In 2021 alone, over 50 million people now hold themselves out as “creators”, ranging from gamers to beauty influencers, demonstrating interest in building a career educating and inspiring.
From the very beginning stages of when Vine first emerged to Instagram and TikTok, which now serve as the industry’s main content monetization platforms, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a giant content consumption surge, where tech companies are now scrambling to engage and onboard users with large followings to help them expand their business’ marketing portfolio.
In 2020, Reddit and TikTok saw user growth explode despite the ongoing pandemic, with 14.4% and 18.3%, respectively.
Inevitably, a new “crop of startups” has emerged to service the various communities these content creators cater to.
Thankfully, the growth of content creators on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, OnlyFans, and those technologies that will eventually exist in our future stream of commerce, has helped bridge the gap between education and consumer finance.
Right now, we are seeing more millennials and Gen-Z’ers immerse themselves in the world of finance and investment.
Podcast Subscription Services
In April, Spotify launched its native podcast subscription service, giving creators more range in how they choose to make money. This move came just one week after its streaming rival, Apple, announced its own subscription-based podcast service.
Spotify’s new subscription service is powered through Anchor, its creator platform, allowing podcasters to mark episodes as “subscriber-only” and put them on Spotify and other platforms, according to the company.
Unlike Apple, Spotify intends to take a different approach in onboarding more creators to the platform in its first year of operation. In an interview with CNBC, Spotify said that it would not be taking a subscription revenue cut for the next two years, giving creators 100% of their subscriber revenues, excluding payment transaction fees. Apple, however, will take a 30% cut the first year and will then drop the fee to 15% in its second year.
ROCKI
The means by which streaming services like Spotify and Apple have behaved towards many of their indie artists has also led to an interesting expansion in the world of blockchain and NFTs, with platforms like ROCKI emerging, which aim to protect indie artists from the greed and creative restrictions these platforms have so aggressively profited off of.
“But as one artist after another found out, their annual income from these streaming services was in the very, very low three-figures,” ROCKI’s founder Bjorn Niclas told me. In a PitchFork report, one artist reported receiving just enough to barely cover just one month’s rent living in New York City.
Niclas, a music industry veteran and Swedish producer, launched ROCKI as the industry’s first hybrid user-centric blockchain music streaming platform aimed at indie artists and their fans, with an NFT ecosystem built into it, which has been completely unaffected by the speculative NFT community.
With over 500 artists on the platform, ROCKI recently partnered with Binance Smart Chain, where musicians can now issue and mint NFT’s on the platform, with little to no crypto experience needed.
OnlyFans
Earlier this week, OnlyFans surprisingly announced that it would be reversing its ban on “on-platform pornography,” after the company pointed to pressure it received from its banking partners. Last week, OnlyFans announced its plans to prohibit porn beginning October 1, but reversed that on Wednesday, telling CNBC that the proposed changes were no longer required “due to banking partners’ assurances that OnlyFans can support all genres of creators.”
Launched in 2016, OnlyFans has become a social media powerhouse that has provided shelter for the adult entertainment and sex workers industry - with more than 130 million users. For a startup, OnlyFans has metrics that most could only dream of, with 2 million content creators and a reported $150 million in free cash flow as of 2020.
With the growing number of creators and startups utilizing the platform, OnlyFans has attempted to rebrand itself as a platform for all types of creators, claiming its platform is used by everyone from chefs to musicians. Even celebrities like Cardi B and Bella Thorne have recently come aboard.
Uniswap
Back in July, Uniswap, Ethereum’s largest decentralized exchange (DeX) by volume, expressed its interest in expanding into consumer finance. In efforts to bring “an open, 100% uptime liquidity to the whole world,” the company has started conversations with PayPal, E*Trade, Stripe, Robinhood, and more, according to CoinDesk.
The value of these potential partnerships could allow DeFi protocols to mesh into existing fintech offerings, allowing for 24/7 connectivity and accessibility to financial assets - something that has kept our global economies disconnected.
Kevin O’Leary and WonderFi
Take Kevin O’Leary’s recent WonderFi investment, for example. Last week, I spoke with the Shark Tank investor and CEO of O’Leary Holdings about WonderFi, a new DeFi project that will provide novice users a simple way to buy crypto, earn interest, and track performance, while maintaining full control and custody of their assets.
O’Leary comes on board WonderFi alongside entrepreneur and TikTok star Josh Richards, and WonderFi CEO Ben Samaroo.
Beyond discussions of why institutional capital should be playing a major role in sustainability, comes the idea of bringing together two generations, O’Leary and Richards, who both are very well-versed in the realms of finance and content creation to help educate consumers on their digital assets.
“I told my son that this was an opportunity to democratize investing, making it less expensive and totally transparent, so that people can use crypto and get interest off their holdings and income,” O’Leary explained to me. “Just get yourself exposed to it; you don’t have to go all in, but just educate yourself, because the barrier to entry is very, very low.”
The Rise of On-Air TV
Our media landscape is changing at a pace that many in our current landscape are having trouble keeping up with. Traditionally, online and print media has been the go-to and objective for public relations firms and companies looking to be recognized for their expertise.
However, the content creator economy has sparked a new way to be seen and heard with far more value than can ever be achieved through traditional print media. The realm of on-air television and national/international exposure is of no comparison to the decades worth of print magazines and a plethora of online news mediums that seem to pop up by the week.
“This new frontier of digital, decentralized finance can be a labyrinth for new investors,” says on-air sports analyst Eric Mitchell, who is also the founder at LifeFlip Media. Mitchell has spent years perfecting the process of teaching companies why they should stop watching their competition on TV, and instead, start being on TV themselves.
“Do you ever wonder why it can be difficult to get your story in the media when you pitch it? It’s because you have to think like a producer,” Mitchell told me. “There is a major disconnect between how I want to talk about my story versus how they want to receive it.”
In the month of July, LifeFlip had over 85 bookings with major networks like BBC World News, Cheddar, Bloomberg, Ticker News, News Nation Now, BNC, NBC LX, among countless others, working with both industry veterans and rising entrepreneur, giving them a new stage to be seen and heard where you can’t simply scroll past and ignore what’s in front of you.
Content Creator and Author Louis Vesovski
In another conversation with Canadian investor and content creator, Louis Vesovski, helping millennials understand fundamentals behind stock trading became a major focus for his upcoming book, “Investing Secrets,” which details Vesovski’s own experiences of learning about investment and identifying key points to keep in mind while dipping your toes into the water.
“There is a lot of new terminology and aspects you will encounter today,” Vesovski told me, “which many of us are not familiar with. If you don’t understand any of it, you will not know what you’re doing and you take a risk similar to gambling at a casino.”
When Vesovski first started investing at 18 years old to add an additional revenue stream, he looked to major content platforms like YouTube to see what others his age were doing. This, according to Vesovski, is what has sparked the “meme stock” revolution, where social media helps drive attention and curiosity into trading, which we’ve witnessed with GameStop.
“Having fiscal literacy has enabled me to live a sustainably, financially free lifestyle which I desire,” Vesovski says. “In making smarter decisions when it comes to saving, investing, and spending, I hope I can help others see the good that those decisions bring, because life starts to get exciting once you’re able to do that.”
In creating content around finance, education and investment, Vesovski says it helps motivate him to work harder, striving for greatness.
“It’s a great feeling knowing people are looking up to me and relying on me to help them in an indirect way. It gives me credibility and a way to grow my brand helping individuals who are having difficulties in such areas to achieve their goals and chase their dreams. I plan on making a change with our generation and doing so in a way they will understand.”
Vesovski’s book will be released in early fall.
Entercom and Podcorn
Earlier this year, Podcorn, a tool that helps connect podcast creators with brands, was sold to audio giant Entercom (now Audacy) for $22.5 million, adding into the audiophile community.
The significance of platforms like Podcorn and Clubhouse, is that tech companies like Logitech, Twitch, Blue Microphones, and Streamlabs are all answering the call of creators seeking better equipment to aid them in their livestreams and content curation. At CES 2020, Logitech hosted close to a dozen Twitch and YouTube streamers who broadcasted live from the company’s booth, ranging from topics on video games, fashion, cooking, music, and art.
What we are seeing here is a change in market demographic, with most digital content creators under 25 years old, looking to dabble into new technology.