the death of influencers

Being an influencer is overrated. Here's what's next...

Author

Ryan To
April 05, 2025

Read Time: 1 min 30 secs

Hey — Ryan here.

In today’s edition we’ll be covering:

  • Why being an ‘influencer’ is overrated

  • The future of creator businesses

  • Secret waitlist on a project I’ve been working on 👀

The influencer era is dead.

Creator founders is the new marketing playbook for 2025.

Let me explain…

I went viral this week talking about my opinion (controversial take apparently):

1,059,900 views on Instagram and TikTok

And unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve heard of ‘creator businesses’ popping up left and right:

Kai Cenat and AMP just hit 7 figures in one day for their skincare brand Tone (launch video here)

Ashley Alexander sold $100k of Matcha in 45 min (bts from the team)

We’re seeing a complete shift in the way businesses are being built:

❌ OLD Playbook : Build a business then try to figure out how to acquire customers

✅ NEW Playbook: Build an audience strategically while promoting your product/service

The Future of Creator Businesses

Chamath Palihapitiya, former Facebook exec turned Billionaire, put it best:

‘We spent the first decade building platforms and getting them to scale (ie. Apple, Google)

Then this next wave were the apps (ie. Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat)

There’s an interesting phenomenon hiding in plain sight, the next most obvious atomic unit are content creators’

Listen to the full podcast here

I’m fully convinced the best businesses in the next decade will be made by ‘creators’

Being an influencer is overrated:

  • You run on a hamster wheel of trying to stay ‘relevant’

  • Live off inconsistent brand deals

  • And have no business model that grows beyond you

This YouTuber Jedcal showed it best..he was living ‘the creator’s dream’

207k subscribers on YouTube, 100k followers across IG and TikTok

Yet he left it all to get a 9-5 job

Creator burnout is real

To stay ahead of the curve, creators need to start proactively thinking about building businesses that outlast their ‘brand’ online.

A business that doesn’t depend on virality, brand deals, and their face to keep growing

If this resonates with you join colere.growth’s waitlist here

A community of the top 1% of cracked internet marketers, content creators, and marketing industry leaders

Why I’m building it:

With the rise of AI, distribution and creativity are the only moats

I want to bridge the gap across all generations to be at the forefont of content creation trends, marketing, culture, and AI

The value I'm creating for you:

  • A tight-knit community of elite marketers and creators staying ahead of the curve.

  • Live masterminds with creators, founders, and marketers to learn from each other

  • Strategies to build your content marketing engine and business

  • Stay ahead of AI-driven marketing trends

This isn’t for everyone and most won’t get accepted but I encourage you all to submit an application either way

I’ll be creating separate communities to match the exact stage you’re in

Welcome to the Creator Founder era ✶ everyone, it’s just getting started join the waitlist now

How did you like today's newsletter?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Sincerely,

Ryan To

P.S. I’m in San Francisco 🌉 this week and the energy is electric - lots of life updates soon