About this episode

The episode discusses influencer marketing strategies for early stage CPG brands with insights from Joybyte's leadership.

In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Daniel Scharff sits down with Myriah Castillo, president of Joybyte, and Val Ponce De Leon, head of influencer at Joybyte, to dig into one of the most talked-about topics in the Startup CPG Slack: influencer marketing. Not the celebrity post-and-pray version — but the strategic, scrappy, content-engine approach that actually moves the needle for early stage CPG brands. Myriah opens with a reframe that changes how you think about the whole category: stop thinking about influencers as a conversion tool and start thinking about them as a content engine. From there, she and Val walk through what a real creator-led growth strategy looks like — from nano creator gifting and first-round testing to long term ambassador relationships, content repurposing through whitelisting, and the brief that took a creator who wasn't converting to $10,000 in sales in a single weekend. They share real brand examples — including Jackson's Chips and Ice Barrel — that show what it looks like when the strategy actually works. And they get into the specifics brands at every stage need to hear: what nano and micro creators actually cost, how to set expectations…

People in this episode

Host: Daniel Scharff

Guests: Myriah Castillo, Val Ponce De Leon

Topics covered

• influencer marketing
• content strategy
• CPG brands
• creator-led growth
• nano creators
• brand examples

Keywords

• influencer marketing
• content engine
• creator campaigns
• brand growth
• CPG
• nano creators
• ambassador relationships

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Joybyte, Jackson's Chips, Ice Barrel

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