Ten years ago, "creator" wasn't really a market.
It was a label.
A YouTuber.
A blogger.
A podcaster.
A few people making content online.
I Stopped Sleeping Through The Night... And Thought It Was Aging.
I was waking up 3-4 times every night to use the bathroom. The exhaustion became normal.
What shocked me was learning it wasn't something I had to simply accept.
Researchers have identified a natural approach helping many women regain bladder control and sleep longer.
Today, it's an industry.
And whenever an industry forms, businesses rush in to serve it.
That's exactly what's happening now.
Look at the number of products targeting creators.
Newsletter platforms.
Video editors.
Thumbnail generators.
Community software.
Analytics tools.
Link-in-bio tools.
Course platforms.
Sponsorship marketplaces.
AI writing tools.
The list keeps growing.
At first glance, this seems strange.
Creators are still a relatively small percentage of the population.
So why are so many startups chasing them?
Because creators have become distribution channels.
That's the key shift.
Historically, businesses bought access to audiences.
TV stations owned audiences.
Newspapers owned audiences.
Radio stations owned audiences.
Today, individual people own audiences.
A YouTuber might reach more people than a local TV station.
A newsletter writer might influence more buyers than a trade publication.
A LinkedIn creator might have more visibility than an established company.
That's a massive change.
I noticed this while looking at startup acquisitions over the past few years.
Many companies weren't buying products.
They were buying audiences.
Because audiences reduce customer acquisition costs.
And customer acquisition is one of the most expensive problems in business.
If a creator can drive customers, they're valuable.
If thousands of creators can drive customers, they're an entire economy.
That's why software companies keep building creator tools.
They're not just serving creators.
They're serving distribution.
I think many people underestimate how much power shifted from institutions to individuals.
Not completely.
But enough to create a new market.
And markets attract entrepreneurs.
The interesting irony is that many creator tools aren't actually creator businesses.
They're infrastructure businesses.
The creator is simply the customer.
The real product is helping someone:
grow faster
sell easier
engage better
monetize more efficiently
That's why this category keeps expanding.
As more people build audiences, demand for infrastructure grows.
And as infrastructure improves, more people become creators.
It's a reinforcing cycle.
The same thing happened with ecommerce.
More stores created demand for ecommerce tools.
Better ecommerce tools created more stores.
Creators are following a similar path.
The result is an ecosystem much larger than content itself.
An entire layer of software, services, and businesses built around helping individuals reach people online.
Hard truth:
Most startups targeting creators aren't betting on content.
They're betting that attention is becoming one of the most valuable assets in the economy.
