How a 19-year-old intern built the growth engine behind this $2B AI company | Hector Serrano

Hector, you’ve done an insanely incredible job helping grow Whisperflow. I wanted this to be practical: what’s actually working for B2B SaaS right now? The company’s growth has been absurd, your content keeps breaking through everybody’s feed, and I want to know what you actually own.

Huge credit to the team, because what I touch is a small part of the business. I came in as a creator, and that evolved into running paid UGC creatively and managing founder channels like YouTube and Instagram. I’m not the media buyer; I focus on content and the people making it.

The corny answer is the product. Whisperflow was product-led from the beginning. I joined before it was really out there, then it caught steam and we realized we had product-market fit. Organic and paid are just more fuel once there’s already a fire.

That’s step negative one: if you have to force growth because the product has no real pull, tactics might work briefly but fade. So when should a company spend on paid?

Honestly, early. Paid lets you learn fast: does this message work with cold people, can you turn them into users, does the product have legs? Test within your budget. Teams get scared to switch on the engine, but there are always new angles, messages, and audiences if you’re thoughtful.

We tried organic UGC first: creators posted on alternate accounts and got paid by views. We got massive reach, but reach can be vanity. Student views didn’t always become the conversions we wanted, so we shut it down instead of pretending the number looked good.

Then I thought, paid is working and I’m making every asset myself, so why not build a performance creator roster? We found TRYBE, which lets brands run creator ads and pay on results. Now we launch roughly five hundred to six hundred ads a month. For SaaS, creators get a share of ad spend; with clean purchase attribution, it can be a share of GMV.

And you’re not putting creators fully at risk day one. You use a smart retainer: they have a minimum if they deliver their video quota, but keep the upside if commissions beat it.

Yeah, it’s us saying, we’re backing you. If someone makes twenty-five videos and commission is low, we top them up. If they crush it, they keep commissions. Some creators who stayed long enough to understand the model now make around thirteen thousand dollars a month. There’s no ceiling.

I’m a creator too, so I hate the ten-page brief: don’t say this, say that, use these hooks. You hire somebody for their creative brain, then remove the creative part. Keep the group tight, work with people who genuinely like the product, and leave room to experiment. Ads get weird: if everybody copies winners, you get three hundred identical things and fatigue hits fast. One creator put a keyboard in the rain, made the raindrops look like typing, then revealed Whisperflow. I never would’ve briefed that.

So don’t recruit a hundred interchangeable creators. Look at the ad library, find gaps, and bring in people who speak to different customers or messages. UGC doesn’t mean college kids for every product.

Exactly. We have moms, lawyers, engineers, salespeople, agency owners, and an e-commerce founder with kids who loves the product. If you sell a technical tool, get a technical user. Sometimes the ugliest screen-recording ad wins. I can’t sell a three-thousand-dollar sleep product through some random eighteen-year-old and expect trust.

Start in your own followers and DMs. I’ll say I like somebody’s content and ask if they want to join, then explain the performance model once they’re interested. On the call, I ask about them first. Creators are used to being treated like transactions. Respect is alpha: don’t ghost people or pay badly, because word gets around fast. The lean setup is one creative lead who recruits, coaches, approves, and develops concepts, plus a media buyer living in Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube—all that. Shout-out Eric.

You’ve got a strong view on who should lead this. You joined at nineteen, and while people fear AI is taking young jobs, this seems like a place where young people have an edge.

A modern marketer doesn’t have one obvious resume. Tobin had a four point zero and Waterloo; I had a two point five and played Division One soccer. Look for proof they’ve built even a small following, especially on Instagram or YouTube, plus hunger, work ethic, and culture fit. Then give them room to fail and learn. Founders may not understand what’s moving in Discords, TikTok, or Instagram like an eighteen-year-old living there does. Bring in someone who understands what you don’t, and keep learning from them.

Use AI internally, sure, but I wouldn’t let it touch final creative people see yet. Even AI-bullish people I know keep a human on the final ten percent. If Whisperflow helps humans do better work, AI-slop ads and fake influencers feel off. When everyone can generate infinite posts, quality becomes easier to notice. Put real value into something, package it well, and post with a reason instead of for volume.

That’s why founder content matters. People buy from people. If they know a founder’s values, routines, mission, and how hard they work, the company feels human. We treat it like a series: product launches, a founder’s week, remote work, even wedding shopping can connect back to what we’re building. Organic touchpoints also make paid cheaper. Somebody sees YouTube, Instagram, posts elsewhere, then an ad and converts. And for YouTube, packaging is huge: a masterpiece with a weak title and thumbnail is still invisible.

I love the sports analogy: scout young talent, coach them, give them real reps, and develop them rather than expecting a finished superstar. Hector, what do you want to leave founders with?

Give young talent a chance. Find hungry people, believe in them, trust them with opportunities and freedom to test. They can become your best players, and the loyalty is crazy. I’m super grateful Tenei, Daniel, and everyone at Whisperflow took a shot on me. I’m Hector Serrano across X, Instagram, and YouTube. Come join the journey.