What a week to launch the first official edition of ‘The Creator Rep’ newsletter!

Potential TikTok bans heat up, Logan and KSI may be in hot water over their sugar water, and Jack Dorsey turns his back on his own baby with Bluesky.

But this newsletter is called ‘The Creator Rep’, so I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t focus on the news that rocked the world of digital talent representation…

NEWS:

‘Good Night and Good Luck’ Says Jimmy Donaldson

As reported by, well, every news outlet in the world, Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donaldson has left his longtime management partner Reed Duchscher at Night Media.

And, unlike most splits with known internet personalities, this one seems quite cordial.

The gossip mill has referenced two potential reasons for the separation: Jimmy asking Reed to focus on overseeing his candy brand Feastables and Reed’s refusal to move from Texas to North Carolina to be closer to the core business.

No insults traded. No betrayal by leaving for a direct competitor. No diss tracks (yet…)

Just a reasonably amicable split.

But it has ignited a discussion within talent reps: are we all doomed to lose our top clients once we help them become so rich that our % no longer makes economic sense?

My point of view: in most cases, yes.

As they should.

If a rep is taking 20% of a creator’s book of business and they make $10m per year, that means the rep will take home $2m.

So does it make sense to stay with their rep, or use that $2m to hire a COO, a head of sales, a head of biz dev, a CFO, three assistants, and still have money left over for a daily Olive Garden fix?

But Reed was smart. He leveraged Jimmy’s business in all the right ways while he had him.

He became a board member of Feastables. His firm manages many of Jimmy’s closest collaborators. He launched Night Ventures. And started newsletters, podcasts, and built a strong audience on LinkedIn while he was the manager of the highest-profile talent in the world.

He followed the lesson so many reps tell their talent: diversify.

So Jimmy will be fine, Reed will be fine, and if you focus on the lines of business you can control too, you’ll be fine too.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES:

Company Creator Investments are SO 2023…

For the last few years, top creators have been hammered by firms looking to invest in content creators. Spotter, Jellysmack, even traditional VCs got into the game.

The model was ready to be flipped on his head.

And much like traditional investment being disrupted by equity crowdfunding from Republic and StartEngine, GigaStar is turning creators’ fans into funders.

I’ll take that over getting yelled at by Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank.

But unlike traditional investment, the stake allows investors a portion of AdSense. And that means MONTHLY PAYMENTS to investors!

Plus as we learned from the NFT craze, if someone has a financial incentive to promote someone, they will to an annoying degree.

And as a manager, you can help broker the partnership for your margin, and, if you believe your talent is a rocket ship, invest yourself to participate further in your success.

As always, if you decide to reach out, please let them know ‘The Creator Rep’ newsletter sent you!

SOCIAL OPTIMIZATION:

Snap all day. No…seriously.

If you’re part of the Snap Stories monetization program, how many stories should you post per day?

Based on my inelegant research, the answer is one bajillion.

But seriously, there doesn’t seem to be a limit.

You will get diminishing returns. Story number 1 will generally get far more views than story 20, which will get more than story 100.

But that’s not exactly how Snap works. Since stories disappear after 24 hours, story number 1 will go away, and story 20 will become story number 1.

And the goal is to always have new content for fans to watch.

So next time a talent asks how much they should post, ask them how much their entire team can churn out while keeping the quality high.

That’s your answer.

INDUSTRY HIRING:

Squad.App is looking for a General Manager, Americas for their influencer marketing tech stack.

Orca is looking for Talent Coordinator to keep those TikTok shoppers shopping.

Passes is looking for a Talent Partner Account Executive. And after their $40m raise, you should ask for a raise for even reading this post.

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.