The video arrives six weeks after you wrote the brief. In that time you shipped four releases, changed the onboarding and renamed a feature.
The video is fine. It is also out of date, and nobody did anything wrong.
That gap is the actual problem a startup has with creator content, and it is not the one usually discussed. Budget is a solvable constraint. A product that will not look the same in six weeks is a structural one, and it changes what you should ask for.
Brief against what will still be true
Everything in your product has a different expected lifespan, and most briefs treat it all as equally permanent.
Film the problem, not the interface
The interface changes every sprint. The problem your customer has does not, and it is usually the thing that made them look for you in the first place.
A video built around a screen recording expires with the next redesign. A video built around someone describing what their week looked like before they found a solution keeps working through three redesigns, because nothing in it is tied to a version number.
This is not a limitation. It is the reason UGC suits early stage companies better than polished product films: the format is naturally about the person rather than the software, and the person is the stable part.
What ages fastest
Anything on screen, in this order: pricing, the navigation, feature names, and the logo. Anything spoken about the outcome ages slowest.
If a creator has to say a feature name, ask yourself whether it will still be called that at the end of the quarter. If you cannot answer confidently, cut the name and describe what it does.
The founder is not a strategy
Founder-led content is free, available and often good, which is why almost every startup starts there and why so many stay.
Why it stops working
Three reasons, and they arrive in order. It does not scale, because there is one founder and their time is the most contested resource in the company. It cannot be tested at volume, so you never learn which message works, only whether that person is liked. And it creates a dependency that is very hard to remove later, because an audience that came for a person notices when the person leaves the videos.
Use the founder for the things only a founder can say. Buy creator content for everything that needs to exist in ten versions.
And neither are your first customers
The next instinct is to ask a happy customer to film something. Early on you have very few of them, and they are the most valuable relationships in the company, which makes this an expensive way to get a video.
There is a better use of them that costs nobody anything. Ask for fifteen minutes on a call about the problem they had before you, record it with their permission, and hand the transcript to a creator as the brief.
You get the exact words a real user reaches for, which is the one thing no brief writer can invent and the thing that makes a video sound true. They spend a quarter of an hour instead of an afternoon. And the relationship is still available for the case study you will want later.
Buy a licence that survives a rebrand
Startups change names, change positioning, and occasionally change what the product is. Most creator agreements are written as though none of that will happen.
Two things to settle before filming. Ask whether your licence is tied to the brand name as it exists today, and ask for the raw files rather than only the finished edit.
The second one costs a little more and is the single most useful thing on this page. It is the difference between a library that survives your next pivot and one that dies with your old logo.
| What you filmed | How long it survives a product change | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Screen recording of the interface | Until the next redesign | Film reactions and outcomes, cut the screen in during the edit |
| A named feature | Until someone renames it | Describe what it does without naming it |
| Pricing on screen | Until the next pricing test | Say what it saves rather than what it costs |
| The logo in frame | Until a rebrand | Keep one clean version without it, from the raw files |
| Someone describing the problem | Years | This is the asset, commission more of it |
| The founder on camera | Until the founder is unavailable | Fine for what only they can say, not for volume |
The fifth row is the one to build a content plan around. It is also the cheapest thing on the list to produce, which is unusual and worth using.
When the product changed before delivery
Do not reshoot. Re-edit.
If you have the raw files, most of what dates a video is fixable without anyone standing in front of a camera again: the screen recording is replaced, the outdated sentence is cut, the new name is added as on screen text. A creator will usually do this for a fraction of the original fee, because the hard part was never the editing.
If you do not have the raw files, you are commissioning a new video, and you now know what to negotiate for next time.
Keep reading
- Hiring UGC Creators in Portugal: A Guide for Foreign Brands
- UGC for Portuguese E-commerce Brands
- UGC for Tourism and Hospitality in Portugal
- Turning One Job into a Recurring Client in Portugal
- The complete UGC guide for Portugal
Frequently asked questions
Should a startup use the founder or a creator?
Both, for different jobs. The founder for the things only they can credibly say, creators for anything that needs to exist in several versions and be tested against each other.
How do we stop content going out of date so fast?
Brief around the customer problem instead of the interface, avoid naming features that might be renamed, and keep the pricing off the screen. The person is the stable part of your product story.
Is it worth paying extra for the raw files?
Almost always, and especially before a rebrand or a pivot. It is what lets you update a video without paying for a new one.
The product changed before the video arrived. What now?
Re-edit rather than reshoot. With the raw files most of the problem is a cut and a replacement clip, at a fraction of the original cost.