Building a SaaS product is often the easy part for developers; the real challenge lies in distribution. Many founders spend years building features in the dark, only to realize that without a solid acquisition channel, even the best software remains invisible. This was the exact experience of Loic, a founder who spent five years developing Minia, an app that zero customers ever used. Everything changed when he shifted his focus from being a builder to a problem solver and leveraged the power of YouTube creators. In a recent Starter Story interview, Loic revealed how he used a repeatable 4-step system to scale three separate SaaS companies, including Minia and Drop Magic, to over $45,000 and even $750,000 in Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR).
The secret isn't just "marketing"—it is a tactical, data-driven approach to finding influencers for SaaS who possess the trust of a built-in audience. In this guide, we will break down the exact playbook Loic used to partner with over 500 YouTube creators, driving more than 60% of his total sales through long-form video content.
The YouTube Advantage for Software Marketing
Before diving into the system, it is vital to understand why YouTube is the preferred channel for software distribution. Unlike TikTok or Instagram Reels, which often prioritize fleeting viral moments, YouTube offers four distinct advantages for growth-focused founders. First, it is an AI-positive investment. Long-form video allows a creator to demonstrate exactly how a tool works, which is critical for complex SaaS products. Second, the outcomes are predictable; YouTube videos have a "view floor" that you can count on, unlike the high-variance nature of short-form platforms.
Third, YouTube content has incredible longevity. It is common to see conversions from videos that are three or four years old because YouTube functions as the world's second-largest search engine. Finally, these videos can be easily repurposed into high-performing assets for Meta Ads Manager or Apple Search Ads. By starting with long-form, you create a library of UGC (user-generated content) that fuels your entire marketing funnel.
Step 1: Identification & Strategic Discovery
The first step in our influencer vetting checklist is finding where your potential customers are already hanging out. You don't need a massive database to start; you need a strategic lens. Begin by searching YouTube for keywords related to your SaaS niche. If you are building an e-commerce tool, look for creators teaching others how to build stores or find winning products.
Analyze your competitors using tools like Similarweb to see which creators they are working with. Are they focusing on micro-influencers with highly engaged niches, or are they going for broad-reach integration deals? Platforms like Stormy AI are specifically designed to streamline this process, allowing you to discover creators who specialize in mobile app marketing and SaaS niches using an AI-powered search engine without the manual headache of endless searching. When identifying creators, look for those who naturally use tools in their workflow; these are the creators whose recommendations carry the most weight.
Step 2: The Vetting Formula and the 10% Rule
Once you have a list of potential partners, you must apply a rigorous influencer vetting checklist to ensure you aren't wasting your budget. High follower counts are often a vanity metric. Instead, look at the YouTube engagement rate calculator logic: Views divided by Subscribers. You can use Stormy AI to verify these metrics quickly and get an AI-powered quality report that detects fake followers and engagement fraud in seconds. A healthy, high-performing channel should have an engagement rate of at least 10%. If a creator has 100,000 subscribers but their videos struggle to break 2,000 views, their audience is likely inactive or uninterested.
In addition to the 10% threshold, look at the comment volume. A truly engaged audience talks back. Aim for a minimum of 100 comments per video. This indicates that the creator isn't just broadcasting into the void; they have a community that values their opinion. However, the ultimate test for profitability is what we call the 'Repeat Brand' Test. Look back through the creator's history. Has a specific brand worked with them more than three times? If a brand (especially a competitor) returns for a third sponsorship, it is a definitive signal that the creator's audience is converting and the partnership is profitable.
Step 3: The 7-Email Outreach Sequence
Reaching out to high-quality creators requires more than a single cold email. Most founders give up after one or two attempts, but the pros use a multi-channel "blasting" approach. Loic recommends a 7-email campaign, where each email features a different marketing angle or value proposition. If the creator doesn't respond to an email about a flat fee, the next might mention a high-commission performance structure.
To increase your response rates, supplement your emails by reaching out on X (Twitter) and Instagram. Mention that you sent them an email regarding a partnership. This cross-platform visibility makes you look like a serious brand rather than a spam bot. Using an all-in-one platform like Stormy AI can help you automate these sequences with AI-personalized outreach and an autonomous agent that handles follow-ups while you sleep, ensuring you stay organized while scaling your influencer outreach templates.
Influencer Outreach Templates: Best Practices
- The Hook: Reference a specific video of theirs that you actually enjoyed.
- The Value: Briefly explain how your SaaS solves a problem their audience currently has.
- The CTA: Keep it low friction. Ask for a 10-minute discovery call or a simple "Are you open to sponsorships?"
- The Social Proof: Mention other creators you've worked with or your current user milestones.
Step 4: Negotiation and the Risk-Reward Package
When you finally get a creator on the hook, the influencer marketing contract terms will determine your ROI. A common mistake is paying the full asking price upfront. Instead, always lowball the initial offer by 30% to leave room for negotiation. Loic’s strategy involves offering two distinct packages to the creator, allowing them to choose their preferred level of risk.
The first package is high-risk for the founder: a higher upfront fixed fee with a lower commission per sign-up. The second package is lower-risk for the founder: a minimal upfront fee paired with a much higher performance-based commission. This puts the power in the creator's hands; if they believe their audience will love the product, they will often opt for the commission-heavy structure, which aligns their incentives with your growth. For those scaling mobile apps, using Stormy AI, an AI-powered platform for creator discovery and CRM management, especially for mobile app marketing and UGC campaigns, can help you find UGC creators who are already accustomed to performance-based deals, making this negotiation phase much smoother.
Scaling with Creator Co-founders
For SaaS products that find immediate traction with a specific creator, it may be worth taking the relationship to the next level by bringing them on as a co-founder with equity. This strategy, used by major brands like N8N and Tweet Hunter, effectively derisks your distribution entirely. A creator co-founder acts as a power user, providing critical product insights and immediate feedback from their community.
Having a creator on the founding team allows you to iterate on marketing angles and scripts for free, effectively giving you a laboratory for finding your "secret sauce." Once you have a proven script that converts through your co-founder's channel, you can then take that data and replicate it across hundreds of other creators with a high degree of confidence. This model allowed Loic's app, Drop Magic, to reach $45,000 MRR within its first four months by leveraging the distribution power of co-founder Batistan.
The SaaS Marketing Stack for Influencer Success
To manage a network of 500+ creators, you need a robust tech stack. Beyond the development tools like Supabase and Vercel, your marketing engine should include tools for tracking and automation. Using AI models from OpenAI or Google Gemini can assist in generating personalized outreach scripts and ad copy at scale.
Loic also emphasizes the importance of tracking and attribution. You must know exactly which video drove which sign-up to calculate your true customer acquisition cost (CAC). Most successful founders aim for a 70% to 80% profit margin after accounting for server costs and creator payouts. If your margins are lower, it may be time to revisit your influencer vetting checklist or renegotiate your commission structures.
Conclusion: Building Without Ego
The transition from a struggling developer to a successful SaaS founder often requires a shift in mindset: don't get emotionally attached to your project. Use hard milestones and data—like the 10% engagement rule and the repeat brand test—to decide whether to double down or pivot. By viewing distribution as a core part of the product itself and utilizing a systematic approach to YouTube partnerships, you can stop building in the dark and start scaling to the moon.
Ready to find the creators who will move the needle for your app? Start by using Stormy AI to discover high-converting UGC talent and begin your 4-step outreach system today.