YouTuber MrBeast is a social-media superstar, with hundreds of millions of subscribers and a business valued at around $5 billion.
He also may be one of the last creators to amass such a large fan base, according to his former talent manager Reed Duchscher.
As social-media algorithms get better at tailoring content to individual user interests, the opportunity for stars like MrBeast, Charli D’Amelio, or Khaby Lame to show up across feeds becomes much harder, Duchscher said.
“If you like travel content, if you like automotive content, if you like health and beauty content, your algorithms kind of stay in that vertical,” he said.
Social-entertainment platforms like YouTube and TikTok benefit from diversifying their talent pools with more creators rather than becoming too reliant on megastars to drive consumption, he said.
Duchscher’s talent management firm, Night, works with other large creators like Kai Cenat and Hasan Piker, but the company is thinking about finding new talent who dominate a particular content niche, even if that means they have a smaller set of loyal fans.
“It’s much easier to build businesses when you have a hyper-niche, scaled audience because the product makes a lot more sense,” Duchscher said.
A food creator could launch a cookbook, while a plant creator could sell a line of gardening tools, for example. Night operates a separate venture arm that invests in creator businesses. Duchscher ended his role as MrBeast’s talent manager last year, but he continues to work with the creator on his chocolate business, Feastables.
The strategy of finding niche creators who can sell products is increasingly popular among creator economy businesses.
For example, the investment firm Slow Ventures is writing $1 million to $3 million checks for creators who are popular in a particular content category and have plans to expand beyond media.
“There’s going to be a subset of creators that are very entrepreneurial, have deep trust and expertise in a specific vertical, and are builders,” Slow’s Megan Lightcap told Business Insider earlier this year. “They’re founders.”
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