For years, Influencer Marketing operated on the basis that audience size determined value. Brands concentrated budget into a handful of creators, paid premium rates for reach, and hoped performance followed.

Nick Lawton believes that equation no longer reflects how platforms actually distribute content.

As TikTok and Instagram prioritize reach over follower count, distribution has become less about who you are and more about how much you produce. In that environment, Nick argues, creative volume (not celebrity) becomes the growth lever.

Nick is the co-founder and CEO of SideShift, a New York-based creator marketplace founded in 2024. What began as a campus-gig platform has grown into a system that enables brands to recruit, manage, and pay hundreds of creators simultaneously.

“We now have a functioning Marketplace with over 800,000 creators, as well as the infrastructure to run these brand campaigns from start to finish; the sourcing, the correspondence, the analytics, attribution, the payments layer, the legal, and the tax,” Nick says.

SideShift’s core bet is that high-volume UGC (user-generated content) will replace one-off influencer moments as a primary growth engine, not because creators matter less, but because distribution mechanics have changed.

A Campus Pivot

While studying economics and entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin, Nick and two friends launched SideShift as a local marketplace connecting bars and restaurants with students seeking part-time work.

“It was my senior year. The job market was notoriously brutal in 2023 and 2024. I wanted to create a venture with a couple of my best buddies,” he recalls.

The first version expanded across multiple campuses but revealed structural flaws. “It was growing a little bit, but it wasn’t growing fast enough, and the business model was flawed,” Nick says.

What caught their attention, however, was their user base. The students signing up were digitally native and comfortable creating short-form video. When mobile app founders began using the platform to hire students for user acquisition content, the team recognized a larger opportunity.

“We had about 10 customers in this mobile app indie hacker space leveraging SideShift for user acquisition. That’s when we really started to pivot the platform and go all in on the Creator Economy.”

Photo: SideShift team

The ‘Unweighted’ Algorithm Thesis

At the center of SideShift’s strategy is what Nick calls the “unweighted” algorithm.

“‘Unweighted’ essentially means that you don’t need 100,000 followers to go viral anymore. You just need a consistent stream of content being produced on a given account.”

In practical terms, this shifts the focus from audience size to content output. Instead of paying six figures for a single influencer post, brands can deploy dozens or hundreds of creators to produce content simultaneously.

“You’re making 100 videos or 60 videos, but only five to 10 are going to go viral,” Nick explains. “That’s okay because those five to 10 are serious outliers, and that’s going to move a lot of weight and traffic toward your brand.”

The insight came from experimentation.

“We did it ourselves for user acquisition and thought, wow, this is really powerful. No one has productized this yet. Let’s be the first movers.”

‘Influencerflation’ and CPM Pressure

Nick is direct about what he sees as structural inefficiencies in the traditional influencer model.

“‘Influencerflation’ has really taken over the Creator Economy,” he says.

“Brands are sick and tired of paying $100,000 for a video that only gets maybe a million views. That’s not a great CPM.”

Nick’s critique is not about creators themselves, but about pricing models misaligned with reach-based algorithms. He points out that if virality no longer depends strictly on follower count, the premium attached to audience size becomes harder to justify.

“The ones who are relatively averse to this shift are going to get left behind.”

Campaigns vs. Always-On UGC Engines

Nick distinguishes sharply between traditional campaign-based influencer marketing and what he calls an always-on UGC engine.

“With UGC, you’re able to experiment a lot more,” he says. “Sometimes you don’t know what voice you want to use, what ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) you’re speaking to, or the tonality and ethos behind these videos.”

High-volume UGC allows brands to test hooks, formats, messaging angles, and creative styles simultaneously. The objective is not a single viral moment, but discovery. “You’re trying to figure out what format’s going to land, what talking style video did the best, what was the hook.”

He refers to this as “content market fit.”

“Every single brand, no matter how boring or archaic it can be, actually does have an audience. There is a hook and a style of content that will land. You just have to find it.”

Inside the SideShift System

SideShift structures its product around four pillars: sourcing, correspondence, analytics, and payments.

Brands launch campaigns, creators apply via the mobile app, and selected participants are added to structured communication channels. Performance data is surfaced in real time, and leaderboards introduce a competitive dynamic.

“We want to make sure that everyone feels like it is a group effort,” Nick states. “These creators become friends with one another and start to help each other.”

On the backend, automation is central to the value proposition. “Payments have always been such a complex and archaic process in the Creator Economy,” Nick says.

He adds, “It’s 99% automated. The 1% is just to make everyone have that sense of security.”

Training the Next Generation of UGC Creators

As SideShift scales, creator quality becomes critical.

“If you have a platform that’s full of terrible creators, it’s not going to work for anyone,” Nick says.

The platform includes a free training engine within its app designed to onboard first-time creators. “We’ve spent a lot of time building out that robust training engine to take anyone from a zero to one creator in just a couple of hours.”

According to Nick, many top earners were beginners only months earlier. “The majority of our creators who are now making anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 a month had never made a piece of content six months ago.”

The pitch is economic mobility through distribution.

“Anyone who has a phone can pick it up, start recording, go viral for a brand, and next thing they know they’re making $5,000 or $10,000 extra a month.”

Power Dynamics and Adaptation

Nick believes that high-volume UGC reshapes the balance of power across brands, creators, and agencies.

“There’s really only one group that’s being squeezed out here – and that’s the influencers who refuse to adapt,” he says.

“I’ve seen creators with 10,000 to 100,000 followers trying to charge $5,000 a video when the average views they get are 10,000. They have this notion that their content is so valuable, when in reality it’s changing.”

Still, Nick cautions against overcorrection. “I just hope brands don’t push the pendulum too far the other way,” he says. “It’s kind of a happy medium; let’s pay fairly for these videos and assets.”

Agencies, he adds, are adapting to the shift.

“The best agencies have started to adapt to this model,” Nick says. “There is still a lot of breathing room for agencies that can adapt.”

Becoming the Center of Distribution

When it comes to Nick’s ambitions, they extend beyond UGC marketplaces.

“What we’re aiming to be is the center of distribution,” he says.

That includes expanding payments globally, deepening training, and potentially supporting agencies and managers operating on larger budgets.

His conviction is rooted in what he sees across the market. “I’m seeing some of the largest companies in the world do this,” he says.

For Nick, the shift is less about replacing influencers and more about operationalizing growth through creative volume.

“There’s never been an easier time to get eyeballs on your product or service,” he concludes.