Small business founders: Heres how you'll finally use AI to scale
I'm a solo founder. I've been running TikTok ads and large scale UGC (scaled 2 apps to 100k+ users and 1 acquistion) for my own app and kept hitting the same wall: there was no good way to know what UGC creative formats were actually working right now across my category.
Tools like AdSpy exist but they're expensive, bloated, and built for e-commerce. For mobile app founders, the data that matters is different — hook formats, emotional angles, engagement by app category, what's trending vs. what's saturated.
So I built HackUGC (hackugc.com).
What it does:
- Shows trending TikTok videos in your industry/category
- AI-analyzes patterns across high-performing creatives (hook types, pacing, emotional framing, CTA styles)
- Lets you see engagement rates broken down by category
- Gives you the data to write better UGC briefs
The core insight that shaped it: most app founders brief UGC creators based on what they think sounds good, not what the data shows is working. This shifts that.
What I built it with: Next.js, TikTok data API, Claude Opus API for pattern analysis.
Biggest thing I learned building it: the hardest part wasn't the tech, it was figuring out how to surface insights in a way that was actually actionable, not just data for data's sake. "Here are 500 trending videos" is useless. "The top 3 hook patterns in productivity apps this week" is useful.
If you're marketing your business and want to check it out, I'd genuinely love feedback from builders. The only way for it to be a succesful product worth sharing, would be if i were able to use it to scale my own apps. Clearly that's working so next I want to add tools that will 100x my research.