An underrated business opportunity: Build a media company around evergreen content. https://t.co/G7FdTmZvoa

In 2019, Wired reported that 125,000 creators -- podcasters, YouTubers, musicians, webcomic artists, etc…-- had generated a combined 5 million monthly subscribers. At the end of that year Patreon announced that it had paid out $1 billion to its users since its inception, with $500 million amassed that year alone.

On Patreon, the average initial pledge amount has increased 22 percent over the past two years. Since 2017, the share of new patrons paying more than $100 per month—or $1,200 per year—has grown 21 percent

The concept of a paid, crowdfunded membership for music is nothing new. Fan clubs for pop culture have been around since the early nineteenth century, and crowdfunding in particular is at the core of musical entrepreneurship in the Internet age. One of the world's first crowdfunding sites, ArtistShare, was founded in 2001 specifically for... See more

To make $1000 per month, a creator needs about 100K Instagram followers, 2M views monthly on YouTube or 25M on TikTok (New Creator Manifesto, 2021). Contrast this with platforms that provide a more competitive mechanism for creator monetization. Just over 200 subscribers on Substack, OnlyFans, Twitch or Patreon at $5 per month will yield the same... See more