 | Episode Cheat Sheet |
EP658
31 AUGUST 2026
58 MIN LISTEN
Taryn Williams
Founder & CEO, #gifted
| Brought to you by |   |
THE TL;DR
Taryn Williams has spent 15 years ahead of the curve on influencers from changing how models were paid at Wink to building creative marketplace theright.fit.
Her latest, #gifted, started as a "simple five-page website" to fix the broken process of gifting products to creators. It's now 11,000 creators and 5,000 brands.
Think of it as a dating app for brand gifting: creators swipe right on what they actually want, brands find the exact niche they need, and Shopify integration makes it work at scale.
Grill'd turned a $150 voucher into 2.1 million people reached. Koala's highest-converting ads came from reused gifting content.
| Watch the Full Episode |
| From Bushy |
Something strange happens to us when we're gifted something. You feel a pull to say thanks, to tell someone, to post about it. But most brands that have experimented with gifting know that it is a pain in the bum and often unpredictable. Taryn Williams built #gifted with that in mind. I love how she explains how gifting can be a cost-effective strategy for all brands that give with a bit of thoughtfulness.
CHEERS, BUSHY
P.S. Add To Cart listeners get 50% off their first month of #gifted. Head to hashgifted.com and redeem with the code ATC50.
| Sponsor Content | Okendo | ||||||
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| Clarissa He, Head of Ecommerce at Vets Love Pets, and Okendo's Alex North are walking through the whole build in a live session next week. Worth an hour if loyalty is on your roadmap before BFCM. | ||||||
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| They get into the mechanics too, VIP tiers that triple earn rates, bonus points by product collection, and an industry-first reward for annual vet checks. | ||||||
| Thursday 3 September | 4PM AEST | 45 minutes plus live Q&A | ||||||
| Register now |
| 01 Skip To The Good Bits |
Tap any time code anywhere in this cheat sheet and the episode opens on YouTube at that exact moment.
Starting Wink at 21, before "influencer" was everywhere04:56 Why "assume positive intent" is her rule for brand backlash08:38 The unsolicited gifts that sparked the #gifted idea11:10 Building it like a dating app: swipe right to be gifted13:47 Why she made #gifted SaaS, not another marketplace20:21 The "boring brand tax" and designing gifting experiences23:34 Measuring creator campaigns against real goals34:09 Turning Claude into a brutally honest life coach51:06Seeding is such a powerful opportunity, even if you get zero social coverage.
— TARYN WILLIAMS | #gifted
| 02 The Big Lesson |
Stop asking what a gift costs. Start designing experiences a creator can't wait to post.
Most brands stress about the value of a product they hand over to get a post. Taryn's philosophy flips that. The value isn't in the retail price of what you send. It's in how easy and appealing you make it for a creator to say yes and create something great. Here's how she reframes it.
RULE 01 21:57
Be honest about whether you're postable
A lip gloss or a restaurant fits naturally into a creator's day; a $150 pile of tea does not. Be realistic about your brand, and if you're not naturally "postable," make the offer more engaging rather than just bigger.
Would you authentically organically post about it? Yes or no?
RULE 02 23:34
Design the experience, don't dump the product
Instead of 30 packets of tea, send two beautiful cups, a pot, a tray and the tea. You control the aesthetic, you make it a no-brainer to shoot and you get better content back. Even a hand cream can become a monogrammed-robe hotel stay.
I don't just need to gift volume of my product, I just need to make it a really appealing gifting experience.
RULE 03 25:19
Relinquish control to earn authenticity
The more you dictate, the more contrived and ad-like the content feels. Give creators brand guidelines and key messages, then trust them. They've spent years building the trust of an audience you're borrowing.
How can I feel comfortable as a brand relinquishing control and saying, this is our brand?
The brands winning at gifting such as Koala, Temple & Webster aren't the ones spending the most - they're the ones handing over creative control and designing a moment worth capturing. Don’t "spend more on gifts." Create a remarkable gifting experience and get out of the way.
11,000
The number of creators signed up to #gifted and ready to work with brands
| 03 Steal These Tactics |
1
Before any gifting campaign, ask honestly: would you or your team organically post about this? (21:57)
2
Bundle for the shot, not the value. Send the props that make great content easy, in your brand colours. (23:34)
3
Define your goal before you measure. It could be awareness, a younger demographic or newsletter signups. Then build the mechanics around that specific aim. (34:09)
4
Run a layered creator pyramid like AG1 with celebrity at the top, nano and micro underneath, so customers see you everywhere. (39:37)
5
Feed your own comms (email, calendar, even WhatsApp) into Claude with a coaching framework to get honest, ongoing feedback on your patterns. (51:06)
| 04 The Stack |
Taryn's SaaS platform for brand-creator gifting with tiered monthly subscriptions, content licensing and automatic content capture.
Integrated from day one so gifting works at scale, auto-decrementing inventory, offering gift cards or curated bundles, and tying spend to measurable ROI.
Taryn's business co-pilot and, more unusually, her AI "life coach", trained on therapy and coaching frameworks and fed her WhatsApp history to call out her patterns.
Referenced as the US affiliate platforms that pay creators of all sizes, a model less prevalent in the smaller Australian market.
| 05 If This One Landed |
EP364
How to Create Social Video without Influencers with Creator Flow
The perfect companion on the UGC side. Dave and George get into exactly how UGC differs from influencer content, how to brief it well, and why you need a loop back to performance data before you make anything.
EP642
How to Get More From Influencers by Spending Less
This Playbook echoes Taryn's philosophy: influence works on frequency, not one big post. Pick creators who already believe in your product and turn them into repeat partners for a fraction of the cost.
EP273
Blake Hutchison from Flippa: A Guide to Buying and Selling Online Businesses
Taryn's story is really a serial-founder-and-exit story. If that thread grabbed you, Flippa's CEO breaks down what makes a business investable and how to make the exit process smooth for everyone.
| Pass It On |
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| Continue the Conversation |
Would you hand a creator your product with no brief and no approvals, and let them make whatever they want with it? Or does your brand need the guardrails? Plenty of operators in here have landed on very different answers. Come and argue about where the line sits.
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