When Jay-Z sang, “I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man,” in the 2005 “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” remix, little did we know these lyrics were presciently foreshadowing the creator economy to come.
The creator economy refers to the ecosystem of individual creators — think artists, influencers, podcasters, TikTokers and YouTubers — who build businesses around their creative endeavors and personal brands, earning income from the audiences they amass and the advertisers they partner with.
These creators may not make a living in a traditional way, but they still need tools to do their jobs — tools that help them create and distribute content easily, manage administrative work efficiently and grow and monetize their audiences independently.
10 Top Creator Economy Startups to Know
- Patreon
- Substack
- Linktree
- Teachable
- Gumroad
- Thinkific
- Kajabi
- Ko-Fi
- ConvertKit
- Podia
Stepping up to fill that need is a range of startups and companies whose goal is to build software tools and platforms that help creators do what they do best — create.
Here are 21 of these companies you should know.
21 Content Creation and Creator Economy Startups
1. Caffeine
Location: Redwood City, California
Type of content creation tool: Livestream video
Caffeine allows people to broadcast live video and interact with audiences in real time. Creators can monetize by selling digital items to their followers, and they can join Caffeine’s growth programs to expand their fan bases even more. The company launched its product in 2016, and has since earned a $600 million valuation (plus a partnership with Drake).
2. Linktree
Location: Los Angeles, California
Type of content creation tool: Landing page builder
Linktree allows creators to house their social handles, retail links and blog content in one easy-to-use page that can be linked to in social media bios, email signatures and even QR codes. Founded in 2016, the company is valued at nearly $1.3 billion.
3. Kajabi
Location: Irvine, California
Type of content creation tool: Online courses / video
Since launching in 2010, Kajabi has been used by more than 50,000 creators to build and sell online video courses to over 60 million students, according to its website. The platform positions itself as an all-in-one software solution that can handle a creator’s blogging, email, marketing automation and digital sales and delivery.
4. SageSpot
Location: New York, New York
Type of content creation tool: Community building platform
SageSpot allows creators to set up digital “clubs” that house videos, live streams, discussion boards and blog content. Creators use a subscription-based model to earn income from their SageSpot account and can connect with followers via comments and forums. Founded in 2020, the company raised $5.1 million in seed round funding in 2021.
5. Teachable
Location: Fully Remote
Type of content creation tool: Online courses / video
Teachable can be thought of as similar to MasterClass, but without the A-list celebrities. More than 100,000 instructors have used Teachable to sell and manage their online courses. Instructors pay Teachable a monthly or yearly subscription fee to use the platform for creating, hosting and selling their classes. Founded under the name Fedora in 2013, the startup was acquired by Hotmart in 2020.
6. Circle
Location: New York, New York
Type of content creation tool: Community building platform
Circle bills itself as “the modern community platform for creators” — it’s a place to publish content, host discussions and cultivate a membership-based community. The platform lets creators customize the look and feel of their spaces. The company itself was founded in 2019, and both its co-founders first worked at the edtech startup Teachable.
7. Karat
Location: Seattle, Washington
Type of content creation tool: Financial services
Karat is a credit card company that looks at your follower count, not just your FICO score, for determining your credit limit. The startup began in 2020 with a credit card specifically targeted for creators and influencers. The company also offers bookkeeping and tax services for creators to help them avoid audits and ensure compliance with federal and state tax laws. Karat has raised $4.6 million in seed funding.
8. Gumroad
Location: San Francisco, California
Type of content creation tool: E-commerce
Gumroad allows creators to sell digital products directly to consumers. Artists, authors and even movie studios have used Gumroad to sell digital content, process payments and communicate with audiences. The company, which has raised more than $8 million, was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco.
9. Popshop Live
Location: West Hollywood, California
Type of content creation tool: E-commerce
Popshop Live is like QVC or the Home Shopping Network for the next generation: The mobile platform integrates e-commerce with live video streaming, allowing individual sellers and stores alike to pitch and sell products to a viewing audience — with clickable links for purchasing. It’s interactive too as hosts and shoppers can chat in real time. Popshop Live raised $3 million from investors in 2020, bringing its funding total to $4.5 million.
10. Superpeer
Location: San Francisco, California
Type of content creation tool: Community building platform
Superpeer is an app that facilitates video calls between subject matter experts and their clients (or between influencers and their fans). It could be used for a coaching session or just a chat. Either way, “superpeers” set their price and availability, and the platform books them appointments. The startup launched in 2020 on and raised $2 million in pre-seed funding.
11. Thinkific
Location: Fully Remote
Type of content creation tool: Online courses
Thinkific is a software platform that lets instructors create, market and sell online courses — whether it’s for guitar lessons, a cooking class or a crash course in philosophy. Instructors can use it to design their own websites too. Headquartered in Vancouver, Thinkific has about 100 employees and has raised $25 million to date.
12. Podia
Location: New York, New York
Type of content creation tool: Community building platform
Podia launched in 2014 to help tutors manage their businesses online. It has since pivoted to become a platform for creators to sell memberships, video courses, webinars and digital downloads, billing itself as an “all-in-one digital storefront.” Podia also offers payment portal integration, chat messaging and email marketing tools.
13. Libsyn
Located: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Type of content creation tool: Podcast subscriptions
Libsyn’s Glow membership program is trying to make it easy for podcasters to accept support directly from their listeners. Creators use Glow to build subscription packages and put content behind paywalls for audiences to unlock when they want more. The company started in 2019 and raised $2.3 million in seed funding.
14. Patreon
Location: San Francisco, California
Type of content creation tool: Membership platform
Patreon is a platform used by creators to build online communities and set up paid subscriptions to support their work. Memberships typically work in tiers, with higher levels of support getting access to more content and perks. Patreon started in 2013 and is now used by over 200,000 creators selling subscriptions directly to more than six million patrons. The company is worth over $1 billion.
15. Moe
Location: Fully Remote
Type of content creation tool: Project management
Being a full-time influencer isn’t always glamorous — there are projects to manage, partnerships to track, invoices to create, revenue to monitor. Moe markets itself as a virtual assistant that helps keep creators organized with recurring back-office tasks. The company was originally founded in 2019 by fashion blogger Danielle Bernstein and launched mobile app features in 2022.
16. Supercast
Location: Fully Remote
Type of content creation tool: Podcast subscriptions
Supercast startup allows podcast creators to monetize their content through memberships. With Supercast, creators can paywall bonus episodes and exclusive content or offer ad-free versions of their podcasts. It’s not a separate listening platform either — users still access the podcasts through whatever app they typically use. The company raised a $2.5 million seed round in 2020.
17. Buy Me a Coffee
Location: San Francisco, California
Type of content creation tool: Financial services
Buy Me a Coffee created a payment system that lets creators accept support from audiences through one-time tips or recurring payments. More than 150,000 creators, from writers to cosplayers, currently use the platform to set up memberships and build and own their audiences. Buy Me a Coffee was founded in 2018 and is an alum of startup accelerator Y Combinator.
18. Ko-Fi
Location: Fully Remote
Type of content creation tool: Financial services
The name and coffee-cup logo suggests that Ko-fi sees itself as a way for audiences to tip “coffee money” to their favorite artists, authors and cosplayers. The platform lets people create pages to showcase their work and receive support, and their fans can choose to chip in with one-time donations or set up recurring subscriptions.
19. Stir
Location: San Francisco, California
Type of content creation tool: Financial services
Stir is a platform that gives creators an overview of their financials and revenue streams. The company offers collaboration tools, too, allowing multiple creators to launch a collective and have Stir divvy up the revenue between them when they work together on a project. Founded by former Facebook and Google employees, Stir raised $4 million in seed funding from investors in 2020.
20. ConvertKit
Location: Fully Remote
Type of content creation tool: Newsletters and email marketing
ConvertKit’s email marketing platform is specifically designed for creators who want to grow their audiences through email campaigns and newsletters. It allows them to create landing pages, forms and automated sales funnels. ConvertKit was founded in 2013 and is staffed by a fully remote team.
21. Substack
Location: San Francisco, California
Type of content creation tool: Newsletters and email marketing
Substack is an email newsletter publishing platform that allows writers to offer subscriptions and receive support directly from readers. It has an integrated payment processing system, as well as audience analytics. Since its 2017 founding, Substack has brought on several high-profile journalists who left traditional media jobs to launch their own independent newsletters. In 2020, the company reported that more than 100,000 people pay for a Substack newsletter subscription.