What are you working towards?

(2 min read) Why you should be considering your Creator outcomes

Author

Avi Gandhi
December 31, 2024

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When you’re creating content on the internet, what are you working towards?

It’s an important question to consider as we close one year and begin the next.

The historical arc of a “normal” career is usually an upward trajectory towards some plateau, and then (if you’re lucky) a brief flatline of high earnings before retirement.

For example, if you’re a Marketing Associate, you hope to get promoted to (or take a new job elsewhere as) Manager, then Senior Manager, Director, Senior Director, Vice President, Senior Vice President, and - if you work your butt off and get really lucky - Chief Marketing Officer. Each of these steps may take 3-5 years - longer as you get more senior.

Many people never make it to the C-level, plateauing at Manager or Director, and in the past, that was still plenty to buy a big house, raise a family, take annual vacations, and have enough in savings to retire.

Not anymore.

Today, as I’ve written about elsewhere, a Director often has as much actual buying power as an entry-level employee in the 90s. Companies are more willing than ever to lay people off, and the economy is in a constant state of flux driven by political and technological volatility.

I believe content creation is a means to take control of your destiny, but it still begs the question - what destiny?

What is the ultimate outcome of being a content creator?

The longevity of Creators is uncertain. While there are still Creators making a living from content who have been around 10+ years, they are few and far between.

I believe that if you’re going to leverage content to build a business, you should work towards one of three (3) goals:

Build something that lasts beyond you

The first option is to build a business that lasts. It doesn’t need to be a fancy business - it needs to be one that will outlast your ability to work on it.

These are all around us - for example, the owners of my local dry cleaners, an older couple who have been in the neighborhood since long before me, always worked the register. I went in recently, and some fresh new faces greeted me instead. I asked if the place had sold, and the new attendants told me the original owners still owned the place but were bringing in new management.

That’s a business that will outlast them.

Here’s the thing - it’s nearly impossible to achieve this if content is the product (i.e. you’re a media company).

  1. If your face is at the center, it’s very hard (not impossible, but very hard) to maintain audience interest once you leave.

  2. Content is driven by creative, and creative is driven by culture. As culture changes, creative must change - and that’s tough. There aren’t a lot of small, generational digital media companies out there.

It’s much easier to build a business that outlasts you if content isn’t your product, but instead the vehicle for marketing your product.

If you own an agency, laundromat, coffee shop, ecommerce company, or some other small business and leverage content to bring in customers - you have a much better shot at building a sustainable business.

The reason for that is that the viability of the business doesn’t hinge on content. Content is just the vehicle to drive customer acquisition. You can much more easily change your creative or your talent or your distribution mechanics to suit the needs of the business, and that includes after you’re actually in the business.

If you retire while owning a self-sustaining business that operates without you involved, you’ll have a nice source of retirement cash as well as a legacy to leave behind!

Sell to someone else

This outcome is similar to the above, with two additional variables:

  • There has to be someone out there to appeal to - perhaps investors (private equity) or perhaps larger companies in your space

  • The business has to be appealing to those people who are looking to buy or invest - and there are a lot of additional inputs to that.

I’m not going to spend a ton of time on this because I’m not an expert in buying and selling businesses. Maybe I’ll have a guest write on this in the future.

Save for retirement

The most likely outcome for the majority of Creators is actually the same as the desired outcome for the majority of employed people - you want to make more money than you spend over the course of your career, save and invest that money intelligently, and retire with enough money to live on.

The big tricky question here is - how long do you have to do this? How long will your career creating content last - and can you save enough for retirement before the audience might move on? This is a dark question, a scary one, but one we must confront if we are to set ourselves up for long-term success.

Saving enough money to retire requires making more money than you spend for long enough to save enough.

  • You can spend less, or

  • You can make more

Some combination of both is probably the right answer, but spending less is hard. Between inflation, family costs, lifestyle creep, life gets MORE expensive as you get older, not less. Making more as a solution to this problem has been my mindset my entire career.

That’s partly why I’m starting a community to support Creators looking to invest in getting across the $100,000 income threshold.

If that sounds appealing, check out The $100k Creators Club.

The Musician Model

I recently had a conversation with Colin and Samir, who suggested a fourth model that I hadn’t considered: the Musician model.

There are plenty of bands who have been around for 20, 30, 40 years -the length of a traditional career - who put out new music and go on tour every year or two. You can probably think of a few off the top of your head. They change their sound as the times change, and while old fans keep following them for the nostalgia, new fans start following them for the new sound.

These artists continue to ply their trade, entertaining their fans and charging money for it, and while they aren’t making millions, they’re making a living doing what they love long into their career.

This model is probably actually a variation of the third model - these artists are extending their career spans as they attempt to make more than they spend and save for future retirement - but it does provide a reassuring example that Creators can have long careers.

Remember - YouTube and Facebook are barely 20 years old; the Creator Economy is brand new. We don’t know what the arc of a Creator career really looks like, or how long our business “lifespans” can be.

If nothing else, these touring artists are a beacon of hope that our careers can last as long as anyone else’s.

Best wishes for a prosperous 2025 - enjoy the New Year’s festivities and I’m looking forward to getting after it with all of you in January!

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Written by Avi Gandhi, edited by Melody Song,
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