-posting campaigns.

I’m still extremely early in this. I’m not pretending that one $1,000 contract means I’ve figured everything out. Now I need to deliver strong work, build the relationship and turn the first deal into repeat business.

But after seven days, roughly 65 pitches and plenty of ignored applications, I finally have my foot in the door and I’m excited to see how far I can scale it.

Here’s my portfolio and creator page if anyone wants to see what I launched with:

https://beacons.ai/kazborhan

Are there any UGC platforms left that actually pay per video?

How I Booked $1,000 in My First 7 Days of UGC