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HS Hector Serrano On Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

“I almost think that creators with no following end up being better investments for brands, because influencers are seen now as sellouts a lot of the time. When you see a big celebrity selling a product, you think, this person has been selling me things for the last 10 years, and they're not really genuine. If you have partnership ads coming from the account of someone who isn't famous, it feels a lot more genuine.”

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth · In-Depth Interviews · November 2026

“I almost think that creators with no following end up being better investments for brands, because influencers are seen now as sellouts a lot of the time. When you see a big celebrity selling a product, you think, this person has been selling me things for the last 10 years, and they're not really genuine. If you have partnership ads coming from the account of someone who isn't famous, it feels a lot more genuine.” — Hector Serrano, Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Context

Distinguishing small UGC creators from influencers in his performance-ad program, he argues audiences now discount celebrity endorsements and find unknown creators more believable.

Transcript

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth Around 47:38 into the episode
Hector Serrano

…like companies are made up of people and you just look at it like that and you think, okay, how do I want to sell to these people and how would these people respond well to getting sold to? I think you just have to break it down super simply. And you're like, oh, yeah, this would work for anyone.

Lenny Rachitsky

…innately is someone that influences you to do something. You're basically getting influencers/slash creators to create content that pitches the product and then you put them in people's feed through paid ads. And I get why it works because they're there trying to convince them how to do it. I also

Hector Serrano

think that a good distinction as well is like it's not just an influencer or a creator. I almost think that creators with no following end up being better investments for brands because influencers kind of are seen now as sellouts a lot of the time. And like when you see a big face or a big celebrity like selling a product, it's like, oh my gosh, this person has been selling me things for like the last 10 years. I know she's just getting a bag or he's just getting a bag and they're not really genuine. And there's something about like not really knowing who the person is and they're not famous. They don't have a lot of followers. And if you have like these partnership ads coming from their account, it just feels a lot more genuine as well. So just find out. That makes sense. Like the

Lenny Rachitsky

less they look like an influencer. Exactly. The less they look like they're trying to convince you and they're just talking like a regular human about how awesome your product is. I get why that would work. Like what I think about right now is there's that survey that they, someone did a while ago…

Hector Serrano

I think a lot of people were saying they want to be a streamer, a live streamer, streamer,

Lenny Rachitsky

or something like astronaut or lawyer. And so, you know, this is a career path, is what you're describing. This is a way you're making money doing this. A lot of people are actually making money being a creator online. So for people listening that are like, wait, maybe this could be a career for me…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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