u/SeparateAd350

I thought influencer marketing was failing for us. Turned out discovery was the real problem.

Post:

When we started testing micro-influencer collaborations for a small DTC product in Germany I assumed outreach would be the hard part.

It wasn’t.

Discovery was.

Most evenings looked like this

search hashtags
open profile
check engagement
check location relevance
repeat

After about 30 creators you stop thinking clearly. After 80 you stop remembering who you already checked.

I tried a few influencer databases early on but most of them were clearly built for US campaigns. Either the coverage in DACH was thin or engagement data wasn’t very useful for smaller regional creators. And paying 150 to 300 per month before even running the first collaborations didn’t make much sense for us.

So I did what sideproject builders usually do. I started building a small workflow for myself.

First I automated engagement rate calculations because checking them manually every evening was painful.

Then I added a shortlist system because I realized choosing who not to contact was actually harder than finding creators.

Later I added a simple swipe style decision flow which removed most of the decision fatigue surprisingly fast.

At some point I noticed the workflow covered the whole process from discovery to shortlist to outreach preparation. That’s when it stopped being just a script and started becoming a real tool.

So I turned it into a small side project

https://influencerfinder.app

Still early but already interesting to see how much time disappears when discovery becomes structured instead of manual scrolling.

Curious how others here handle influencer discovery outside the US

manual search
agencies
databases
something else?

Im working on growth for a small DTC product in the DACH region and one thing surprised me early

finding relevant micro influencers consistently took way more time than expected

Not outreach
Not negotiation
Just discovery

Most evenings looked something like

search hashtags
open profiles
check engagement
check location relevance
repeat

I assumed there would be simple tools for this

There are

But most of them started around €150 to €300 per month

At the time our entire marketing budget was roughly €1500 per month so spending 10 to 20 percent of that just on discovery software before even running campaigns did not feel realistic

So I did what builders usually do

I started building something internally to make creator discovery structured and repeatable instead of manually checking profiles every evening

Over time that turned into something more like a full workflow instead of just a search helper

It now supports the whole process from discovery to shortlisting to evaluation to outreach preparation in one place because I noticed the real friction was not just finding creators but keeping track of decisions and actually moving toward contacting them

Another thing that helped more than expected was automatically calculating engagement rates and creator quality metrics instead of checking everything manually profile by profile

Choosing which creators to contact also turned out to be another bottleneck so I added a simple swipe style shortlist workflow to quickly decide whether someone is worth evaluating further or not. That alone removed a surprising amount of decision fatigue

At some point a few other founders asked if they could use the workflow too

That’s when I realized this might actually be useful beyond my own use case

So I turned it into a small SaaS

https://influencerfinder.app

One thing I tried to do differently compared to most discovery tools was keeping the entry price low enough that early stage founders can experiment with influencer discovery before committing hundreds per month. There is a small €20 entry plan mainly for testing whether the workflow fits

Still early but already interesting to see how often the real bottleneck is not outreach but simply finding the right creators consistently and moving from discovery to actual contact without losing context along the way

Curious how other indie founders here approached influencer discovery before they had larger marketing budgets

Manual search
Agencies
Platforms

When working on influencer collaborations for a small DTC product in the DACH region, one thing surprised me early:

finding relevant creators consistently was much harder than expected.

Most guides and workflows online seem optimized for the US market where creator density is much higher.

In DACH it often looked more like:

search hashtags
open profiles manually
check engagement
check location relevance
repeat

I also tested some discovery platforms early on, but many felt designed primarily for global campaigns rather than regional creator sourcing.

What ended up helping most was structuring the discovery process more intentionally instead of relying purely on hashtag exploration.

Curious how others here approach micro-influencer discovery when targeting smaller regional markets rather than the US.

Manual search? Agencies? Databases? Something else?

I run a small DTC brand and wanted to collaborate with micro-influencers in DACH.

Naturally I looked at tools like Modash and Heepsy first.

Modash quoted ~€300/month
Heepsy was ~€150/month

My entire marketing budget is around €1500/month so that didn’t feel sustainable.

So I started building my own creator discovery tool.

Originally this was just meant as an internal tool, but after about 4 months it turned into something more structured.

Some things that surprised me during the process:

1. Database size matters less than structure

Most discovery platforms advertise massive creator databases.

In practice you usually filter down to maybe 50–100 relevant creators anyway.

A smaller but well-structured regional dataset turned out to be much more useful.

2. Cross-platform creator linking is rarer than expected

Automatically matching the same creator across platforms ended up being more valuable than I anticipated.

Many tools still treat platforms as separate silos.

3. AI classification is extremely cheap leverage

Automatically tagging niches and estimating marketing fit per creator costs very little but removes a lot of manual filtering effort.

4. Most engineering time went into data reliability rather than features

Making the discovery pipeline stable and consistent was significantly harder than building the interface itself.

The tool eventually became a small SaaS product after a few other founders asked if they could use it too.

Curious if other small DTC teams here ran into the same pricing barrier with influencer discovery tools early on.