The Creator Economy Hard Truths ...The Reddit IPO and Why Twitter Has Pivoted

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Reddit has now been public a few days and is RIPPING.

I did not see that coming but as CEO of Stocktwits I am thrilled to see the company valuation soar near $10 billion.

Watching the stock run and still see it shy of $10 billion helps explain why Elon is moving Twitter as fast and far away from text and community towards video and being a TikTok wannabe clone. Elon paid $44 billion for a poorly moderated (and getting worse) version of Reddit whose biggest ‘sane’ users are leaving or have already left Twitter.

Even Fat Nixon carved out billions for himself moving off Twitter to Truth Social.

Building community is hard. It is not a good business even if you build it. Communities are fragile.

But as web3 was the buzzword during the crypto bubble of 2020-2022, hundreds of millions if not billions were invested by venture capitalists creating DAO’s, NFT’s and tokens for creator economies and communities.

I did write about it but never made the personal plunge into NFT’s and the creator economy directly with any purchases or Social Leverage investments.

In 2024, I am thinking much differently. I am very excited about the creator economy and the opportunity for creative people because of the lessons learned and the fact that the hot money has moved on to AI and other shiny objects.

Magdalena (Mags) runs Double Down Capital (I am a small LP personally) and she nailed that problems in this piece - ‘10 Hard Truths About Creator-Fan Relationships In Web 3’ and where we are headed.

All ten are great to think about, but I have shared the four that ring truest to me:

In our current Social Leverage fund 4, we invested in Beehiiv, PunchUp.live , DSTNC, Grass Clippings and Tixologi which are all directly and indirectly focused on the creator economy and fan economy. While web 3 may be infused, I am not sure web 3 tools alone are necessary for success.

That is all for today…