We Just Finished the Largest Study of Creators Ever Done. What We Found Surprised Us.

In the past few years, startups like Substack, Patreon, and Shopify have created alternative ways for creators to build businesses online through direct transactions, rather than advertising. This shift exposed a simple fact: in an ad-driven world, creators were generally under-monetizing their audiences.

• The long tail of the internet has provided a way for sovereign creators
  
  and businesses to ‘
  
  niche at scale
  
  ‘ in ways not possible at any other time in history, fostering unparalleled creativity and innovation;


• The quality of an audience matters;


• Being tiny is mighty;


• Delighting the weird is a superpower;


• When you build a business, you’re building a new

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Gina told me she was excited to see evidence of a shift in how creators build businesses they have more control over. These are “independent” creators—folks building their own platforms and communities. According to Gina, the research shows that there are 4 characteristics of this new way forward:1) Independent creators own their data rather than r... See more