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The Creator Economy Hype Cycle
Launch Key #035
Rob Norris
May 21, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes
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Good morning Launch Key 🚀 community!
Based on your poll results, this week we revisit the Creator Economy and where I think it is in the Hype Cycle.
Plus some insight about how to apply your skills to build your own economy.
Comment below and let me know if we’re on the right track.
Table of Contents
Pull to Eject
Talking about the ‘Creator Economy’ is like the Supreme Court 1957 definition of pornography:
We’ll know it when we see it.
And we see it all around us.
Social media has exploded from sharing pictures of cats into the reality of more than 200 million global Creators generating content.
The creation genie is out of the bottle.
Goldman Sachs famously predicted a near-term half-trillion dollar market and they may have under-estimated it.
We’ve seen the explosion of writers, artists, fashionistas and podcasters who built careers on TikTok, Instagram, Patreon, Stitcher, YouTube and X(twitter).
And the last few years have given us the perfect storm:
remote work
ubiquitous internet connectivity
laptops on every lap
freemium creation tools
The combination ginned up a classic Gartner Hype cycle around the Creator Economy.
Those technology triggers exploded the opportunity for individuals to build and monetize an audience.
And the early winners learned how to feed the algorithm.
Not necessarily to figure out what people like but what TikTok, YouTube and Twitter liked so the platforms would put them in front of the scrolling masses to subscribe.
Young people jumped on the trend to leave the 9-5. Some offered courses on how to do just that.
But in every hot trend, once the hype has passed - and it has - the viral stuff slows.
The algos have changed.
Teenagers offering career advice don’t top the search results anymore.
Only quality will move through the trough of disillusionment into long term success.
Trough of Disillusionment
With all the current talk about TikTok - even political banning - short form video has gotten a lot of attention as the hottest channel.
But creating video might have been too big a leap for first time creators over the past few years.
Good news: that trend may have peaked.
The pendulum has swung back from short video toward quality words.
Concise writing has always been foundational. It just lost its shine to the latest new thing.
Momentarily.
ConvertKit 2024 survey results confirms the trend. In fact, short form video dropped to the lowest level in 4 years and written content was the clear leader last year.
Luckily, writing is hard enough that most people don’t do it well.
But - if you’ve been in the work force for any period of time - you are good at it.
For 35 years, I used my writing skills for proposals, email, client copy editing and sales materials before I had an idea to create this newsletter.
And you can too.
Roll up your Sleeves
I believe one of the things holding back many of us from starting something new has been this unconscious knowledge that beating the algorithm is hard.
And it is.
In a recent piece, Joan Westenburg is much more pessimistic about the Creator Economy, but she has excellent points about building self sufficiency.
Creators can find themselves demonetized, shadowbanned, or even outright banned for violating policies that are often vague and open to interpretation.
X, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Meta - all decide how to share your stories.
I agree with her opinion that you can use the algo for what it’s good for - broadcasting.
You can’t control how Linkedin shares your posts, but you can build up writing muscle memory by contributing more articles.
It takes a bit more to control your own platform.
You might have to get your hands little dirty to maintain a web site or a blog, but the tools are a simple management exercise.
Emails are a great way to start and why I levered up a newsletter in the first place.
Your contacts. Your network. Your audience. Grow organically from there.
Need more ideas for content you can create by writing down your intellectual capital?
How-To guides
Courses
Slideshows
Newsletters
Blog posts
eBooks
Webinars
Literary works
Wikis
Do you have creative skills that deliver visuals?
Photos, illustrations, and other images
Comics / cartoons
Infographics
Memes
All of these ‘products’ can be delivered via email or on your web site.
You are the algorithm.
The takeaway isn’t that you missed the Creator Economy landgrab.
Far from it.
The trend will only continue, but people are looking for more value than catchy 15-second videos.
Thoughtful solutions.
Ideas that make work easier.
Advice and recommendations.
Knowledge about getting things done.
You know - the stuff you’ve been doing your whole career.
That’s the stuff that the Creator Economy is craving.
Roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Now go launch something 🚀
Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.
This Launch 🚀 kit guides you through market validation, customer definition and messaging examples to use your uncommon knowledge and create a standout product.
Frame up your unique experience and authentic voice.
Modern Tools
Canva now has over 130 million users from 190 different countries.
And there’s a reason why.
If you need to design anything, Canva has your answer. From documents to web sites to logos or posters. Templates, ideas and a community of designers to help if you really don’t have any design skills.
Of course you can start for free.
Missed out on Ring and Nest? Don’t let RYSE slip away!
Ring 一 Acquired by Amazon for $1.2B
Nest 一 Acquired by Google for $3.2B
If you missed out on these spectacular early investments in the Smart Home space, here’s your chance to grab hold of the next one.
RYSE is a tech firm poised to dominate the Smart Shades market (growing at an astonishing 55% annually), and their public offering of shares priced at just $1.50 has opened.
They have generated over 20X growth in share price for early shareholders, with significant upside remaining as they just launched in over 100 Best Buy stores.
Retail distribution was the main driver behind the acquisitions of both Ring and Nest, and their exclusive deal with Best Buy puts them in pole position to dominate this burgeoning industry.
Old School Wisdom
Full disclosure - I am not a Stephen King fan.
But his book On Writing is a fantastic resource. I listened to it as a book-on-tape and King gives fantastic advice for writing well.
King talks about grammar, sentence structure, dialogues and conversations, draft development, and the craft of writing in detail.
The book is perfect for anyone who wants to master writing skills necessary to succeed in the Creator Economy.
Free Knowledge
Say Goodbye to Dumb Decisions!
George Pillari has appeared on CNN, and been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post.
Today he has a podcast, a free newsletter and an AI companion (StupidGPT) to help you avoid the Seven Deadly Stupidities.
Recommendations
Visual Crapshoot
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