🏔 Creator Economy

Raise of small businesses built by self-employed creators

Author

Vlad Oleksiienko
October 18, 2022

Hey there,

Welcome to the SaaS Hill, a weekly newsletter that tries to predict the future of SaaS.

Let's discuss Creator Economy.

⭐️ Intro

And here is what we will discuss today:

👉 7 predictions about the creator economy👉 36 products in this category👉 10 creator economy stats👉 5 experts to follow👉 6 communities👉 7 useful links👉 How 20-year old creator made $200K online in 2022👉 A library of tools for creators to create, grow, manage and monetize👉 A newsletter with stories of people making money while having a full-time job

🤔 Predictions

  1. Raise of SaaS products for creators. There are so many categories to invest in:

    1. newsletter platforms, e.g. Substack

    2. payments and donations, e.g. Buy Me a Coffee

    3. memberships, e.g. Memberful

    4. content, e.g. tribescaler helps make tweets go viral

    5. communities, e.g. Circle

    6. digital products, e.g. Gumroad 

  2. More Creators will invest in communities. It will help them get additional revenue streams and monetize their followers on social media.

  3. Creators will look for additional ways to monetize their audience: productized services, paid newsletters, courses, paid subscriptions, consulting services, digital products, downloadable products, fan interactions, and NFTs. e.g. Justin Welsh has video courses, newsletter sponsorship, and 1-on-1 coaching.

  4. More SaaS and B2B Brands will cooperate with Creators and leverage Creators for consulting. e.g. MicroAcquire cooperates with Chris Diamantopoulos via Cameo

  5. Side hustles and side projects will become more common.

  6. Micro-creators and Micro-Influencers will be a huge part of the Creator Economy. The majority of creators have less than 10K followers. For example, a brand can find a dozen of micro-creators with 5K+ newsletter subscribers and run a newsletter sponsorship campaign. e.g. Aircall generated 100 leads by sponsoring a newsletter.

  7. Web3 will play a role in the Creator Economy:

    1. Rally.io helps creators and their communities build their own independent digital economies

    2. uuki is more like Circle, Ghost or Commsor, but for web3

    3. NFTs and marketplaces like OpenSea can boost the creator economy

    4. NFTs will be an additional stream of revenue 

🏢 Products

Payments and Subscriptions

  1. Buy Me a Coffee > Accept donations. Start a membership. Sell anything you like

  2. Patreon > Creativity powered by membership

  3. Memberful > Monetize your passion with membership

  4. Stripe > Unlock creator monetization on your platform

Newsletters

  1. Substack > Publish directly to their audience and get paid through subscriptions

  2. beehiiv > The newsletter platform built for growth

  3. ConvertKit > The creator marketing platform for your newsletter

Digital Products and Courses

  1. Kajabi > The best way to turn your knowledge into income

  2. teachable > Share what you know

  3. Podia > Your website. Your products. Your community

  4. Gumroad > Go from zero to $1

  5. payhip > We make it easy for you to sell anything online anywhere

  6. uscreen > Launch your video membership

Bio Links and Websites

  1. Bio Link > The One Link for All Your Links

  2. Linktree > Everything you are. In one simple link

  3. PikoLink > Level up your link-in-bio

  4. carrd > Simple, free, fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything

  5. Flooz > Make Money Doing What You Love

  6. snipfeed > Turn Your Passion Into Your Profession

Community

  1. Circle > The all-in-one community platform for creators &  brands

  2. Community > Build your community

  3. backspace > Online Communities. Made simple

  4. luma > Foster meaningful relationships with events, newsletters, and community analytics

Content

  1. Typeshare > Everything you need to start writing online

  2. Tweet Hunter > Get sales, growth and new networks

  3. Postwell > Linkedin Content Creation Made Easy

  4. Taplio > Drive more opportunities from LinkedIn

  5. tribescaler > Make Your Tweets Go Viral

  6. Hypefury > Your personal assistant to grow & monetize your Twitter audience

  7. hivoe > Kickstart conversations and build meaningful relationships on Twitter

Images

  1. BrandBird > An image editor for busy SaaS founders, who build in public

  2. Pika > Turn boring screenshots into beautiful shareable images

Web3

  1. Audius > Giving everyone the freedom to distribute, monetize, and stream unstoppable audio

  2. Rally.io > Crypto for Creative Communities

  3. OpenSea > Buy, sell, & discover the internet of goods

  4. Zora > Bringing creativity onchain

📈 Trend Chart

The Creator Economy's Total Addressable Market (Linktree 2022 report)

📊 Statistics

  1. 165M+ Creators Joined Creator Economy Since 2020 (Source)

  2. The entire creator economy’s estimated valuation is around $104.2 billion (Source)

  3. Millennials represent 42% of the Creator Economy. By comparison, Gen Z represents 14% (Source)

  4. Influencers make up only 14% of the global creator economy (Source)

  5. For the majority of creators, creating is a hobby or side hustle. 6 in 10 creators have full-time jobs (Source)

  6. 66% of creators consider themselves part-time creators (Source)

  7. 59% of beginner creators haven’t monetized yet (Source)

  8. It takes content creators an average of 6.5 months to earn their first dollar (Source)

  9. Only 10% of influencers earn $100K or more per year (Source)

  10. Creator economy startup investments were estimated to have hit $5 billion in 2021 alone (Source)

  11. Number of creators by audience size

🔥 State Of

👔 Services

🤝 Newsletter Marketplaces

  1. Hecto > A platform to buy, sell and manage newsletter ads and sponsorships

  2. Paved > Discover email newsletters that fit your customer profile and effortlessly launch newsletter sponsorships

  3. Sponsorgap > Where newsletter and website creators find their next sponsor

  4. Swapstack > Connecting brands to newsletter audiences for relevant sponsorships

🤝 Marketplaces

  1. Influencers Club > Search and connect with millions of creators at scale

  2. Grin > Expand your influencer relationships, your sales, and your brand

💬 Communities

  1. Salley > The go-to community for savvy audience builders

📖 Experts to Follow

  1. Hugo Amsellem > Investing in consumer stuff (content, community, commerce, creators)

  2. Easlo > a 20-years old creator who made $200K online in 2022

  3. Justin Welsh > Building a portfolio of one-person businesses to $5M in revenue

  4. Matt Gray > Help entrepreneurs with content strategy, community building, and growth

  5. Katelyn Bourgoin > Help marketers discover the hidden reasons why people buy

🔗 Useful Links

  1. The Creator Economy: What Do The Numbers Say?

  2. 30+ Incredible Creator Economy Statistics (2022)

  3. Creator Stash > A library of tools for creators to create, grow, manage and monetize

  4. The Hustlers > Get side hustle inspirations to build financial freedom

  5. Arm The Creators > Researching & Investing in the Creator Economy

  6. Newsletter OS > Master the art of creating & running a newsletter

  7. Mapping the Creator Economy

🐦 Twitter Thread

How a content creator Easlo made $200K online in 2022.

Thanks for reading. See you next time 👋

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