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Novu × Claude — Viral Challenge Campaign Plan

The format in one line: Creator walks up to a stranger, challenges them to build a multi-channel notification agent in under 2 minutes using Claude + Novu's MCP. If the phone doesn't buzz on Slack, email, SMS, and WhatsApp at once → stranger gets $100. If it works → free month of Novu.

Each posted video = one challenge attempt = one signup on camera = the production unit we're paying for.

📋 Status & Open Items

Lock real Novu LTV per tier (Free / Pro / Team / Enterprise)

Time the full cold flow under 2 min internally — need 5+ runs with non-Novu users

Pre-stage demo Novu account (logged-in, MCP connected, sample workflows ready)

Decide creator skin-in-the-game model (recommendation: Model B — creator uses Novu for their own business in video)

Set campaign budget cap (recommended: $50K for pilot phase)

Build attribution tracking (UTM + signup source field)

💰 Business Model

Per-video deal structure

Tier	Creator size	Base per posted video	View kicker @ 100K	View kicker @ 1M
Micro	<50K followers	$50	+$100	+$500
Mid	50K–500K	$100	+$200	+$1,000
Top	500K+	$200–300	+$500	+$2,500

Series milestone bonuses (cumulative)

Designed to reward consistency, not one-and-done virality.

10 videos posted → +$1,000 bonus
20 videos posted → +$2,000 additional
50 videos posted → +$5,000 additional
100 videos posted → +$15,000 additional

Customer-side payouts

$100 to participant if challenge fails — limit 3 attempts per video to prevent fail-bait edits
Free Novu month to participant if challenge succeeds — successful conversion incentive

Guardrails

90-day attribution window on signups
Cooling-off period of 60 days before milestone bonus payout (to verify retention)
Campaign cap: $50K for pilot phase, expand based on CAC/LTV ratio

👥 Creator Outreach List

Tier 1 — Perfect fit (Lead with these)

🥇 Riley Brown — Vibecode.dev cofounder

Why: Literally builds with Claude daily, his audience is exactly Novu's ICP. 1.5M+ across platforms. He's the template-setter — if he runs the format, others copy.

TikTok: @rileybrown.ai — 635K followers, 8.9M likes
Instagram: @realrileybrown — 329K followers
YouTube: @rileybrownai
X: @rileybrown_ai
Best outreach channel: X DM or Instagram DM. He's responsive on X.
Pitch hook: Mention Vibecode + agent-building synergy. Don't lead with money.
Estimated rate: $200–300/video base + view kickers. Likely wants equity/co-marketing too.

🥈 Sabrina Ramonov

Why: 1.4M+ followers, ex-developer (Berkeley CS+Physics, NLP startup acquired $10M+), AI agents focus, solopreneur audience.

Verify handles: search "Sabrina Ramonov" on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn before sending
Best outreach channel: LinkedIn (she's heavily active there) or her website contact form
Pitch hook: Reference her recent vibe coding tools breakdown
Estimated rate: $200–300/video base

Tier 2 — Strong fit

Alex Finn (Creator Buddy)

Why: Built $300K ARR AI app, teaches "build X in Y minutes" content, indie-hacker audience that pays.

YouTube: search "Alex Finn Creator Buddy"
Best outreach channel: Twitter/X DM
Estimated rate: $150–250/video

Mark Kashef (Prompt Advisers)

Why: 2M+ YouTube views, NLP master's, trained 700+ pros on AI implementation, AI agents specialist.

YouTube: "Mark Kashef" / Prompt Advisers channel
Best outreach channel: Email via Prompt Advisers site
Estimated rate: $150–250/video

Christian Peverelli (WeAreNoCode)

Why: 300K+ YouTube subs, already takes sponsorships from Lovable, Supabase, Hostinger — sponsorship machinery already in place.

YouTube: WeAreNoCode
Best outreach channel: WeAreNoCode website business inquiry form
Estimated rate: $200/video, may want a sponsorship package

Tier 3 — Pilot candidates (lower-cost validation)

Use these for the $5–10K pilot before pitching Tier 1.

Carter Surach (Productive Dude) — Notion, N8N, Claude Code focus
Jono Catliff — Make.com, Zapier, n8n tutorials
JJ Englert — Community Lead at Softr, NoCode Alliance founder, hosts "This Week in Nocode & AI" podcast
Ryan Doser — 33K subs, Forbes-featured, "Claude Skills That Run My Business"

Tier 4 — Wildcard (high risk, high ceiling)

Non-tech street-interview creators pivoting to a tech challenge. Format-fit creators in finance (Caleb Hammer), legal (Erika Kullberg) prove the IRL-challenge-with-money structure works. A street creator who tries this would break out of the AI bubble entirely. Worth scoping after pilot validates the format.

🎬 Video Concepts (10-Episode Series)

The format has to evolve or it dies by episode 3. Here's how to keep it fresh.

Episode 1: The Original

Setting: Coffee shop or coworking space full of laptops
Hook: "Do you have Claude installed? You do? You're in."
Challenge: Build an agent that sends a notification to your phone in <2 min. Vanilla version.
Twist: None — establish the format.

Episode 2: The Skeptic

Setting: Hacker meetup or dev event
Hook: Find someone visibly skeptical of AI tools
Challenge: Same as Ep 1, but participant designs the content of the notification (sass allowed)
Twist: Their skepticism plays against the result

Episode 3: The Non-Developer

Setting: Random street, marketing conference
Hook: Find someone who has never coded
Challenge: They describe what they want; Claude does everything
Twist: Demonstrates Novu's accessibility beyond devs. Big surprise factor.

Episode 4: The Race (Two Strangers)

Setting: Anywhere with two willing participants
Hook: Two strangers, side-by-side phones, race condition
Challenge: First to land a 4-channel notification wins $200. Loser still gets $100.
Twist: Direct competition, both on camera, dramatic split-screen edit

Episode 5: The Senior Engineer

Setting: Big tech office lobby (with permission) or tech conference
Hook: Find someone with 10+ years experience
Challenge: Build something they'd actually use at work
Twist: They get to dictate a real-world use case. Output is genuinely useful.

Episode 6: The Failed Attempt (Director's Cut)

Setting: Anywhere, intentionally chosen for difficulty
Hook: Take a participant who almost certainly won't make it in 2 minutes
Challenge: Same format, but accept failure as content
Twist: Pay the $100, then walk through why it failed and how to fix it. Educational angle. Also signals authenticity — the format isn't rigged.

Episode 7: The Custom Channel

Setting: Office or remote setup
Hook: Participant picks an unusual channel — Discord, Telegram, Microsoft Teams
Challenge: Set up a channel they actually use, not just default Slack/email
Twist: Showcases Novu's channel breadth, not just the obvious ones

Episode 8: The Founder (Real Use Case)

Setting: Founder's office, recorded as a setup
Hook: Real founder of a small company doesn't have notification infrastructure
Challenge: Build their actual production alert in 2 minutes
Twist: This is a customer testimonial disguised as a challenge video. Repurpose for sales.

Episode 9: The Crowd Vote

Setting: Live event or live stream
Hook: Audience picks the use case live
Challenge: Build it on stage in 2 minutes
Twist: Audience involvement, social proof at scale

Episode 10: The Reverse — "Stump the AI"

Setting: Anywhere
Hook: Participant tries to come up with a notification scenario Claude can't build
Challenge: Inverted — they're trying to break the system
Twist: Either Claude wins (impressive) or it loses (still pay $100, becomes meme content)

🤖 AI Video Prompts for Demo Creation

Use these in Sora 2, Veo 3, Runway Gen-4, or Hailuo MiniMax to generate a 30–60 second sizzle reel before pitching real creators. Stitch the clips together in CapCut or Premiere.

Clip 1 — The Approach (5–8 sec)

Handheld POV phone shot, vertical 9:16, bright modern coffee shop interior
with people on laptops in background. A young man in his late 20s wearing
a black hoodie and a Novu cap walks up to a stranger working at a wooden
table. Natural daylight from windows. Camera is shoulder-height, slight
bounce. He's holding his phone toward a smiling man with glasses.
Cinematic, warm color grade, shallow depth of field. No text overlay.

Clip 2 — The Pitch / Setup (5–8 sec)

Close-up vertical shot of two phones held side by side, one showing the
Claude chat app interface with a typed prompt visible, the other showing
a blank notification screen. Hands of two different people visible.
Modern minimal background, blurred. Soft lighting, tech-product aesthetic.
A countdown timer overlay shows 2:00 in white sans-serif type, top-right.

Clip 3 — The Tension (5–8 sec)

Medium shot, vertical 9:16. A person in their late 20s sitting at a cafe
table stares intensely at their phone screen, eyebrows furrowed. The
countdown timer in top-right shows 0:23 ticking down. Their finger hovers
over the screen. Soft cafe ambient lighting, blurred background of other
patrons. Tense, anticipatory mood. Cinematic look, no dialogue.

Clip 4 — The Payoff (5–8 sec)

Extreme close-up, vertical 9:16, of a smartphone screen. Four notifications
cascade in rapidly from the top in sequence: a Slack message, a WhatsApp
alert, an email banner, and a push notification. Phone is held by a hand
with a gold ring. The phone vibrates visibly. Bright clean light, modern
UI looks crisp and real. Subtle haptic shake of camera. Excited gasp audio.

Clip 5 — The Reaction (5–8 sec)

Vertical 9:16 medium shot of a man in his late 20s at a cafe table, eyes
wide, mouth open in genuine surprise, then breaking into a laugh as he
raises his phone in disbelief. His friend off-camera reacts with a cheer.
Natural daylight, handheld camera with slight movement. Warm authentic
colors, candid documentary feel. No text.

Clip 6 — The Hand-off (5–8 sec)

Vertical 9:16 over-the-shoulder shot. A man in a Novu cap hands a $100
bill to a smiling woman at a cafe table. Both laughing. The bill is real
US currency, crisp. Modern coffee shop background, blurred. Warm cinematic
lighting, golden-hour feel through window. Authentic, celebratory mood,
no dialogue audible.

Master prompt for one continuous 15-second cut

If the model supports longer clips (Sora 2, Veo 3 longer mode):

15-second vertical 9:16 video, documentary handheld style. Scene: modern
coffee shop, soft natural daylight. A young creator in a Novu cap
approaches a stranger working on a laptop, phone in hand pointing at them
like a microphone. They both laugh, then look down at their phones
together. A countdown timer 2:00 ticks down in the corner. Quick cut to
phone screen showing four notifications cascading in: Slack, WhatsApp,
email, push. Cut to the stranger's face — eyes wide, then breaking into
a delighted laugh. End on a high-five between them. Warm cinematic color
grade, shallow depth of field, candid energetic mood. No on-screen text
overlays except the timer.

Editing notes

Music: Upbeat lo-fi or tech-house, royalty-free. Try Epidemic Sound "countdown energy" tracks.
Captions: Burned-in TikTok-style yellow/white caption with each line of dialogue. Add the running 2:00 → 0:00 timer as a sticker overlay throughout.
End card: "$100 if Claude can't do it in 2 min. DM us to challenge." with Novu logo.
Length: Cut down to 25–30 seconds for the demo reel; this is the pitch tool, not the final ad.

✉️ Outreach Templates

Tier 1 (Riley Brown / Sabrina Ramonov)

Subject: 2-min Novu challenge series — built for your audience

Hey Riley,

Loved your recent take on [SPECIFIC RECENT VIDEO]. The bit where 
[SPECIFIC MOMENT] is exactly the energy I'm pitching.

I'm [name] from Novu — notification infrastructure for devs. 
Claude has us as an MCP, so the integration is one OAuth click.

The format: you challenge a stranger to build a multi-channel 
notification agent in under 2 minutes using Claude + Novu. If their 
phone doesn't buzz on 4 channels at once, they get $100 from us. 
If it works, free Novu month.

Why this is for you specifically: it's the IRL version of what you 
already demo on Vibecode. Your audience already gets agents — this 
gives them a 60-second proof and a free trial they'll actually use.

Deal:
- $300 per posted video, base
- View kickers ($500 at 100K, $2.5K at 1M)
- $5K bonus at 10 videos posted, $15K at 50
- We cover all stranger payouts; you keep your fee on top
- Pre-staged demo Novu account, MCP connected, ready to go

We ran the cold flow internally — 1:47 average. It works.

Demo reel: [LINK TO AI-GENERATED DEMO]

Worth a 15-min call this week?

Tier 3 (Pilot — Carter Surach / Ryan Doser)

Subject: Pilot collab — paid 2-min Claude challenge series

Hey [name],

[SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO RECENT VIDEO].

We're piloting a short-form challenge series and want to test it 
with one creator who already does great Claude content. You're top 
of the list.

Format: 2-minute challenge, you build a multi-channel notification 
agent with Claude + Novu, on camera, with real strangers. We pay 
strangers $100 if it fails, give them free Novu if it works.

Deal for the pilot (5 videos):
- $100 per posted video
- $1K bonus if all 5 ship within 30 days
- We cover all stranger payouts
- Full creative freedom on tone

If the pilot pops, we expand to a longer series with a bigger budget.

Demo of the format: [LINK]

In?

📊 Success Metrics

Track these from day one:

Cost per qualified signup (target: <$200 for Tier 1, <$100 for Tier 3 pilot)
Video completion rate on TikTok/Reels (target: >60%)
Click-through to Novu landing page (UTM tagged per video)
Signup → workflow trigger rate (the "qualified" gate)
30-day retention of campaign-sourced users vs baseline
Earned media: mentions in tech press, organic copies of the format by other creators

🔗 Quick Reference Links

Plan v1. Update after pilot completes.