Party people, we're still so early in the creator economy.

This realization comes after seeing a growing number of companies receive funding and throwing money at creators (I'm looking at you Substack).

Today's Highlights:

• New York Times growing fear of Substack
• Zappos taps influencers to host shoppable live streams
• Pearpop raises $16M to monetize collabs
• Startup Pietra launches publicly
• In-house
• Solving The Discoverability Dilemma In The Creator Economy

Creator Coin Watch

Top Weekly Bitclout Creators

1. elonmusk ~$68,609.75

2. naval ~$47,299.85

3. craig ~$36,247.98

4. chamath ~$32,901.52

5. WhaleSharkdotPro ~$26,239.15

6. arianagrande ~$24,275.73

7. katyperry ~$23,412.26

8. jakeudell ~$21,353.03

9. mrbeastyt ~$20,534.36

10. diamondhands ~$20,414.39


*BitClout data is taken every Friday prior to newsletter send.
Current BitClout Coin price = $174.26 per coin. Up from $161.48 per coin.

Top Weekly Rally Creators

1. Allie Coin ~$30.70

2.ART Coin ~$22.39

3.PTM Coin ~$19.66

4. KSK Honda Coin ~$18.40

5. QuestCrypto ~$13.73

6. Kevin Chou Coin ~$12.05

7. Gen.G Strike Coin ~$11.71

8. Bee ~$11.69

9. FanCoins ~$10.68

10. Skot Coin ~$10.05

*Rally Coin data is taken every Friday prior to newsletter send. Current RLY Coin price = $.98 per coin. Down from $1.67.

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Talking Creators

The New York Times is freaking out about Substack

For years, echoes of email and newsletters are dead rung throughout the hallways.

It wasn't until the success of Morning Brew, Axios, and The Hustle, that the critics realized email newsletters could become healthy sustainable businesses.

Now, after more than a year into the pandemic, Substack is eating journalism. After a recent round of $65M, Substack is using a significant portion of that to payout the top journalists. And it's working.

Writers of all backgrounds are making their way to the platform as they look for a way to monetize their writing without the hassles of managing tools or having their POVs buried.

This approach is shaking the industry and freaking The New York Times out as one of their top opinion writers, Dan Warzel gets poached.

More on creators

• Why the creator economy blew up. Josh Constine gives a solid take on the role platforms played in giving rise to the creator economy.
• The Creator Economy Needs Fatter Tails. It's no secret that larger creators earn more, but it's becoming a growing issue for small-midsize creators.

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Cosign

Just like startups, creators need help hiring and building their teams. Especially when you're bootstrapping as every dollar counts.

That's why I'm beta testing, UseHunq. A way for creators to build their team and outsource more of their work.Talking Social

Pearpop is working to crack the code for up and coming creators

Collaboration-focused creator marketplace just raised $16M. Pearpop is one of the few companies building solutions to encourage collaborations between large and small-midsize creators.

Similar to Cameo without the shoutouts, Pearpop lets creators pay to collab with their favorite creators and celebrities. The company is a part of the growing trend focused on building solutions for creators outside of just monetization.

Substack continues its trend of eating journalism

Substack's recent round is mostly a play to throw money at writers. With some writers getting advances upwards of $400k.

On the local news front, Substack is taking a similar approach by offering $1M in a yearlong stipend for up to 30 writers.

Zappos Taps Influencers to host shopping Livestreams

Social commerce and creators go hand in hand. Zappos takes a page out of Walmart's playbook by partnering with With to have creators host live streaming events.

Livestream Shopping competition is growing between platforms as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and more continue to partner, acquire, and build new solutions to capitalize on the growing commerce market.

More on platforms

• Pietra wants to help every creator build a turnkey direct-to-consumer business.
• In funding:
• Pico pulls in a $4.5M seed round to provide creators a full-stack business solution, aka CRM.
• Finary gets $3.2M to help create stronger communities around investing. Communities are eating the world.

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In-house (original essays, thoughts and content)

A majority of the companies building for creators are focused on monetization. Few are focusing on the fast-growing issue of discoverability. Without solutions for small-mid size creators to be discovered, the long-term growth of the creator economy is at risk.

Solving The Discoverability Dilemma In The Creator Economy

Gems

• Do you even meta: Epic wants you to design your own metahuman to showcase the new Unreal Engine.
• Overnight celebrity: What happens when you become a millionaire overnight?
• Pen pals: Jeff Bezos shares his last letter to shareholders.
• Show me the money: Consensys gets $65M in funding with the help of UBS and JPMorgan.
• To the moon: Dogecoin spikes and breaks Robinhood.
• Branding 101: Kanye reveals the Yeezy x Gap logo.

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