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Welcome to New American Dream, our weekly email series where we learn about 3 tactics and 3 tools from Creators earning over $100,000 annually with under 100,000 followers.
Open Call for Guests: We are constantly looking for Creators who make over $100,000 with under 100,000 followers to interview for New American Dream. If you or a friend fits the bill and would be interested in a feature, please reply to this email and let me know!
Emily Carrie
Emily Carrie earns $100,000 annually with just 45,455 followers making performance-based UGC ads for brands on Trybe, where Creators earn a percentage of the sales or ad spend their videos generate instead of a flat fee. Her best ad has made over $27,000 since July and is still paying every day.
She started her personal brand in July 2025 while working as a full-time night-shift cop. In February she followed Colin Reich into his agency, UGC Club (then called V Squad), and learned how to script ads and do the marketing. In August she left the police job. "I was planning on quitting by the end of this year, but then things just really took off with Trybe."
She also runs the Creator program at Pepper Pong, a gig she earned through her UGC work for the brand on Trybe.
Annual earnings per follower: $2.20
Audience Breakdown
Platform | Follower Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
35,090 | Brands whitelist it for their ads. | |
9,775 | Cross-posts here, pays little attention to it. | |
590 |
Earnings Breakdown
Income Stream | Share of Income | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Performance-based UGC ads on Trybe | ~90% | Three active brands; over $300,000 in GMV in the last 30 days. |
Creator program manager for Pepper Pong | ~10% | Recruits Creators, reviews every submission. |
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Three Tactics
The top 3 tactics Emily uses to earn outsized income per follower:
Tactic #1: Get paid on performance, not a flat fee
I've never done traditional UGC where you get a flat fee. However, I wouldn't be interested in doing that because as the Creator, like you said, the company could easily make a hundred thousand dollars off of your one ad and you get a one time thousand dollar flat fee for one video. You're missing out on a lot of money that your video earned.
On Trybe, Creators earn a percentage of GMV or ad spend based on how each video performs, so the brand pays nothing up front and the Creator keeps the upside. One ad has paid Emily over $27,000 and counting, and brands come to her.
How to use it:
Make ads on a performance-based platform like Trybe and earn a percentage of GMV or ad spend.
Upload your best ads to your Trybe profile portfolio so brands can see them.
Build your GMV; brands reach out to Emily when they see over $300,000 on her profile.
Avi’s Intel: While Trybe currently has the market cornered for this performance-based UGC model, I am hearing from other top UGC companies that they won't be the only one for long. Competition here will be a good thing for both brands and Creators.
Tactic #2: Date around, then go deep with two or three brands
It's good to, like we say, date around at first and check out some different brands and see what you actually like doing. But I think just working with two to three brands and getting honed in with them and building relationships with those brands, you'll probably see the most success.
Emily has about 250 brand invites on Trybe and works with just three of them. She films hundreds of videos for the same products, so she only takes brands she likes.
This is a very different approach than, say, an affiliate Creator who might promote hundreds of products with only one or two posts per product.
Since she is paid on performance and her distribution is coming from ad dollars, she doesn't have to play to an algorithm. She just has to focus on finding products she can sell and then selling the heck out of them until she can't anymore
How to use it:
Try several brands, then narrow to two or three.
Pick brands that tell you who the buyer is; if you guess, you may never convert anyone.
Only promote products you enjoy; you’ll be turning the camera on for them every day.
Ask the brand managers questions and show you are invested in their goals; people see that you care, and it opens doors.
Tactic #3: Open each ad by telling Meta who it is for
Meta just has a crazy algorithm which targets the audience that hopefully your video is speaking to. When you're opening up a video, you have to be very clear who you're speaking to, so Meta knows who to push it out to.
Her ads run through the brand's Meta ad account, and Meta decides who sees them. A clear opening tells the algorithm who to target and tells the viewer "I can relate to this."
How to use it:
Open by being very clear who you are speaking to, so Meta knows who to push it to. For example, “If you’re about to become a mom…” or “Guys trying to lose belly fat….”
Position the video for the platform; Facebook skews older.
Be yourself on camera rather than reading a script; people believe it more.
Three Tools
The three tools Emily says she'd keep if she lost everything else (excluding the obvious one - Trybe):
Tool #1: Claude and ChatGPT
Claude and ChatGPT are the tools she named first; she even used Claude Code to build her own proprietary research tool to help her find inspiration for videos that will sell more product.
Definitely Claude and ChatGPT, those right there, the biggest for sure. I’ve been recently trying out Claude Code, learning how to do a little bit of coding and trying to make my own software.
Tool #2: MTOC
MTOC is the research tool and ad library Carrie built with Claude Code, along with a little help from the Pepper Pong team. It collects ads she identifies as good-fit from Meta Ads Library, the Trybe 100, and other platforms into one feed she scrolls for research and scripting; she shares it with Pepper Pong's Creators rather than selling it.
It's essentially a platform where I can just scroll ads. There is no platform out there for Creators to get inspiration from, to scroll through ads. That's a huge platform I use now for my researching and scripting that I definitely could not live without.
Tool #3: Muse
Muse is Meta’s AI agent, which she uses as an assistant.
I've been using Muse to help with scheduling my days. I have busy, busy days, lots of meetings scheduled throughout the day. So I use that to give me buffers between meetings, scheduling stuff... It's kinda almost like my little virtual assistant.
Also in her stack: Slack, Trybe, Instagram, TikTok, the iPhone 17 Pro Max back camera, and the DJI Mic Mini 2.
Learn More
You can find Emily here:
Instagram: @em.train.fuel
Instagram (UGC): @em.gets.paid
TikTok: @em.train.fuel
UGC Club: vsquad.whop.site
Email: [email protected]
The new American dream is having a job that provides financial and physical freedom that you actually love showing up to day in and day out.
New American Dream is a Creator Access Network publication. Just because you're a solopreneur doesn't mean you have to figure out your Creator business alone. Creator Access Network is a one-stop hub where Creators find the vetted platforms, software, and services they actually need, get them at exclusive pre-negotiated rates the public can't, and connect with like-minded Creators building businesses alongside them. Join CAN and build your Creator business with less guesswork, less wasted money, and more support.
Thanks for reading!
