Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Matteo Greenberg. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Matteo thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?

Today, people don’t see content because they follow someone—they see it because the algorithm predicts they’ll care.

In the past, creators built audiences and brands grew by partnering with them to reach those followers. You earned someone’s attention once, and ideally, you could reach them again and again. But now? Platforms have shifted from *who you follow* to *what you engage with*. The “For You” page rules everything. Your audience is no longer your audience—it belongs to the platform.

This creates a paradox: it’s easier than ever to be discovered, but harder than ever to build a relationship. Views are up. Familiarity is down.

One of the most strategic responses we’ve seen is the rise of *niche expert creators*—especially those who bring credibility and trust to specialized verticals.

In our campaigns for health and wellness brands like **iRestore**, the best-performing creators weren’t mega influencers. They were *functional medicine doctors and certified dermatologists* on YouTube with deeply engaged audiences. Why? Because people trust expert voices in a sea of generic content.

That’s exactly why we built [CreatorLookup.com](http://creatorlookup.com/)—the fastest and most enriched creator sourcing engine on the market. Unlike generic tools, we deliver niche creators with verified contact info, engagement metrics, and deep audience insights like location and gender distribution. You can filter by platform, keywords, follower range, and more—then instantly run high-intent outreach at scale.

In a world where reach is easy but *credibility* is earned, your edge lies in partnering with trusted creators—not just the biggest. The best growth isn’t about going bigger—it’s about getting sharper. Align with voices your customers already listen to, and you’ll unlock real influence.

Matteo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Matteo Greenberg, co-founder of CreatorLookup.com and president of byob.ai, where we help brands scale influencer campaigns that actually convert—not just go viral.

I got my start in the industry at 18, filming content for resorts and travel brands across 35+ countries during a gap year before college. That year, I also started building my own audience—growing a community of 75,000+ travel enthusiasts through original content and storytelling.

To take things to the next level, I enrolled at Babson College, the #1 school for entrepreneurship for over 30 years and recently ranked the #2 college in the country by The Wall Street Journal.

Then COVID hit. My freshman year took an unexpected turn when I got the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and live in a creator house with a group of artists. I said yes—and witnessed the explosion of the creator economy firsthand: viral growth without monetization, creators struggling to land brand deals, and brands struggling to discover the right talent.

So, I started helping. I ran cold outreach to secure brand deals for my creator friends, tapping into my network—but the results were dismal. Less than a 0.025% conversion rate. I knew there had to be a better way.

That’s when I teamed up with my roommate and now cofounder, Jose, and launched byob.ai (Be Your Own Boss)—a performance-based influencer marketing agency powered by referrals, not cold DMs. Think: warm leads, passive commissions, and streamlined campaign fulfillment. In 2023, byob was accepted into MIT’s exclusive Delta V accelerator in New York.

We scaled byob past $30K MRR and automated nearly every step of influencer campaign management. But we realized something important: influencer marketing will always be part human, part high-touch. And agencies don’t scale like software.

So in early 2025, we pivoted. We turned our in-house tool into a SAAS platform: CreatorLookup.com—the fastest and most enriched creator sourcing engine on the market.

It lets brands and agencies find high-fit creators by filtering across platform, niche, follower count, engagement, audience demographics, and more. Every lead includes verified contact info, audience insights, and niche tagging—ready for high-intent outreach at scale. Netflix, Temu, Poshmark, and others now use it to source 20,000+ creators per month, fueling full-funnel campaigns with predictable ROI.

What sets us apart?
1. Precision at Scale – We don’t just surface creators. We surface the right ones—with verified contact info, audience breakdowns, and niche-alignment baked in.
2. Execution, Not Just Data – We go beyond spreadsheets. We help teams run outreach, close deals, and track campaign performance in days, not weeks.

Our top-performing campaigns aren’t with mega influencers. They’re with subject matter experts—like doctors and nutritionists—especially in health and wellness. Why? Because people trust experts, especially in saturated markets.

I’m most proud of helping brands move beyond transactional campaigns into community-driven growth. Whether you’re sourcing 500 creators in a niche or need full campaign execution, we’re built for speed, performance, and trust.

This isn’t just influencer marketing anymore. It’s trust-based media. And CreatorLookup is where it starts.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

One of my favorite marketing stories actually started with a FaceTime call.

It was from Rina—my close friend and I’d been learning from during her 21-day virtual wellness class. She picks up and goes:

“Teo, Teo, Teo—you won’t believe what just happened to me.”

I’m like, what now?

“I was at a coffee shop in Bali and some guy just offered me his 3-bedroom jungle villa for free while he’s away. It’s exactly what I needed!”

I laughed—this kind of magic followed her.

She smiled and said, “I’ll teach you. Yeee.”

That same day, she sent me a guided meditation on manifestation—about stepping into what you’re calling. I was 24 at the time, living at home, crashing on couches in LA whenever I could. I wrote the same thing in my journal every morning for weeks:

“Free housing in LA.”

Not just a place to sleep—but a home base. A place to feel grounded, secure, and fully focused on building my business.

Fast forward a few days, and I we get an email from my mentor Jon V out of nowhere.

“Can you boys help me find finance influencers?”

Funny enough, Jose (My cofounder) and I were already heading to LA for a reunion. We said yes and set a time for Wednesday.

That day, we went for a run with Jon, ate pizza, and after agreeing to help him on his influencer campaign, he asked:

“How can I help you two?”

I’d written the answer in my journal a hundred times.

So I decided to be completely vulnerable:
– “We’re strapped for cash.”
– “Every dollar’s going to pay our engineers.”
– “Do you know any affordable housing options in LA?”

Without skipping a beat, he goes:

“You can stay in my guest house. Or better yet—Omar’s Malibu place while he’s gone. But actually… you should launch a creator house.”

I was like… a what?

He grinned. “Do it. I’ll help out.”

At first, I thought—this is my ticket to housing. But as we researched, every “creator house” had failed. The Hype House. Wish House. Too many egos. No business model. Our friends told us straight up: don’t do it—it’s a nightmare.

But that’s when it hit us. Let’s flip the model.

Instead of a house for creators, we’d build a house for brands.

High-ticket brands—saunas, cold plunges, beauty devices—ship just one product to the house. Then hundreds of creators come to film with that same product.

Less shipping. Less coordination. More content. More ROI.

We stress-tested the idea at Creator Fest in Orlando:
– Matched our niche brand clients like iRestore (red light therapy device) with vetted niche creators on-site
– Shipped just one product (worth $2k)
– 13 Creator Partnerships
– 2-day campaign fulfillment.
– $50K spend. 28.5M impressions. 7.4x ROAS.
– Saved over $20K in product costs alone.

That became our proof of concept. Weeks later, we moved into a $10M mansion in Beverly Hills—no investors, no guarantees, just raw conviction. Jose and I were two 24-year-olds draining our bank accounts, betting on the business model. Spending $5K/month on rent. All in.

We moved in, and it felt like the beginning—not the end—of the journey.

We dealt with everything:
– Power outages (past tenants never paid utilities)
– Robberies (common in the hills)
– Booking requests, brand activations, wedding proposals
– Learning how to build trust among 3 new roommates
– Hosting a 500-person tech week event (coordinating shuttles, security, staffing, insurance, etc.
– Hosting a creator x wellness experiences with sound baths, cold plunges, and more

Going from couch-surfing to a mansion in Beverly Hills—within months—was surreal. But it wasn’t luck. It was clarity, consistency, preparation, and saying yes to wild opportunities.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

CES 2025 was a goldmine.

Quadcopters, robot lawnmowers, solar-powered hats, and more.

And all the emerging brands behind them?

They need customers.

They need awareness.

They need influencer marketing and live shopping.

We were one of the 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 few influencer marketing services in the room.

When there’s no competition, decisions get made faster.

100+ business cards later, we now have a waitlist of high-budget clients.

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻:

Don’t wait for customers to come to you—show up where they already are.

Whether it’s a WhatsApp Community, a Slack channel, or an industry event.

Be in the room before it’s too crowded.

If your competitors are already there?

Find a different room.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://creatorlookup.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teogreen15
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matteo-greenberg/