How to spot the right creator before the market does

📔 Jeff’s Diary (yes, I’ll let you read it)

I talk to 50 founders a week, and a convo yesterday hit me hard. Someone had built something they thought was incredible, and they came to us looking for creator partners. But they had no CEO. No capital. No infrastructure to scale or support what a creator would bring, which is customers. Just a product they spent years engineering that was, as I said, “awesome”, but so are many ideas that sit on the shelf at CES and become artifacts of dreamers, not operators.

When I built SWON, a water conservation device for the shower, it was because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help save billions of gallons of potable water and teach people about the water crisis. But I had built a product… I didn’t build a company, and there’s a big difference. Lesson learned.

Selling a product is NOT building a company. A company has leadership, a long-term vision, and a mentality that, against all odds, you WILL succeed. Your dream WILL be fulfilled. But clearly, not every Founder is an Operator, just like every Creator is not an Entrepreneur.

Today, you can find a manufacturer in China that can make anything you dream of. And you can ask Cursor or Lovable to do the same. And guess what, if you have a big enough audience, you can use the trust you’ve earned with them to tell them to buy it. But should you? Short-term gains for long-term losses is not how you stay in the game. It’s how you quickly get sidelined.

An Operator with a Creator can create something special that lasts, but when both sides dream of being the other, and don’t recognize the skills required and commitment it takes, the audience you want to become customers are left holding the bag, and the trust you’ve earned with them… is quickly lost. Burn me once, shame on you. You won’t burn me twice.

So if you’re passionate about building something that solves a problem, go and build it. But if your master plan is to offload your baby to a Creator because you think they can sell it, operationalize it, and scale it, you don’t understand the superpower that creators have, and you will fail before you even start the conversation. Don’t just be the Founder. Be the Operator.

– Jeff

📆 WHAT WE WILL HIT ON THIS WEEK:

→ Every founder must know: spot the right creator before everyone else does.

→ YouTube creators are building real businesses: How Hacksmith Industries turned their audience into investors, raising $10 million for a 21-in-1 multi-tool and proving creators can out-fund startups.

→ OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas is rewriting the internet: Why the new AI-powered browser changes how people discover, consume, and interact with content.

→ Get your exclusive Owners Only cap

Spotting the Right Creator Before Everyone Else Does

Founders should be scouting creators the same way VCs scout startups, looking for signal, not size. That means seeing who’s showing up in the places you want to be, and in the conversations you wish you were having.

The comment sections are where you’ll find the most intent. Who’s chiming in, who’s clapping back? Is it a conversation, or an emoji fest?

It’s like catching Justin Bieber at 12, you have to look for real talent. Is this person creative? A native storyteller? If you watched and stayed, others will. In a world of AI slop, curating human taste is where people will follow people, so make sure you know what you’re looking for, or you’ll miss the signs.

When doing Creator Equity deals, you want to think “where will this person be in 2 or 4 years?”. If they’re starting to blow up, their data shows them growing and they are maturing as a content creator (you’ve scrolled back to see content from a year ago), you can get in early, buy into someone at todays value, knowing that when your business scales in a few years, so will they, and you’ve paid for that at today’s prices.

Start scouting early. Build relationships now. The next breakout creator could be your unfair advantage before the rest of the market even notices.

💥 YouTube Creator Hacksmith Industries Just Raised $10M for a Multi-Tool

YouTube creator Hacksmith Industries just turned content into capital, raising $10 million on Kickstarter for the “Smith Blade,” a 21-in-1 multi-tool built for everyday carry fans. What started as a maker channel is now a full-blown hardware brand with a cult following and a crowdfunding record to match.

Why this matters: This is what happens when you combine influence with insight.

It’s a reminder that the best product feedback loop might not come from market research, but from creators who live inside your customer’s world. They are listening devices as much as they are megaphones, and they ARE listening to fans every day, so it’s easy to know what they want, and how to convert them into customers.

The blueprint is clear: start with trust, go deep on your niche, and build what your fans can hold. YouTube isn’t just where creators go viral anymore, it’s where they raise millions, build real companies, and turn audiences into investors.

Partner with them early, give them skin in the game, and they’ll help you build something people actually want.

🧠 OpenAI Just Launched the ChatGPT Atlas Browser

OpenAI dropped ChatGPT Atlas, a new AI-powered browser built around the ChatGPT model. It comes with Agent Mode (where AI performs tasks for you), split-screen browsing (chat + website side by side), and personalized memory that learns how you browse. In short, this isn’t Chrome 2.0, it’s the start of an entirely new internet experience.

Why this matters: The browser is no longer just a window, it’s becoming an intelligent interface. Atlas shifts web use from search and click to ask and act. That means how audiences find, consume, and engage with content is about to be rewritten.

This changes the playbook. If AI agents are the new gatekeepers, how will your product be discovered, monetized, or even experienced? The next wave of winners will be those who build for agents as much as for humans, optimizing not just for clicks, but for comprehension.

OpenAI isn’t just competing with Google. It’s redefining how people experience the internet. The future of discovery won’t live in search bars. It’ll live in conversations.

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