Creator Economy: About to go through its first nuclear winter?

I work with TikTok’s biggest creators (1M+ followers). The Creator Economy is about to go through its first Nuclear Winter. ☠️📉 Here’s why 👇

💉Post-COVID Summer: Everyone’s outside. Which means Video Views across TikTok & YouTube are down 30-40% from peak pandemic levels. a Which means creator ad revenue is down 30-40%.

🤕Creator Burnout: No one is talking about this enough. The content creation hamster wheel is _AWFUL_ on mental health. My bet is that we’ll see steady-state churn mirroring the restaurant/SMB industry.

💰Too much VC hype: There’s too much capital chasing too few quality creators. The total creator market (especially the ‘creator middle class’) still needs 2-3yrs to catch up to a sizable TAM.

🏆Fierce Competition: Expect the vast majority of creator startups to flame out in the next 1-2yrs. Heavyweights like Patreon and Kajabi raising $bn+, and every YC company adding ~creator~ to their tagline.

So where would I invest? GMV-based businesses are going to be a bumpy ride this summer. I’d bet on companies working with well-established creators, and not mass market tools serving every pandemic ‘one-hit-wonder’. Dig deep into creator retention and word-of-mouth virality.♻️

If you want to stay up-to-date on the Creator Economy, follow me for my weekly learnings: 🎵 Growing my own TikTok account (40k+) 🎨 Building for the internet’s biggest Creators 💸 Angel investing in Creators 𝘢𝘯𝘥 Creator startups