Creator Spotlight 🔴

Your guide to the newsletter world — new stories every Friday.

Read past features and listen to the pod ⬇️

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Gambling sponsors fund a great deal of the sports media industry today. @joonlee is betting he can build an indie sports media business without them. We spoke about it on today's @creator__spot:

[Tyler Denk 🐝 @denk_tweets]

fun fact: ~25% of creator spotlight subscribers read every single issue each month

@creator__spot has nearly 400K active readers 🤯

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

3 moves for the next decade of content:

1. Community over audience.
2. Focus on building trust first; monetize later.
3. Know your arbitrage. Lean into it.

@dipietromedia on the @creator__spot pod today. You know him from Hampton, The Hustle, and The Motley Fool.

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Billy Parks is a venture parnter on Slow Ventures' $60m Creator Fund and today's guest on the @creator__spot pod.

We spoke about creators as founders, red flags in potential investments, and creators building excellent non-media businesses.

Go listen wherever you get pods.

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

An event planner made paper flowers as a special request for a wedding over a decade ago. She began making YouTube videos teaching others to make them; a podcast; digital courses; a book; branded beers.

It's now a six-figure business. Quynh Nguyen on @creator__spot today!

[Creator Spotlight 🔴 @creator__spot]

@TanyoCopyTG 👀

[Tanyo @TanyoCopyTG]

They have an entire newsletter built around case studies for a key audience segment (creators).

While most companies aren't afraid of "upsetting" their audience by emailing them too much, beehiiv takes the opposite approach.

They built @creator__spot into a 2x per week newsletter which shares:

- Case studies every Tuesday by creators who are using the platform to grow and monetize their newsletters
- In-depth analysis every Friday, which gives helpful tips to creators

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Stefan von Imhof of Alts, on the @creator__spot pod today. A 130,000-subscriber newsletter group with a paid community of nearly 1,000 members paying between $500 to $10,000 a year to join a network of people investing in everything from K-pop royalties to farmland deals.

[Tyler Denk 🐝 @denk_tweets]

@FZierer @creator__spot great pod tbh

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

On the @creator__spot pod today, Jonathan Hunt, VP of HubSpot media. Spoke about their approach to acquiring creator-led media brands, what he's learned about audience development from a career at companies including Vice, Vox, Nat Geo ... and more.

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Read it here! https://t.co/JkH7ydswVN

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Mimicry, remixing, and plagiarism are all features of the creator economy. They are not bugs. Platforms make commodities of most ideas — speed and distribution comprise the delta.

Wrote about plagiarism and building a "defensible personal brand" for last week's @creator__spot

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Watch here or listen on any of the pod platforms: https://t.co/pfXo2AVDQQ
https://t.co/oQk3DYu12x

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

First month at @creator__spot doing @beehiiv Top 4: 6,450 total subscribers referred. We're rotating it for August. I'll pick one newsletter from the replies. Pitch me!

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

On YouTube, or search The Creator Spotlight Podcast on any of the apps. https://t.co/2IvEOMabye

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

There are ~650k people in the Wichita area. 31k subscribe to @LandonHuslig's local newsletter, which brought in over $100k last year.

Landon is a perfect pod guest: sharp, excited, transparent. An excellent edition to the @creator__spot local media canon. Full link below.

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Read it here: https://t.co/ArnWf16AA6

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

"Influencer" is a dead term, totally supplanted by "creator." More useful now to think of "influence" as something wielded, or "influencing" as a verb. Great work by @_NatmPerez in today's Creator Spotlight breaking it down. Link below.

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Today on the @creator__spot pod, Nathan May — one of the few most active paid growth providers for the newsletter industry since launching his agency at the top of 2024.

Full disclosure: CS is a client; I stand by his work.

[Francis Zierer @FZierer]

Full episode here and on all the pod platforms @creator__spot https://t.co/R4N9oHeHrf