Youdji

We’re bringing together the top 1% of UGC creators worldwide in a free platform built to 10x your creative workflow.

CEO & Co-founder

So Shape

One of Youdji’s clients, a high-volume ecom brand doing 8 figures, needed a reset in their creative strategy.

Since we were already working together on Youdji, I stepped in more directly on the creative side.

We rebuilt everything from the ground up. Content production (both static and video), testing cadence, methodology, formats. We ramped up output 5x and tried every angle we could think of: UGC, founder-led ads, street interviews, factory-style shoots… you name it.

The results came quick. Better hooks, stronger watch times, higher conversion rates.

The client was over the moon. But at some point, it started eating up more bandwidth than I could give. And with Youdji taking off, I made the call to go all in on the platform and hand things back.

Senior Creative Strategist

Scaleeo

After selling a small ecom brand in 2021, I launched Scaleeo and started posting on LinkedIn to land my first clients.

The plan was to build an agency. The reality? I never hired anyone. It was just me, freelancing under a fancy name.

Still, with Scaleeo I helped DTC brands grow on Shopify and together we generated close to €1.2M in revenue in less than a year through Meta and Google ads.

My years of running ecom brands gave me an edge. I knew how to cut through the noise and focus on the only three things that actually matter: acquisition, conversion, retention.

Most of my work came down to running and scaling ad campaigns. And that’s where I kept seeing the same problem over and over again.

Brands couldn’t produce enough high-performing, authentic, scroll-stopping ads without burning time or cash.

That was the spark that led me to launch Youdji. A project born out of the ashes of Finller, but this time with the right timing and the right problem to solve.

Ecom Growth Partner

Finller

Now this one was a total flop. My first freelance marketplace project, which I started at 19, ended up being a masterclass in everything not to do when building a startup.

The worst part is that I kind of saw it coming. But my co-founders were way more hyped about the idea than I was, so we went full speed into a wall. Complete failure. We made about €200 in revenue over three years.

Basically, if you read The Lean Startup and then do the exact opposite, you get Finller.

To be fair, the product itself was solid. The problem was that there was simply no market for it.

The silver lining is that after spending years learning all the wrong ways to build a marketplace, I launched Youdji by doing the complete opposite. And so far, it’s been working out pretty well.

CMO & Co-Founder

Kettel.

- Built and optimized Google Ads campaigns (Search, Display, and Shopping)
- Managed Facebook & Instagram Ads strategy and performance
- Handled email marketing: weekly newsletters and automated flows

Media Buyer

GEA International - Projet étudiant 

- Conducted market research to identify a product that could fund the project
- Negotiated production costs with 10+ suppliers
- Built the online store from scratch, including marketing offer and order fulfillment
Generated over 130 sales in 3 weeks (initial goal: 70), reaching €2,600 in revenue

(Small student project) Web Marketing Lead

Sidas

- Created daily content and managed the brand’s social media presence (in English)
- Revamped title tags and meta descriptions to improve the online store’s SEO
- Designed influencer partnership strategies to boost brand visibility

(Internship) Marketing Digital & Community Manager

CEO @Youdji | La plateforme UGC qui te donne un accès direct aux meilleurs créateurs (+1000) | Nos clients : Pandacraft, Ben&Vic, SoShape, Coudac, LeFourgon, KickAds (et bien d'autres) | Consultant en stratégie créative

Over the past six years, I’ve built and scaled several ecom stores, sold one, and co-founded a B2B marketplace for sales reps at 19 (crashed and burned, but the lessons were gold).

Along the way, I’ve partnered with 9 DTC brands to dial in their paid acquisition, managing budgets across Meta, TikTok, and Google Ads, and helping them get real results.

Right now, I’m co-founder of Youdji, an all-in-one platform that makes it insanely easy for brands and agencies to find, connect with, and collaborate with top UGC creators worldwide.

Here’s what I’ve been building:

→ Co-founder & CEO @ Youdji – connecting brands with high-performing UGC creators in just a few clicks
→ Strategic advisor to 9 brands – scaling paid media + creative that actually converts
→ Managed €2.3M+ in ad spend across Meta, TikTok, Snapchat & more

Some results I’m proud of:

→ 30,000 UGC creators signed up on Youdji since we launched in 2023
→ $1.8M+ in deals generated through the platform
→ 50k+ pieces of content produced for brands and agencies
→ $220K/month in platform revenue (yep, just two of us running it; me and my cousin, who might be the best full-stack dev alive)

If you're looking to step up your UGC game or want to jam on potential collabs, here’s where to start:

→ Learn more: https://youdji.com
→ Book a quick 1:1 demo (~15 min): https://app.lemcal.com/@lucas-youdji/youdji-demo-en

Last month, Youdji crossed $4,000,000 ARR
No funding, 2 people (my cousin and me).
And no, we are not a SaaS or an AI company.

six months ago, I shared that we had crossed $2M.
then $3M quietly came and went while we kept our heads down, building.
this felt like the right time to pause and reflect.

funny note: my cousin Quentin Gabriele, who built the entire platform, isn’t even full time.

I’m still doing the demos myself (and plan to keep doing them for a long time) because that’s how you stay close to what your market really wants.

and before anyone jumps at my throat, this isn’t “SaaS ARR.”
it’s our Annual Run Rate, based on every UGC order made through the platform.

marketplaces are a strange kind of business.
they grow slowly, quietly, painfully.
but when you get the foundations right, the compounding eventually gets real.

As Guillaume Moubeche once said (if I remember right):
A 20% MoM growth hits different when you’re doing $100k a month instead of $1k.

October ended at $369k GMV, putting us just below $5M annualized.
and here’s the wild part: 88% of that comes from France.
our GTM in the US has barely started.

in 2022, Quentin and I started building Youdji because UGC platforms… sucked (I tested them all.)

back then, I was running a UGC agency and couldn’t believe how far those tools were from what performance marketers actually needed.

platforms charging three-digit monthly fees just to access creators.
asking brands to fill long forms before even seeing who they could work with.
taking a cut on top of everything.

it just didn’t make sense.

Brands and agencies don’t need another subscription.
they need access to the best creators, fast, and a simple way to stop relying on Airtable spreadsheets, Notion databases, and messy DMs to manage their creative pipeline.

it’s even truer today with Andromeda’s update and the growing need to double down on creative testing.

So we built a free marketplace where brands can reach out directly to the top 1% of creators, collaborate, and pay in one place while we handle invoices and contracts (the boring part).

today, we’re used daily by thousands of French brands and agencies to source and manage real human UGC.

I’ve lost count of how many times US brands and agencies told me this year after seeing Youdji:

“how the f*ck are you not bigger in the US already?”

it’s coming.

Our goal for 2026 remains the same.
reaching $1M GMV/month as soon as possible, still just the two of us.

and yes, I know LinkedIn probably won’t show this to Americans since I’m a French guy, but that’s fine.
we’ll brute-force our way in, one post and one video at a time.

I truly believe true human-made content will soon become a luxury.
AI will replicate what’s known and flood social media with soulless noise.
human creation will keep defining what’s real.

$4M ARR isn’t massive for a marketplace (hence why we’re still broke), but I’m proud of where we’re heading.

let’s roll!

Lucas Gabriele

Co-Founder at Youdji | Building the ultimate UGC platform connecting you with the world’s best creators for free, while sharing insights along the way.

The main reason we bootstrapped Youdji to $4M/year at 25
is the relationship I have with my co-founder.

Quentin and I were never the closest growing up.
We weren’t those cousins who spent every weekend together.
Different personalities, different worlds, different everything.

But somehow, the relationship we had became the foundation we didn’t know we needed.

People ask how we "figured it out" so young.
The truth is, we didn’t start with Youdji.
We started with a complete failure.

From 19 to 22, we spent 3 full years building a freelance marketplace my father came up with.

It made around $150 in total.

(yup, you read that right.)

And I wasn’t a great co-founder at the time.
I didn’t believe in the project from the start.
I wish I had been wrong, but the idea just wasn’t right.

That failure burned us both.
It burned Quentin even more.

He built an amazing tech product that nobody wanted.
The market fit was off, and the whole thing exhausted us.

But I simply couldn’t deal with the idea that 3 years of work would end up meaning nothing. 

We had learned too much, we had an unfair advantage.

We literally HAD to bounce back with something that actually had a shot.

He even told me later that without that new idea in 2022, he would have walked away from launching startups completely.

When I first mentioned UGC to him, he had no idea what it even was.

At the time, there were maybe 5 creators in all of France doing it.
I was in the space, working with brands, running ads, seeing the pain up close.

He wasn’t.

But he trusted my gut.
He trusted my vision.
He trusted me before anyone else did.

That is something I will never forget.

We are completely different people.
He is the calm, system-thinking engineer.
I am the fast-moving marketing guy talking to customers all day.

But somehow it works.
It worked in failure.
And it works even better now.

And here’s the part I appreciate the most.
Through three years of failure and three years of building Youdji,
I cannot remember a single tense moment between us.
We disagreed, but never disrespected.
We struggled, but never blamed.

No book teaches you that.
No course prepares you for that.

Your co-founder relationship is everything.
More than the idea.
More than the market.
More than the timing.

Because when things get hard, your product won’t save you.
Your metrics won’t save you.
Your pitch deck won’t save you.

Your co-founder will.

I feel lucky every day that Quentin did not quit after our first failure.
Instead, he bet on me.

And I bet on him.

And that is the real reason Youdji exists today.

Thank you big guy 🫶🏻

People kept asking for it in almost every demo...

"Youdji filters are cool! but can we also post a brief and let creators apply?"

And it's finally here: 

Youdji campaigns.

Most platforms already offer something called “UGC campaigns”.
But they all have the same problem.

- your brief gets pushed to everyone.
- creators apply without reading.
- you get a flood of bad matches.
- you lose time instead of saving it.

We didn’t want that.

So we rebuilt the whole idea from scratch.

Today, we are launching Campaigns on Youdji.
But in a way that finally WORKS.

You write your brief in two minutes.
- our AI studies it.
- it sends it only to creators who truly match your needs

so not more candidates.. but better ones.

- creators apply only if they fit.
- you choose how many applicants you want.

So you get relevance instead of noise.

We tested it for months with a few brands and agencies.

-> it works SO well.

Campaigns are now live for everyone! ;)

If you run a SaaS or a marketplace, there’s a moment no one prepares you for.
The moment you literally stop knowing which clients to put on your homepage.

every time I think the lineup is clean, a new cool brand pops in.

So we add another row.

Then another week passes, and guess what… time to add a new logo.

At this point, it feels like we're collecting them lol

what makes it even better is that most of these teams didn’t come from outbound or long sales cycles.

They heard about us, checked the product, trusted the UGC creators on the platform, and decided to work with us.

Mostly word of mouth.

seeing brands and agencies I admired from day one put their trust in us and in our creators, that’s the part that hits the most.

it still surprises me every time to be honest.

huge thank you to everyone in it.
It’s a proper joy to build this with you guys.

(note: remind Quentin to update the number, we’re way past 3000+ brands and agencies using Youdji for their UGC now)

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