One thing's for sure: the Creator Economy is on fire right now.
This is without a doubt the best time in history to start building your personal brand, offering services, building digital assets, and identifying ways to productize yourself. And the data is there to support - more than 50 million people consider themselves online creators.
While that may seem overwhelming and noisy, a more optimistic way to think about it is: "If 50 million people have already joined the Creator Economy, so can I."
And you absolutely can. Remember - you don't need a big audience to find success as a Creator, you just need a couple hundred people that are actively engaged at any given time.
To spark inspiration and show you how tangible it is to start your Creator journey, we thought it'd be helpful to highlight a few exciting Creators who are building their tribes in the best way possible: providing an insane amount of value to their The hashtag #creatoreconomy is growing more and more popular on Twitter each day. These Creators are doing a giving us the blueprint to establishing an audience, giving away a ton of value, and then eventually making an ask to their dedicated audience.
Here are 10 Creators to watch for in 2022:
1. Justin Welsh - Over the last decade, Justin helped build two $50M+ ARR companies, teams of 150+ people, and raise over $300M in venture capital.
Now he's a solopreneur building a portfolio of businesses delivering 7-figures annually, powered by more than 200,000 social media followers. If you surf Linkedin at all, you've seen his name and/or content in your feed. He's absolutely crushing it on Linkedin. So much so that he built a wonderfully detailed digital course titled The Linkedin Operating System that has helped 3,000+ students take their content game to the next level, specifically in the business/professional space.
One of the most important pieces of Justin's approach to content creation and engaging with his audience is his extreme level of transparency. You get the feeling he's talking directly to you when you're reading his post, tweets, or thread. And, he never holds back on demonstrating his success in an attempt to show the exact recipe to finding success in the Creator Economy.
Simply put, Justin is actively laying out the step-by-step blueprint for transitioning from having a successful corporate career over to solopreneurship and is regarded by many to be a pioneer in the Creator Economy.
If you're in the process of building an audience, learning how to productize yourself, and are truly committed to upping your Creator-game, Justin is a must-follow.
Follow him on Linkedin and Twitter
Subscribe to his Saturday Solopreneur newsletter
Buy his Linkedin Operating Course here
2. Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi
Want a direct line of sight into how you can build 6 different streams of real revenue?
You need to check out Niharikaa's Twitter and newsletter on Medium. She's another example of showing her audience exactly how to get where they want to go.
One of the biggest challenges all aspiring and active Creators deal with is writing. With all the noise on the internet, your ability to capture the reader's attention and pull them into your universe is invaluable. Niharikaa helps you take your writing to the next level in a few different ways including cohort based learning as well as simply just writing great tweets all the time (so meta of you, Niharikaa).
I mean, she's been named a Top Writer on Medium more than 20 times. In reality, all you need to do is copy the way she writes and you'll be set - she's that good.
Not only does she give you the keys to great writing, she also shows us very simple, tactical ways to start building income streams in the Creator Economy.
Follow her on Twitter and if you’re serious about improving your writing game - sign up for her upcoming 21-Day Writing Cohort right here.
3. Nick Bennett
Straight up, there may not be another person who hustles as hard as NickB. Somehow he manages a million things at once and does it brilliantly. Here's what he's actively involved in:
While we think that's everything, there's a good chance we're missing something! This dude just hustles.
For all of the stuff Nick's doing right now, he's set himself up for a massive 2022 and we can't wait to watch his growth this year. If you're interested in B2B Marketing and the Creator Economy, there's not a better person to follow!
Check out his Linkedin and Twitter
Buy his ABM Playbook here
4. Kim Goulbourne (@madebybourn)
Maker. Designer. Developer. Founder. What can Kim Goulbourn not do?!
As the Founder and CPO of The App Makers Manual, she opens the door for all Creators to build badass applications without the need to be incredibly technical. Whether you're just getting started or simply want to execute your ideas quickly, Kim's content is exactly what you need.
Truth be told, had we known about Kim's content prior to building this site, we would've leaned into Kim's process because it's absolute gold. In fact, when the day comes and we build a mobile app, we'll likely go with Adalo and follow Kim's guidance.
The App Makers Manual helps beginners turn their app idea into a reality with a mix of free and paid content. You can check out their blog here on the importance of UX and UI in order to effectively design an app.
From what we can tell, she recently joined Splice too - which means Kim is another great example of someone who rocks a 9-5 and is carving out a specific lane as a Creator. And if you check out her Twitter, you'll quickly learn Kim is constantly with high-quality GIFs and memes; a sign of true genius!
Bottom line: if you want to learn how to make an app (and/or) are interested in the Creator Economy, Kim is a great follow.
5. Jessie Breugel (@jessievbreugel)
Fact #1: There's not a future in which your personal brand becomes less important.
Fact #2: Jessie B. can help you turn your personal brand into money.
For any Creator (or anyone really) that's interested in establishing a specific and memorable personal brand, you've gotta start taking notes from Jesse. As another "Creator creating for Creators" - his own personal brand is a use case demonstrating the power of a personal brand as well as what he can do for yours.
If you watch his Twitter game, you'll quickly learn how great he is at interacting with his audience with questions that capture your attention and demand your engagement. Jessie's a digital nomad living all over the world, right now he's probably sitting on a beach drinking a few Corona's and preparing his upcoming personal branding cohort. You can learn more about that here and start (or enhance) your personal branding journey with Jessie by picking up his Ultimate Branding Guide right here.
One of our favorite things about Jessie is the color scheme he decided to go with for his own brand - the core purple and white with black accents pop off the screen and immediately pull you in. Again, a testament to what he can do for anyone looking to up their personal branding game.
We recommend you follow Jessie on Twitter and check out everything he has to offer by visiting his website.
6. Samantha Demers
Creators need love too!
Samantha’s entire mission is to help driven Creators grow and more specifically, overcome imposter syndrome. If you’ve never experienced imposter syndrome or something similar before, you may want to evaluate your wildly high vote of confidence in yourself. Self-doubt is a natural part of the process, especially for Creators or Solopreneurs.
If you’re still waiting on the right moment to start building/creating, Samantha’s advice is to just go! You don’t need to have your niche figured out yet, you just need to start sharing your thoughts and talking to people. She’s spent several months finding her voice and niche on Twitter and she has certainly found it.
With 7,000+ Twitter followers, she’s in a perfect position to take off in 2022 and with the increasing popularity of the creator economy, we get the feeling Samantha is about to have a big year!
Follow her and subscribe to her Driven Creator newsletter (on her Twitter page) for more.
7. Dylan @ growthcurrency
All work, side hustle, and creator economy stuff aside - Dylan is one of the nicest guys we’ve met in a while. Kudos to you, my friend, for being awesome.
On top of that - he is absolutely crushing the newsletter game with his growthcurrency newsletter in an effort to help Creators grow their audience. While we would do a fine job of explaining growthcurrency, it’s best explained by Dylan here. (snippet below)
His words: “Simply put, the currency of growth is knowledge.”
So, if you have a thirst for knowledge, specifically as it relates to the #creatoreconomy - his newsletter is made just for you. It’s full of tips and tools to help Creators find out where to go and what to do as they’re trying to find themselves as a Creator.
Dylan recently launched his 52nd edition of his newsletter - check it out here and make sure you subscribe.
Dylan’s Twitter audience continues growing consistently due to the high level of value he’s frontloading in his tweets, newsletter, and ultimate creator database. Give him a follow here so you can be a part of his rocketship growth this year!
8. Andreas Jonsson (@andreasjonssonn)
While a lot of the Creator Economy conversation is happening on Twitter, it’s also really active on Linkedin and Andreas is helping those Linkedin Creators manage their analytics and traffic.
Andreas is the founder of shieldapp.ai - which gives its users direct line of sight into the traffic they’re driving to their Linkedin page. You can also get your hands on audience demographics, content metrics, and other helpful real-time data.
He’s beginning to become a bit more active on Twitter, but if you really want to watch his content game - check him out on Linkedi as he’s now up to 30k followers. I’m sure he’s loving the way his Shield analytics look right about now!
Below is an example of content you can expect from him, no matter where you decide to follow.
Follow him on Linkedin and on Twitter to keep your eyes on another trailblazer!
9. Boring SaaS Guy (@BoringSaaSGuy)
By far our favorite “anonymous” Creator on Twitter right now. This guy gives zero f***s and the people are loving it. He’s grown his audience rapidly as of late and has lofty goals of hitting 10k followers in 2022 along with building his SaaS product to 100k MRR. Ultimately, trying to build a $10M Software Kingdom!
His level of comfortability with sharing his failures is possibly the most alluring component of his content. He’s constantly working on new SaaS and if it doesn’t work, he has no issue sharing the outcome. Which is truly invaluable for his audience. If you’re watching close enough, he’s providing a playbook for exactly what to do and what NOT to do if you’re trying to build SaaS or micro-SaaS quickly. Here’s an example of him keeping it very real, and we love it.
Now, we don’t really know who he is - but that also makes his entire journey a little more intriguing.
Right now he’s working on a Twitter DM automation tool called birdomate to help SaaS founders acquire paying customers. You can join the waitlist now.
Side Note: He literally uses a google form for his waitlist sign-up. A good reminder that there’s no excuse for us to not start building stuff. It doesn’t have to be sexy, it just has to be functional.
Follow his Twitter and SaaS journey here.
10. Simone Noronha (@simonenoronha)
This blog is primarily focused on Creators that are either building tools, software, newsletters, etc. We decided to switch it up for this last (but certainly not least) Creator mention.
Simone is an outstanding Illustrator and Visualizer that who creates stunning digital art. While she has a solid following of 5k followers on Twitter, you can imagine her content is a little better suited for Instagram where she has amassed more than 17k+ followers! Here’s why her audience is growing so much:
If you’re a fan of her vibe, you can check out more of her art here and if you really like what she’s doing, you can literally “check out” and support her as an Artist/Creator.
Major Accomplishment: She was recently commissioned by YouTube to create a 10 minute ambient countdown - view it here. With full creative and artistic freedom on this project, she took full advantage of the opportunity and knocked it out of the park. Well done, Simone!
You may be noticing a theme that most Creators are creating amazing tools for other Creators.
And that’s what makes the Creator Economy so great. We’re all helping each other find out our own specific way to carve out the life we all want.
Now, even though the barrier to entry to start building and creating is virtually non-existent - most of us still need help getting started (and growing). That’s why CreatorFunds exists.
CreatorFunds helps Creators scale their brand, business, and revenue by providing access to capital, connections, and creator-friendly tools.
Our application launches April 1, 2022 - this is where Creators and Investors can connect to ink investment deals. In the meantime, check out our Creator Toolkit to find the best products/services to help you scale your Creator business.
Until next time ✌️
CreatorFunds Team
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