23 Secret Ways Founders Recruit Top Influencers

In this article, you will discover the proven strategies top software CEOs use to ignite growth through influencer marketing, complete with real-world examples and measurable results. You’ll learn how leaders from fast-growing SaaS companies identified key influencers, built powerful partnerships, and turned those relationships into significant user growth and revenue streams. These aren’t just theories; they are battle-tested tactics from founders who have successfully navigated the path you’re on right now. You’ll get a 5-part playbook to launch your own influencer marketing campaigns, supported by over 40 case studies you can use for inspiration. These examples are from top Founders like AJ Eckstein at Creator Match, Gil Eyal at HYPR, and Alina Vandenberghe at Chili Piper, collected directly from keynotes at Founderpath events.

The 5-Part Playbook For Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing isn’t just for B2C brands selling lifestyle products. B2B SaaS companies are increasingly leveraging industry experts, thought leaders, and creators to build trust and drive high-quality leads. This playbook breaks down the process into five actionable steps, each supported by an example from a CEO who has successfully implemented the strategy.

1. Step 1: Define Your Goals and Audience. Before reaching out to anyone, understand what you want to achieve. Are you looking for top-of-funnel brand awareness, high-quality leads for your funnel, or direct conversions? As AJ Eckstein of Creator Match explains, your goal shouldn’t always be a direct sale, especially on the first touchpoint. Focusing on lead magnets like newsletter sign-ups or whitepaper downloads can be far more effective for warming up an influencer’s audience before pushing for a purchase.
2. Step 2: Identify the Right Influencers. The key to success is finding influencers whose audience perfectly matches your ideal customer profile (ICP). Vanity metrics like follower count can be misleading. Gil Eyal, CEO of HYPR, which hit nearly $8M in revenue, emphasizes the difference between fame and influence. He learned that paying for hundreds of celebrities didn’t work because 90% of their audience wasn’t his target demographic. True influence comes from experts who have built trust and credibility within a specific niche.
3. Step 3: Build a Detailed Campaign Brief. A comprehensive brief is the backbone of a successful campaign. Assume the creator knows nothing about your software. Outline not just the features, but the specific value propositions you want to highlight, what’s off-limits, and key differentiators from competitors. This ensures the influencer’s content is authentic, on-brand, and effectively communicates your message.
4. Step 4: Empower Creators, Don’t Control Them. While a detailed brief is crucial, avoid scripting every word. The reason you partner with influencers is for their creativity and the trust they’ve built with their audience. As Creator Match’s founder AJ Eckstein advises, you must give them creative control. Dictating the exact format (e.g., demanding a video from a creator who excels at text posts) can lead to content that feels inauthentic and performs poorly. Double down on what already works for them.
5. Step 5: Track, Measure, and Build Long-Term Partnerships. To measure ROI, use trackable links (like UTM parameters), dedicated landing pages, or unique discount codes for each influencer. This allows you to see who is driving clicks, leads, and revenue. Once you find influencers who deliver results, invest in long-term relationships. As Alina Vandenberghe, co-founder of Chili Piper (on its way to $50M ARR), explains, being creative beyond just cash compensation and helping influencers grow their own audience is key to building a powerful, lasting community of advocates around your brand.

40+ Examples of Influencer Marketing in Action

Here are over 40 real-world examples of SaaS CEOs using influencer marketing, creator partnerships, and ambassador programs to grow their companies. Each example is a mini-case study drawn from their direct experiences.

• AJ Eckstein, founder of Creator Match, highlighted how his platform helps brands find niche LinkedIn creators. He stressed that follower count is a vanity metric; a smaller, highly engaged audience with the right professional profile is far more valuable for B2B SaaS than a massive, generic following.
• Gil Eyal, CEO of HYPR, grew his influencer marketing platform to $8M in revenue by providing brands with in-depth audience analytics for over 10 million influencers, ensuring they partner with creators who have genuine influence, not just fame.
• Chili Piper’s co-founder, Alina Vandenberghe, shared that her company, on its way to $50M ARR, partners with influencers by being creative beyond cash. They focus on providing value and helping influencers grow their own reach, which in turn builds a powerful community of advocates.
• Ramon Berrios, CEO of Trend.io, built his platform to $60k/month by connecting brands with micro-influencers specifically for generating user-generated content (UGC), which brands then use in their paid advertising campaigns for higher conversion rates.
• Bryn Jones, CEO of GrowSumo, helps B2B SaaS companies grow their affiliate and influencer programs. His platform has driven over $100,000 in recurring monthly revenue for its 70+ customers by creating a marketplace for influencer programs.
• Vitalii Malets, CEO of Publicfast, grew his influencer marketplace to $15k in monthly revenue by connecting brands with a network of 90,000 influencers and taking a percentage of the transaction, focusing heavily on the emerging market of cryptocurrency influencers.
• Vera Kopp of InCast works with major brands like PepsiCo, taking a 10-25% cut of ad spend. Her firm drove $1.4 million in volume by creating strategic influencer campaigns and identifying creators with the right audience to meet specific brand KPIs.
• Rob Fujita, CEO of Zuberance, helps brands like Intuit and Lift build “advocate armies” from their enthusiastic customers. His company, serving over 100 brands, turns loyal users into a volunteer marketing force, driving growth through authentic word-of-mouth.
• Tomer Tagrin, CEO of Yotpo, grew his marketing platform to over $40M in ARR. A key part of his strategy is leveraging agencies, which drive 26% of new revenue by deploying Yotpo for their e-commerce clients to manage reviews and loyalty programs.
• Alberto López, co-founder of Genially, scaled his interactive content tool to over $3.6M ARR by building a community of 150 ambassadors. These brand enthusiasts host webinars and promote the tool within their networks in exchange for a free master plan, driving word-of-mouth growth.
• Nathan Latka of Founderpath highlighted how Semrush grew to over $60 million in revenue by launching an aggressive affiliate program that paid a 40% recurring commission, demonstrating the power of incentivizing partners to drive traffic and sales.
• Vladimir Blagojevic of Fullfunnel.io explained how he builds relationships with industry influencers, which leads to referrals and speaking opportunities. This strategy of connecting with trusted voices in the industry has been a key driver for landing five and six-figure deals.
• Sri Swaminathan of Factors.ai emphasized the importance of founder-led marketing, growing his own LinkedIn following and appearing on numerous podcasts. This direct engagement with the community has been a low-cost way to build brand authority and drive inbound leads, contributing to a 6x growth post-pivot.
• John Paul Chadry, CEO of Upcred, is building his influencer marketing platform by focusing on connecting brands with undiscovered influencers whose content performs well. He raised $400k to build out the tech to solve this matching problem.
• The CEO of InCast, a platform processing over $300k/month in influencer campaign spend, keeps a 10% margin. They grew from just $3k/month a year prior by helping brands like Samsung and BMW execute campaigns with top-tier celebrity influencers.
• Matt Archer of Mahana.io is building a collaborative workspace tool and plans to tap into agile user groups on LinkedIn as a primary channel to find early adopters and influencers within the project management space.
• Kyle Wong, CEO of Pixlee, scaled his UGC management platform to an $18M run rate by helping brands like Kimpton Hotels turn real customer photos into marketing assets. A key growth channel is building relationships with marketing agencies that deploy Pixlee for their clients.
• Gerry Colyer, CMO of Siftery, which raised $4M, explained how they leverage their community of 25,000 users to confirm and improve their software tracking data, turning users into advocates who help maintain the quality of their recommendation engine.
• Neil Patel of UberSuggest discussed how he uses his personal brand and influence to drive thousands of leads per month to his ad agency. 40% of his agency’s customers first come from his free software tool, UberSuggest, demonstrating a powerful founder-as-influencer model.
• Jim Larrison, CEO of Dynamic Signal, which raised $68M, shared how his platform enables companies to turn their own employees into their biggest advocates and influencers, sharing company news and content across their personal networks.
• Jesse Leimgruber, CEO of NeoReach, which hit a $12M run rate on just $4M raised, started his company by asking 300 CMOs on LinkedIn for feedback, not a sale. This approach led to his first major customer, Zappos, and proved the value of building relationships with industry leaders.
• Kate Bradley Chernis, CEO of Lately, grew her AI-powered social media tool to a $900k run rate. A key moment was when influencer Gary Vaynerchuk saw the tool’s video-clipping feature and became a vocal advocate and eventual investor.
• Randy Wootton, CEO of Percolate, a content marketing platform that flirted with a $40M run rate, highlighted the importance of creating a new category and educating the market. They use events and partnerships to engage with marketers and build a community around their vision.
• Dave Lee of PlusThis, which does over $2M in ARR and is highly profitable, drives new customer acquisition by partnering with marketing automation consultants who act as resellers and affiliates, recommending the toolkit to their own clients.
• Dave Bell, CEO of Gummy Cube, bootstrapped his App Store Optimization company to a $4.8M run rate. A key growth channel has been establishing a strong inbound funnel by becoming a recognized expert and influencer in the ASO space.
• Elliot Boucher of Edusign launched his digital attendance sheet tool during the pandemic and hit $10k MRR with 300 customers in just four months. A major part of his strategy is building strong partnerships with larger software companies in the training organization space.
• The CEO of Yotpo, which has an ARR of $40M, emphasized the power of partnering with agencies. These agencies act as influencers and a channel, driving 26% of new revenue by deploying Yotpo for their e-commerce clients.
• The founder of Zuberance explained how his full-service advocate marketing company helps brands like Lift and Intuit mobilize thousands of their most enthusiastic customers to serve as a powerful volunteer marketing force.
• The CEO of Trend.io, reaching $60k/month, facilitates connections between brands and micro-influencers. The platform standardizes payment at $100 per piece of content, which includes licensing rights for brands to use in paid ads.
• The founder of Publicfast grew his influencer marketplace by building a referral program where influencers write about the platform to bring in more users, many of whom are business owners who then become customers.
• The CEO of InCast, which did $400k in take-rate revenue, uses a tiered commission model. For campaigns with top-tier influencers like Tony Hawk, they take a 10% cut, while for campaigns with hundreds of micro-influencers, the margin increases to 35% to cover management overhead.
• The co-founder of Genially, at a $3.6M ARR, built a community of 150 ambassadors who are “in love with the tool.” They spread the word through webinars and cross-marketing in exchange for free access to the most advanced plan.
• Chris from Blackthorn.io, which hit $16.5M in ARR bootstrapped, found success by focusing on just four key system integrator partners. These partners bring Blackthorn into large deals with nonprofits and universities, acting as a critical influencer channel.
• Max Rofagha, CEO of Finimize, uses his 1 million-strong email list to drive multiple revenue streams. His newest and fastest-growing segment, making up 30% of revenue, is a B2B API that licenses Finimize’s financial content to other investment platforms.
• Manny Medina of Outreach.io, which passed $10M in new bookings per quarter, acquired Sales Hacker to gain access to their community. He views educating the market as a primary driver of long-term growth, using the platform to establish thought leadership in sales engagement.
• Scott Paul, CEO of Wooly, which hit a $2M run rate on a $1M raise, helps brands like Skullcandy discover and recruit their own customers to act as brand ambassadors, moving away from paying cold influencers.
• Brett Bernstein, CEO of Gatsby, helps brands identify which of their existing customers are also micro-influencers. His platform integrates with tools like Shopify and Klaviyo to capture customer Instagram handles and automate outreach.
• The CEO of NeoReach, at a $12M ARR, secured his first major customer by reaching out to hundreds of CMOs on LinkedIn for feedback on his buggy, early product. This relationship-building approach proved more effective than a direct sales pitch.
• Gadi Eliashiv of Singular, with an ARR of $26M, mentioned that a key to their growth was word-of-mouth within the highly-networked marketing community, where influential marketers would advocate for their platform.
• Scott Brandley, CEO of ShopperApproved, which he bootstrapped to $7.5M ARR, made his company look bigger than it was by dominating online review sites like G2 and Capterra, becoming the highest-rated platform in his space and leveraging that social proof to win deals.

Conclusion

You’ve just learned how top SaaS founders leverage influencer marketing not as a novelty, but as a core pillar of their growth strategy. From building ambassador programs with their most passionate users to forming strategic partnerships with key industry voices, these leaders have turned relationships into predictable revenue. The common thread is a focus on authenticity, delivering genuine value to both the influencer and their audience, and meticulously tracking the results. To add millions to your own revenue, start by identifying the right partners in your niche and build a strategy that provides mutual benefit, as exemplified by the 40+ founders above. For more data-driven insights and tools to scale your SaaS, consider using Founderpath to track your metrics and explore non-dilutive funding options to fuel your growth.

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