About Mabuti
Mabuti is a creator recruitment service. We run outbound campaigns under a brand's own identity to build creator and affiliate rosters at scale.
Mabuti is Tagalog for “good” — a nod to the standard we hold ourselves to, and to a well-earned love of Filipino adobo.
Jake Barnett
Founder
15 years building businesses on outbound email — SaaS, e-commerce, M&A. Now applying that to creator recruitment.
Connect on LinkedInWhy Mabuti exists
My path to creator recruitment didn't start in traditional marketing. It started in the trenches of e-commerce operations and M&A. I built and exited a mid-six-figure Amazon brand in the baby category while closing over 50 M&A deals on both the buy and sell sides. Having seen the inner workings of deals totalling over $250M, I know what goes into operating and scaling physical product brands from every angle.
The pivot to creator recruitment happened by accident, while I was working on a different brand of my own that has since closed. What looked like a failure was a recalibration. I was significantly better at recruiting creators than I was at managing the day-to-day of that brand — I was applying the right skill to the wrong environment. The outreach engine I'd built was designed for brands already at scale.
Whether you're originating an M&A deal or recruiting a top-tier creator, the fundamental mechanics are identical. Both require relentless persistence, deep professionalism, and genuine empathy. In both arenas, you aren't just sending emails — you're dealing directly with people's livelihoods.
How we operate
We treat creators like people
A creator deciding whether to work with your brand is making a real business decision. We treat it that way — clear terms, honest expectations, and no pressure to say yes to something that isn't right for them.
We stay focused
There's always a new marketing trend promising effortless virality. We stay focused on what we do best instead, one discipline done well: sourcing and recruiting the right creators.
Distributed by design
Operating this way requires specific infrastructure. I've run distributed teams across global time zones for 15 years, so working seamlessly across regions isn't a strategy we adopted for this — it's how everything I've built has always operated.
Guides
Creator Affiliates vs. UGC Creators: How Brands Recruit Hundreds of Affiliates
Recruiting creators to post to their own audiences as affiliate partners is a different operation from buying UGC videos — with different funnels, economics, and tooling. Here's how it works at scale.
12 min readThe 500-Email Rule: Cold Email Funnel Math for Recruiting UGC Creators
Producing one onboarded creator partner takes roughly 500 personalized emails. The real funnel math, the infrastructure required, and why most brands who "tried cold email" never gave it a fair test.
13 min read4 Ways to Find UGC Creators, Ranked by Cost and Ceiling
Marketplaces, manual outreach, TikTok DM automation, and cold email — what each one actually costs, and where each one hits a ceiling.
15 min read
Want to talk it through?
Book a 15-minute call. If we're not a fit, I'll tell you on the call rather than after the contract.