In 2018 Derek was posting “Natty Or Not” videos on YouTube–Videos focused on a male celebrity, who had recently gone through a body overhaul. Going from normal looking to jacked, in a short period of time, is curious. While traditional media boasted about the new diet or workout routine the celebrity had used, Derek guessed what testosterone stack (steroids) they had taken. Spicy.
His videos are detailed, he is very well researched. Derek doesn’t have a formal science background, but the videos sound like lectures from a Biology 303 class.
He speaks with a Canadian-bro accent, he’s endearing. He has the it factor.
You would think like most–these densely scientific videos, sometimes hours in length, with a huge amount of biology jargon, would certainly fall on deaf ears.
They did not.
His channel, More Plates More Dates, grew at an ever-increasing pace. Derek was the new go-to science/lifting bro on YouTube–pre-Andrew Huberman. From 2018 to 2023, the channel grew by 2 million subscribers. Seasoned and aspiring bodybuilders, casual gym bros–everyone drawn to Derek's videos to get his insight on the secret sauce these celebrities used to transform their bodies.
To him, this was awesome. YouTube pays Derek 50% of advertising fees they generate from advertisers. And, for him, at his subscriber count, this would be no small sum. Derek was wealthy.
But this is only the beginning of the story.
Derek knew he had something. He had lighting in a bottle. Trust. And Derek was intent on leveraging that trust–and that he did.
Now, what would a wiley science bro do with all this trust? Why, he would make supplements, of course!
Derek formed a company called Gorilla Mind. His first product was a nootropic, a mental stamina supplement. As expected, Derek thoroughly researched the product. He did numerous double-blind tests, and churned through manufacturing partners to create something his audience would love. He put in the work. And the end product, to those who use it, think it’s excellent.
He did it right. He used his trust to launch a product that he himself would, and does, use. This instilled more trust in his already ecstatic fan base, giving him the opportunity to launch more products.
The flywheel is turnin’
Gorilla Mind is a private company, details are limited. But we can get a rough idea of the numbers from their website traffic.
The website gets roughly 2 million views a month.
At a 3% conversion rate (a conservative estimate),
and a $60 average cart size (also conservative),
that is roughly $43 million in annual revenues.
Excuse Me?
Derek has built an empire around the trust of the YouTube bro-science crew. A small but mighty niche, with deep pockets–for supplements.
Now, admittedly, I am a sucker for these types of stories. Someone building something from nothing, in an obscure way, in a random niche to great success–It’s fun, it’s exciting. It inspires me. But at the same time, a story like this alone feels distant. I’m drawn to it, but can’t draw any application from it.
But if we poke around the internet a little, the most interesting part of Derek’s story is not him. Rather, it’s that there are many Derek’s. The number and diversity of creator-led brands thriving in unknown niches, generating staggering revenues are insane.
My spidey senses are tingling. I smell a larger, repeatable phenomenon.
Kevin Espiru began gardening as a hobby–he and his brother needed an excuse to stop gaming and get outside. He’s a likable guy, and at the time, a complete noob to gardening.
He documented his entire gardening journey. People on the internet, it turned out, liked learning alongside him. After a year of documenting, he was earning enough money from his YouTube subscribers to quit his day job and focus on his channel.
But, he knew his subscribers were worth more than the ad revenue they generated. As his YoutTube channel grew he launched a website and brand, Epic Gardening.
He raised money from The Chernin Group. With those funds he bought an Australian company producing metal raised garden beds. Very niche. The company already had distribution relationships with Wall-Mart, Home Depot and others. So, his role was simply to promote the product. And he had just the audience for that.
The raised garden bed sales took off, he added more products to his website. Similar to Derek, the flywheel turned.
Today, that business generates $30m/year.
Brian Joshnson can be best described as an anti-aging lunatic. He spends $2m/year, attempting to reverse his age. He staffs a team of 30 doctors. They measure each and every organ in his body, individually. Each organ is given a “biological” age marker. He then follows treatments and protocols for each organ to reverse those markers. A real life Benjamin Button.
He documents EVERYTHING in public. What he’s doing, why he’s doing it, how he’s tracking it, the rituals he does, the results of his blood tests, the products he uses–and, my favourite data point, his nighttime erections.
Anyway, by documenting this journey, he built an audience over a two year period. He became a “longevity influencer”, maybe the first of his kind.
His fans are rabid. To them, he is a god.
Brian hit launch on an eCommerce store two years into his journey, selling BluePrint, a recurring monthly supply of his anti-aging supplement protocol.
But a curious thing happened when he launched the site. He had to turn it off after two days. 12,000 people had applied for the subscription, but he could only fill 5,000 orders a month. He had sold out.
You might be thinking to yourself “No big deal” right?
The value of the subscriptions in those 2 days of sales was $20m in annual recurring revenue. In two days!
You’re noticing the pattern now. Individuals can build and nurture an audience, even in obscure categories, and with that audience, generate an inordinate amount of demand for a product.
Before your mind starts to wander, let’s make a clear distinction. These are not traditional celebrities. They are not traditional influencers. The wave of celebrity liquor brands has come and gone. They lack authenticity. People can smell it.
Creators in this context do not have a profile with the masses. They, for the most part, start from zero. What they have, that traditional influencers do not, is a North Star. A passion that resonates deeply with both them and their audience. Their North Star is authentic.
Creators understand their audience, they nurture them with tailored content. By nurturing them, their fans become rabid.
The internet is a weird and fragmented place where attention is everything. But you can gain attention in very curious corners of it. These examples are not just interesting, one-off, out-of-reach concepts.
Creator-Led is a strategy. It is repeatable.
More importantly, it is a strategy that will only grow in effectiveness and importance in the coming years.
There's a really important trend that we have stumbled into which is that content creators are the modern form of demand generation for whatever else it is that you're going to consume and I think it replaces advertising and I think it displaces traditional content.
The AI wave is, and will continue to, make scaling content easier. Meaning there will be more of it. A lot more.
So, why does that matter? And more specifically, why does that matter for businesses?
This tsunami of content, hurling towards the shore, will make it incredibly difficult for a business to gain the attention needed to sell their products. Traditional marketing efforts will be lost and swept away by the flood.
But, no matter how good AI gets, there will be one constant. People buy trust.
The Creator-Led strategy is a solution to clutter. A rabid fan base, is a curated customer list for the right product. If people see you as an authority on a topic, and they care about that topic, they will buy what you sell–so long as it is great.
This isn’t to say it is easy, and this isn’t to say that it applies to all businesses. But it applies to more than you would think, and is a countermeasure to an increasingly cluttered world.
Now, there is an additional perk to this strategy outside of carving out a rabid audience and customer base. One worth dissecting.
The business model of a Creator-Led business is attractive. A typical business will spend up to 80% of product revenue to acquire a customer. 80% of the money generated will be spent on (traditional) marketing, to cut through the noise I was talking about earlier. This is called the cost of acquisition, or CAC.
The Creator-Led framework flips this structure on its head. The creator builds their audience first, they do not start with a product. Their content is focused on a particular niche. As their audience grows, it generates revenue for them through video ads, brand sponsorships, and affiliate networks (or a combination of the three).
Before even thinking about a product, they are making a living.
When they do launch a product they have what is called negative CAC. Rather than paying to acquire customers, they are being paid for each new viewer. Who in turn become customers.
This model solves one of the most (maybe the most) difficult aspects of building a business, distribution.
And, as you might expect, the sharps–investors with a keen eye for asymmetric advantages, are catching on.
Negative CAC is like chum in shark infested water, except the sharks are investors. They can’t avoid it, they can’t unsee it, it lures them in. Investors are looking for any way to dereisk their investment, and a keen few have developed an interest in the Creator-Led strategy. It’s worth highlighting with an example.
The Chernin Group understands negative CAC. They invest in consumer-facing businesses, recently with a focus on creator-led businesses.
TCG is a private equity firm, not a venture firm. The reason I bring that up is because of the difference in venture vs. PE strategies. Venture studios make a bunch of bets on early stage technology or products with a hope that a couple 100x. They expect many will fail along the way. The PE model on the other hand is focused on profits with relative certainty. They invest in businesses that churn out cash.
Interesting, TCG’s new focus on creators, init.
TCG knows that creators, with the right audience, and a tightly integrated organic product, are a sure bet because of their built-in distribution.
TCG has a knack for picking creators that are at an inflection point. Ones with not simply a growing follower count. Creators with rabid engagement, and a clear path to a valuable product their fans will love.
They take a significant stake in a creator-led company, define the operating strategy, and build a team around the creator to bring a business to life. You can think of the creator as the “audience co-founder”.
Now, why would a creator want or need their help, you ask? Glad you did.
Creators are not necessarily good operators, they may want to operate a business, they may not have the capital required to launch a product. The skillsets of launching a successful product/business is different from the skillsets required of a creator.
Building a team around them, and providing investment capital to get started, is the value TCG brings to the creator.
On the other side of that equation, TCG knows what’s underpriced in the market now. It’s not building a product, it’s not the technology.
It is the audience.
The value of a creator goes beyond just the content they produce. It's the attention they command, the community they cultivate. The equity given to a creator is more than compensated for by the loyal following they attract. That following is a rabid customer base. This strategy has a long-tail. Even niche products, backed by the right audience, can generate substantial revenue without mainstream appeal.
To name a few TCG investments with relatively unknown brands in small niches who are creator-led:
Cars & Bids
Doug DeMuro began sharing his car reviews on YouTube 10 years ago. His YouTube channel grew to 4 million subscribers, generating 23 million monthly views.
With the help of TCG, Doug launched Cars & Bids, a niche online used car marketplace.
Cars & Bids generates an estimated $100 million in sales annually.
Meat Eater
Steve Rinella is an outdoorsman, conservationist and writer. He hunts on TV in a series called Meat Eater that began in 2012.
As his audience grew, Meat Eater morphed from a TV show to a multifaceted lifestyle brand including a podcast network, a line of books, and hunting merchandise they produce.
The Meat Eater Inc. network generates $90 million in revenue annually.
Hodinkee
In 2008, Benjamin Clymer started a blog on vintage watches. His posts quickly made the blog a top resource for collectors and enthusiasts.
Benjamin expanded Hodinkee into a marketplace, connecting buyers and sellers and validating the authenticity of the watches on the platform.
Today, Hodinkee generates over $100 million in annual revenue.
The Chernin Group has a formula:
They leverage the unique influence of a creator and transform their audience's loyalty into a sustainable business advantage. By repeating this strategy, TCG capitalizes on the underpriced aspect of business building, distribution. The right creator and product combination can turn niche markets into cash cows.
Let’s Recap
What have we learned? What can we take away from this strategy?
This playbook is more than repeatable—it flips the challenge of distribution into an opportunity. A focus on building trust with an audience is more effective than traditional advertising. This trust is a sustainable competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded digital marketplace. I am convinced that this approach will not only gain traction but will dominate the landscape over the next five years.
Expect to see a surge in the number of investors embracing the 'audience co-founder' model. Individuals with a view will publish more online with the strategic endgame of cultivating an audience to market tightly integrated products to. This is a shift from faceless corporations and brands, to a direct connection between businesses and their consumers.
Want to dig deeper into these businesses? Check out the links below. Each example shows you what's possible with the creator-led model.
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