I’m a venture capitalist. My job is to find new, undersaturated talent markets and to invest in those before they even know they are venture-scalable. Content and Creators are what I’m betting on. They are my two loves.

Over the last five years, I’ve been watching billions of dollars being thrown to what can only be described as the “creator economy” and it’s clear that most of those bills were set on fire. I don’t want to blame anyone for that - since “Creator” is something so misunderstood that we can’t even decide on its definition or who is/isn’t one.

Creator is a $200B industry. Creators are rich. Creators need this product.

All assumptions. I’ve invested 1) with, 2) for, and 3) in Creators, professionally. I guarantee that there are maybe four or five investors on the planet that can say that. My biggest takeaway is this: The Creator ecosystem is an underdeveloped ecosystem. It’s been entirely misunderstood and hasn’t matured.

I started this newsletter is to continue to find out why.

Creators and Capitalism don’t mix well, publicly, because audience members don’t like knowing that they’re seen as customers.

The good news is: with time, passive consumers are becoming active. That means that more consumers are creating (product: online or off) — becoming Creators — making them more forgiving of the act of selling and especially selling things one would make entirely online. An ad-read or a merch-drop is less disappointing when you do it too. With time, this self-actualization is encouraging viewers to become Creators of content and products.

This is what led me to writing Creator=Consumer in New-Age Consumer.

One of the greatest indicators of a great Creator-Founder is either their:
1. audience forgiveness level or their 2. pain tolerance for a lot of criticism. This is because, even in the world of Startups, there are very few teams that can ship, recoup, iterate and re-ship product to fit customers demands that match the same velocity that Content & the Content Marketplace throws individual pieces or content or their Creators in.

Simply put, some people have the ability to build things publicly easier than others and take customer (or prospective customer) feedback at scale.

This can be anonymous. This can be from people who don’t even like the idea of buying this. The point is: the volume and intensity of feedback far exceed that of traditional startup launches. Audiences range from begrudgingly accepting a Creator’s capitalist pivot to fully embracing it. But what tips these scales?

There are three ways Creators can set themselves up for success in building and selling product (capitalistically):

The Work-in-Progress. Document the business as something that’s trying, tweaking, adjusting, and evolving. Not something final. There is an implication from both the viewer and the consumer that the product is either 1) a work in progress that requires [expects] feedback 2) something quickly shipped for quickly-shipped (Startup) sake and 3) the Founder is not just doing this for fun. It might also be for money. Which means…

Preparation matters. Creators who telegraph their ambitions early set the stage for their audience to know the Founder and his/her ambitions. In the wild, we don’t see this as something that angers an audience. It does give the Founder the space to build a business if they want to and to… not, if they change their mind in the future.

It’s not just readiness, by the way. It’s also enthusiasm. I’m-building-this-for-my-community -you) is a personal expectation built from the Founder to the audience member. There’s still room to argue about price sensitivity, of course, but regardless. I’m-documenting-my-journey-here-for-you-to-learn-or-get-inspired is still providing a value.

Be about the Capital. Creators who have reputation as serial entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, inventors, etc. might have an easier time. Zoom in on Creators whose online identity is tied to winning at capitalism. Gary Vee’s his whole brand is hustle and profit, and his community eats it up. Or take someone like Alex Hormozi. Their fans don’t just accept the capitalism, they root for it because the persona is the capitalist triumph. The more money they make, the more the brand delivers.

Explore how some online communities form around the idea of financial success as a shared victory. X is a goldmine for these. Just hit $1M in revenue posts get floods of positive replies. Fans feel like shareholders in the journey, emotionally invested in the next milestone. An overly artistically driven brand doesn’t get to share the advances to this part of the Founder’s journey, which is overall a shame.

What makes one group cheer while another boos?

The Psychology of Rooting. Digging into why fans root for capitalist Creators is a thick layer:

Regardless of how the business performs, what you make or what you don’t: You’re basically as on-the-line as much as whoever your CEO is. Own your work. Do not, by any means, chicken out on what you and your team make.

This is not about you anymore. If you’re plainly reading this, it’s just not. It’s either your team, your product, or your audience (community or not) and you need to focus on exactly that. Focus on the Product. Focus on what you do, which (even for the most successful Creator Founders) is to make product and if it hits, then it does. If it doesn’t, then you explore where to make it better.

Audiences might love rooting for winners, but they’ll ditch a loser, or a fake, just as fast.

Thank you for taking the time out to read this. REPLY to this email to let me know what you think about this piece OR feel free to find me on X.

— Em.