Creator Economy
Barstool Sports: The Digital Media Network That Sold Twice And Came Home
Chernin, Penn, and the $1 buyback. The Barstool podcast network, Pardon My Take, and the founder-brand model that broke a gaming license.
Category
Creator Economy
Creator Economy
Dax Shepard and Armchair Expert: The Comedy Actor Who Built the Interview Category
The vulnerability format, the Wondery deal, and the Armchair Umbrella podcast network. Why Armchair pulls guests other shows can't.
Creator Economy
SmartLess: The Celebrity-Podcast Deal That Reset The Category
Bateman, Hayes, Arnett. The Amazon/Wondery deal reported at $60M-$80M. The celebrity-podcast benchmark that priced the category.
Creator Economy
Ryan Trahan: The Long-Series Storyteller Who Built A DTC Brand On The Side
Ryan Trahan built a top YouTube channel and a DTC brand in parallel. The Penny Series, Joggy, and the series-based creator model.
Creator Economy
Dude Perfect: The Five-Person Creator Studio That Built a Sports-Entertainment Business
60M+ subscribers, 20B+ views, a $100M Highmount investment, a Frisco HQ. How Dude Perfect built the team-based creator studio model.
Creator Economy
Ninja: The Streamer Who Turned Twitch Into a Brand Channel
Tyler Blevins became the streamer priced as an endorsement asset. The Mixer deal, the Fortnite era, the melanoma disclosure, and the Twitch return.
Creator Economy
Bari Weiss and The Free Press: The Newsletter-to-Publication Arc
Bari Weiss built The Free Press from a Substack newsletter into an independent publication with 1M+ subscribers, an editorial roster, and its own infrastructure. The reference case for journalist-to-publisher arcs in the creator economy.
Creator Economy
Veritasium: How Derek Muller Built the Most-Cited STEM Channel on YouTube
Veritasium publishes roughly once a month. 16 million subscribers. PhD in physics. The most-cited STEM creator inside ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. The template for production-grade educational content.
Creator Economy
Nathan Barry and Kit (ConvertKit): The Creator-First Infrastructure Founder
Nathan Barry founded ConvertKit in 2013 — rebranded to Kit in 2024 — and bootstrapped it into one of the largest creator-economy infrastructure businesses without venture capital.
Creator Economy
New Heights: How the Kelce Brothers Built the $100M Wondery Deal
Wondery paid $100M+ for three years of New Heights — the largest athlete podcast deal in history. Two brothers, one banter format, a Taylor Swift halo, and a new ceiling for sports-creator IP.