Startup Ideas Hiding in the $100B Creator Economy

This past week was a doo$ie. Microsoft joined the $2 trillion club, Amazon raked in $11 billion on prime day and $36 billion of BTC went missing. Today we're digging into the growing creator economy and the startups waitin' to be built. Refill your coffee, cc your interns, and let's jump in ☕️

💸 The Hype About the Creator Economy

Selfies are all fun and games - until they’re paying your mortgage. You've likely been tagged in an @influencersinthewild post or spotted a YouTuber on your last plane ride, so nothing's new there. What most people don't know, however, is that the creator economy means serious business. 💰

📈 Here's a look into the market, courtesy of Signal Fire's content team:

• 50 million self identify as creators
• 2 million global creators earn $100,000+ / year
• Creator Economy market size is similar to the Gig Economy, and is estimated at $104.2 billion.
• Sponsored influencers are currently worth $8+ billion and the number is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2022.
• Forbes adds that nearly 17 million Americans earned income posting their personal creations in 2017
• Unique fact: top 1% of creators earn about 80% of all income produced

Bobby from Indiehackers adds "in 2021 alone, creators have raised $1.3 billion in funding". This number's more $$ than the last five years combined. 😳

In other words, this shift in the creator economy isn't going away . The trend is like an angry Dwayne the Rock Johnson coming down the tracks. So start building with the times or get out of the way. 🚂

🔎 So Where's all the Startup Ideas?

As we've proven, the creator economy's a hot topic. In fact, we've already seen 22 startup ideas in the creator category that are just waiting to be MVP'd.

To save you some time, we've picked out some our favs we think you should build or invest in: 😎

1. Vetted Social Media Creator Marketplace (Jake Paul)

On the MFM podcast, Jake Paul broke down his ideal startup idea. The concept? A creator marketplace for 2021. When the show hosts, Sam and Shaan, pressed him on why there was a need, he came back with explaining how the LinkedIn's of the world and website portfolios of the world just don't cut it anymore for vetting out someone to help build out your social strategy.

His idea was a marketplace where trusted talent could be developed, vetted and connected with industry leaders. If it works, he believes it'd develop a whole new recruiting system for the creator economy. Wanna help with the idea? It's only 1 cold email away... 📩

💬 I'd like to help build or invest in this idea

2. Micro-Sponsorship for Content Creators (Deepak Lalit)

The problem: only big influencers are getting the attention for partnership deals.

The opportunity: create a space for micro influencers to shoot their shot and test their luck at winning the bag 💸

Here's the playbook in Deepak's words:

• Build a platform for Sponsoring micro-influencers (content creators with less than 10k following).
• Creators (e.g. Podcasters, Youtubers, Bloggers, Streamers), would create a profile and a catalogue of micro-sponsorships for their product. Almost like a Fiverr page.
• For example: product/logo placement, product reviews/review videos, interviews ).
• Given the smaller following, these products would on average be cheaper (10$ - 100$) than the products that celebrities or semi-popular influencers push and give smaller startups the opportunity to experiment with influencer marketing or start monetizing their following..

👋🏼 Connect with Deepak to build/invest in this idea

3. Creator Job boards (Rohun)

Creators love plugging job promotions that align with their audience. Why? Helps their sponsors, helps their audience and skips the boring middle man. Startup idea? Creating a simplified way to automate job boards for creators.

To expand on this idea, you could develop a plugin software that tracks when a creators on the rise, brings them a set of options to choose from and helps them launch their job board in minutes.

💬 I'd like to help build this or I'm already working on something

4. Video Content Aggregator for Creators (Harrison Remler)

Harrison is the COO at Visionary Music Group and comes across a lot of talented folks in his day. When asked what tool he thought would help future creators his mind jumped right to video.

Imagine a phone app that could auto-loop your 30mins of shooting hoops or teaching a service and could prep it for all your social channels? Who wouldn't say yes to that. If you like the direction, reach out to him for a chat.

💬 Slide into Harrison's DMs to help him with his idea

5. Creator Pre/Post Production Marketplace (Josh Constine)

Josh comes across lots of startup ideas in his newsletter and clubhouse rooms. One of the ideas that ranks at the top of his "to-build list" is a talent marketplace for creative support.

He writes: "someone should build a production talent marketplace designed to let creators sort by experience with different mediums, review past work and metrics, and book immediate assistance. Patreon's Jack Conte told my newsletter that this is the #1 startup request from creators.

💬 Chat with Josh to help him with his idea

To sum it all up:

This ecosystem is ripe for disruption. Pick a platform to "unbundle" or "re-bundle" and you're guaranteed to land on a gem sooner or later. 💎

That’s it for today’s round up of startup ideas. Liked the deep dive? Let me know on twitter @joelshansen or drop me an email at [email protected].

Want to submit a startup idea to be featured in the next round-up? Post one here or sign up to be a Kernal member with this link: https://kern.al/register?invitecode=INDIEHACKER.

Stay out of trouble and see you next week.

Joel