i started on YouTube at 12 making minecraft + league videos and hit 5k subs. then my family needed cash, so i pivoted and grew instagram theme pages (motivation, food, luxury) to 500k+ followers each, flipped a few, and kept the rest for recurring ad revenue before selling them two years later.
at 16 i went after bigger businesses to run their social, and got laughed out of the room. so i spent 308 days writing and self-publishing a book at 18 called the social media specialist (this was before ChatGPT existed), and used its virality to land global clients. you can still read it for free here.
that same year i built a boutique agency, Mysterious Media, that helped pay my way through UT-Austin CS. when the work started feeling repetitive i sold off the client list and went back to my roots of making videos, right as TikTok was taking over.
after graduating i worked remote at Procter & Gamble for nine months to rebuild my cash. i'd work during the day and film at night. once i saved enough to buy myself real time, i quit. that was four years ago.
what i do now
along with doing entertainment content, i used UGC to fund my creator journey. then came GigMax, a service where we build custom in-house UGC programs for consumer apps and startups. it's a white-glove, done-for-you service where we source, train, and place the top 1% of UGC creators directly into your business for a one-time fee (no agency retainer).
we've run campaigns and creator sourcing for Chatbase, a0.dev, Zencastr, Ivory Mind, Gardenly, Voidpet, and other YC companies. we know what it takes to build a UGC program that becomes a flywheel you own.
i also advise brands and creators on human-first marketing in the AI era, and i'm building a system so up-and-coming creators can upskill and charge what they're actually worth.
my 2036 thesis: as AI floods our feeds with synthetic ads and content, a real human creator will become a luxury or a status symbol for brands. people will become hyperaware of content consumption levels, and research around what is "healthy for your brain" will rise. my hypothesis: people will claim that watching human creators "gives viewers a realistic standard to develop as humans," rather than the unrealistic, dopamine-jacking swings that synthetic AI does to the brain. society & culture will "judge" viewers who watch synthetic/ai content (brainrot) the way junk food is judged today. a rise of "brain influencers" will be ordinary and necessary. people who can pay for and pay attention to human-made content will become the new way of signaling that you're rich.
downstream impact: the truly good human creators will get 100x harder to find, and charge 10x what they do now. i'm building to capture and train that next generation of creators.
looking for:
- founders who want to install a UGC program into their startup.
- brands that need vetted UGC creators to become the face of their product and test tons of content, fast.
- creators who want the playbook to land $10k+ UGC deals consistently.
if that's you, email me: razanorthbiz@gmail.com
also, startups reach out a lot about hiring me full-time to own this in-house. i bring product, marketing, and creator experience in one person, so the bar is high. but if you've got something compelling, my inbox is open.
