The creator economy is growing rapidly, and ad revenue alone is no longer cutting it. YouTubers launch product lines, acquire startups, and build real business empires. In fact, MrBeast’s company bought fintech startup Step, and his chocolate business is earning his media arm. This is not just a strategy of one creator. For many, this is a new manual.
In this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan explain how creators are diversifying beyond ads, whether their model can scale beyond the top 1%, everything happening at India’s AI Impact Summit, and other headlines of the week.