Quick story: we tried the usual playbook for growing a dating app — paid social, influencer agencies, the works. CPI was ugly and the installs didn't stick.

What actually moved the needle was way simpler: real students on real campuses sharing Fate with their own friend groups. Higher trust, higher retention, way cheaper than any ad platform.

So we built a creator program around it. No follower minimums, no content quotas — just a unique referral code per creator, tracked installs, and a payout per qualifying signup. If you're a campus creator (any size) and want in, check out Fate Creators.

If you're building a consumer app and haven't tried a referral-code creator model over paid ads yet — worth testing. The unit economics are just better when the person sharing it actually has real trust with their audience.