When Steven Cravotta launched Posted in July 2024, his goal was clear: make it easier for brands to source creator content and for creators to get paid instantly. The Los Angeles-based entrepreneur, known for building viral mobile apps such as Puff Count and Wordle!, had spent years navigating the world of influencer partnerships. What began as a personal struggle to find reliable creators for his own startup has grown into a business designed to solve that very problem.

“I wanted creators. I wanted to pay creators,” Steven says. “I was trying to do this manually, but I was like, ‘Hey, I have this list of creators, and whichever one of you gets the most views for my product, you get this amount of money.’ I wanted to make them compete.”

The impulse to make creator marketing competitive, efficient, and data-oriented became the seed for Posted, a two-sided marketplace connecting brands and creators through contests and deals. In its simplest form, brands post a campaign brief, creators submit videos or ads, and brands pay only for the content they love.

From Viral Apps to Creator Marketplaces

Before Posted, Steven had already proven he could turn an idea into a viral hit. His app Puff Count, which helped more than a million users quit vaping, grew through TikTok at a time when few founders were using the platform for organic marketing.

“I sat in my apartment and filmed TikToks every single day,” he recalls. “Back then, it was very cringy to do so, but I took the leap and made TikToks every single day. They ended up doing quite well; they drove over 75 million organic views and grew the account to 120,000 followers.”

The experience taught him a lasting lesson about distribution. “Anybody can build a mobile app,” Steven explains. “That is not the moat anymore. The moat is distribution. The moat is marketing. And the number-one way small software and mobile apps are marketing right now is through organic creator content.”

That conviction underpins Posted’s model: distribution is the new product, and creators are the most powerful channel in that system.

How Posted Works

Posted operates as a self-serve creator platform where brands can launch a campaign in under 30 minutes. 

“As a brand, you can come on to the platform for free,” says Steven. “You can launch a deal for free and start seeing content for free from creators.”

The system is intentionally transparent. Creators see open campaigns, read the brand brief, produce their content, and set their own price. Brands then decide which pieces they want to purchase. “The creator will show you a fully polished, fully edited video ready to post,” he says. “The brand gets to make the decision whether or not they like that piece of content.”

The platform also hosts contests in which brands set a prize pool, and creators compete to create the most viral video. Winners are determined by performance metrics such as views. “We’re democratizing the creator space,” Steven says. “It’s like the stock market of content creation.”

For creators, the appeal is immediacy. “There’s nowhere else on the internet where you can go as a creator – it doesn’t matter who you are, doesn’t matter how many followers you have – and you can make a dollar the same day you sign up,” he says.

A Marketplace Built for Both Sides

Steven emphasizes that Posted isn’t just solving for brands or creators. It’s built to empower both. 

“I’m a brand owner, I’m a founder, but at the same time I am a creator as well,” he says. “I understand how hard it is to create content and how hard it is to be a creator. It’s one of the hardest jobs ever.”

Steven explains how the app removes much of the friction traditionally involved in influencer collaborations, such as lengthy contracts, 90-day payment delays, and manual outreach: “As a brand, you can set up a campaign in less than 30 minutes. As a creator, you can start earning money in less than 30 minutes. We take all the headache away from you – no communication, no contracts, don’t worry about the payment. It’s all handled.”

Transparency is another core feature. On the creator side, users can see which brands are paying and which types of content have been accepted. “You can go into any deal, read the brief, and see which creators have been paid,” Steven notes. “You can watch their content. Everything is super transparent.”

The Deal vs. Contest Dynamic

Posted offers two main campaign types: Deals and Contests, each serving different needs.

“If you’re a brand that wants to be more selective and you want to be more picky about the content, or maybe you have a smaller budget, deals are the way to go,” Steven explains. “You’re only paying for what you love.”

Contests, by contrast, reward performance. “If you understand what works for you, running a contest is a great option because you’re going to get a lot of submissions. The money’s already out there,” he says.

When the company first launched, contests were the only feature. But Steven soon realized not every brand was ready for that model. “Not every brand wants to run a contest or spend that amount of money,” he points out. “We understood that, and we built deals where it’s truly no risk.”

Building for Scale and Speed

Running a two-sided marketplace comes with its own challenges. 

“We’ve been growing very fast, so scale is something we’ve had to think a lot about,” Steven admits. “But I think the hardest part is educating the brands; figuring out what their true goal is. Some want paid ad content, some want to go viral organically, and some have no idea what they want. Educating the brands on how to properly build a brief is the hardest part.”

To help, Posted offers complimentary strategy calls, live support, and video guides throughout the app. “We encourage every brand to take a strategy call,” Steven says. “Every call is unique, but the goal is to set up a great campaign that’s going to get you to your goals and also entice the creators.”

Steven believes that the company’s growth reflects its cross-market appeal. “We have indie hackers all the way up to companies with tens of millions in funding,” he says. “We have brands from all over the world.”

On the creator side, that diversity is mirrored. “We have creators with 100 followers and others with 2.6 million,” he reveals. “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. It’s about the quality of your content.”

Simplifying the Creator Economy

As influencer marketing continues to grow, Steven sees Posted as a platform that fits the industry’s shift toward volume and velocity. 

“Brands are realizing that paying $10,000 for one post from the biggest influencer on the platform is not a very effective strategy anymore,” he says. “It’s about volume. Followers don’t matter as much anymore. It’s the quality of the content and the strategy you approach it with.”

He believes the creator economy is entering a new phase, where speed and iteration outpace traditional partnerships. “You always have to be testing new stuff,” he says. “Especially with paid ads on TikTok and Meta. They always hound you to continuously refresh those creatives. You always need new angles, new faces, new creators.”

Monetization and Future Growth

While brands can try Posted for free, the company operates on a platform fee after the trial period. Creators can join for free, with a small transaction fee applied when they cash out their earnings.

The team is now preparing to launch a Cost Per Mille-based (CPM) feature that pays creators per thousand views, a hybrid between contests and deals. “That’s going to be a game changer,” Steven says. “Brands will be able to set their CPM, the rate at which they pay per 1,000 views. It’s a very controlled spend for brands.”

He expects the feature to roll out before the end of the year, signaling another step toward automation. “We’re making it easier and easier every day to get paid as a creator and get good content as a brand,” he says. “Those are our two goals.”

In the long term, Steven envisions Posted as “the ad platform of the future.” His goal is not just to simplify creator collaborations but to rebuild the advertising model around creators.

“We are putting the control back in the brand’s hands and the creator’s hands,” he says. “We want to be a place where brands can consistently spend money and get a return on that spend, and the creators are incentivized to create content and get paid to do so.”

For Steven, the mission is rooted in accessibility. “Previously, as a creator, you needed clout, and you needed to outreach to brands and get approved,” he says. “We’ve had creators with 10 followers come onto the platform and make money their first day. We’ve had creators with millions of followers earn tens of thousands of dollars. As long as you put in the effort, you can get paid.”

Speed, fairness, and opportunity – that’s the ethos driving Posted. “We are building the ad marketplace of the future,” Steven says. “This is going to be the best way to get content as a brand.”

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