What links Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett, TikTok sensation Khaby Lame and a first-team scout at Serie A side Como 1907?
The answer is they’re all part of a growing number of content creators.
A content creator is defined as someone who produces material – typically digital – and distributes it online.
Last month Diary Of A CEO host Steven Bartlett told me in an exclusive interview how he wants to be the ‘Disney of the creator economy’.
The 33-year-old’s new company – Steven.com – has just closed a major eight-figure investment in a deal that valued the business at an impressive $425m (£320m).
In simply terms, Bartlett wants to be at the heart of creator economy – and it’s easy to see why.
Last night I attended the launch event for this year’s Web Summit in Lisbon.
I was particularly keen to listen to Anton Osika, CEO of Swedish unicorn Lovable, which became the fastest AI startup in history when it hit $100m revenue in just eight months and is now approaching eight million users.
He was joined on the main stage by five-time Grand Slam singles champion Maria Sharapova, who was talking about the impact of AI on tennis, alongside a couple of politicians and Web Summit founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave.
It was a star-studded event but the name on everyone’s lips at a packed MEO Arena was Khaby Lame.
The 25-year-old’s wordless comedy has made him the most-followed creator on TikTok with 161 million followers and another 79 million followers on Instagram.
He started creating his own content to make people laugh and the world loved it.
“If you just think about money, you’ll never get rich,” he told the audience. “You’ll get rich by doing what you love.”
If you’ve heard of Steven Bartlett and Khaby Lame, the odds are you haven’t heard of Felix Johnston.
The 20-year-old has been making headlines of his own after Serie A side Como hired him as a first-team coach.
What makes his story remarkable is that, until recently he was a content creator for Chelsea on the social media platform X, highlighting the academy’s brightest young academy stars.
He quickly created a niche for himself and then the director of Como tweeted him and asked if he’d like to deploy his analysis skills to held the Italian club find the next superstar.
“It is a privilege to be joining such a big club and I can’t wait to help it continue its rise to the top,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
The world is changing – and content creators are leading the charge.