“Anyone can be a content creator" is something we are fed like fois gras poultry and honestly I feel like it’s something we just say to make others feel bad for not doing it.

Especially those building a company. Personally, I absolutely hate making content and I have so much respect for those who do it at a high level. There is nothing that motivates me less than having to crawl out of goblin mode, set up my camera, form a script, attempt to not be awkward in front of a camera. And of course, then deal with the inevitable burn out that comes with constantly needing to put out content.

Content has been one of the most draining [emotionally, financially, spiritually] parts about running a start-up in my experience. Especially when you’re building one that has centred, you [the founder], as the face of it. There is so much that you can hand off to people or automations. But the genuine act of filming content is the most unnatural thing in the world for someone me. And lets be real the whole virtual avatar situation is no where near ready enough for someone with a brand centred around their likeness to confidently and sincerely use.

It is something I have tried to hand off to creators countless times with mixed results. Every young woman and their cat is a content creator these days, but that does not mean all these content creators are created equally. Finding one that speaks for you and your brand and also isn’t charging unreasonable amounts because a instagram ad course told them to ‘know their worth’ has made the landscape incredibly difficult to navigate. So much of it is genuinely slop, it’s the girl boss equivalent of Facebook AI slop. I’m so sorry girls get your bag but charge appropriately for it.

Quality content creators are pure diamonds.

And finding them relies heavily on such frustrating systems. Almost every content creator platform I have used comes up short. They try lock you in for 5 figure, year long contracts without trialing the product first. All for what? Email lists you can scrape with basic knowledge of google search and a simple script or pay someone on upwork $100 to curate in a 24 hours and for generating slop job templates to compete with other slop job templates.

This year is going to be huge for content stack optimisation. Products that can bring ai/automations in without losing the human elements that are making the great content creators stand out are going to be the gold bezel around these diamonds.

For me the mission is simple, finding that sweet spot — as a founder — between using automated tools to avoid burnout and not losing a part of me that makes for a personal story brand and quality content.