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Creator Generation brings you behind the scenes of the creator economy, featuring top YouTubers and experts who share the strategies, lessons, and stories behind building successful channels, growing incredible businesses, and driving the world’s biggest online video successes.
Hey. I'm Fred.
Ant:And I'm Ant.
Fred:And this is Creator Generation. Creator Generation of hype.
Allison:We have nearly 200 creators on our platform who have made over $1,000,000 through YouScreen. Our average is about $77,000. You compare that to a YouTube creator who's making maybe a little under $5,000 on a medium basis. We are helping them
Ant:You've built the audience, but is it actually yours? Today, we sit down with Allison Yazdian, CEO of YouScreen, the platform that helps creators build recurring business revenue off platform.
Fred:She went from real estate to Creative Commerce and now builds the infrastructure that helps creators keep more of what they earn. Allison, welcome to Creator Generation.
Allison:Thank you for having me. How are you guys doing?
Ant:Good. Stoked to have you.
Allison:Stoked to be here.
Fred:Look. We'll jump straight into it. Look. You spent a career building growth for people working, inside systems they don't own. Right?
Fred:Started in real estate. What did real estate teach you about rented land and that most creators are still trying to figure out right now?
Allison:Yeah. Again, it's it's really fascinating because if you think about real estate agents who are so focused on sort of building their businesses every day, the best agents that I worked with were the ones who had built the direct relationship with their their contacts, with their customers. Now it's really easy to do that in real life. Right? Like, you sell someone a house, you run into them at the coffee shop, you build those relationships, and that's how they would start to build out these, really incredible businesses that they knew regardless of what brokerage they were at, that they always own that direct relationship with the audience.
Allison:And if if they couldn't, then that would be the end of their business. And so it's actually very relatable when you think about content creators because they don't have that direct relationship with their audience. They're using these these social platforms who are amazing because they overnight can build these global audiences. And it's like really remarkable to think about what that's enabled in generations of entrepreneurs, relationship. So if if the platform goes away, if they don't own any of the the contacts, they they they have to start over.
Allison:And it really taught me the importance of building that direct relationship, because at the end of the day, like, that's the business.
Ant:Yeah. We've been banging on about that a lot. Like, that's the that's the the the bit like you say, that's the business. Right? Like, owning that direct connection with the audience, that's the business.
Ant:And that's still something that needs to be driven home for creators when, like, they build and put so much time and effort into their content platforms. But when you look at a a creative business and they're building on other people's rented land, like, you know, let's use that that analogy. Like, what does it look like when a creator gets evicted? You know, air quotes there for those listening, but like, what does that actually look like?
Allison:I mean, it's it's terrifying for them. And, you know, I've been on the receiving end of phone calls from creators who said, sometimes it'll look like the algorithm shifted to their reach has just diminished overnight pretty significantly. Sometimes their sites being, their channels being demonetized, sometimes there's larger policy changes that impact them. But what they realize is that they've built this great business, so to speak, on rented land that's dependent on an algorithm, and so there's a lot of panic that happens. And so like the question every creator has to ask themselves is, if your primary platform were to go away tomorrow, what would you do?
Allison:Because right now, most content creators, their businesses are dependent on the algorithm, that's how they get brand deals, that's how they get AdSense, that's where if they're doing affiliate or any of their other revenue streams are super dependent on the algorithm. And so the advice is, you of course wanna start there, that's how you build the audience, but you have to very quickly sort of wrap your arms around and have that ownership of the audience so that you are not dependent on the algorithm.
Ant:And then previously to, you know, being the head honcho at uScreen, you're at LTK. Right? And that huge. And but most of those creators are I I'd I'd say it's fair to say most of those creators are Instagram creators, TikTokers. Right?
Ant:Like, that's what's, like, the inherent risk that you saw there for those creators just building, like, singular platforms, particularly, I would you know, short form content platforms as well?
Allison:I mean, the risk is that they they they aren't the ones to to call the shots. Right? Like, they aren't the ones to determine when they would be showing up, what the rev share would look like, and how they'd be able to, again, directly reach the audiences that they'd worked so hard to build. So the advice we would always give to them is you have to have your own destination. You have to have direct access to your audience that there is no one standing in between the two of you.
Allison:And we can talk a little bit about this because that really comes down to like direct contact information, email addresses, and you need to be able to sort of build the business that is separate from the algo, right? Like you need to build a business that's not dependent on if your post gets the reach that it's looking for.
Ant:Yeah, and I think it's probably good to point out that this isn't like we're not cheating on algorithms and algorithmic con like, driven con like, content platforms. Like, I think that's but it's it's not it's a symbiosis, I think. Right? And I think that's an important fact. Right?
Ant:Like, without these amazing content platforms like YouTube and TikTok and Instagram without the algorithms, most people would not find their audience. Right? So I think that's, you know
Allison:I I mean, I would even say, like, a lot of our customers at YouScreen, they actually increase the amount they're posting to the social platforms once they go live with us, right? And so you to see it for what it is, which is your top of funnel, it's a way to get in front of new audiences and your existing ones, it's just when you think about building a sustainable business, you wanna think about building revenue streams that are not dependent on those platforms. But when that is the that is the beauty of Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. It's allowing people to to launch businesses fairly effortlessly that they can parlay into something more sustainable.
Fred:Yeah. Is there a, like, a clear signal that a creator's revenue is more fragile than they think?
Allison:When there's a direct correlation to how much like, how many views, impressions reach that they're getting. Right? So if if basically every single piece of revenue is dependent on someone on a social platform, seeing the content, taking the action and following through, that increases the fragility because of everything that we've discussed before, where you're very much dependent on what the algorithm does for you. And so that is why like a lot of times, content creators, they'll get to a point where they recognize that they have to build out the revenue streams that are not gonna be dependent and find other forms of distribution to be able to do that. And that's through merch, that's through memberships, that's through a lot of different avenues that's basically going to help them kind of have a smoother, less spiky revenue stream that feels less fragile.
Fred:Can I just just dive in a little bit more into the the uScreen value prop specifically? Based on what you just said, how does that align with, like, what you what you're doing at uScreen?
Allison:Yeah. So we essentially work with content creators across a lot of different verticals, typically long form, who have a lot of phenomenal video content, and they've built these incredible communities typically across social platforms who are ready to have their own sort of white label branded experience for their most engaged community members. And so what that looks like is we can launch mobile apps, TV apps that sort of have this like rich Netflix like viewing experience of their content, that includes livestream, and any other sort of video content, audio content that you can think of, as well as a community feature as well. And our whole mission is to really help these creators build out a subscription membership business. We know they've developed the audience, so we've helped them think through how to get their audience from wherever that audience is sitting today, maybe on a social platform, maybe it's in an email list, and really turn that into an engaged audience who is willing to pay for sort of this elevated fan experience within their own sort of walled garden, if you will.
Fred:And and this is a a tricky one because we often find this to be an issue with a lot of creators is sometimes to explain that value is quite hard to get them to understand the value of that. So do you feel that a lot of creators don't quite understand how much value that how much value that's creating for their audience when they're able to do that?
Allison:You know, I think there are probably a lot of, like, quick gut reactions of, oh, that feels really hard or my audience is gonna feel like I'm taking something away. And so we've seen memberships launch that maybe don't go as well and, like, not just on the uScreen platform, like, just across any platform. And it's because at the end of the day, like the offer, the value prop to the fans was not there. So if your fans feel like you are taking away from what is free, right? Or if you are creating sort of like a barrier for them to engage, I think there is a lot of friction.
Allison:What we've seen work is that the the super fans, right, like the most engaged audiences who want behind the scenes, who want early access, who really wanna engage directly with the creator because of our community features, who wanna participate in Zooms and livestreams that we facilitate, they are willing to pay. They they do wanna access the content. They do wanna have, that community feel. And what we oftentimes explain to our newest customers is that it doesn't take that many paying members to turn this into a sustainable business. As a point of reference, we have nearly 200 creators on our platform who have made over $1,000,000 through YouScreen.
Allison:Our average is about $77,000 You compare that to a YouTube creator who's making maybe a little under $5,000 on a medium basis. We are helping them get, again, it could just be like your top 500 fans, but if you get them to each pay you $20 a month, that starts to really turn into like a nice revenue stream, right? That's $10,000 a month, annualizes $120,000 in gross revenue. And so our whole approach is, is if you are a content creator and you have great content and you really have that engaged fan base and there's more that you wanna share, this is your opportunity to create that, like, really special ecosystem for them to participate in.
Fred:Right. You said the average is 77,000. Interesting.
Ant:Is there a correlation between audience size and membership size and success?
Allison:I mean, you have to have like critical mass to be able to, you know, again, like, we'll run the numbers with with potential customers and say, okay, what could it look like if you get your top one, two or 3%? So yes, if you only have a few thousand subscribers or followers, there may be a way for you to wade into membership or maybe it's like a one time purchase, like maybe it's one video behind the paywall. What we are finding though, yes, just you wanna have a bigger funnel, like more people coming in with your follower base, but it's actually more about like the level of like engagement that you have from them, Are people watching full videos? Are you getting a lot of comments? Are you getting a lot of DMs?
Allison:That is actually the better predictor of it. And have you been able to sell them other things off platform? Beyond AdSense, have they bought a course from you? Are they subscribing to your newsletter? Whatever it might be, that is how we can start to predict who will be willing to come over and basically pay for access.
Allison:And one of the things I'm most proud of with the uScreen team is we really help our customers think through that strategy, like how do you actually start from zero? I mean, lot of our customers will migrate from other platforms, but a lot of them will be like, I'm just getting started, I have this massive following, I have all this content, like, what do I do? And we'll actually help them think through every step of the way. How do you price? Because we've done this with thousands of customers.
Allison:We have benchmarking data based on the vertical that they're in. How do you launch? What's the content offering? What's the content strategy? Like we really help them think through these nuances, so that again, when they do go to market, their fans are like, this sounds really exciting and compelling and yes, I'm going to want to engage.
Allison:And then once they start to build up their audience, we think about engagement, we think about retention so that it really feels like a sustainable business for them.
Ant:Yeah. That's awesome. I think there's two threads I wanna unpack and what like, let's start with this one. One is, like, it's like the Creator ick of calling it now is, like, most creators find it quite hard or icky to transact directly with their audience. Right?
Ant:So how do you how do you overcome that? How how how have you seen creators overcome that?
Allison:I mean, I I think it depends on the creators. I mean, we talked to a lot of creators who've sort of gotten past the And again, I think you have to, like, figure out the business model that makes the most sense for you. Right? And like memberships is not for everyone. Right?
Allison:Just like merch is not for everyone. Right? Like as a creator, you have to think about like what is what is my audience gonna care the most about and how do I start to like build that value prop that's gonna want them to buy it? And again, there's like ways to like test into it. So one of my favorite strategies that we see creators deploy is like this notion of like building in public.
Allison:Hey, guys. I love what I'm doing. This is me sort of like acting as if I'm a content creator. Maybe I need to use a different voice. Don't know.
Allison:Could you not tell but, you know, I I I love the content that I'm building. I wanna do more this. I wanna quit my full time job. Whatever it is, pull the audience in and say, what would be compelling to you? You can deploy surveys, you start to show them what you're building, what goes into it, you start to build wait lists, what have you, and then by the time you launch, you've already built a ton of excitement and engagement around whatever that thing is.
Allison:If it's a theatrical release of a movie, if it's a membership, if it's your new coffee shop, whatever it might be. I think that's a way to get a to, like, move past the ick versus maybe doing something, like, inauthentic, which is, like, just where it feels, like, super transactional and but you're, like, not just sort of calling out, like, yes, this is what I do for a living. I'm trying to make a living off of it.
Fred:Yeah. And do think that burns creators who do it the wrong way? They're like, oh, I've gotta get past the ick, and then they do something which is overtly incorrect or too too too far on the other end. And they're like, oh, it didn't work, so it'll never work.
Allison:I I mean, I think that's absolutely a risk. And I think it's with anything commercial. Right? Like, you see it with creators who go a little too far with brand deals. Right?
Allison:Where it's like, you don't have any pets and you're, like, selling me dog food. Right? Like and and, like, that's okay. Again, like, we're all trying to, like, make money out here. It's fine.
Allison:But, like and they feel so cringey. Like, I feel icky saying, like, just be authentic. But it is a little bit like you have to, like I think the creators who get to the point where they can start to really monetize the content they've built, the audiences they've built, they've done it because they actually know their customer. They know who these people are, what type of content they should be building for them. And so you kinda have to put yourself in those shoes.
Allison:This is true customer empathy and be like, what are they gonna wanna hear from me on? What would I think is icky as a creator? How would I position this? And you have to stay true to that. And if you ever feel like you're losing sight of that, then go talk to your customers.
Allison:Survey them, even invite them to do small workshops. First of all, they will love it and you're gonna hear it directly from them. And they will tell you exactly what they want from you and what they're willing to pay for.
Ant:Banging advice. The other thread I wanna pull in is, like, you mentioned it, the offer of, like and and getting that right and and pricing something. Like, what's the biggest mistake you see in in putting together the membership?
Allison:I think it's it's not having something compelling that's going to bring the audience back, right? We've seen, there've been examples of people who've said, okay, I'm launching this membership, I've got all this content and folks will maybe go and sign up, like they priced it correctly, etcetera, but there's not a hook that's going to bring them back. And so what's gonna happen is you're just gonna start to have some of that churn. And so that is where we work really closely with the creator to think about what is the content strategy that's gonna bring folks back. So I think that is one mistake.
Allison:I also think pricing too low is is a mistake where the creator will be like, well, if I price low, then everyone's gonna sign up. And then, like, I'm gonna have this big business because it's the law of, like, large numbers. But what we've actually seen is if you increase the price, you actually bring in, the right audience that will have, like, much better retention. Because with membership recurring, retention is the name of the game. It's very hard to acquire someone, but you have to keep them.
Allison:Otherwise, you just have this leaky bucket that you're constantly trying to refill. And frankly, the people who sign up in the earliest days, they're probably the most excited and engaged, so you have to figure out how to keep them there. So if you price too low, maybe they'll stay a few extra months, but you're not gonna get the engagements. You really have to think about how to price correctly and also to properly onboard those customers. And what I mean by that is like, are you sending them email sequences?
Allison:Are there welcome videos in the app? Are you doing the things that's gonna get them engaged? Because we've done a ton of studies. We know if someone watches three videos in their first seven to ten days that their lifetime value extends significantly, then you're gonna keep them for longer.
Fred:Wanna ask about value creation because, you know, a lot of creators who talk to us about memberships on any platform think, oh, you know, I wanna offer the audience a, b, or c, and it feels fairly, you know, surface level. Whereas the audience that connect to them typically on a deeper level due to the value they create in their content, and often what they offer them in a membership or a product or a service doesn't match that value. Do you have a method or way that a creator can help understand or extract value so they understand what the best option is to offer the audience?
Allison:So here's what it comes down to. And this is one of the things that I, like, love about, like, all of the channels that we support, the thousands of channels. Every single one of our customers has built an engaged community and content that, like, adds value to the lives of their end users. Right? Like, they're either teaching them something, making them healthier, or entertaining them, which, you know, creates a lot of value and bringing together this community that's very much like minded.
Allison:So when we start working with a content creator who's starting to think through what their content strategy should look like, what their value prop should look like, we sort of say to them, what is going to be most valuable to your customer? Is it direct access to you? Okay, there's a few different ways that that can manifest. First of all, if the community is more of, is behind like the paywall, you actually start to see the community members who are really like minded start to engage with each and they're putting their own posts in, which creates a life of its own, but then they love that they have direct access to you and they can DM you within it, or they can sort of communicate with you in it. That's one thing.
Allison:Another thing is live streams, like true, like, direct access where it's maybe a one way where the creator may do an AMA or they may do, like, a weekly session for, a certain subscription level where people feel like they have that access. We have content creators who will do two way Zooms, where they'll say at my highest VIP level, and this is like celebrities, you can come and sit on a Zoom and I'll lead a session with a small group of 10 or 15 of you, and you can have direct access to me. Now, the super fans are like so impressed, they look up to this person, they're inspired by them, this person is inspirational, and so they're absolutely willing to pay for that. And that's just on like the community and the livestream side, and then you think about on the content side, there's a lot of content that maybe these creators don't wanna put out there publicly, for whatever reason. Maybe the, you know, it might get demonetized because of the nature of the content.
Allison:Maybe it's a point of vulnerability they don't wanna share, or maybe they just don't think it's gonna help them like boost their channel, but it is content that they know that their super engaged fans are gonna wanna have access to. And so they start to think about how they can sort of build and package it all together in an app, mobile or TV, that's going to really bring that customer in. And then once they do that, then they'll start to see the recurring revenue come.
Fred:Do you have any examples of someone who's done it really well?
Allison:So many. So one example that we actually recently launched is Caleb Hammer, who has the the financial audit. Essentially, he has been tremendous in just building this incredible following on YouTube. His content, he has multiple shows at this point, is informative, it's educational, it's also quite funny to watch, there's a little bit of people leaning in just being to be voyeuristic and learning more. He went all the way up the ladder to YouTube memberships, right, and had a very successful Hammer Elite YouTube membership, where people could have access to certain levels of content.
Allison:They decided that they actually wanted to have an even higher level, their owned platform, they wanted to own that relationship with the audience, they wanted the data, where we built for them these apps, where their audience could basically have an elevated viewing experience, while also starting to build that direct relationship with the audience. And so they are an example of like they had built the content strategy, they wanted to elevate it. Another one is Abundance Plus, this is homesteading, right? Built a huge YouTube following, and then they made the decision that they wanted to be able to, like some of the content that they wouldn't put on YouTube, they wanted to again create the community, create the streaming experience, and so they built their own apps to be able to do it. We've seen it for kids content, right?
Allison:Prodigies is a great example, it's basically music lessons. They knew that parents would rather have their kids sit with an iPad with the Prodigies app versus being on YouTube and seeing where the algorithm takes them. So their value prop was no ads, no algo, right? More kind of curated experience for your children. And so those are just like three very different examples of the types of customers who are like, we'd rather have our own experience and our own value proposition to be able to do that.
Allison:And I have plenty more if you want me to keep going through them.
Fred:No. But it sounds like those experiences are based around that connection, which is so strong. And I think it is it fair to say in a probably a a world that's driven so much by AI now that people are putting that higher emphasis on those experiences?
Allison:100%. I think my sense is that the consumer is is is exhausted to an to a point of everything that is just being fed to them, and you're seeing this reversion back to curation or to almost like narrowing the options where they really feel like they are in more control. And so I think that it's a tailwind for our business because more and more content creators are recognizing, I just want it to be my own experience, my own content, because I've built that trust with that audience. They know the content that I put up is gonna sort of fall under their their own taste and judgment, and it's just gonna be that better connection, better relationship.
Ant:What about memberships that on the surface they look like it should hit, but it doesn't. Like, are there any examples of that? And you probably don't wanna name check anyone, but, like, it's got all the ingredients. And then in hindsight, it's like, oh, damn.
Allison:I mean, I think the I I mean, there's definitely some that that come up. I think, ultimately, I think, you know, launching a membership, like there's you have to put effort into this. It's not a set it and forget it. It is recurring, which is really nice, but you have to continue to to mind it. And what I mean is is that a content creator will launch a membership, maybe they will fill the catalog with really great content, but then they actually, and they think if they announce it once on their socials, they're gonna get every single eligible person to go ahead and sign up.
Allison:What happens is, is like they don't because whoever, they may not see it again, you're dependent on the algorithm and they may not participate. For us, the guidance we always give to our customers, and we've actually built a lot of this into the platform is you have to set up your own funnels, like we've built our own CRM, email broadcast automations, you have to set up nurture campaigns, you have to set up funnels, you have to think about churn prevention, so that you constantly are building that direct relationship and bringing people in. People don't always buy the first time, right? They may have to hear from you a few times, maybe there's a special offer that you're putting in front of them, or maybe they're waiting for a piece of content that's gonna be most compelling. And so, I think the mistake people make is they come in, they're really excited, they have a big vision, but if it maybe doesn't like hit in the first time, they like get a little discouraged and they're like, like maybe this isn't for me.
Allison:But how many of those same content creators did their first video go viral? Like the whole thing is you have to be consistent. And so that's why we've built a lot of resources around coaching. Truly, have coaches who will sit and not only motivate our customers, but also be like, okay, let's go turn this automation on, or you should do a post talking about your new content that's going live and reminding people that they can download the app and engage. Because if you actually spend the time to build it, again, like it doesn't take that many paying members like four, five hundred, a thousand for this to really feel like a nice solid revenue stream.
Fred:I just wanna touch on what you just said and how important that is because I've seen some data from other membership based platforms, but it was fairly consistent where the success for having membership really only came after a bit of more of a longer tail, like six months out of consistent approach so that people became aware because because the creators think, oh, I've mentioned it, so people should be aware of it, but they're not. Right? It took that recurring, oh, it's here. It's here. It's here.
Fred:And eventually, something clicks in the person's mind. They're like, oh, you have membership, and it's like six months down the track. And then they said after that six month tail, they started to see really good pickup, and it became such a valuable source of of revenue for them.
Allison:That's exactly right.
Fred:Yeah. So it's something you do have to consistently stick with. Otherwise, it it, you know, it it and it and it requires sometimes work without seeing massive results at the front end.
Allison:That's right. And I think and, you know, I think part of it, just like when you're putting a video on YouTube, there's like a little bit of experimentation that goes on. You have to think about campaigns. We're about to, it's August, but it's gonna be holidays before we know it. Like this is when our customers do really well.
Allison:Like when you think about Cyber Week, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, we really help our creators build those campaigns because if they actually start to build up their membership then, think about it, they are setting themselves up to eat for the next year and beyond. And so it is being really thoughtful around the go to market, the experimentation. And the experimentation could be in the hook. Right? But like how are you getting people to to engage with the content and decide to download that app and subscribe?
Ant:I love that experimentation angle. It's so important for creators once they get established on a content platform. The experimentation is is not as often. Right? And it's not as or it's not as scary.
Ant:And then coming into a membership where it's not just the offer of the membership, but how you actually package and promote and run an ongoing campaign essentially. And that's new and different types of content and a different feeling. Like, I love that it's like, yeah, it's an ex you have to experiment again in the wild with something totally new, and that's something that, like, is incredibly important for creators to hang on to and then lean into because it's gonna it's gonna feel uncomfortable. So it's really, really great to hear that.
Fred:Allison, quickly, something else you mentioned, you've mentioned a couple of times is that you keep you keep saying, if we spot this, we help the creator or the creator has assistance from us to do this. Can you explain how do you offer assistance directly to creators in doing that rather than them just self serving?
Allison:So the way we built the platform, it's completely there is like a self you can use it yourself. So you talk about self serve, like you can log in, you can set up automations, you set the prices, etcetera. What we have found is a lot of our creators have really benefited from having an expert from YouScreen really sit with them and help them understand what they can be doing to make the most of their membership. And so we have a team of coaches, where their entire job is just to sit with our customers. Sometimes we'll do one to one, sometimes we'll do group coaching, we actually have on demand videos through our own membership site that all of our customers have access to, where we'll have them audit their site.
Allison:We'll have them and like this is also in the age of AI, like where we've built out skills, we actually just launched an MCP. I don't know if you are familiar with MCPs are, but you can connect your ChatGPT or your Claude into your Uscreen account and start to ask it questions and it'll come back with not only analysis, but it'll actually do work for you, which is like absolutely wild to save them time. But my point is, is like we really will help the customers not only just like understand how to use YouScreen, but to like really think thoughtfully and strategically about how to make this business like successful because it's not necessarily that intuitive, right? If you've never done this before, but we've seen, thousands of customers take a pass at this. And so one of our coaches can come in and very quickly diagnose using all of the benchmark data that we have, where the opportunities are for them to be able to actually improve the recurring revenue.
Allison:And so if they have a retention issue, we'll diagnose it, help them address it. If it's acquisition, whatever it might be, we help them think through how to boost the business.
Fred:And you know why I particularly like that is is you pointed it out is that so many people look at creators and say, oh, wow. They should be earning a lot more, but they're not. You know, you got brand deals. You got membership. You got products.
Fred:But as you pointed out, so much of it is not intuitive to a creator. It's not in their skill set, and they have no idea. And you're like, hey. You should be getting out you should be doing this for a brand deal. You should be doing be more professional here.
Fred:And they're like, but that's not who I am. I just don't know what I don't know kind of thing.
Allison:That's right. And and frankly, one of my favorite parts about the creator economy is I I feel like as an industry, like, everyone is, like, super supportive of the creator. Like if you think about like in real estate as an example, the real estate agents, they would have to go and they would pay for a coach, or maybe there was like the manager at the brokerage who would like help them and maybe they would help each other like there was a community feel. But frankly, I feel like in the Creator Economy, it's the most giving industry I've experienced. And I've been in a few different industries where everyone is trying to help each other.
Allison:It's like this notion of like rising tide. And so I think for us, like community is really important where like we wanna help these creators, like that is our mission. It's like, how do we actually help you turn this into an actual business versus something where, like, every day you're like, where's my next paycheck gonna come from? Because you're afraid, like, the the floor will come out from under you.
Ant:That's where we're at now. Right? The creator economy is is shaped into this. We're finally starting to realize the opportunity, like, that creators can build businesses. And with that and we've talked about it for a long time, but now that opportunity is actually possible more so than ever before.
Ant:But with that comes, like, scaling teams or or scaling output. Flip this either way, but maybe we'll go the what's the we'll go two ways. What's the biggest mistake you're seeing at the moment for creators in scaling and scaling their businesses?
Allison:I think it's a little bit of a Goldilocks problem. They either go too fast or too slow. And so what too slow is is that they are doing well, generating a lot of revenue, but doing every single thing themselves to the point where like they can't get back to every brand deal in their inbox, to do list is so long, and they're actually like not even able to spend enough time on like what they're like superpower, craft is, is content creation because they're dealing with so much of the admin, then it's like, okay, I need to actually figure out like how to bring in help. And help looks different for everyone, right? Like it could be a VA, it could be management, it could be a fractional like full time team, if not a fractional team member part time who could help you like sort of start to manage things where you start to think about what are the things that I could be delegating off that like others could do versus like what are the things that I need to focus on which is my superpower.
Allison:The other side of it is you move too fast, you start hiring a ton of people, you bring a lot of people in and you haven't built the systems, the culture, or even potentially like the revenue to support it and then you actually feel really fraught because you're like, I have all these people dependent on me and I don't actually have that like recurring revenue to do it. And so I think you have to sort of like start to create like miles, you have to build a business plan, like the milestones for yourself. And I think in early days of any business that you're starting, you have to create optionality where you can sort of like lever up or down how much help you're getting from someone to then start to say, okay, at this milestone, and it could be, I have three months of hitting this revenue number. Okay, now I feel like I can bring this like person on full time. And then once I hit this other milestone, I'll bring this other person in full time.
Allison:Because we're in a place with Creator where first of all, everyone wants to get into this, but the people who are in it, they're very giving flexible. And so there's a lot of like ways to be able to start to get access to the help you need without having to feel like you're paying someone like a full time paycheck every day.
Ant:The flip side then, you're getting close access to some of the most successful creators because they're leveling up to, like, building these owned audiences. Is there a common thread then that you're seeing where that that where they are in between that Goldilocks, like, the they are in the Goldilocks spot. They're eating the perfect temperature porridge. Right? Like, is there a common thread?
Allison:I think the the common thread is that they're being really intentional in, like, building out what what the strategy is, and they're staying true to their audience and staying true to their niche, right? So they're really, really like being thoughtful about the business that they're building. And oftentimes, like when they bring in like their first few folks to help, it's someone that they truly trust out the gates. And so like, we actually have our own network of people that can help our customers out. Like, so at least there's a little bit of credibility there, But that is why sometimes they're bringing in like maybe some a family member, like we see that actually quite often, not to say you have to hire your family, but like, if you're just starting out, like, who are people that you implicitly trust that you feel like you can, like, collaborate with to help you take it to the next level?
Fred:Now, Allison, we are actually running out of time, but I I guess I wanted if there's one sort of question I wanted to ask is we've talked about the mistakes, you know, creators are making in terms of scale. And we talked about some of the success aspects around membership, but are there really common mistakes they're making from a membership point of view that you see in terms of, like, they should be addressing this sooner?
Allison:I mean, I I I think it comes back to to having something in the membership that really feels like a value add and really feels like every time someone steps into the membership, they there's something for them to look forward to or something new for them to be able to access. If they step in and it feels stale, so the community isn't super engaging, the content really hasn't been mixed up, they're gonna say this feels like the same thing, this isn't as compelling versus you're sort of really keeping it engaging and entertaining within the membership and that's why I love live streams because I feel like when you talk about the world of AI, this feels super authentic, true and it's also like a really great way to start to create more content that the customer really wants and that's why we have like live streaming capabilities from within.
Ant:I got one more. I I I really wanna ask in the Allison crystal ball of creator the creator economy and creator founded businesses, where do you think it's all heading?
Allison:I mean, from my perspective, it's and I think it's already happened. It's just creators are everywhere. Right? And, like, I feel like a few years ago, it felt super niche, like brands and companies were like, yeah, we'll have like a little bit of like a social media budget or a creator budget to now like, if a company doesn't have a creator strategy, and that isn't just like collabs, that isn't just affiliate, that isn't just I'm gonna put some videos on YouTube, but it's like a holistic strategy, that company is going to fall behind. And so I think this is going to start to manifest in a lot of different ways where at the end of the day, like every single person becomes a content creator, right?
Allison:And you've seen like, Andreessen Horowitz, like they're looking for founders, like they're starting to look at their follower accounts, right? Like they act because they're realizing like that is the greatest form of distribution. And that's where what Hollywood is waking up to, right? Like they're realizing, wait, if the eyeballs are all with these creators, then we actually need to start to develop a creator strategy. And so I think that it's just going to continue to move in that direction.
Allison:I think the creators who are really going to emerge and continue to be super successful, maybe like maybe like a step below, like the macro, you know, the Mr. Beast of the world are the ones who really start to understand like what true community engagement looks like. And this is beyond like, I'm gonna respond to comments, like this is really thinking about how to create like meaningful experiences, both digital and physical with their audience so that it really starts to transcend what's happening on screens.
Fred:Amazing. Allison, thanks for joining us today.
Allison:Thanks for having me. This is great.
Fred:Creator Generation, look on the mic.