Everything We Got Wrong About Starting a Creator Business

0:00Jasmine Enberg: Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy. I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters. I remember sitting out on my terrace about a year ago and being like, this is going to be so easy. Obviously, totally delusional and changed really quickly. In honor of how far we've come with the podcast, we have gone through the archives and pulled some of the biggest takeaways from our guests so far. I thought that it was going to be easy to raise money.

0:35Jasmine Enberg: You have to create expectations. You have to build memories. I was in denial initially thinking it could be like a fun little side project that I spent a little bit of time on. I was highly offended by the term sheets that were put in front of me. What's the one thing you can do now that you couldn't do on Sienna? Well, one is whatever I want. That was the best decision I made in my career.

0:56Jasmine Enberg: Hi, Jasmine. Hi, Kaya. And hi, everyone. Welcome to Scalable, our weekly show about the business of the creator economy. Today, we are celebrating because we have officially hit our 50th episode. It is so hard to believe that we have been doing this for almost a year now. It honestly feels like we started this yesterday, and we've had so many amazing guests, including creators, founders, CMOs, politicians, the list goes on. And we've also learned so much from all of these conversations. And also from just doing the thing. I mean, like before Scalable, neither of us were podcasters. We'd been on other people's shows.

1:33We'd also been guests on TV news. But it is an entirely different thing to have and host your own podcast and do it once a week. We literally had no idea what we were getting into. I remember sitting out on my terrace about a year ago and being like, this is going to be so easy.

1:52Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, we wrote our description. We wrote our mission statement for Scalable. And we're like, oh, having a business is so easy, which was obviously totally delusional and changed really quickly. On that very first day, we spent two hours at the Lighthouse in Venice, which is a gorgeous co-working space for creators. And during that two hour block, we recorded a one minute trailer for our show and our first episode, which was only eight minutes long. We had scripted both of them ourselves, which we were also still writing while getting our hair and makeup done right before going into the studio.

2:26Jasmine Enberg: We had no producer and no one guiding us. And we did a million retakes. And then remember, we both had our leather jackets on and yeah, about an hour in it started getting really hot. Yeah, I mean, how could I forget? Even if I wanted to forget, there is video evidence of it, which we're going to play for you now. Can we do that one more time? Yeah. Oh yeah, why am I nervous? I know. We need a little energy. You need to do like a dumping test. It was so cold in here at the time. By the end of the episode, we'll have no leather jackets on. But okay, on that first day, we also made a promise to ourselves that we were going to remain consistent with the podcast.

3:02We were going to publish every week at the exact same time, no matter what. And to our credit, we have stuck to it. I mean, we published an episode the day after Christmas last year because it was a Thursday, and that's when our podcast publishes, as well as on New Year's Day.

3:17Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, and I knew from writing a newsletter for almost five years before this that consistency is so important, and it really matters, especially in the beginning when you're just starting to grow an audience. People need to know when they can expect content from you, and you also want to create a habit with readers and viewers. People know to look for our newsletter at 4 p.m. Eastern twice a week, and from our newsletter data, people are actually opening it at that point, too. Yeah. And that's actually something that we heard over and over again in our conversations with creators throughout this past year.

3:46You have to be consistent, even when the last thing that you want to be doing is posting a TikTok, recording a podcast or sending out a newsletter. And trust me, there have been plenty of those days for us, which have also been caught on camera.

4:01Jasmine Enberg: Today is not our day. I don't know what's happening. Why does this feel like it's going so badly? I think it's not as bad as we How do I say that in English? Can you hear my dog? You can do it. I believe in you. Okay.

4:15Jasmine Enberg: I spoke too soon. We promise that we've gotten better since we recorded that early episode, but we still have the occasional giggle fit or days where the words just don't come out right. I mean, honestly, I still feel like that's most days for me, but we have definitely gotten better. One thing that also hasn't changed, though, is that we are still down to the wire with literally everything. I mean, we were workshopping questions for the Scalable Summit in hair and makeup downstairs at the Lighthouse. We're always fine tuning our podcast scripts literally minutes before we record. And my personal favorite is scheduling our newsletter for one minute later.

4:53But we always make it. We do.

4:54Jasmine Enberg: We just need a deadline, which is why we're in this line of work. And you know what? Clearly our best work gets done in the hair and makeup chair. Anyway, in honor of how far we've come with the podcast and how much more we still have to learn, we have gone through the archives and pulled some of the biggest lessons and takeaways from our guests so far. We have bucketed them into three groups. So we have founders, creators, and CMOs. We also pulled some of our most surprising and our funniest moments over the past year. So make sure you stick around for that at the very end. But Kaya, kick us off.

5:25Jasmine Enberg: Starting with founders, our first big lesson is to plan for the business to outlive you starting on day one. YouTuber Stephanie Patrick, who co-founded Theorist Media with her husband, Matt Patrick, said it best. Take a listen. Our expectation is that YouTube channels don't last forever and that you have to have some sort of sun setting plan or a transition plan. We launched our second channel in 2015 because, one, our audience, we thought, had the appetite for it, but also because we were already thinking not in terms of a business style exit, but in terms of a lifespan of what a reasonable YouTube channel could be.

6:03Jasmine Enberg: We were thinking in terms of if you get five seasons out of a TV show, that's a great TV show. And if you get five years of success from, you know, from a movie, that's a fantastic movie, right? And we were thinking in terms of those kinds of media timelines. So we definitely thought about this too, when we were launching Scalable, not as much in terms of timelines, but definitely in terms of the name. So we didn't want to tie the company too closely to us with a name like the Kaya and Jasmine show, though that really rolls off the tongue. We also didn't want to pigeonhole ourselves with a name that was too focused on the creator economy or even social media because the space touches so much more than that.

6:41Jasmine Enberg: And we talk about so many topics beyond that. It's also just so much harder to scale or step away when you do that. And we wanted the business to grow and hopefully be able to exist without us at some point in time. Don't worry, though, we're not going anywhere. But we threw around so many ideas for names until we finally landed on scalable. We did. And I actually pulled our old running list of names and words that we were considering. Some of the options are absolutely horrendous. Others, I don't totally hate. But I still think scalable was the right choice for all of the reasons you just mentioned.

7:11But also because it's just such good alliteration. There's the Scalable Summit. There's the Scalable Spritz, which is our signature cocktail at the Summit, which wasn't exactly what we asked for. And our Scalable Supper Series, which are our dinner events that we host with brand partners. But OK, here are some of the other options that we considered. One is Unserious Business, which I still kind of love. I mean, it's giving Alex Cooper's unwell, but it's probably not quite right for a business audience. There's also the Feed, which I also don't hate, but I think it's too similar to Feed Me, which is already a popular newsletter and business.

7:46And I think it could also be really easily confused for a food podcast. And then there's the bad ones. So there is Next Up, Up Next, and Swipe Up, which all sound like dating apps or even like dating shows from the 90s to me. So I'm going to blame ChatGPT for that one.

8:05Jasmine Enberg: also those were pulled in on my list which means that we liked them at the time for some reason unbeknownst to me there was also impressionable I'm not sure where we were going with that one but given that YouTube and basically all the other social media apps now are heavily playing up impressions maybe we were ahead of the curve with that one that is a stretch but good spin okay fine i tried nevertheless we are not the only founders who thought this deeply about the name when we talked to max chan who co-founded a new food media brand earlier this year he said that he had a list of about 80 potential names including a front runner that was completely different from the name they ended up with which was caper and he said caper came randomly from a line he was reading in a book and after that it just kind of kept winning over the other options And like us, he also picked something that was related to the main topic of his company, which is food, but that could also be something bigger.

9:02Jasmine Enberg: So obviously caper is an ingredient, but it also means an adventure. Yeah. And what I love about this too is that scalable was not on our original list at all. And it actually came to me as I was driving down the PCH. My husband, Matt, and I, we were running through all of the names on the list out loud. And then all of a sudden, I just said scalable. and like Max said, it just kind of stuck and we kept coming back to it every single time. But another thing that we hear from creator founders a lot that's related to this lesson is to hire fast and to hire well. That might come as a surprise because I think a lot of people still think of creators as doing everything alone.

9:41Many of them are, but what we've been seeing recently is that many of them are finding that going solo just doesn't cut it anymore and they're starting to bring on staff to help them. So according to data from CreatorIQ, 62 % of creators worldwide either had part-time or full-time staff or outsourced some of their work like video editing or writing copy. And even though it's always like the executive hires that make the really splashy headlines, most of the time what we see is that creators are actually hiring for smaller roles that cover the stuff that they either don't want to do or aren't very good at.

10:14Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, creator Kaz Sawyer is a good example. He told me that he hired a full-time video editor because he needs to be able to delegate the editing because I cannot stand it, but it's crucial. Very true words there. And we can totally relate to that. Our first hire was also a third party production and editing team for our podcast. I haven't touched Final Cut Pro since college. And while Jasmine, you occasionally dabble in CapCut editing, it is safe to say this is not our strong suit or the best use of our time as we have so many other things on our plate as founders. Me being in CapCut is not good for my mental health, nor is it good for anybody else's experience on social media.

10:50So I am very glad we've also brought on a social producer who helps us cut reels from our podcast, make carousels, and really just the overall social strategy. I think there's also the question, though, of when to bring on your first hire. And so as you'll hear in the next segment, not all creators and founders are totally aligned on this. But generally speaking, creators say to move pretty quickly. So take Natalie Marshall, also known as Corporate Natalie. She told us that she brought on her first full-time hire when she quit her job to become a creator and that it was, quote, the best decision she made in her career.

11:24Take a listen. I knew I didn't want to do this alone. I didn't want to be alone in my bedroom every single day. I wanted to build a team and build a company and treat this seriously and have some accountability with someone reporting to me and be a manager in the space. And so I brought on Annie, who's now my brand director. She started as my brand manager, and we've been working together for over four years, and the team's grown since. But that was the best decision I made in my career.

11:50Jasmine Enberg: Okay, that's a perfect segue onto lesson number two from our founders. Raising money will take longer and distract you more than you expect. The caveat may be if you're an AI company right now, but either way, here's how Hernán Lopez, the founder of podcasting company Wondery, which is now owned by Amazon, described his experience raising money. He also provides a bit of a cautionary tale of hiring too many people too fast. I thought that it was going to be easy to raise money. And I went on to scale the company, went from zero to six employees, immediately thinking, OK, the money will come right away.

12:26And the money didn't come for two years. If I had known how difficult it was going to be, the first year in particular, I may have not started wondering. So sometimes you have to go through those mistakes, you know, to get to success. Honestly, I feel like if anyone knew how hard it is to do literally anything as a founder or creator, you wouldn't do it. You have to be a little bit delusional to start a company, I think. And whenever people ask me what is the biggest thing I've learned so far with Scalable, my response is always everything is harder and takes longer than you expect it to.

13:01Jasmine Enberg: A hundred percent. I mean, I could not possibly narrow that down to just one thing. Here's how Tyler Dink, the co-founder and CEO of Beehive, which publishes our newsletter, put it. In addition to leading the company, he also publishes his own newsletter. And he told us how much harder writing it is than he originally thought. My Saturday night in Paris was spent in the hotel room alone till midnight writing my newsletter, which is not how I would have preferred to spend a Saturday night in Paris. But it's a grind. I was in denial initially thinking it could be like a fun little side project that I spent a little bit of time on, it takes five to six hours every week.

13:33Jasmine Enberg: And it's really hard. But I'd say the flip side of that, it's the most rewarding thing that I do on so many different levels. So from our perspective, you know, everything from setting up business operations to drafting a newsletter and planning a 400 person conference, everything is always more complicated and time consuming than it seems. And when you're a founder, there's always something pulling you in another direction. Our to do lists are all over the place. And it never, ever ends. No, you check one thing off and then you add three more. Or 10 more things. I mean, on any given day to we're jumping between so many different things that are unrelated.

14:09Jasmine Enberg: We're doing a podcast recording. We're meeting with sponsors. We're interviewing potential hires. We're reading legal contracts where my least favorite probably is booking upcoming travel. The amount of times I've messed this up, either the date, the destination I'm flying from and had to call airlines to fix it would astound you. I really need an EA maybe someday. But it can give you whiplash sometimes for sure. I mean, especially because it's really just the two of us day to day. But I've also really enjoyed it. I mean, I've learned so much. It's been such a fun challenge also to navigate the business side of Scalable, not just our editorial work, which obviously we've both been doing for a decade already.

14:43Jasmine Enberg: And some of the best advice I've gotten is implementing ruthless prioritization. I need to tattoo that on my forehead. We are constantly asking ourselves, what is urgent right now? What can wait until tomorrow or next week or next month or never? 100%. The problem is, is that most things are urgent. And so it really becomes difficult to pick and choose what to do first. But yeah, I totally agree with you. Also with Tyler, like this is the best and the most rewarding job that I have ever had, despite all of the challenges. And I don't think I can ever go back to, you know, a nine to five. Although sometimes that does sound kind of nice.

15:18Anyway, enough about us. Let's zoom in a little bit more on what Hernan said about raising capital, because I think it's really easy to think that it's easy to raise money because it feels like every single creator now is getting outside investment. They're not, but many more are. And I think what stood out to me from the recent deals is that a lot of this capital is actually going to women. So that includes everybody from Alex Cooper, who may just be the most valuable woman in the creator economy now, in case you missed it. WTSL invested in her media company Unwell and valued it at$500 million.

15:52So for a little context, that puts her only behind Mr. Beast, whose business was most recently valued at about$5 billion by private investors. And that's all the way over then to Alex Earle, who also got an undisclosed amount of capital for her beauty brand, Real Actives, and Maggie Sellers-Ream, who got an investment from Stephen Bartlett's Stephen.com. So clearly what we're seeing is just a lot more activity with female-founded creator businesses.

16:19Jasmine Enberg: At the same time, we've also just seen more funds and platforms pop up to back creator businesses in general. I mean, that's everything from Gigastar Trading, which is basically like a NASDAQ for creator businesses, to early stage VC firm Slow Ventures, which launched a dedicated$60 million fund in early 2025 to back creator businesses. And they continue to deploy that capital, including in three more deals that they announced just in late September. And then Stephen Bartlett also partnered with Authentic Brands Group on a new$400 million venture to back more creator businesses last month. Then there's Guggenheim Brothers Media, which is more focused on creator services than businesses founded by creators.

16:55Jasmine Enberg: But we talked to one of its founders, Criswell Pure Dallas, back in January after it launched. And Criswell called raising money a catch-22. And there comes a time, obviously, when creators reach a point that they need to raise money to continue growing, especially if they're building, you know, a consumer products business. But that means that you can't focus on your core business as much as you'd like. He phrased it as you can't do both at 110%, but that it's all necessary. Yeah. And Amber Vancebox, who is the co-founder and president of LTK, said something really similar when I talked to her about her fundraising journey earlier this year.

17:28So Amber started LTK back in 2011 and was trying to raise what she called a small amount of funding or$13 million in about 2016, when everybody was still kind of turning up their noses at social shopping and influencers. I mean, Silicon Valley investors and even everyday people just didn't think it was going to be a thing. Obviously, they were wrong. I mean, social commerce is now one of the fastest growing categories within retail, surpassing$100 billion in sales this year. And we actually did a whole deep dive into the history of social commerce and how it's developed in one of our episodes.

18:01But Amber was also pregnant at the time, which she said only made raising money a lot harder. So take a listen. I cannot tell you.

18:10Jasmine Enberg: I've lost easily 20 years of my life through that fundraising round, both because I had never done it before. I was newly married. I was also newly pregnant and showing more by the day. And I was a girl with no background in anything walking around San Francisco time when every investor was a man. And so like there was just not a lot of hope. Also, I was highly offended by the term sheets that were put in front of me. You spend a lot of time with these groups and like knowing the business and you're pouring over it day in, day out. You're spending time away from your business to go do this stuff.

18:41Jasmine Enberg: And then the term sheet comes and it's a huge stack of papers. You're negotiating for months. It's expensive. It's offensive. I feel like people were trying to invest nothing. And then someone's trying to buy 10 percent of the company, but they want every right. They want to basically run the entire company from, you know, from a legal standpoint. And listening to Amber talk about her experience also puts into perspective what you said earlier about how so many of the creators who have gotten investment recently are women. And it hasn't been easy. And we've clearly come a long way over the past decade when Amber was trying to raise money.

19:09Jasmine Enberg: But female creators and founders still often don't get the same kind of respect as men do. And more broadly, still, you know, lag far behind male founded companies when it comes to overall funding for startups in general. Just take Pete Davidson, who recently derided female influencers, especially Get Ready With Me videos. Here's the clip in case you didn't see it. It's bad and it makes me sad, you know, and girls are just talking to themselves on there. And they're like, OK, come get ready with me. And I'm like, who the f*** are you? What do you do? Nothing. What the f*** is this? They make 40 million a year?

19:46What? OK, my jaw dropped, Kaia, when you sent that to me. I mean, first of all, Pete Davidson dated Kim K, who I would say is probably the most or one of the most successful influencers out there. And he benefited from being in her spotlight. So it's very rich of him to say something like this. But also, like, who are these women who are making Get Ready With Me videos hurting no one, especially not Pete Davidson? I mean, there are plenty of problems with the fact that people can now share and monetize literally every aspect of their life online. but it is not these women who are to blame. I mean, they're making something out of the tools that they have available and nobody's faulting the men for that.

20:26So just kind of let them do their thing, especially when you have so many male influencers, including some of the biggest names that are now using their platforms to spread lies and to spread hate. Like that to me is the much bigger issue here than a bunch of women who are making money on TikTok or Instagram selling products.

20:45Jasmine Enberg: 100%. And then you have Elon Musk who just wrote on X that Instagram is, quote, for girls, which was just another baffling take. I mean, basically, everyone is on social media, no matter who you are, including on Instagram. Honestly, part of me is like, fine, let us have it. We don't need you on Instagram anyway. But obviously, Elon Musk owns what you could call a rival platform X, though obviously it is much smaller in terms of both users and revenue. So I'm sure there's a little bit of jealousy in there, especially because also they have been trying hard to attract more women to the platform recently.

21:17And creators. I would love to see how that's going. Anyway, Elon Musk is also just wrong. I mean, I texted my former colleagues at eMarketer to get their most updated stats. And what they told me was that 46%, 46%, almost half of Instagram users in the US are male, which means it's pretty close to a 50-50 split. That's also equivalent to 72 million men. X has about 28 million men on the platform. So that means Instagram has far more men using the platform than X does.

21:49Jasmine Enberg: I love that you always bring the data and receipts to these conversations. The other thing Pete Davidson also called out was dances, which, by the way, plenty of men also do. The Sway House boys, for example, were all doing TikTok dances in 2020, which catapulted them into fame. And I think these comments are just a classic example of how female influencers are belittled for building lucrative businesses and how their work is often dismissed as frivolous or unserious. and male creators are often treated very differently and not derided for kind of very similar work on social media. I mean, plenty of them have built impressive businesses, but like you said, plenty of them have also used their platforms for bad too.

22:25Jasmine Enberg: I also think it's a bit of jealousy coming from Pete Davidson because he has gone the traditional entertainment route where there's gatekeepers, there are scripts he has to follow. Meanwhile, plenty of influencers are out earning traditional celebrities and have much more personal control over their own businesses. It's also worth pointing out how many A-list celebrities are behaving much more like creators these days. I mean, in the year of 2026, Jennifer Lawrence and Sandra Bullock both launched Instagram accounts finally. And so many more celebrities are leaning into social media to connect more directly with audiences and also sell them things, including their own product lines.

22:59Jasmine Enberg: And then speaking from our personal experience as two female founders, we have been on calls with men who have heard our pitch about Scalable. And then they jumped to the conclusion that for some reason, we cover the creator economy through a female lens, which is just not the case and not something we've ever said. We are women who cover the creator economy, period. So that has definitely been a surprise over the past year. Yeah, I mean, it's been surprising to me, too. And I do think it's a balance. I think the fact that we are women is one of the things that makes us unique, since most of the voices out there talking about the creator economy.

23:32Also on podcasts are men. It's something like two thirds of podcast hosts are male. And I think as women, we can offer a different perspective. And I'm so proud of the fact that we're two female founders. But that does not mean that we should be labeled as a sort of creator economy for women business. Like you said, we are journalists and analysts who cover the creator economy who also happen to be women. Like, why does gender have to be a part of it? And this was something that we actually talked a lot about with Jenny Quigley-Jones, who's the founder of influencer marketing platform Digital Voices, which sold to PMG Agency in January of this year.

24:09And I think what stood out to me most in that conversation was how she pushed back on the idea of her business being her baby and said that it's such a gendered comment and not something you would ever hear said to a male founder. And I think that's 100 % true.

24:23Jasmine Enberg: We have certainly never called scalable our baby. Just saying. No, but if it was our baby, it would be turning one years old this month. It would be.

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25:08Jasmine Enberg: Moving on to our takeaways from CMOs. One of the things that comes up in almost every conversation, especially with legacy brands, is that creators are a great way to reinvent or revitalize a brand. There is one catch, though, and we will get to that in a little bit. But to start, here is Yahoo! Samo Josh Line on how the company views creators. They are a great way for us to get back out there, to be reintroduced either to our existing audience or to an entirely new audience, especially a younger audience. And so creators are very much a core part of our strategy. We're using them in everything from brand campaigns to product marketing to community engagement.

25:45Jasmine Enberg: And we've sort of doubled down on them. Okay, my millennial brain still refuses to accept that Yahoo is 31 years old at this point, and that there are people out there who need to be introduced to the brand. But here we are, at least we're getting Tamagotchis back. So thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, for that. And also, to Yahoo's credit, their strategy seems to be working. So over a third of adults in the U.S. visit a Yahoo site at least weekly as of September, which is the highest percentage since 2015, according to new data that we found from civic science. Adult Gen Zers and millennials were the most likely to use Yahoo on a weekly basis or more at about 46 % and 42 % respectively.

26:24So that is a pretty high number.

26:26Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I was pretty surprised by those stats. So obviously, it's working. And they've done some really interesting partnerships. We go deeper on that in the episode with Josh. But it's not just Yahoo thinking this way. I mean, this idea of reinvention also came up in our conversation with the chief communications officer of Expedia, which is turning 30 this month. And they signed a year long partnership with top live streamer iShowSpeed. We also talked about this with Kate Ridley, who's the chief brand officer of Stanley, which has been around since 1913, if you can believe that. And she told us about how mommy bloggers and TikTok hot girl walks helped bring the brand to new audiences and made it a staple for millennial and Gen Z women.

27:02Jasmine Enberg: Although I have to say, I am not really a water bottle loyalist like you, Jasmine. I unfortunately love a plastic water bottle. I know. I do try to always make sure to recycle them. But I also love a good old fashioned green Gatorade water bottle. Do you know what I'm talking about? I do. But first I have to say, it's a dupe today for me, which I'm a little ashamed about. But I love this one. But also, do you take a Gatorade bottle to your berries classes? No, I usually take a plastic water bottle to those. But anyway, this idea of reinvention also came up in a live podcast that we did at Sundance Film Festival with marketing leaders from Ocean Spray, the cranberry juice brand, which was founded in 1930.

27:41Jasmine Enberg: So another heritage brand. And that was such a fun conversation. If you don't remember, Ocean Spray went viral in the early days of TikTok with the video of the man drinking cranberry juice on a skateboard. And since then, the company has really leaned into creators and social media, including by inviting creators to their bog harvest, which I would love to go to after seeing the videos. Same. And also just the company making its own content about diet trends like fiber maxing and UTIs. If you don't know what those things have to do with cranberry juice, go check out our newsletter. I'm not explaining that here.

28:11Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, please don't. But I mean, obviously there are a lot of risks involved and hoops to jump through when you have legacy brands like these that have decades of brand equity to protect, as well as established, often pretty bureaucratic practices. And they start building creator and social media strategies. And we've spent a lot of time talking about this with the CMOs who've been on our podcast. One of the things that has stood out to me from our conversation with Frank Cooper, who's the CMO of Visa, was when he said that the CFO and the legal team has to be a CMO's best friend, not the creative director, which is who you might expect.

28:45He also said, however, that if something does go wrong, it is usually not that deep for people. And I totally agree with that. I actually think our tolerance for things that have historically been deemed unbrand safe, or however you say that, is actually a lot higher for people than marketers think. And brands that still cite brand safety as a reason for not leaning into creators and social media are really kind of just hiding behind an excuse at this point. But that is another topic for another time.

29:14Jasmine Enberg: Yes, the tides have been turning for sure. Anyway, on to the catch. It's AI companies, which you could argue are in need of reinvention right now. But not every CMO is convinced that creators can help change the brand image or improve the perception of the technology and also themselves. I mean, companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google have all been pouring money into creators lately. Google, for example, recently announced a big partnership with Mr. Beast, which includes promoting Gemini. They didn't share the financial terms of the deal, but Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold said on CNBC that it had executive sponsorship all the way up to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

29:48Jasmine Enberg: A little humble brag there on live television. But anyway, here is Alex Schultz, the former CMO and current chief data officer at Meta, on why he doesn't think that creators are going to move the needle when it comes to perceptions of AI. I love a lot of the marketing folks around OpenAI, but I don't think we've resolved the concerns about data centers or the trust in OpenAI at all last year. I don't think it's better. I think it's worse. And so it's not clear that stuff is working in this space. I think it works to sell glasses. I think it works to get people to install Instagram or sadly install TikTok, which I just advise against use Instagram instead.

30:23Jasmine Enberg: It totally works for that. It works to sell laundry detergent. I'm not completely sure it works to regain trust in data centers. I think that's a different problem. I have to say that I agree with Alex here. I mean, there's only so much that creators and influencers can do when you have these big tech execs and the broader media really fear mongering. And then you also have AI companies building data centers, which really are a physical manifestation of people's fears around AI, essentially in their backyards. Like, yes, creators might help get people more comfortable with things like shopping with AI or helping educate them on the technology.

31:00But they're not going to change people's overall opinion of the tech when you have like the CEO of Anthropics saying we need to slow down the development of AI or else. And a former researcher from that company is saying that there is a 10 percent chance that AI kills us all. I don't know if there's really anything that we can do to ever fully come back from that. And we're actually going to dive deeper into all of this and why partnering with AI companies can actually be a risk for creators in an upcoming episode. But just to put a couple of numbers around how reliant AI companies have become on creators and influencers, AI and software companies drove 28.2 % of influencer marketing spending between August 2025 and July of this year, according to data from fintech firm Ramp.

31:45That was less than for consumer brands overall, which was about 43 percent. But it was ahead of all types of specific consumer brands that they measured. So that includes things that are typically associated with influencer marketing, like beauty and skincare or apparel and retail. So clearly, there's a lot of spending going towards influencer marketing from all these big AI firms.

32:04Jasmine Enberg: Yeah. And we do not expect that to slow down. I mean, when we talked to corporate Natalie, who has her own B2B marketing influencer agency now, she said, like, there's a huge opportunity in AI companies. I mean, they're flush with VC funding. They all need to stand out in a crowded market. And then you have OpenAI, which just brought, you know, three former Patreon execs, including Patreon's co-founder and chief technology officer, Sam Yam, to lead creator product. So definitely more creator products and marketing campaigns to come from them. Though so far, it's been light on details from OpenAI on what exactly this will entail.

32:35Jasmine Enberg: When we caught up with David Duxin, who is an OpenAI exec at our Scalable Summit in May, He talked about how the company has been, you know, working behind the scenes with creators on product launches and kind of helping them understand how they can use AI to build their businesses, obviously, in addition to doing kind of the traditional influencer marketing deals. But the Patreon hiring news also broke after Business Insider reported that the company is definitely stepping up those efforts with an influencer army to help make AI look, quote, cool and good for the world, according to a talent manager and campaign brief that BI saw.

33:08Jasmine Enberg: But given the extreme backlash to OpenAI's brand trip to upstate New York this summer and all of the other big feelings that people have around AI, they are going to have to tread very carefully here. 100 % agree. They're going to have to tread carefully. But moving on to the second lesson from CMOs, marketing really hasn't changed all that much. So for some context, many of the CMOs that we've spoken to have been in this industry for decades. So they have really seen it all. I mean, just think about Frank Cooper. He was the CMO of PepsiCo. before Visa. And then there's a Netflix CMO who was at Spotify and at Condé Nast before that.

33:44But anyway, this takeaway might seem a little counterintuitive given that there are now just more platforms than ever. There's the rise of AI. There's a growing role of creators and social media and everything just feels like it's moving faster than ever these days. And so many of the marketers who we speak to say they have a whiplash from all of these changes. At the same time, almost every CMO that we've spoken to said that the core marketing principles really haven't changed. And probably more importantly, CMOs and marketers more broadly have always had to adapt to new technologies and new ways of reaching audiences.

34:17So what that means is that change has always been a big part of the CMO job. And so here's Netflix's Marian Lee on that.

34:24Jasmine Enberg: From a marketing perspective, there's always going to be a million channels. And it's a little bit different than like, I remember when I was in publishing and I was working at Vogue, we invested heavily in New York City bus sides and taxi tops. And people are still doing that. Exactly. TikTok didn't exist back then or, you know, Snapchat didn't. So as a marketer, I just view formats and channels as sort of an ever-changing landscape. Visa's Frank Cooper had a very similar take on this, saying that, yes, marketing is very different from the Mad Men days, but that the core principles of storytelling haven't changed.

35:01Jasmine Enberg: There's just new channels and mediums like creators and AI and social media to tell those stories. The one thing he did add, though, is that today you also have to be a so-called precision marketer. That wasn't always the case, partly because we didn't have the tools to do it until digital came along. Here's what he said. You also have to be a precision marketer, you know, bringing in data and understanding how data can inform you. And so you can tell better stories. But you also have to design experiences. You have to create expectations. You have to build memories. You have to build relationships.

35:29Jasmine Enberg: all those things are necessary to be a great marketer today. We dove deeper into that in a recent episode on influencer marketing, which also includes a fun creator case study from Kimberly Clark, which makes Kleenex and Viva paper towels. But okay, moving on to lessons from creators. The first is your followers aren't really yours. So we're in an era now where more creators are realizing that they are building businesses on platforms they don't control. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram can change their policies or algorithms as much as they want, and they certainly do. And that impacts creators' ability to reach their fans and earn money.

36:04Jasmine Enberg: What we've heard over and over again from creators this year is that breaking through is harder than ever, and that just because someone follows you doesn't mean they're going to see your content. And this is happening everywhere, but it's most obvious on Instagram, which has changed its algorithm to feature more recommended content over friend and follower content, and prioritize metrics like shares and saves over follower counts to decide what it recommends. Here's how Tan France, the Queer Eye star turned YouTuber, put it in an interview with us. It feels strange to say, oh, I've got this many followers.

36:34I don't. I've got as many followers as Instagram decides I've got that day. I don't have almost 4 million followers. I've probably got an average of 20 ,000 followers. That's it because follower count doesn't seem to matter anymore because you're not communicating with those people. We've noticed this too. The majority of our Reels views are actually coming from non-followers now. And obviously our follower count is nowhere near what Tan Francis is, but we are in a very similar position to him, just at a much smaller scale. For Instagram, those changes that they've made make a lot of sense. I mean, people might say that they want to see more content from their friends, from their followers, but the reality is, is that there's only so much of that that they can actually take.

37:14And Instagram wants to keep people on its platform so that they can sell more ads. And they have gotten so much better at serving people the right content at the right time. And that's really where a lot of this recommended content comes in. Obviously, that doesn't help creators because Instagram doesn't really share any ad revenue with them. And that has obviously been a long term source of frustration between creators and Instagram.

37:38Jasmine Enberg: And the average Instagram user is just sharing less period, like everything's moving to private messaging, private stories, texts. But at the same time, this all has benefits for creators as well. It means that brands are focusing less on follower count, meaning that smaller creators also now have a better chance of scoring brand deals. One thing we've talked about a lot this year on the podcast is how more brands are focusing on creators with niche audiences. I mean, just look at the live tech podcast, TBPN, which sold to OpenAI for low hundreds of millions. And a big reason for that was the high caliber audience of Silicon Valley insiders and tech enthusiasts, even though the podcast was averaging, under 100 ,000 viewers per episode across platforms.

38:18Jasmine Enberg: So if you compare that with some of the top podcasts. Those are pretty small numbers. Still a little bit of a weird move from OpenAI, considering it's probably not the Silicon Valley insiders that they're trying to reach. But your point, your point is well taken. I think the other thing, too, is that this is all pushing creators to think beyond social media. So we talked to Jack Goldberg, who's the founder of Jack's Dining Room, about the importance of live events to his business, for example. So he has a food festival. He also has a run club. And then he hosts these more intimate private dinners.

38:47And one of the things that he said that I think a lot of creators can attest to now is that basically anybody can go viral at this point. But if you can bring together a group of people in person, that is a real testament to your business. That's actually something that Maggie Sellers-Ream from Hot Smart Rich also said on stage with me a couple weeks ago in New York.

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39:45Jasmine Enberg: not just the moments before. AI has turned the threat landscape into quicksand, moving too fast for any human to fully predict. That's why an agentic cyber resilience platform matters. Automated recovery, clean data, a business that keeps moving no matter what hits. One platform, not a patchwork of stitched together tools and gaps. Don't wait for the next attack. Secure and accelerate your business at rubric.com. Again, rubric.com. okay on to lesson number two from creators have a point of view so this isn't exactly new or groundbreaking but it's very valid when there's so much content and information out there especially now with ai generated content in the mix you really have to think about what you bring to the table that no one else can whether that's your own personal experience a distinct take on an issue a unique format i mean there's a climate change podcast that takes place in a sauna right Like we're getting really, really unique here.

40:40Jasmine Enberg: Which is so clever. I love it. It is clever. It's very smart. And they turn up the heat on the guests. But it's really just anything that makes you stand out. I mean, going back to TVPN, they did something novel where they wore their brands like an F1 driver and they had all their brands on screen at once, right? Like just kind of taking a different approach to even just brand partnerships and integrating them. And this has definitely been somewhat of an adjustment for me as a former journalist, although I still consider myself a journalist. But we were taught to not give our own opinion and just kind of tell the facts, right?

41:10Jasmine Enberg: Like that's journalism school 101. I definitely had a bit more wiggle room with giving a bit more of my opinion in my newsletter. But still, it was very much reporting on what was happening. Yeah, I think for me, it's been easier as an analyst. You are always expected to give your take. I mean, it has to be based on facts and research and data. But people are coming to you because they want to know what you think about something, especially in a world where you can literally get any data point from AI now at this point. What has also been really interesting for me to hear is some of the feedback that we've gotten about our podcast.

41:42So a lot of people have told us that while they love hearing from our guests, what they're actually most interested in is our takes and our point of view on all the topics that we're covering. And that was a really big surprise to me. Anyway, so I love how Kat GPT, whose real name is Kat Getzey, described how she thinks about her content, as well as what sets it apart from the coverage of AI that's already out there, especially from traditional journalists. Take a listen.

42:07Jasmine Enberg: I have never for one moment tried to hide my thoughts and my concerns about the negative consequences. The only reason I don't talk about it so much nowadays is because I feel like it does get really dark really fast. And ultimately, what my audiences want more is content that leaves them feeling empowered. And I never purport or claim to be an accredited journalist. But what I can do is change the way that people think about these issues. And I think if I can give people hope to feel like there's things that they can actually do in the meantime to take advantage of these tools, to not feel like they're getting left behind, to actually feel like they can make a difference on their own lives and build their dream lives with the tools that exist today, while also fully understanding how they can become active and, you know, engage in their own civic abilities and civic duties to create the world that they want to see for tomorrow.

42:55Jasmine Enberg: That's a win-win situation for me. Basically, what she's saying is that we need both. I mean, that's something you've heard from us as a listener over the course of these 50 episodes. We see the creator economy converging with different sectors like media more than entirely replacing it. I mean, we need professional journalists and we need creators, especially because many creators are getting their information from media outlets and then reacting to it or giving their take. Obviously, minus independent journalists, many creators are not on the ground doing reporting themselves. 100%. Okay, bonus third lesson.

43:25And we'll keep this on quick because we already talked about it up top. But you have to be consistent. I think this is the thing that came up most consistently in all of our interviews with creators. In fact, it came up in 40 % of our episodes so far.

43:40Jasmine Enberg: On to our surprising moments. So one of my favorites was from John Yushai when we asked him what the number one thing that creators need to succeed is. Here's what he said. An amazing partner, an amazing spouse, an amazing family. Like, I think it's like all those intangible things that you got to like, this is such a chaotic job and you got to have somebody in your corner, whether it's like your co-host, like you guys, your business partner, your spouse. I'd never meet a creator who's successful, who doesn't have like one of those people helping them. And Amanda has been that for me. So Amanda is John's wife and also business partner.

44:13Jasmine Enberg: And the reason this surprised me is that most creators have answered this question by saying, you know, you have to have a unique idea or you really just need a smartphone. And it's so easy to kind of get started and tell your story to the world. So I love this answer. And I also found it so true for me personally. I mean, I'm obviously very lucky to have an amazing supporter in Jasmine as my co-host and co-founder. But it's also equally as important to have a friend or family member or partner who is just rooting for you and sharing your success. And that has been so crucial to me as I've navigated the many ups and downs that can come with being a creator and founder.

44:45Jasmine Enberg: And my boyfriend has definitely been my number one supporter. 100%. I mean, it has been a roller coaster this entire year. And I say this all the time, but I could not do this alone and I could not do it with anybody other than you. But it has also been so incredible to have Matt in my corner and as our unofficial COO. I mean, that has been so incredibly helpful to us. But, you know, going back to John, I think for me, this was one of those like moments of real talk and real honesty. And I think I'm surprised whenever it happens, like another really good example was when we were on stage doing a live podcast with a creator named Kayla Nicole.

45:18and we asked her what her one piece of advice was to aspiring creators. And she just goes, don't do it. And that to me was such another moment of honesty. And I think so much of it has to do with the podcast format. Like it is far more relaxed. It feels like a real conversation compared to say a panel, like a very formal panel or a TV interview. And I think maybe that helps or we're just very good at our jobs. Who knows?

45:44Jasmine Enberg: Hopefully it's the latter. And I will say we're also so used to interviewing executives who are so scripted. Like every year I can recite the talking points from all the big companies that we cover because you just hear it over and over again in their blog posts from execs. But I think also, you know, we've built these relationships across the industry. We've built the trust. So regardless of whether we know the guest well, or it's our first time talking to them, I think that matters. And I mean, I remember talking to John when he was just getting started on YouTube back in I think 2021, and just making this big bet to become a creator himself after working at Instagram and YouTube.

46:17Jasmine Enberg: And now he has more than 800 ,000 subscribers on YouTube and just hosted a massive creator event with Disney. So go, John. But I love your point on the total honesty and real talk. I mean, those have definitely been some of my favorite moments too. You know, often people are pretty cagey about sharing earnings or costs in this industry. But Julie Walsh Smith, the CEO of Complexly, shared how much it costs for a YouTube video for their company. So Complexly's SciShow, which publishes four to five episodes on YouTube each week costs roughly$500 a minute, and Crash Course costs about$5 ,000 a minute.

46:51Jasmine Enberg: And SciShow videos can range from around 10 minutes to more than two hours, while Crash Course videos are typically under 10 minutes. So for context, most YouTube channels don't spend more than$500 per video in terms of cash out of pocket. So those numbers were pretty staggering, to say the least. Yeah. And I remember thinking as she was saying them, I was like, this is the headline for our newsletter because you rarely ever hear that. And it's one of the things that people want to know the most. And that podcast interview did incredibly well. Okay. But what has actually surprised me the most is the number of people who have brought up swearing.

47:24I mean, remember when we did a rapid fire with Don Lemon at Cannes Lions and we asked him, what is one thing that he can do now that he couldn't do before? Take a listen.

47:33Jasmine Enberg: Okay. What's the one thing you can do now that you couldn't do on CNN? You seriously want to? Well, one is whatever I want to is I could say Okay, immediate F-bomb. Immediate. And there's also Tan France who told us that Netflix made him sound like a, quote, prissy princess. And that's not really who he is. Bitch, I've got the most f***ing foul language on the internet. It's disgusting. So if I put my psychoanalysis hat on here for a second, it is less about the swearing and more about what it represents. Like both Tan and Dawn come from traditional media backgrounds where you have to be really careful about what you say.

48:11You might have a producer in your ear literally telling you what to say. And now on social media with their own companies, with their own brands, they can say whatever they want and really just be themselves. I so agree with you here.

48:24Jasmine Enberg: But you left out the best part, which is that you self-censor yourself, which cracks me up every time. OK, but only in text messages. Okay, and sometimes in Google Doc comments, which is my personal favorite when we're writing our newsletter, I don't know why you're hiding it from me of all people like our Google Doc drafts are a very safe place. Those are locked down. So, okay, let me explain. First of all, Finnish people love a swear word and we have some of the best ones out there. So I have nothing against swearing. There's just something about seeing curse words written out on a piece of paper that just doesn't sit right with me.

48:59Like, again, I have no problem saying them out loud or hearing them. I mean, you should hear how many times I curse when I'm writing a podcast script, for example.

49:07Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, so for context, like Jasmine will write something and we'll be like, F star, star, star, star, star, like what? It just like cracks me up every time. I have to say that the worst is when our AI transcription messes up and makes it seem like we swore on a guest. Like my heart jumps every time. It's the weirdest thing. No, we need an AI that self-censors itself. Exactly. This is still where AI really needs a lot of help. Okay, if I can sneak in one more surprising moment, corporate Natalie told us that her bachelorette content was among her best performing ever. And she made a joke that maybe she should just throw out all the corporate America work from home comedy out the window because people just love the wedding stuff so much.

49:48Jasmine Enberg: But it is just another reminder that you just never know sometimes what's going to hit on social media. 100%. Okay, last, but certainly not least, our funniest moments from the podcast this past year. So in first place has to be the time that we nearly got impaled by two massive umbrellas while recording a podcast outside in what would have been a very beautiful rooftop setting at South by Southwest in Austin earlier this year. It was like 100 degrees. The wind gusts were like 100 miles per hour. I am probably exaggerating, but it was very hot and very windy. And all of a sudden, in the middle of our recording, these two enormous umbrellas that were supposed to be protecting us from the sun just shot up and started flying directly at us knocking over everything that was in their way including like our water glasses and and whatever else there was i didn't know podcasting was so dangerous it's also very windy clearly

50:42are we still rolling that just literally missed no it was literally 100 degrees and also the best

50:51Jasmine Enberg: part is we're like, all right, you okay? You okay? And then we had to get out of there and finish our episode and keep going. So we were like, so unfazed. And then also right before that happened, a potted plant on the shelf behind us fell and almost hit you in the head. So that was which I didn't actually notice it was you. It was like turned around. Also, this all went down right after we interviewed California Attorney General Rob Bonta. And thank goodness all of this happened after he had already arrived and we'd done the interview because I do not think that his security team would have been very happy and we would have felt horrible if we had a guest get hit by an umbrella on our show.

51:28I literally still have visions of like Secret Service. I don't know if he has Secret Service, but whatever. His like security team jumping over onto the set to save the Attorney General, which like, I get it. He's an important man. He's been leading the social media addiction lawsuit against Meta, for example.

51:43Jasmine Enberg: Yeah. And thankfully, that did not happen. And also, thankfully, we didn't get seriously injured like the umbrellas just missed us. But yeah, I mean, A.G. Bonta is one of the biggest voices out there for AI regulation, which is also why I found it back to the surprises when one of the first things he said when we asked him about AI is that it isn't quote the bad guy. Our second runner up for funny moments is me trying to ride a camel in Doha in the desert when I was at Web Summit Qatar in February. I still swear my camel was broken, but we could not stop laughing and we had to include it in the podcast.

52:14Jasmine Enberg: If you're only listening, just imagine me holding on for dear life and looking like Superman strapped to this camel. I mean, all I wanted was a nice Instagram photo. Okay, I am dying that you agreed to play this again. I remember I had to convince you the first time, but it is just too good. And it reminds me of those trends that you see on Instagram, where it's like you see a woman posting the kind of pictures that her husband or her boyfriend takes of her versus the kind of photos that she takes of her husband. And we definitely suffer from that to me and Matt. I'm like, every single time I look at the photos that he's taken of me, they're not the ones that I would want to be posting anywhere online.

52:49Jasmine Enberg: In fairness, normally, my boyfriend is very good at taking photos. He is. He is. Honestly, this wasn't his fault. This is just the material he was working with. He was broken. But honestly, the camel video is the perfect way to sum up our journey of podcasting for the past 50 episodes, sometimes bumpy, but we've always had a lot of fun with it. Thank you so much for tuning in, whether you just discovered us or have been with us since the start. Thank you so much. And we'll see you back here next Thursday. And we can't wait for the next 50.

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