### Building Brands That Move as Fast as Consumers

**Published**:

July 28, 2026

**Episode number**:

05

**Duration**:

~32 min

**Hosts**:

Sarah Crow, Head of Creator Strategy at Superfiliate \| Lily Comba, Founder & CEO at Superbloom

**Guest**:

Jay Hunter, CEO, k2o by Sprinter

## **Speed is a strategy, not a shortcut**  
Jay’s approach to speed to market is a deliberate philosophy: **It's better to be 100% done at 70% perfect, than 100% perfect and still not shipped.**

k2o launched in April, a few days before Coachella with a product that had already drawn some mixed flavor feedback. The strawberry lychee was a hit. The watermelon got mixed reactions. Jay's response wasn't to panic — it was to keep the feedback loop open.

*"If you're just honest about what you're doing and how you're solving some of those problems, customers will give you a lot more grace than people give them credit for. They just want to know what's happening and be a part of the journey."*

**The three-out-of-ten reality of creator programs**  
Here's Jay’s framework that will save you from overpaying for creator partnerships that don't convert.  
He found that roughly 6 out of 10 creator partnerships underperformed at previous brands. The question isn't how to avoid underperformers; it's whether the ones that do work can make up for the whole group. At a cap of around $3K per creator, the answer was yes. At $10K, the math collapsed.

Rather than trying to find guaranteed performers, your focus should be to set your ceiling low enough that a realistic hit rate still produces positive ROI. Finding your version of that $3K cap is one of the most important things you can do before you start scaling.

## **Build the program so creators can earn everywhere**  
What makes k2o's model work isn't the number of creators; it's the program architecture. Creators in the TikTok Shop Discord earn commission on TikTok Shop videos. Creators on Instagram enroll in Superfiliate's ambassador program. Any creator can have their TikTok content whitelisted on Meta, earning commission on website sales. The goal is that creators can make money on virtually every channel, with as little friction as possible.

## **Awareness and conversion are not the same job**  
Blending these two groups into one reporting view and then wondering why half your roster looks like it's underperforming is one of the most common mistakes in creator marketing.  
Kylie drives massive awareness and halo effect at k2o. As Jay put it, a consumer might see Kylie post, then get pushed over the line to buy when an everyday creator they trust reviews the same product. You need both types of creators; they work together, not in competition with one another.

## **What early-stage brands can actually do**  
If you're building a creator program without a celebrity co-founder and a Coachella activation, the advice is less glamorous, but more durable: **Outwork your budget with relationship-building.**  
Be honest with creators about what you can support, and when someone performs, go deep immediately. As you build out those initial core relationships, you can expand and explore a bigger budget.

**Jay Hunter**  
"Everything."

**Sarah Crow**  
"We'll make it work."

**Jay Hunter**  
"I think we're doing the same thing here. I've got a great team at K2O and just moving fast. So this is going well."

## **The Launch at Coachella**
Jay describes how being part of the Kardashian-Jenner family network helped them gain access to opportunities like Coachella, stating, "We sort of got to sneak in where it might otherwise be hard to do."  
This was a huge help for them to create a splashy early moment for k2o.

### About the guest  
  
**Jay Hunter**  
CEO, k2o by Sprinter  
Jay Hunter is the CEO of k2o by Sprinter, the Kylie Jenner–backed beauty-led hydration brand that launched in April 2026 and hit $4.5 million in revenue in its first 70 days. Before k2o, Jay spent seven years at MaryRuth's as CRO, where he built and scaled one of the most operationally rigorous omnichannel supplement programs in the industry — spanning Amazon, DTC, influencer, and retail. He's known for a performance-operator approach to brand building that prioritizes speed, data, and relationship-first creator partnerships.