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August 29, 2026

How I Find Creators That Aren't Already in a Database

There is simply no substitute for finding creators: SCROLLING. Scrolling will give you the hot, fresh-off-the-press creators that are going viral in a niche right now.

I used to find them by hand. Fresh TikTok / Instagram account. I try to put myself in the customer's shoes and linger, save, like, and comment as if I were that person. Once the algorithm is trained I grab whoever keeps showing up. Ideally you want to shoot for over 50k average. Creators with less than that expect far too much money ($700 per post where the posts get 1k views). That's a money sink.

You really need volume. Why? because the market is NOT efficient. New people going viral have no idea how to price. Some dumb startup is paying thousands of dollars for hundreds of views.

If the names came from Modash, Grin, a hashtag scrape, or last quarter's roster, three other shops emailed those people this month. The client has seen a version of that list.

What a database actually is

Modash, Grin, Upfluence, Influencer Hero, the big CSVs. They index people who opted in, got scraped, or bought a media kit. Fine if you want who exists in fitness. I need who TikTok is serving a 26-year-old who already tried three habit apps and hates streaks.

Hashtags are worse. They describe who used a tag, which is mostly people trying to get found by shops like yours.

Two phones that both follow fitness will look different after a few dozen videos. I take the people in that session.

What I actually put in a deck

I stop leading with follower count. I lead with these faces showed up, repeatedly, in a session that behaved like your buyer. Then the client cannot say we already have that list, because they do not.

I run that session on real phones. You brief the avatar.

Where this sits in a retainer

Discovery is the part seniors hate doing after the third client. It is also the part juniors fake with a database export. Doing it manually is kind of soul-crushing. I know because I did it.

Scout is $1,500/month per avatar and comes with their emails. Outreach is $2,500 if you do not want your people on first-touch. Dealmaker is $5,000 if you want negotiation and contracts too. Creator fees stay on the client invoice. No demo. No download guarantee.

If you tell clients you have a unique network and then send them names anyone with a database login already has, they will notice. Fix the list before you hire another coordinator.

The brief I actually scroll is free. No account: jumptrend.co/brief.

Related: JumpTrend for agencies, avatar algorithm, JumpTrend vs Modash.