anyone actually starting an affiliate program successfully?

did one for a small software product. the software side was the easy bit, there are plenty of tools that plug into stripe and track referrals. getting affiliates was the hard part. nobody signs up just because a program exists. what worked was going directly to people already writing or making videos about the category and offering a better rate than the default plus a free account. a few of them ended up driving most of the sales, which seems to be normal. sort out cookie length, payout threshold and refund rules before launch. changing them later annoys the people you worked hard to get.