A shadow operator For Instagram creators By Dmytro Martens

Turn your passion into an asset.

You keep making the work you love. I take the business off your plate — quietly, in the background, paid only when you get paid.

Imperticus is a one-person operating partner for creators who are tired of being CEO, producer, finance team, and merch manager all before lunch.

Explore a partnership → What is shadow operating?
01 The Problem

You became a creator to create. Not to run a company.

Somewhere along the way, the work that made you love this turned into the smallest part of your week.

  1. The audience is there. The revenue isn't.

    You have the reach. You have the trust. But posting alone doesn't pay — and the gap between attention and income keeps getting wider.

  2. Every "opportunity" costs you a week.

    Product page, payments, launch copy, funnel, analytics. Each one is a rabbit hole that takes you away from the camera.

  3. Agencies want retainers. Courses want students.

    Nobody has actual skin in your game. You pay upfront, hope it works, and still end up doing half the work yourself.

  4. The business side is draining the creative side.

    Burnout rarely starts on camera. It starts in the spreadsheet, the DMs, the unfinished landing page you've been meaning to launch since March.

02 What Is Shadow Operating

A quiet partner who runs the business while you run the brand.

shadow
operator
/ˈʃadō ˈäpəˌrādər/  ·  noun
Someone who owns the operational side of your creator business — strategy, product, launch, pages, platform — without ever being on the cover of it.

Think of it less like hiring an agency and more like having a co-founder who stays off the grid. Your face, voice and audience remain yours. The spreadsheets, stripe accounts, Whop dashboards and launch timelines become mine.

What you can finally stop doing

  • Figuring out what product to build next
  • Wrestling with Whop, Stripe, checkout copy
  • Hiring and briefing five freelancers for one launch
  • Missing launches because the page "isn't ready"
  • Paying retainers to people with no skin in the game

What you actually do instead

  • Make content. The thing you're already great at.
  • Approve the plan. Veto anything that doesn't feel like you.
  • Show up on launch day with a 30-second video.
  • Keep the majority of the revenue — always.
  • Stay the face. Stay the brand. Stay in control.
03 What I Actually Do

Four pillars. One operator.

The scope is deliberately narrow. I'd rather do a short list of things exceptionally well than pretend to do everything.

01 — ProductStrategy · Build

Digital product outline & creation

We figure out what your audience would actually pay for — a preset pack, a playbook, a membership, a mini-course — and, depending on what we agree to, I help build it too.

Audience auditOffer designPricingPackaging
02 — LaunchPlan · Execute

Launch strategy, start to finish

Timelines, content beats, DM flows, email sequences, waitlist mechanics. A launch plan written against your specific audience, not a generic playbook.

Pre-launchLaunch weekEvergreenReporting
03 — PagesDesign · Copy

Product page & landing page

The pages people actually buy from. Designed, written, and shipped — on-brand, mobile-first, tested. No "we're still waiting on the dev."

Product pageLanding pageCopywritingA/B
04 — PlatformSetup · Operate

Whop account & infrastructure

Whop setup, checkout, community, access, delivery. The plumbing of a real creator business — configured once, then quietly maintained.

Whop setupPaymentsAccessAnalytics
04 How We Work

Aligned incentives, quiet execution.

No retainer. No upfront fee. I get paid a percentage of the revenue I help generate — which means we both win, or neither of us does.

Week 0
i.

The conversation

A real call, not a pitch. We look at what you have, what you want, and whether we'd actually enjoy working together.

Week 1
ii.

The plan

I come back with a product hypothesis, a launch shape, and the specific deliverables. You approve, edit, or kill it.

Weeks 2–6
iii.

The build

Pages get designed. Whop gets wired. Copy gets written. You stay in the creative lane. I send Loom updates, not Slack floods.

Launch +
iv.

The operator

We launch. I keep the lights on — analytics, iteration, new drops — and you keep doing what your audience fell in love with.

The Deal
You keep the majority. Always.

Imperticus is paid only on revenue we generate together, at a clearly-agreed percentage set before we start. No retainers. No hidden line items. No charging you for my learning curve.

If the launch doesn't make money, I don't make money. That's the point.

05 Who This Is For

An honest fit check.

Shadow operating is not for everyone, and pretending otherwise would waste both of our time.

This is for you if —

  • You have a real audience on Instagram and you feel the monetization gap
  • You'd rather hand over operational control than lose another weekend to a landing page
  • You're open to performance-based partnerships where we both have skin in the game
  • You want a long-term operator, not a one-off freelancer
  • You're willing to ship things that aren't perfect, then make them better

This probably isn't for you if —

  • You're still growing your first thousand followers — come back when you have an audience
  • You want a hands-off service where you never have to think about the product
  • You need a huge team, studio, or full agency treatment
  • You're looking for someone to pay upfront for the privilege of working with you
  • You don't actually want to sell anything to your audience, ever
06 Frequently Asked

Questions worth asking before we start.

01Isn't this just an agency with a different name?+
No. An agency bills you for hours and time. A shadow operator co-owns the outcome. I don't take a retainer, I don't charge per deliverable, and I don't work with ten creators at once. I commit to a small number of partners and get paid only when the business actually makes money.
02How much of the revenue do you take?+
It depends on the scope — how much of the product I'm building, how much of the launch I'm running, how much ongoing operation is involved. The percentage is set in writing before we start, and you always keep the majority.
03Do you take creative control over my content?+
Never. You are the brand. I work behind it. My job is to turn your creative output into products and revenue — not to tell you what to post, how to sound, or who to be.
04Why Whop?+
Because it handles memberships, digital products, communities, and payments cleanly in one place — without the overhead of stitching five tools together. If your use case is better served elsewhere, I'll say so.
05How many creators do you work with at a time?+
A small, deliberate number. Shadow operating only works if each partner gets real attention. If I'm full, I'll tell you — and we can talk about timing.
06What if we don't click on the intro call?+
Then we don't work together, and that's fine. A bad partnership costs a lot more than a polite "no." The intro is as much for you to vet me as it is for me to vet the fit.
07Is this confidential?+
Yes. The "shadow" part is literal. If you'd rather never mention Imperticus publicly, we won't. Your audience's relationship is with you.
07 Start a Conversation

Let's build something quietly profitable.

A short application — about ninety seconds — tells me who you are, what you make, and where you want to go. If we're a fit, I'll reach out within 48 hours.

Explore a partnership →

Or suggest your own terms — I read every application personally.

Tweaks