Passion Economy News #4: Triller Poaching TikTok Stars, David Dobrik Gets Funding for Dispo, Journalistic Entrepreneurialism, and More

Welcome to Issue #4 of the Means of Creation weekly news roundup where we break down the latest news on the passion economy, including the happenings related to platforms, creators, startups, and trends.

Our first month of the Weekly News Roundup will be a free beta; the goal being to make this the most helpful resource for founders, investors and creators in the passion economy. We’re looking for your feedback to make this happen! (form also linked at the bottom). This issue is the last free news roundup! Subscribe to keep up next week:

Stuff We Published

This week, we published our latest episode of Means of Creation with Dan Teran, founder & former CEO of Managed by Q. Managed by Q is a startup that provides office management services such as office cleaning, IT support, security, supply inventory management, and equipment repair to large companies. Dan founded the business in 2014, and it was acquired by WeWork in 2019 for $220M. 

Dan built Managed by Q by operating with the Good Jobs framework, which flies in the face of most gig economy companies' ethos.

Find it as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Breaker or wherever you listen to podcasts, or as a video on YouTube here. As always, you can view more episodes and subscribe to the Means of Creation YouTube Channel.

Substack Rankings

A new feature analyzing the Paid Newsletter rankings of Substack. This edition compares Sep 22 to Oct 13.

• Bulwark+, a political newsletter claiming non-partisanship, increased 6 spots from 11th to 5th
• Tipping Point Prophecy Update, a newsletter about biblical prophecy and the End Times, increased 5 spots from 22nd to 17th
• The Message Box, a newsletter about political and message theory, increased 3 spots from 23rd to 20th
• Pulte's Money and Life Thoughts, a newsletter about lifestyle and philanthropy, decreased 7 spots from 15th to 22nd

Top of Mind

NEW MEDIA PLATFORMS; OLD MEDIA STRATEGIES 

'Triller Money': How a TikTok Competitor Is Buying Star Power // Taylor Lorenz, NYT

Triller, a TikTok competitor with 65 million active users as of August, is currently spending big bucks to get celebrity creators to migrate from TikTok. Triller is incentivizing them with any resource they need (financial or otherwise) to put out increasing amounts of short-form content on the app. The essay details the extravagant attempts of Triller Executives who have been given free-hand to essentially poach TikTok creators at any cost. 

Earlier this year, Triller won the user-acquisition lottery due to the geopolitical turmoil surrounding TikTok across the globe. However, user retention — which Bytedance had perfected over years of algorithmic trial and error — is a completely different ball game. As the company actively tries to bolster it’s algorithm to engage and retain the sudden influx of new users, Triller is using old school business strategies to keep the platform relevant and exciting in the interim. 

What’s of particular interest to us here is that these technology platforms are using old media strategies that they are supposedly crusading against. (The article reports that for one creator, Triller actually managed to procure a helicopter! Other examples include Rolls Royce’s, fully comped “creative brainstorming” dinners at Nobu, and other perks.) 

“To bring artists on, Triller has been pulling out all the stops. “Triller money” has become a recurring joke among TikTokers in Los Angeles, the punchline being that the company will do whatever it takes to partner with the right stars.”

However, there’s a problem with using this old media business paradigm — the appeal of short-form content platforms such as TikTok is that they enable prosumption. Users both consume content but also feel that there is an even playing field for them to become stars, too. An overemphasis on the acquisition of established creators (instead of building a product that helps emerging ones reach an audience) means Triller will be full of polished, high production value content (think Quibi). 

This is a trend we are seeing across the Passion Economy: platforms are willing to pay more for big name (and big audience) creators. We are seeing this in just about every area of the passion economy: Substack has given upfront financial benefits to well-known writers (including Casey Newton); Facebook paid TikTok stars to use Reels; Spotify has inked exclusive podcast deals with Bill Simmons and Joe Rogan in addition to acquiring other podcast studios; and Microsoft’s Mixer platform paid Ninja to stream on their now-defunct platform.

https://twitter.com/nbashaw/status/1288353299217838084