why founders and creators are the same thing

NOBODY WANTED THIS

“OMG I saw your TikTok!” were the start of my nightmares in high school.

Before 2020, it was NOT cool to be on social media. Being a creator was considered vain, and the idea of making a job out of it would get you called “unrealistic.”

That’s the price for being a visionary…we’ll get to that later.

Social media was my, and can be, everyone’s first step into entrepreneurship. The concept of finding a problem or gap in a specific field and building a vision or solution is exactly like making and maintaining an audience. All creators and founders have a vision of the world they want to build. Customers = audience. Translating attention is the only difference.

Most creators lack business acumen, while business people lack creativity. The successful creators are founders and vice versa. That’s one of my many theses.

WHY I KNOW THIS

I started posting in 2016 at 13 years old when TikTok was called Musical.ly. I had one purpose: make a world my sister could be in.

I taught myself American Sign Language to communicate with my Hard-of-Hearing sister, then made a club in middle school where me and a few friends learned together. From 2016-2018, my account grew with support, accessibility, and visibility for the Deaf community. This was my first lesson about identifying a gap, building a solution, and getting an audience to care about something. But I didn’t start with the goal to grow an audience. I shared why I cared and why other people should too.

100k+ followers later, and by 15 I was verified. By 16 I was signed to a talent agency. And the whole time, I was a teenager being told by the people around me that what I was doing was self-absorbed and inappropriate.

Remember that price? It’s knowing that you will be polarizing because what you’re doing is different, and therefore, unknown to others. People either hate it (you, your ideas, etc) or love it. And that makes word travel fast. This is the secret to how all great innovations, movements, and their creators are born.

YOU PAY FOR THIS

When you start creating, every person in your life from family, to friends, to classmates, will feel entitled to insert their opinions. They can’t help it. They want to help you. But 90% of the time they are not your target audience and you probably shouldn’t listen to them.

Both creators and founders will get called crazy at some point. The only people you should listen to are those who help contribute to the world you’re building. The opinions of those you directly impact/influence are the most important because they keep coming back. Friends and family don’t always get it, and you can’t blame them.

KNOW BEFORE YOU START THIS

I don't want you to stop like I did. It wasn't because I was burned out, but because I was burned by those around me. The audience I built? I still get messages sometimes. The opportunities? They changed my life. But it's 100x harder coming back to an audience than pushing through a few misunderstandings from those around you.

When I stepped back and got quiet, I remembered why I started content in the first place. It was never about the audience, but about accessibility. It was about solving a problem for my sister.

In my first business class of college, my professor said something that clicked: Innovation is about solving problems. That’s exactly what content was always about for me.

The business world was wrong to dismiss creators, and creators were wrong to dismiss business. Gaining attention gets you things. And if you know how to hold that attention properly, you can direct it toward a larger vision. That’s the strategy behind content and business.

I call that the “unlock.”

YOU CAN UNLOCK THIS

I’m 22 now. I’m an analyst at a pre-seed VC firm in Boston. I see early-stage founders every single day. Most of them suck at communicating their vision. They don’t have a story that makes people give a shit about what they’re doing.

The ability to communicate effectively, which in the modern day means making content and being on social media, increases your surface area to attract opportunities. Anybody can get on social media and gain an audience, as long as you know how to talk about what you want to do and what you want to change.

Everybody gets so consumed in their own head that they forget who’s on the receiving end. Ask yourself: can your grandma understand what you’re saying?

DOES ANYONE GET THIS?

Next time you want to film content, envision one person you’re talking to that you know will help you. A customer, an investor, your next biggest fan. Then talk how you would to a friend. No one wants to be directly sold to, and you have to let people know you understand them. It’s a balance.

Founders lean into selling, creators lean into unclear messaging. You have to learn and do both. Vision means nothing if no one understands it.

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If this resonated, I'd love to connect! Find me on TikTok and LinkedIn. I'm building this in public and I want to learn where you're at in your journey!