How Creators Make Money

Lenny Rachitsky quietly built a business that prints over $3,000,000 a year. In this episode, we break down how he did it and what creators can learn from the way he runs his newsletter, community, coaching, and courses like a SaaS founder. We also get into: 📈 Why creators should think more like businesses (not just personal brands) 📬 How Lenny turned long-form writing into serious leverage 💼 L...

In this episode Grace and Justin talk about if creators are scamming you, an update on the Cluely situation, how Maya Higa and Alceus Santuary making $1,000,000 without selling tickets to her zoo, and Grace's updated perspective on VC funding! For more creator insights, subscribe to our newsletter: www.howcreatorsmakemoney.com How Creators Make Money is hosted by Grace Ling and Justin Nguyen,...

Lillian Zhang is a finance + lifestyle creator who’s made over $50K in her first year of content and is now writing her book "The New Money Rules" while working a 9-5 at Google. In this episode, we break down: The strategy behind her first brand deal at just 10K followers How she DOUBLED her income year over year while staying full-time The surprising truth about book publishing Her crea...

Chris Do, founder of The Futur and author of Pocketful of Do, joins the podcast to reveal how he built a creative empire generating over $2M in revenue as a content creator. The Futur: www.thefutur.com Pocketful of Do: www.thefutur.com/pocket-full-of-do He dives into: How he’s launching a hybrid physical + digital design school in LA Breaks down how he would think about creating your first stream...

TikTok shop is not only taking over your fyp, it's changing people's lives from an income standpoint. We break down how this Mommy Vlogger is making $50,000 a month. As you know with our tangents, we talk about other creators like Alex Costa's multimillion dollar men's care brand and if you should take equity as payment as a creator. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter here: w...

Have you ever cheated on a test? Maybe an interview? This new CAAS (Cheating As A Service) company, Cluey. We also talk about creator trips, Rizz Tis scale, childhood trauma, and Silicon Valley Tech Bro culture. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter at: www.howcreatorsmakemoney

Grace and Justin dive into how kids are making money with the video game Roblox, Kai Cenat's Streamer University, and so many more creator events that happened during this time! Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter at: www.howcreatorsmakemoney.com

In this episode Grace shares her story about how she made over $50,000 with Design Buddies latest conference. We dive into how she did it, the tactics she used to reach out to sponsors, and so much more. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter at: www.howcreatorsmakemoney.com

Every 1-2 years, Justin brings on new creators to Declassified which causes him to rebrand the entire brand. Essentially building a new show from scratch with each group of creators. He walks through what the next rebrand has been like and what it takes to make it successful. Grace also dives into networking hacks to make you not sound/feel like a dick to others in the room! Make sure to subscribe...

Grace put her back against the wall for her Design Buddies conference, CoCreate, and needed to find all of the funding for the event in basically 2 weeks. She not only did that but also got 4,500 sign ups for the event in the following 2 weeks! We're back with weekly episodes! With some suprises in a couple of weeks. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter at: www.howcreatorsmakemoney.com

Grace went to Canva Create 2025 and came back with some inside knowledge on what content that LinkedIn's algorithm is looking for, how Canva is coming after startups with their AI features, and we answer the question of... what is Vibe Designing? Subscribe to our newsletter at www.howcreatorsmakemoney.com

Facebook is going through a rebrand and a lot of creators are making money on it right now, but how much are brands paying for this? We dive into this topic as well as what it's like to fully take time off as a creator, the TikTok ban, and the unique creator events that are popping up now. Subscribe to our newsletter: www.howcreatorsmakemoney.com

Everyone says that its impossible to make money and get views on a podcast but we’re going to prove them wrong with this podcast. Our goal is to make at least $100,000 from this podcast this year and we’re off to a great start after SXSW. This episode we’re going over our outbound strategy and go over specific emails that we’ve sent during our SXSW campaign. Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠www.howcr...

We just got back from SXSW in Austin and we dive into what was good, bad, and if it was worth it for us. This is my 5th year attending SXSW and this is Grace's 1st time... lets just say we learned A LOT this year where one of the biggest focuses was on the Creator Economy. Subscribe to our newsletter: www.howcreatorsmakemoney.com

@tonesterpaints sells his for $100+ a gallon... and he sells millions of dollars worth of it on Instagram! The best part? This company started because his internship fired him for posting on TikTok. Check out Tonester Paint: https://tonesterpaints.com/We dive into other brands that Tonester is paying attention to, what Creator Camp is building with their film festival, and so much more! Subscribe...

Grace goes viral on LinkedIn, Justin discovers channels making tens of thousands of dollars racing random objects on the internet, and we share one of our new favorite tools to use for LinkedIn Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠howcreatorsmakemoney.com Videos on our Spotify and YouTube channels! Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7mEgAOJmanfSRkaiJWszf8 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@howcreators...

Should you raise venture capital as a content creator? As more and more money is poured into the creator economy, Grace and I dive into if we think it's worth it or not! We also talk about when agencies make sense for content creators (and what red flags to watch out for), how podcasters are monetizing their content, and so much more! Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠howcreatorsmakemoney.com

Justin and Grace compare their friends earnings as content creators on different platforms in this episode. We explore how creators are making money on YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok to see which is the best money making platform. We also dive in the Poppi Superbowl campaign and talk about if it was a win or loss for the brand as well as our thoughts on how Olipop has handled the whole situation. S...

A lot of people track things in their lives. The number of books you read in a year, your workout routine, etc. but what if you tracked every single minute you spent on your creator business? Thats exactly what Jennifer Chou does with her creator business @vegantechnomad From ex-boyfriend revenge arcs to spreadsheets, you'll want to watch the video version of this episode to see the walk throu...

The average gallon of paint is $20 - $30 a gallon. @tonesterpaints sells his for $100+ a gallon... and he sells millions of dollars worth of it! The best part? This company started because his internship fired him for posting on TikTok. Check out Tonester Paint: https://tonesterpaints.com/ We also talk about how the TikTok Ban, what Grace is doing on RedNote, and whats popping on LinkedIn right no...

What's easier; getting a PhD or 100M views? That was Justin Nguyen's dilemma when he set out to change how universities think about college students. Check Out Justin Nguyen's Stuff: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/declassifiedjustin/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/declassifiedcollege/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DeclassifiedCollege Subscribe to our newsletter: howcreatorsmakemon...

In our first episode, Justin Nguyen interviews Grace Ling about how she started Design Buddies and grew a Discord server to over $1M ARR. Check out all of Grace's work: Design Buddies: https://www.designbuddies.community/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graceling/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/irungracepace/ Subscribe to our newsletter: howcreatorsmakemoney.com