Investing in creator businesses with Megan Lightcap from Slow Ventures Creator Fund

Awesome. Welcome to another episode of How Creators Make Money, where we dive into unconventional ways creators are making money. Today we have our buddy Megan Lightcap. Megan is a partner at Creator Fund by Slope Ventures. And what is unique about Creator Fund is they invest in creators. They invest in like a person instead of a, like an idea, like a traditional VC. I met Megan back in SF and we had a lot of wonderful conversation about creator economy, investing, the VC world. So in this episode, we'd love to dive into like your experience as an investor, your, um, how you do like events, your thoughts on the creator economy, uncommercial ways of creators, how creators make money. And yeah, welcome to the show, Megan.

Thanks for having me, guys. So, so excited to be here.

Happy to have you. I'm also curious, like, there's also things that you mentioned about like Riz and Tiz that I would love to dive into, but first, there's lots to dive into.

Lots.

There's a lot to dive into. Yeah, the Creator CEO summit coming up in LA. Um, but I'm also curious, since the Creator Fund launched earlier this year, um, what has shaped your thesis, like, in investing in creators instead of, like, ideas and companies in general?

Yeah, I can kind of walk you through some of our thinking as to how we arrived at this specific formation of, of kind of backing creators. So, um, Slow Ventures is a seed stage venture firm. Um, they've been around for, uh, the better part of a decade investing in, um, you know, early-stage companies and early-stage founders, kind of, you know, across sectors, across industries. And a couple years ago, like 2020, 2021, one of the GPs and co-founders here, Sam Lessin, really had this thesis, which is, you know, obviously we saw the likes of, um, MrBeast and Feastables and, and Emma Chamberlain, Chamberlain Coffee, and so on and so forth, like the super big creators kind of going out and launching businesses. On top of their communities and distribution and whatnot. And you kind of play it forward. And like our job as investors is to like think on like a, almost like a 10-year time horizon and invest in today what may be true kind of 10 years from now. And so if you kind of played that, that motion forward, our view was that this sort of like entrepreneurial activity was going to happen in all corners of the quote unquote creator world and not just kind of be limited to the biggest names. And even further, right, if you think about what our fundamental job is as an early-stage investor, it's really to match capital with entrepreneurs like early in their journey. And I think being agnostic as to like who that entrepreneur is, how they show up in the world, where they build distribution is like the key here. And so we kind of said, look, you know, I think there's going to be a class of entrepreneurs that really are creators where they're building community and distribution around a very specific vertical or niche and building that online. And they're going to then in turn launch products, companies, services, businesses right on top of their distribution community. And so, so I guess 3 or 4 years ago, we started this really what was an experiment at the time of, okay, how would you invest behind a creator, right? And many people were investing in creator upstarts and, you know, infrastructure and tooling. If you remember that whole wave of like investing in the creator economy, some of which ended in flames, right? Some of which was— did some companies did okay. And then like the next wave was investing in the creator brands à la Feastables and à la Chamberlain Coffee and whatnot. But we were like, look, the interesting property here is like the brand equity actually sits off balance sheet. Right, and with the creator and the community and not actually with the, with the product or company. And so the classic example we, we look toward is, you know, MrBeast launched MrBeast Burger and it was like the hottest thing since sliced bread. Everyone was like, this is amazing, it's going to disrupt McDonald's and so on and so forth. And fast forward about a year, you know, he came out, was pretty unhappy with the partner and the kind of the quality control around it. And he was like, look, I'm going to go all in on Feastables. Like, this is the thing. And, you know, MrBeast Burger, I don't think had, had any outside independent shareholders at the time. But you could imagine if they did, there would be this inherent conflict of interest with investors, right? Where they're saying, Jimmy, like, don't go work on the chocolate company. You told us, you know, you're going to do this burger company. And basically, like, where you put your attention is what is most likely to succeed. And so we kind of said, all right, how would you basically abstract a level up from from that and really just be in business with the creator, um, and their community. And so we kind of invented— is too strong of a word— but kind of conceptualize this idea of investing in kind of creator holding companies. And I think like the easy way to say it is like we're investing in a person, but it's actually— I mean, there's a real company around it, but, um, we're investing really in the creator's holding company, which is inclusive of content and media and different formats and businesses and products and things that they may launch within their kind of creator ecosystem, if that makes sense, versus a singular product, brand, service channel. And in turn, right, the creator can actually use that capital super flexibly across those different activities where we're not sitting there being like, no, no, like we invested in the chocolate business, so you have to go use this capital for the chocolate business. So at the end of the day, you know, this, this idea of investing in a creator holding company really seemed to be the most efficient way to kind of align incentives between the creator and the investor, which is obviously slow.

So that's super interesting. And like the question that I've always had in the back of my head, uh, and the reason that, that I built Declassified the way that I built it, where I'm not actually like the face of the brand, right? We hire on talent very much more like a, like a BuzzFeed or a Barstool, right? Versus a quote unquote traditional creator. Is what happens if the creator ever wants to get out of the business, right? And we've kind of seen it a little bit recently with a few creators trying to transition off and things of that nature. And it seems like what you are betting on is that the creator kind of stays within, or the brand, the creator brand, right? Kind of stays along the long haul. How do you guys view that challenge in it?

Yeah. So my take, which is like a little, different, I think, for most people is that like, actually, like, the person is really important in the short and medium term, not in the long term, but in like the short and medium, right? Like, I think people have the emotional attachment to the person. I think that's kind of where the surface area of opportunity emerges from. They, they very much help shortcut, right, a lot of the like customer acquisition and lifetime value economics. but the North Star is that this creator goes and builds a company that can kind of transcend their personal brand where they don't have to be in front of a camera every day promoting the thing, talking about the thing. And there's a couple of examples like this. So, um, one that comes to mind, which is a much more scaled example, is this company called, um, MeatEater. Do you know this? Do you know this brand? So this is a creator, um, Steve Ranilla is, is his name and He's a, he's very big in the like fishing, hunting kind of outdoors niche. And he, through a number of different like business building activities, has launched this brand called Meat Eater selling, it's an e-commerce business selling a lot of the products and paraphernalia related to that. And it's of a scale where if you ask like the next marginal net new buyer, right, like who Steve is, they probably don't know. And that's like a beautiful thing. And that's kind of the place you want to get to. But it's incredibly important in the short and medium term to actually have the creator play a big, big role in it. I mean, Skims is another amazing example where like people aren't buying Skims because they love Kim. They're buying Skims because it's a really excellent product, right? That has been thought of by her. And, you know, kind of she's the creative director behind it. And you could argue in the, in the business's infancy, right? Like that's actually how it broke through and, you know, kind of reached escape velocity. But like now the business totally stands on its own in a way where I think if Kim took a step back in a meaningful way, it would still be totally fine.

Do you think that that's why we've— I would say like the first wave of creator businesses, let's call it that, kind of all included the creator's name in it, right? You can even think of Beast Burger, Feastables, right? That all kind of includes MrBeast in there. Even Chamberlain Coffee. Right. But this new wave, whether it's Ryan Trahan with Joey Ride or Ashley with, uh, with Nami Matcha, right? Nothing really in terms of the brand that they're selling doesn't include the personal brand within it. Is that the way that you're kind of seeing continue?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's just like one— I think it's in part stylistic, right? Where I think creators are, are now such a force in our economy that like they almost like don't need to, to kind of name it after themselves. But it could also be intentional. It's like, I'm going to build something that kind of live beyond me. I mean, Kevin Espiritu over at Epic Gardening is another fabulous example where he's so— he was such a part of it in its infancy and even in its, you know, early maturation. And now the business is like really doing super well. And I think he's been able to step into more of like kind of an operator role where it's— he's not the single reliance point for sales and marketing. But it's interesting that you point out that trend because it's, it's something that we, that we definitely see, or at least creators have kind of like weaved their name into it, but not in such a blatant and overt way, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it's really interesting because I've seen more like you are right, Snacks, Now With Matcha, more creators kind of like detach themselves. I feel like creators as people evolve a lot, so it makes sense to do like short and medium term. I'm also curious, I remember you mentioning like Riz and Tiz. For those who don't know, there's like a whole graph about rizz and tizz. Like, you need to optimize. Yeah, I can show you. My friend made a whole big YouTube video about it. So imagine the x-axis is like rizz and the x-axis is tizz. If you're only rizz, then you're like a grifter. If you're only tizz, then you're like really smart, but you're gonna like quote unquote die alone and you need to have both because you need to be able to build and you need to be able to sell. And so people have to do both. And you mentioned like investing in founders/traders with both RIZ and TIZ. I'm so curious, like how do you evaluate RIZ and TIZ?

Yeah, I mean, it's funny, this is actually something we stole is probably too strong of a word, but we lifted or borrowed from Ariel Zuckerberg over at Long Journey Ventures. Um, or at least that she's the first person I heard, uh, you know, speak about this framework. And she obviously invests in kind of regular way founders, not creators. And so the idea is that actually it's pretty transmissible to creators, which like kind of the upshot of that is like at the end of the day you're, you're investing behind an entrepreneur and a founder, whether they're a creator or like, you know, someone out of MIT. And the basic evaluation is is exactly kind of as you described, Grace, which is starting a company is like a heroic thing, right? Like it's probably going to fail. Like the, the statistics tell us, tell us as much. And, and so you have to have a certain level of charisma to bring investors, shareholders, customers, employees, you know, other stakeholders along for the journey in the context of like, this is likely to fail. Right? And so that takes a certain level of, you know, marshaling the troops and telling the story and sharing the vision and so on and so forth. And so there's a lot of that that you can kind of evaluate and different ways to evaluate whether it's a true founder or a regular founder and, you know, a creator. And then on the, on the tiz part, I think there's like, it kind of goes hand in hand with the charisma, which is like, there just has to be a certain level of obsession that like you get up every day again in the, in the face of these like pretty jarring statistics of your failure rate. Right. And just keep going. And like, you know, it was interesting. I— so we just invested in a creator. Well, not just— we invested in him back in, back in April, but it just did the announcement last week into a YouTuber in the woodworking space. His name is Jonathan Katz Moses and I was down in Santa Barbara at his workshop and I'm not a woodworker. Like, you know, obviously we went through the diligence phase. I got to, I got to understand the category in the industry, but like, it is not my hobby of choice. And he took me around his workshop for whatever it was, 2 hours. And the level of detail and specificity with which he was showing me products he was, you know, that, that are in, are in his roadmap or different things that he had discovered that will like unlock X, Y, and Z business opportunity. I mean, the guy is like next level obsessed with what he does and it's like that sort of like you can't fake that, you know? And it's like you just have to like sit with these folks and like really understand what drives them and what motivates them and like kind of suss out if their level of obsession or tis right around this thing is, is real. And I don't know that that's, that's something I think that just like kind of comes with repetition. And interestingly, in the creator space, so many of the people that we talk to are actually, actually practitioners of whatever their niche is. And so it's in some ways like easier to suss out because they're, they're kind of living this thing day to day. It's like they're, you know, their everyday. It's not as if they're trying to start you know, a company from scratch and they identified like a market opportunity. They're like already in it. So yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a good framework for, for I think investing kind of in any, in any format.

Can you give us an example? Like it doesn't have to be an exact example, but like what does someone who doesn't look obsessed sound like, so to say, around a topic versus someone that does? That's such a good question. Look obsessed. Cause I think a lot of people think that they are, right? And then you talk to someone who's really obsessed about something and you're like, okay, I, I get it. Like this guy or girl spends 25 hours on specializing in this 1 millimeter of wood that he, he or she's using or something.

That is such a good question of like, what's the anti-case or what's like the an— the, the counterfactual. I mean, I'm actually trying to like recall someone recently where we were like, Eh, like, I don't know. I, here, I'll give you, I'll give you, this is not like a perfect, this is not like a specific example, but this is like, um, this is kind of one way I think about it is like we talk a lot about internally of this idea of like having fun and like if the founder or creator is not having fun doing the thing, like you're basically dedicating your life to this thing, right? Like you're waking up every day thinking about it, you're working on it for 15 hours a day, you're going to bed thinking about, like, you have, they have to have some level of like joy and fun in what they're doing. And it doesn't matter what it is, right? Like everyone has different definitions of fun, but like we've met a couple founders recently and creators where it's like they kind of like Bain analysis their way into the problem space. And you're like, I feel like you're doing this because you think you should be doing it versus like, this is actually like what what you're being like called upon to do or like what you deeply find joy from. So that's like one way to kind of suss it out, um, is really just ask yourself like, of all the things you could be working on, right? Like, why is this person working on this thing? And like, what's the story? Like, does it actually click? Is, is there like joy and fun kind of embedded in it? Um, because as you know, like building a company is gnarly. And so I think like there has to be some level of joy that kind of propels the person through. So it's not a perfect answer to your question, but that's one of the ways in which we've, recently been talking about internally as to like how to kind of suss out that, that level of obsession, if you will.

Yeah, fascinating. If I find joy in something, I'm so curious, like, how was your process in, um, investing in Jonathan from Woodworking? Like, what were the steps from like start to start to like getting the check?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, great question. Um, so we, uh, we did the launch and the announce of the fund back in February. Um, you know, closed and, and did some press around it, and I guess he came across maybe a press article or something and decided to reach out to us. We have like an application form on our website. And so we unfortunately, I mean, fortunately, but unfortunately got inundated with applications. I think we got, you know, 600 or 700. And so it took us a couple of weeks to kind of sort through them all, but spotted his application. I don't exactly remember, like, you know, it was an interesting niche. He seemed to have like a good story around it and good articulation, at least in the, in words of like, where he wanted to take the business. And so hopped on a call with him, got to know him and his business, met him in, met him in person in Santa Barbara. Again, like understood his operation, his level of obsession. And we did, you know, very standard diligence on the existing business. I mean, he has a big kind of content operation, but then also an e-commerce business. And so we were able to do, you know, pretty standard diligence against that. Sorted out a deal, you know, figured out, had a lot of conversation around like, okay, what amount of capital actually unlocks this next stage of growth for you vis-à-vis, you know, the amount of dilution you want to give up and a lot of those sorts of conversations and figured that out and aligned on, on terms and then papered it and then we wired the money and then off to the races. And for him it was fun because he, he has a remarkable story as to what led him to YouTube initially and then entrepreneurship. And so he felt very strongly about wanting to make a video, a YouTube video, kind of sharing that story. And then, you know, his interactions with Slow and how he met us and whatnot. And so we were like, you know, you have first bite at the, at the story and kind of the press around it. And so he made a video and then we, on the heels of that, did, did some, some more traditional PR around the investment. But he is— you should go watch his, his YouTube video kind of telling his story. It is like truly truly remarkable for sure.

And I think, so I think what's really interesting about this, so my background, I went to school for finance, so I kind of understand a little bit about the finance world. Uh, UCF, so not target school or anything like that, but like, it's been, it's always super interesting to learn about how people are getting into the creator world because, right, the traditional creator world is not very numbers driven. So say it's more creative. That's, that's why they get the views that they typically get. Um, with that being said, when it comes to VC or anything venture-backed, not all businesses are venture-scalable, right? But like, what does something— like, what does a successful exit look like for you guys? Because I think some people might be listening to this and they're like, hey, a business that generates like $1 to $2 million cash flow a year, that'd be amazing. But that might not be what you guys are looking for, Right. So I just wanna make sure that everyone understands, 'cause I think people romanticize VC and like entrepreneurship, especially with like Shark Tank and things of that nature that pop up, which I think it does net positive for the world.

Yeah.

But there are businesses where it makes sense versus doesn't make sense. So could you explain that a little bit deeper?

Yeah, totally. And, and I just want to, um, well, I guess two things. I do have 30 minutes at the end of this, so we can go till, uh, 4:30. Um, So we— I just want to clarify too, is when we're thinking about like the exit path on these, I think there's a lot of confusion as to is the holding company the exit, right? Like, is that the thing that's ultimately going to sell? And interestingly, it's not, right? We make the initial kind of investment into the holding company, but we— the idea is that we get our, you know, approximate equity stake in the different businesses that they spin up. And the idea is that one of those companies will ultimately exit. It's not actually the holding company. So I just want to clarify that point because I think it can confuse some people as to like, okay, well, who's buying like the Jonathan Holdco, right? It's actually like who would buy his e-commerce business or who would buy the next business he may be incubating, right? So that's more how we think about it. And then, yeah, I mean, from an underwriting perspective, you know, there's a lot of creators who are building media companies, right? Which is amazing, right? Like they're cash flowing, they know their audience, like they know where the next dollars are coming from. It's like, it's an amazing business to own 100% of. Those are not actually the right types of creators for our model. Whereas, you know, we look for creators, I'll give you another example. There's a creator who's actually, he's become a good friend of mine. He's in the construction space and I use him a lot as an example because it's, It's so clear as to like how this all works, which is he's not in residential construction. He has like infrastructure, roads, piping, bridges, things of that nature. Probably has like a million on, a million on Instagram, you know, maybe 700,000 on YouTube. Like he's pretty big and his cult, right? His fandom is all like contractors and SMB construction execs and like people who just live and breathe this industry. He has a big podcast. Um, and so his ecosystem is comprised of a media business, right, of newsletter, YouTube, Instagram, podcast. Um, I'm sure he's on TikTok. Uh, he may be on Twitter, I can't remember. And he has an events business, right, that's like profitable and gets like big, big name sponsors. I went to one of his events, uh, in the last year, and it's like unbelievable. Like you walk into this thing and it's like Caterpillar and John Deere. It's like you walk the floor, it's, it's like a full trade show. Um, and then he's like, look, like, I just have spent so much time with this audience in this industry. Like, I have this information at my disposal, which is, you know, he spends, he spends all day with these folks and he's like, what are the, what are your pain points? Like, what keeps you up at night? Not as it relates to advertising, which is like the traditional creator business model, but like actually running your business day to day. And he's like, the thing I hear again and again is two things. One around like people management, right? Of like, it's a very transitional workforce. There's no like LinkedIn, but there's like certain qualifications and compliance and safety things that like matter. And then two, right? There's a lot of software that caters to the top 100 companies, but like the long tail is massive. And these companies are like pretty big, right? Like I think like the average size of a long tail kind of a construction company is probably like $100 million in revenue. Like it's, these things are like, big companies, but the software is priced such that like it's almost too expensive to make it work. And so a lot of this industry is actually kind of taped and glued together with like Excel spreadsheets and Google Spreadsheets and Word docs and things of that nature. So he's like, I am sitting on this massive opportunity to go build software specifically designed for like the needs of the construction industry. And oh, by the way, I have X million qualified purchasers that like tune into my podcast, pay me $3,000 to come to my event and like hear me pitch the software. Like it's this amazing, this amazing ecosystem in and around construction storytelling and media and software and events and industry trade shows and connections. And so the thing for us is like, okay, you look at something like that and you're like, well, one of the software ideas could sell to, you know, Prologic or one of the big construction companies, right? Like, It's a very, like, you don't have to squint very hard to like see the exit path. And so you do that, but for physical therapy, you do that for woodworking, you do that for, um, uh, commercial fishing, right? Like, so on. Is the, the, uh, chief financial officer industry, like, you pick your niche and that's kind of the, that's kind of the, the same version of our internal conversations, but it usually has to do with a very different industry or a very different niche. And so that's how we think about like the exit and liquidity here. And so when we meet creators, right, if they're kind of just pitching us a media business, it's not all that interesting. But if they kind of describe something akin to that construction, whatever, like, we're like, yeah, like, this is really interesting.

It's like building a cult. You have to have a really cult following, like they're the cult leader.

Totally, totally. And what's really interesting is like we're just in this world where it's no longer about like one singular thing. It's like about like the world and the ecosystem, the franchise these people are building around it, right? Like take the, the example I just described, like those different pillars all like support one another in a really interesting like flywheel type of way. Whereas, and then it's what's, what's even more interesting is you talk to, you know, a founder building in the construction industry and they're like, I have this like amazing technology and amazing software, but like no contractor is like returning my call because it's a— turns out it's a very high-trust industry. It's extremely analog, it's extremely fragmented. And so it's like the distribution and go-to-market method being a creator is like fricking genius. Like that, that is, that is the opportunity. And so again, I think there are like way more versions of this than people can even conceptualize, um, than even like quite frankly we can conceptualize, just given the number of times per week I'm like, never consider that as a— that is a niche that we would invest in. But like, here we are, right? It's crazy.

What are some like creator cults you've ran into? Like the construction, the woodworking. I know you mentioned there's like a doctor who specializes in this.

There's so many. But like, There's, I mean, there's so many.

What are some exciting ones to you right now?

Okay, so an exciting one is honestly commercial fishing. Uh, that's one I'm like actively chasing. I, this is not a, this is, this is not a, uh, creator per se, but someone, someone introduced me this morning to someone. Um, she's doing like a million bucks in sales on courses for Uh, lymphatic drainage for horses. Like you guys, like, like this is like the qu— it is so specific, but then you're like, okay, like sounds crazy, but like, is it right? Like the equestrian industry is like really big. And oh, by the way, like the spend is immense, right? These are people of generally high income, right? High discretionary spend. There's this deep emotional attachment to horses, like in the same way of like traditional pets. Like people are willing to spend whatever. And if you can eke out like a little bit, you know, 5% more, 1% more better performance by like giving your horse a lymphatic drainage massage, like you're going to do it. And so the point I bring it up is like, you know, and I don't really actually know how big the market for that specific thing is and you got to go do all the analysis. But the point is like these things are sneaky big, right? There's another creator who I love her. Her handle is Glucose Goddess. Have you heard of this woman? No? Yes? Okay.

I have not.

Literally, guys, like, literally all her— her only thing is she talks about blood sugar regulation. She's this, like, beautiful, like, French scientist, and she has, like, you know, a million plus on Instagram. I don't even know how many on YouTube. She's selling supplements and courses and meal delivery and this and that. I think she maybe even has, like, a Netflix doc coming out, but it's all about blood sugar regulation. And you're like, Pretty niche. But then like everyone is thinking about blood sugar. Like it's actually like not that small. Um, and so there's just like, there's endless examples like this, um, that we meet and we're like, holy crap. Like this could be something really big.

So how do you, like, we, Grace and I, we love to talk about this concept of cults, right? Cause I think creators, oh, you're talking to the right girl, right? Yeah. Like the, the, the best creators in terms of the ones that are able to turn something into a business or sell a product, whatever it may be. Yes. Right. They have a strong cult. Again, I'm gonna test the, the finance brain side of things. Have you found a way to sort of quantify what it means to have a cult-like following? Because I think that's the most interesting thing with creators.

100%.

Um, I don't know, quantify, but like you can do it, or signals, I guess.

Yes, yes. I'll give you a perfect example of like One of the things that we talk about internally, this actually came up with a creator we're doing work with. People were dressing up as her for Halloween. And you're like, that's amazing. You're like, who, like, what other, like, who else is out there where people are actually dressing up as this person for Halloween? Like, that's a great sign. Or I kid you not, like getting tattoos or putting a really interesting signal is when people put, um, the like descriptor or like, you know, cult member thing in their Instagram bio. Um, almost in the same way as like someone in like a sorority or fraternity would put like, okay, Justin whatever 8924, you know, you're part of Phi— I don't even know, like Pi Chi, whatever, Kappa Beta, whatever, right? And it's like class of 20 You know, so it's like those are really interesting signals. So like tattoos, or weirdly, this is another good one, um, you have to have haters. Like, you— like, if people have people who are like, 'F that guy' or 'F that girl,' like, that's actually a good sign. Like, do you guys follow, um, I'm sure you do, uh, Bryan Johnson?

Yes, I love his— like, I just like So many tech bros worship him but hate him too.

Exactly, exactly. And like, he, he has a cult, right? Like, people are actually attending like Don't Die events and, and oh, another signal which we see all the time are like when the community forms outside of the creator, right? So there's like meetups or WhatsApp groups or connection points of like the members forming together, coming together with an absence of the creator, that's like a really interesting signal. Actually, I don't know why I'm like describing this. I literally wrote about this exact topic a couple years ago. Justin and Grace, I'll send you my writing on it. I wrote about it in the context of Taylor Swift and like, all of these like, properties of a cult, right? And so like, one of the really interesting things that that, that she was able to do is like there were certain like hierarchies forming within her fandom, which is like pretty interesting. Or she like tightly controls like the narrative or message. Um, anyway, also knew the writing. I like did a whole thing on this. And then the last recommendation that I'll shut up because I've been talking a lot is there's this new book— actually, I don't even know if it's new, but it's called Cultish by Amanda Montell. And it's basically like— have you read it, Grace?

I've actually read it. I love her podcast. I, I listen to it all the time. Sounds like a cult.

So she like, she does like a huge deep dive into all this stuff. So anyway, we can talk about this for forever, but like there are definitely certain signals that we look for, um, that are like, you know, cult-lite, if you will.

Are you personally part of any cults yourself?

Um, that's a great question. Like Not really, but I think that's also because like, I do this for a living. And so I'm kind of like, I mean, that's not true. There are certain creators I like ride for them. Um, and I just like love their stuff and support them in any way, shape, or form. Um, but because I'm like so inundated on a daily basis, like evaluating people and meeting different people, like honestly, like a lot of my like non-work time, I try and actually take off screen. Like I'm like, a little bit like I want to distance myself from it just because otherwise it's too much. And then weirdly my— and I know that you asked this question— my algorithm is like, I almost don't want it to get too messed up with my own echo chamber of stuff, right? So anyway, I try and be a little bit arm's length from all of this stuff kind of in a non-work context.

I love how you mentioned like haters are big signal, like a good signal for a call, because I feel like haters are just confused fans. They obviously take time out of their day to comment and watch their content, so they're helping their watch time go up and they're just confused.

I love that. I love that framing. And, and by the way, like, they just like continue to like put people on the map. Like, it's great. There's, um, there's this hilarious, uh, like, I don't even know if you would call it a meme, but this thing going around of like, uh, uh, I forget what it's called. It's like anger marketing or something, or basically like Time came out with this list of like— rage baiting. Yes, exactly, exactly. Time came out with this list of like whatever, like 200 best venture capital firms, and they put like Slow. I mean, we like don't give a shit about any of that stuff, but like Slow was like number like 176 or something. And we were dying laughing because we were like, whoever the, like the person at time whose idea this was, like they need like 3x, they need a promotion, they need a raise because like this is, this is fabulous rage baiting. Like, you know that people are like freaking out about this, like reposting it, calling, saying they're wrong, the whole thing. It's great. It's great.

It's the best marketing.

Yeah, you're right. They're just giving free marketing to these creators.

I love that. It reminds me of like Clueless, how Clueless marketing is going, like rage rating. You want to totally beautiful.

And it was a, it was a brilliant, it was brilliant because they basically like bought so much free PR and press. It was brilliant.

My question, cuz it seems like you're one of these people that are actually obsessed about the creator economy cult, things of that nature.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, cuz I think there's been a lot of people as the hype around creator economy has kind grown over the past 3 or 4 years. A lot of people have jumped in, but you definitely seem one that's a part of the culture and things of that nature. But that's not necessarily your background, right? You kind of work your way through finance and things like that. How did you— like, why did you make that transition? And like, how did you do that? Because these are very different spaces.

Totally. And I— it's funny, I actually like don't even consider myself like obsessed with the creator economy. Like, I'm actually more obsessed with like consumer behavior Right. And like that is, and like the creator economy is actually the most like important manifestation of it in like single, like that we know, right? Like, so that's actually kind of like my entry point to it. And so my background is, yeah, started in finance, hilariously did like financial institutions, investment banking, but like has, I've always been obsessed with like consumer, consumer behavior. And so like even so, they'd be like, okay, like Cabela's, which is like a huge sporting retailer, has like a big consumer finance arm. Like, who wants to work on that? And I was like, me. Like, like, take me off of like banks. Like, get me out, you know? And then went to work at a fund called Elkatterton, which is like a huge consumer private equity fund, very traditional consumer, like restaurants and retail, apparel and accessories, CPG, consumer services, consumer technology, you name it. And that was like, you know, I was a kid in a candy shop of just, you know, this is like, if you're at all a fan of consumer, this is like a dream where like quite literally my weekends were spent like walking up and down the aisles of like Whole Foods or in a farm, like just like looking for like new brands that would resonate with people based on different trends and things. And like, it was like I'd even built a like phantom portfolio before I started because I didn't have any money to like do angel. Like it was just like I was like spot new things and like kind of like build my fake portfolio. And, and then went to the startup side at a, at first in a company, kind of a startup incubator inside of Walmart, biggest retailer in the world. And I was like, okay, this is like the perfect place, you know, blend of like old school retail and new school, like startup and incubation and technology. And that was a blast. Crazy story, but a blast. And then the last place I went, kind of, which was like the second inning of the startup that I was working on, ended up being a logistics company. And it was kind of this like wake-up call for me, which I was like, I just like miss the consumer. Like I miss like consumer behavior and understanding that. Like I don't necessarily want to be solving what is just a math problem of logistics. And so, um, and I kind of missed investing. So met the Slow team and Sam was like, you know, we're, we're kind of thinking through this thesis on creator. Like I'll tell you about it, blah, blah, blah. And very quickly I was like, it's probably not for me. You know, I think you should, you know, maybe go look at CAA or UTA and someone who's closer to digital talent and Hollywood and that. And over the course of conversations with him, you know, it became very apparent that this was actually closer to consumer investing than it was like talent spotting, if that makes sense. You know, and one of the things— and I actually write about this a lot— of like, And I'm writing about this, like, kind of like the second edition of this, which is like really this like creator opportunity to me is just a consumer one. And like one of the exercises I did before I took the job was I said, okay, and when I was at Catterton, you know, we had done this on the margin where we, you know, the buyout fund had done Jessica Alba's Honest Company. We brought in like Zac Efron into Kodiak Cakes and we tried to like finance a celebrity makeup artist who was like, I want to launch a brand. And we're like, well, we don't know how to think about like investing behind you without a company. And like all— it was so funny because now like we've kind of figured it out slow. But so I had seen this on the margin and then I said, okay, Megan Lightcap, basically go write down the last 15 things you've purchased, right? Or consumed. And what was the catalyst for doing so? Right? Like, was it a recommendation? Was it because it was a habitual purchase? Like, what influenced you? Who or what influenced you to buy that? And I like did that. I did the audit. I quite literally pulled my credit card statement, like did the whole thing. And I was like, oh my God, like this is overwhelmingly people, right? Whether it was a creator or an influencer I followed or even a friend, right, who had recommended a product or my mom. But like not a single thing in there was just because it was like a traditional brand. I mean, like maybe like medicine, right? Like that was like the only— and so I was just like, it was like this huge wake-up call for me of just, okay, who is controlling consumer mindshare and wallet share? And like, whoever is doing that is going to win this next wave of consumer. And so I got like really excited about this whole thesis kind of in that vein. Um, and so I kind of came at this whole like creator economy actually from a totally different angle. And like, to this day, I actually still feel like an imposter when people are talking about like old school media and like, you know, streamers and like that's like it's like tangentially relevant to what we do, but like not 100% where, you know, you talk to me about cults or the emotional reason for why someone might have this parasocial relationship with a creator and what that means for like buying into their world. I'll like talk about that till the cows come home. But yeah, I mean, I guess that's like kind of my reason for, for or like my, my entry point into this whole crazy world is like not actually from a creator economy angle. It's, it's actually from like kind of like behavioral science or like consumer behavior standpoint.

I love consumer behavior as well. That's why I'm so fascinated by cults and why people buy stuff. I'm also curious, like, yeah, in your perspective, how has consumer behavior changed over the years and where do you think it's heading? Like, for example, I feel like people used to like follow like celebrities and then these like big creators, and then now it's like more niche communities. I'm curious to hear, like, from your perspective, how do you see it? Like, how do you see, like, history of it, and where do you see it's going?

Yeah, I, I mean, that's exactly what I see, which is like, you know, there's been, yeah, the age of the celebrity, right? Then, um, you know, people have kind of fragmented into like bigger creators in different platforms, right? And now it's like totally fractured, and you kind of like opt into your tribe or your community, however niche it may be. I think the, I guess, two kind of things that I see happening. One is like the definition of a creator is broadening at like a rapid clip where, you know, two years ago when I was talking to CAA or, or some of the big agencies and they'd be like, who are you looking at? And we'd be like, you know, we give them the examples and they'd be like, oh, we would never touch those people. Like, You know, I'm talking about like scientists or NASA and like crazy people that they would never even consider. And now they're like, oh yeah, we had a conversation internally about like which scientists we can sign. And I'm like, okay, like that's really interesting. Right. And so it just like, it serves to confirm this idea of like kind of everyone's a creator. Like it's just like this whole new world where trust and distribution matter more than ever. And I think that's going to like continue to be the case. Um, and then two, the other thing I'm kind of tracking or, or seeing is like, and I guess hyper relevant for, for this podcast is like ways in which the creators are making money. And so like one of the things that we've seen recently is what I would almost call like creators going like direct to fan. And so you see obviously like Patreon had like a big headline, which was like, you know, past $10 billion in creator payouts. Substack just raised $100 million in their Series C or, you know, some, some later stage round. And those two experiences are really interesting because people are actually like self-selecting into an experience and paying for it, right? Paying the creator directly, surpassing or bypassing rather advertisers and bypassing, you know, some of the gatekeepers. And then the other thing too, like look at the rise in events. You know, I think Axios reported, I wrote about this last week, you know, ticket sales for podcast tours and events are up 500% year on year. And I think it just like goes to show that there's going to be so many different access points, um, for creators and ways to make money. And then even, you know, this morning, and I'd be curious, curious, uh, both of, both of your take on this is, um, I was talking to someone this morning about trends in AI in the creator space and whatnot. And one of the things we're observing is like, an increased chatter around basically like a new economic layer that like sits on top of AI where like the super long tail of creators can actually be compensated if AI is like using or sourcing their, their content, be it writing or video or whatever. Right. Um, because the AIs just have such greater ability to parse through stuff at such, at such greater scale that like you know, the creator in there, you know, in Nebraska who does a fabulous write-up on X, Y, and Z, like their work can actually be accessed at scale, right? And referenced where otherwise, like a human would've never been able to find that person. Um, and that person probably couldn't compete with the likes of the SEO of New York Times or Wall Street Journal, whatever. So there's just like a lot of change afoot, I think. Um, You know, in terms of how people make money and how they rise to the top and their visibility and, um, and then kind of combined with the fact that like everyone's a creator is it's just like, I think we're in for like a really interesting couple of years.

Yeah, I agree. I think like the best way that I like to explain it is a lot of these quote unquote unsexy industries are now becoming a little bit sexy just because people understand how to make that content sexy. Yes. For instance, uh, the random person in Nebraska, right, that does this writer but is able to get a bunch of views on it just because she wrote it really well or whatever, maybe. Or the construction persona that you were talking about earlier, right? These are not industries of content creators that you would think of cuz they don't compete with the Kai Cenats, the Ryan Traehans, the MrBeasts of the world, but they do, they are that persona in their own niche.

Totally.

So like as you've started to parse through a lot of these creators that I assume get sent to you on a regular basis, Are there any ways that you think that the average creator is kind of under-monetizing their, their content right now? Or maybe they're not even aware that it exists.

Yeah. I mean, so just to kind of yes and your prior point, like there's like an identification issue too, where it's like, okay, that person in Nebraska who's like the go-to. I'm making this up, floral expert, because I'm looking at flowers, right? Like, they probably don't even self-identify as a creator, right? They're not going to VidCon, they're not going to VidSummit, like they're not opting into the creator economy. And so for people like us, it becomes really interesting of like, okay, like there's no aggregation node for these people. So how do you go define them. And right, like, when everyone is kind of— has different definitions of what a creator is. So it's just, it's, it's becoming really interesting. Like, the, the field is— like, the rules are changing on the field as we're playing. Um, and it, it simultaneously creates a tremendous amount of opportunity, but also it's like one of the, one of the main challenges of what we do. Um, so anyway, wanted just to, just to call that point out because there is like a really interesting ripple effect of what you're talking about. Um, In terms of how creators are under-monetizing, I think it like very much depends on the type of creator, right? Like I think it's, again, back to my point, it's like extremely hard to generalize what a quote unquote creator should do given that there's so many different types now. I mean, I mean, honestly, one of the things that I'm seeing, and not to sound like a broken record about it, but like one of the things I am seeing is just like people's, um, success around events and like hosting in-person things, both as a way, honestly, to like diversify your revenue stream and like make money, but like kind of test the limits of your fandom, right? Like, I think a lot of creators like think they have huge and engaged followings and they ask people to show up in person to a thing, let alone pay for it, and they're like, maybe I don't, you know? So I think it's just like, that to me seems like something that I'm just seeing more and more of, of creators kind of trial and experiment with. Um, and it could be, I mean, they could charge for it or not. So I don't know that it's like an exact, uh, it's like not a perfect kind of monetized, monetizable avenue, but, um, yeah, I mean, I think honestly, like it very much depends on the type of creator and the category and the community.

Yeah. Events are such a great way to build cult. Like we do, I do like so many events. For—

Grace, you're a perfect example. You're a perfect example of it. I mean, honestly, when we went on our walk and you're telling me about like how many people show up, and, and by the way, like all over the world, like it's— that's exactly what I'm talking about, right? And it's like you probably learned a lot, right, as to the boundaries of your fandom and your cult, if you will, um, when you do those. I mean, yeah, you, you're the perfect example.

Thank you. Yeah, it's so much fun because like for us, like for Design Buddies, we started during the pandemic and then basically 100,000 people joined our Discord, and it's been really fun. I kind of go at it as like, I want to make friends in different cities so I can see the city as a local, but also learn about their culture too. I learned so much from people. I have seen big creators host events and no one shows up, and it's kind of sad. But I feel like for me, I don't have tens of millions of— I'm not like the biggest creator, but people do show up around the world, which is— I'm also like very honored. So yeah, thank you all for Design Buddies for also tuning in as well. So people who follow my content for like that have been following me since like I was like 16 from Tumblr that have grown with me. So it's been fun. But I'm so curious, like for the kind of diving into events, I know you have the, the CEO Summit coming up in LA, but when you experience like attending these career events, What kind of things do you notice? Is it like their fans dress a certain way? Um, their fans like talking about something, they're all obsessed with something. What, what usually happens at like an event a creator hosts?

Um, well, there's a difference between events that a creator hosts and like what I would call industry events. And I think part of the reason we're, we're doing this Creator CEO Summit or, uh, however you wanna describe it, we like went back and forth on the name a little bit, but Um, it was almost in a reaction to VidCon. I don't know if you guys have been to VidCon. Um, but in recent years, it's been kind of the same story of like, like it could have been 10 years ago, like, and the content hasn't changed. It's the story of the day is still around like CPMs and thumbnails and optimization. And, and it's like, we have moved past that. Like creators are building billion dollar brands. They are highly sophisticated, like. That is like one very narrow slice of what they're thinking about. And, and so we were like, there's been, there hasn't really been, or at least there's this huge gap in education and knowledge and, and connection around creators actually who think of themselves like CEOs and entrepreneurs. And so we wanted to, to bring together this sort of creator archetype, um, and really have people who have done it right, like share stories of. What went wrong, what went right, what to consider, like gotchas, blah, blah. So we, I mean, we have some amazing, amazing, you know, panelists, everyone from Sarah Harden, you know, of, of, uh, Hello Sunshine with Reese Witherspoon to Doug DeMuro of Cars and Bids to John, our, you know, Jonathan Katz Moses is coming and, you know, some, some investors and it's going to be a great day in terms of, um, for people who really care about building massively scaled businesses. Oh, did we lose Grace?

I think, yeah, I think she's going to jump. Yeah, I assume. Yeah, exactly.

It's really just a day for people to kind of connect who, who kind of buy into that orientation and kind of want to build their creator businesses as such. So yeah, it was more just a reaction to the standard like industry event. And then what I'd say is with respect to events that creators are throwing, it's just so fun. Like there's two that come to mind. One is obviously the trade event that I was describing with this construction crap. The other one is Open Sauce. Have you been to Open Sauce? Do you know what that is?

No, I haven't. No. What is Open Sauce?

Okay, so Open Sauce, there's a YouTuber, William Osman. He's kind of in like the STEM maker space. And he put, this was the third year he's done it. I think the first year was like maybe 5,000 people showed up. The second year, like 30,000 people showed up this year, probably something similar. And it's amazing.

That's insane.

It's insane. And it's all these, like, it's almost like a Maker Faire where it's like all these makers and STEM creators and it's their fans. And he gives his fans an opportunity to basically exhibit. And so you walk around the floor and there's hundreds of exhibitions, everything from people who are like, You know, students at MIT building like rocket engines to, I swear, one of them last year was people converting porta potty water into root beer. And it's like, this is just like such a classic, like these are the people who like live and breathe this guy's stuff. Right. And it's like, they have the chance to present what they're working on, plus be in the presence of all their favorite creators. It's like an amazing moment. Um, all kind of denominated in. This niche. Um, so it's very cool. And I think like we're starting to see a lot more of these like specific types of creator conferences, even something like BeautyCon, right? Which has been, been going on for forever. But like, you know, it's being like super well attended now by creators, both those who are building businesses, but others who are like moving product and doing advertising on behalf of big brands or collaborations or whatnot. So I'm just very excited about these like more specific events and conferences and, and, you know, vertical, vertical events?

Yeah, I think in the event world it's been really interesting to see. So like I started going to events literally 2019 as, as like the peak of events, I would say. Right. And then COVID hits 2020 and then events kind of like starting to, to rise back up again. I feel like these sort of niche events, whether it's Grace's event with Design Buddies or your event that you guys are creating with Creator CEO. I think those are on the rise versus the opposite is happening with like the VidCons, the South Byes of the world, etc. I think it's kind of crazy to see that shift. But if you kind of look back, at least for when I was going to events in like '22, '23, all of the conversations when you went to VidCon, when you went to South by and things of that nature were always about the side events that were happening.

Yes.

Not necessarily like the totally the events that were like official or whatever. Yes. Right. And so I think it's been really cool to see how that has sort of shifted event nature, so to say, over the past like 2 or 3 years. Uh, like what are your thoughts on that? It seems like you agree, but like, is that exactly what you guys are kind of building?

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think on the, the decline of these like broader events. I think they worked when it was still like a cottage industry, and like, it's not a cottage industry anymore, right? Like, we have— to, to where this whole conversation started of like, you have academics who are creators, you have business people who are creators. Like, there's— it's just too big to kind of generalize, you know, this classification, right? As like, you're a creator, so we're gonna throw creator events. Like, it almost like when you try and be everything to everyone, you mean nothing to no one, right? It's like that classic thing. But to your point on, on, um, side events, I think that's just a byproduct of this, right? People are kind of opting into like forming these like side events and mini things where like that is the reason why they're gathering. And it's like it could almost be like a, you know, a mini, mini conference on the side of a conference, right? Um, Which is just, I think it just goes to show the need for, you know, people being a little bit more specific when it comes to, you know, these, these in-person events.

What are, what are your favorite events that you've gone to over the past like 6 or 12 months?

I mean, Open Sauce is amazing. It's like one of my favorite events. Um, I, uh, I actually do really still like VidSummit. I think it's like a lot smaller than VidCon. It's a little bit more focused. Um, I'm really excited. I, it's. It's coming up in September, but Colin and Samir are doing a published press event in New York, which I'm really looking forward to. And then honestly, one of our, one of our sourcing ideas as of late is like, I want to go to the weirdest niche conferences and like, the weirder the better. Like, take me to like commercial fishing emporia. Like, take me to like that. Conference. Like, I think those are underrated in terms of finding cults and fandom and creators and people who are like leading these movements. Um, so I'm pretty keen to like— actually, one of the— so I tasked one of the associates on our team with this, with this exact thing of like, go map out 50 niche conferences that we should consider going to, and like, they better not have anything to do with creators.

Ooh, a fun one that you might be able to add to your list— I forget the name of it, but there's like a a theme park one in Orlando. So I used to live in Orlando, that's why I know about it. Um, but it's like really interesting because like you have part theme park where you've literally— people will literally set up roller coasters inside the convention center and things like that, which is insane. But you've got all of these theme park companies that then are still vying for like defense contracts because, or like, Florida has a big defense industry too. So you've got this weird like dichotomy of defense as well as theme parks all in one spot. And I wonder if there's like an, a creator world in there in some way, shape, or form.

Probably.

Because the margins on that's gotta be crazy, right? There's probably a really interesting business to be built in that space.

Totally. I mean, if you told me you were like, I am the god of VIP theme, you know, getting the VIP experience at theme parks, theme parks, right? Like, people spend a lot of money doing the, the, you know, FastPass at Disney World or whatever. Like, 100%, like, I'm sure that exists. I'm sure it does.

That's cool. So I think I, I missed a part of it, but we were talking about like niche events, niche conferences are not creator economy related. Um, how do you go about finding these things?

It's a great question. I think you kind of have to start with, um, with a theme or a category and be like, you know, putting yourself in the shoes of someone who just like deeply wants to learn about theme parks or construction, right? And you kind of go through this exercise of, okay, like if I were trying to get up to speed on this category, like who are the people I need to follow and what are the events that are available and kind of, you know, big and important in the space. So it's a very hard exercise to go top down and be like, ChatGPT, give me a list of like 20 niche events. Like it'll be, it'll give you a fine answer, but not actually the one you want versus, okay, I wanna go learn about personal finance for the Hispanic community. Like I'm sure there's a conference and I'm sure there's like some interesting events happening. Um, so you almost have to go bottoms up. And so that's kind of how we've, how we've thought about it.

Okay. I wanna flip the, uh, the script a little bit. Yeah. I want to see where your mind is at as like a consumer. Of content.

Sure, right? Sure.

So like, what is something that you're— that is on your For You page that people probably wouldn't, wouldn't think about from like a personal, personal perspective? Strictly personal?

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so here's kind of a weird one. Um, I've been getting pretty deep into like UAP and UFO stuff.

Okay, explain.

There's just like a lot of like really interesting conspiracy theories. I mean, I like fully have my hat on and like we're just going to go with it. But I mean, there's some amazing conversations happening on YouTube and in Reddit and blah blah blah just around like disclosure and, um, aerial phenomenon and, and is this like a government psyop or not? And it just, it's like pretty interesting. And I have one of my friends has gotten me like— she's so funny— she's gotten me like so deep down the rabbit hole on this stuff and she like keeps sending me content. And so that's That's been one that's like a little embarrassing, but it's definitely on my For You page. But it has actually led me to, um, see some interesting creators in the space. So, uh, I recently met, um, she's so sweet, uh, Neil deGrasse Tyson's, uh, manager, who he's actually like a naysayer on all this stuff. He's like pretty hard-headed and like, I'm not, you know, this is all fake and blah blah. But then there are others that are like No, no, no, like he doesn't know what he's talking about. So there's a whole like internal turf wars. It's like just fascinating. Um, so that's one that was probably very surprising, but it's, it's big on my YouTube, my YouTube homepage.

That's hilarious. Like, are you watching like 2-hour-long talks about UAPs and UFOs and stuff like that?

Yeah, I try and like break it up, but, um, yeah. And then I got like my brother really into it and he recommended this book by Lou Elizondo. Um, so I like listen to that on Audible. Like, it's just, it's a whole web. And like, once you, once you go down the rabbit hole, you kind of can't stop.

So what's the, what's the one fact that would get someone down the rabbit hole? Like, if, if you were to tell me and Grace, what's the one random thing?

This is not really like— I mean, it kind of is a fact because there's a lot of research around it, but there's a really strong correlation between, uh, UFO sightings and nuclear sites. And so there's like some pretty interesting, like, you can kind of just like take, use, do with that what you will. Like, you know, or is this some like benevolent population that's trying to like prevent us from blowing ourselves up? Or is there, you know, we have some access to certain technology that like they don't want us to know? Like, so anyway, that's just, that's kind of an interesting one to, um, wet your whistle, if you will, on the whole, you know, UFO. UFO phenomenon.

So yeah, I gotta check out UFOs too. I've always wanted to visit space and see some aliens and stuff.

Yeah, be sick. Yeah.

I'm also really curious, like, since you've launched the Creator Fund— kind of changing topics a little bit, I know we have like 20 minutes— um, kind of like, um, since you've launched a Creator Fund, has anything surprised you? Or like, has anything like evolved over a couple of months, like the way you evaluate different creators?

I think— just nervous of surprise. I mean, I think one of the biggest surprises, maybe not over the past couple months, but maybe over the past year or so, um, has been how quickly the world of like serious business building and creators have converged. Where like, you know, put differently, 3 years ago, if you told an investor or a founder, you know, you'd probably be a podcast host too, or like you'd probably be creating content on YouTube. They'd be like, ooh, cringe. Like, that's just for like people making weird cat videos. And it's like, totally, like the lid is like off that, you know what I mean? Like the cat's out of the bag or whatever the saying is. Like, it is just all— back to our conversation of like, you know, everyone is sort of a creator. I think like the pace at which this has happened has completely exceeded my expectations. Um, and so that's, I think, probably been the biggest surprise.

Yeah, like, how everyone's going to be a creator like that random person in Nebraska writing articles about flowers. How we got—

it's like such a bad example, but that was like the first—

wait, I'm—

Nebraska.

Diving into more of like your discussion you had about like AI, So do you mean like AI giving the creator like royalties, um, whenever their work is cited? Or how does that, how does it enable creators to make more money?

Yeah, I mean, look, I think like the mechanism is still very much like to be determined. Um, but there's a lot of smart people thinking about like basically playing this technology forward. And the basic premise is, okay, a human kind of navigating the internet and, you know, traditional advertising is based on eyeballs, right? Like how many people are like seeing an article or seeing this ad or whatever. But that's all, all based on the premise of how much a human can, can kind of consume on the internet. When you flip it and you're like, okay, AIs are using the web, right? Like they can just consume so much more at scale. So it actually flips from this like advertising-based business model to an actual like performance-based business model, right? And like based on actually like how good is this content or like how useful is this thing to me or to my, or to my user, right? As if I'm an AI. And so I think that's the, that's kind of the unlock and you basically play it forward and you're like, okay, it feels like there's a new economic layer that is going to emerge to kind of power this. And the output of that is I mean, in a perfect world is that creators are actually compensated almost in like a micro way, right? Of like, as these things are referencing or using or sourcing their work, they can actually be compensated. And like, you know, hopefully there's like an efficient market that kind of like sits on top of this where their stuff can be like priced and they can actually get paid for doing that. Um, it's, you know, it is a very, very nascent idea. I just. I've just seen more people start to talk about it. Um, and so, and it's, you know, people way smarter than, smarter than me, but, um, but, uh, so anyway, I just, I'm kind of like, hmm, it just has my, my curiosity really piqued, especially as it relates to creators and, and them being compensated for the worth, for the great work that they do.

Have you ever heard of Troveo before? Is that similar to what you're kind of talking about, or is that something different?

Um, similar in spirit, but I think different in execution, where this would literally be like, okay, if Justin and Grace, like, you have your own AI agents or whatever, you know, based upon whatever, whatever platform you use, like, that AI can go can go do a bunch of like programmatic searches on your behalf. Um, and for some desired output or, or, or outcome. Right. And so I think, um, it's actually not like being paid for like training data. It's actually being paid for like outputs, like creators should be paid for like outputs of a search, right? That, that a, that a user might have. So it's, again, it's like kind of similar in spirit, but just like quite different in terms of like how it's actually being executed. I don't know if I'm making any sense at all to you, but it's clear in my brain how this would work. Um, and I, and I'm tracking the people that are, that are talking about it. Matthew Prince is one. Um, uh, so anyway, yeah, it's a very early, early concept, but I think it's, it has potential to be an important one.

What's Troveo? Is it T-R-O-V-E-O? Looking it up. Members-only platform that aligns curated matches and experiences.

Uh, it's T-R-O-V-E-O. So I'll, uh, I'll share my screen real quick. I, I just came across it, um, I wanna say like late last week or so. So I've just been looking into it. Uh, it seems kind of like Scale AI, but like for content creators, like content essentially.

Yeah, they're basically like, you know, asking creators to, to allow models to effectively like train on their data and then, and, and saying, okay, great. Like you'll get compensated for it. Um, so it's more of like an input to, to model training than it is creator, creator content as, uh, an output, right? For a, for a specific search. That can be programmatically compensated, um, as part of that search, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it does. I get hit up by companies who do this too every day on email.

Yeah, for me to see my videos. Ah, interesting. Yeah, look into that.

How do you imagine like the, the payment out? It's like whether like for a training, like is it like paid per specific video you do, or paid how many times your video is used to generate— it's like so hard to calculate because everything is a remix.

I have no idea. I have no clue. Like, this is what I mean. I think it's like, it's definitely the Wild West, um, and it's like, it's, it's pretty easy to conceptualize for written content, right? Where like, you know, someone is pulling an article that you wrote or a new— or a blog post or whatever that can be referenced, right? You know, and you do a ChatGPT search today, it actually will include the links of, of some of the source data, right? So like, you can imagine that for text, but for video, for example, maybe it's the AI was able to watch your video or watch multiple of your videos and you get paid programmatically because of that. And then it was used in an output for something, you know what I mean? I think, You know, that, that maybe is, but I don't actually know how it would be like facilitated. Um, again, those are, those are harder questions for people much smarter than me to answer.

Yeah. Fascinating. I might just join that and, and see what happens and report back on the numbers.

That's, I don't know if there's any comp, but by, but by the way, I don't know that it's like, I don't know that it's gonna be like a company like Troveo that's like, we're gonna do that, right? It's almost like, yeah, I think there, there's gonna have to be like, you know, almost like a new economy that sits on top of it. Yeah, but I'll keep you posted. I mean, if you're interested, I'll keep you posted as I like read more about it.

Yeah, I would love to. Yeah, I know you have to hop to a meeting soon, but I'm also curious, like, in your experience, like, talking with creators, being in the creator economy space, in the consumer space, what is like the biggest mistake you see creators make when it comes to like building a business or wanting to like raise venture for their business.

I cannot tell you how many creators I meet and I'm like, who is your superfan? And they have no idea. They're like, males aged like 18. I'm like, no, like, what is like— back to like, what is the psychographic of this person? Like, why do they love you? What is like the emotional motivation for spending time with you, for consuming your content, for following you on 3 different platforms, right? Like what, what are you saying that is speaking to them? And it's not all that hard of a question to go answer. I just think a lot of creators, for whatever reason, kind of struggle with it. Um, and so I think, you know, the best creators that we've seen, like, can articulate it and like know the answer so deeply. And you're like, okay, this is really interesting. Especially as it informs content you make and the businesses you may go build. Um, so that's like, that's like the one thing I always try and push creators on is like, go figure out the answer to that question. And then, then you can have a really robust conversation around, okay, like what opportunity set are you actually building against versus like, you know, females 13 and, and older, right? It's like, it, it's just, it's a lot richer of a conversation when you actually have a very real answer. Mm.

Gotcha. Okay. So cool. Um, I've got one last question, but before I ask it, uh, where can people find, it seems like you do a lot of writing. Where can people find your writing? Um, as well as maybe your LinkedIn to connect with you and maybe shoot over some creator ideas?

Yeah, please do. Um, my LinkedIn is just Megan Lightcap. I don't, I don't know if like the, thing, but you can just find me. I'm at Slow Ventures. My blog is called Slow Upload and it is on Beehive. So you should be able to Google— I'm like the worst content creator ever. You should be able to Google Slow Upload Beehive or Megan Lightcap or something and it should, it should show up. And then I'm also on Twitter @mmlightcap.

Perfect. Well, we'll get that call to action set for sure.

Amazing.

Amazing. So My last question is, what's a question that you wish that we asked you? That could be around creator economy, that could be around life, uh, whatever you want.

Hmm. I wish you asked me, 'cause I actually had prepped for it, what my, my current favorite creator brand is. You didn't ask that.

Oh yeah, I, I did mention that in the, in the chat. What is your, what are your current favorite creator brands?

So my brother, my younger brother actually turned me on to this one and he's built such an amazing business. It's this guy Bobby Parish of FlavCity and he makes like the best protein powders and like sleep supplements and he's like, his stuff is just great. He also has this app called, I don't know, like if you guys are like into like health and seed oils and all that stuff.

I love that stuff.

Okay, so you should, you should follow him. But he has this app called Bobby Approved and you basically— it's genius— you just like scan a food label and it's like Bobby approved, not Bobby approved. And it's so dead simple, and he's capturing like all this amazing information and data, but it's like a really good consumer experience. It's like super simple.

Is that the guy I caught? Like he goes to Costco and like, this is Bobby approved or whatever? Okay, I know who you're talking about. I know you're talking about—

yes, he's like forever been like one of my favorite creators.

He started popping off at the beginning and then And he did. It clearly seems like he's built something really big off of it.

Great business. Yeah, he was like a former like Wall Street guy too. It's cool. Oh, totally like outside of the creator world.

Yeah, cool. Well, I think that's all the questions that we had. Um, but Megan, until next time, appreciate you.

This was so much fun. Thank you guys. Yeah, thanks for being on. A great 90 minutes.

Yeah, appreciate y'all. Peace.

Bye.