A Serendipitous Run In With Ryan Serhant

I’m in NYC this week for work meetings and Colin and Samir’s Publish Press event on Thursday. It should be a great day. And if you’re up for even more socializing, the Slow Creator team is hosting a very casual pre-event hangout later today — come say hello! Onto today’s note…

During a meeting yesterday, I was asked about the difference between a founder building in public and a creator-founder (the type of person we’d consider backing). It’s a great question given the former is abundant these days and the line isn’t always clear. On one end of the spectrum, there’s the founder building a single product or company who uses content to support their efforts but likely has little interest in community or personal brand beyond what’s effective or even relevant for the business. On the other end, there’s the creator-founder building an entire ecosystem — a world comprised of deep community, content, events, products, and services — all feeding into one another in a virtuous cycle, usually denominated in a broader niche or theme.

The first version is easy to imagine: a founder with a modest-to-large social presence on X, Instagram, etc. Maybe they’ve done a few podcast interviews, write a newsletter, or share behind the scenes ups and downs of building their company. A good example is my friend Tyler Denk, CEO and founder of Beehiiv, the platform behind this very newsletter. Tyler is active on X and LinkedIn, writes a great newsletter, and even curates a hugely popular playlist (which I highly recommend for deep work). But despite the content, his focus is singular: building Beehiiv. Another great example is Adam Guild at Owner, who expertly uses YouTube to get restaurants into their sales funnel. At first glance you might think he is a creator-founder, but upon closer inspection it’s entirely about Owner — not Adam or other ventures. And his strategy works… Owner is crushing it. Founders like Tyler and Adam fall into the “building in public” bucket, which we’d evaluate through our core Slow seed fund, not the Creator Fund.

The second version is different. These founders also create content (often much more than their counterparts), but their personal brand, content, and community serve as the foundation for multiple revenue streams and product lines. As I was walking back from that meeting and thinking about this distinction, I looked up from my phone to cross the street (so good of me, I know) and spotted a prime example of a creator-founder: Ryan Serhant. I didn’t actually see THE Ryan Serhant, but his storefront in Soho… which sort of proves my point? His name is plastered on every available window and next to the QR code to his socials, there was a tagline that read: “the most followed real estate brand in the world.” That’s it, he is the brand. His website describes the model perfectly:

Obviously, his whole operation is massive. Each of the verticals described above likely runs as an independent business but benefits from his reach and trust within real estate. We are looking for creator-founders who want to build in this way. Our job is to find Ryan before he is Ryan Serhant. They are the authority in their niche, the person in their vertical — and they’re building multiple touchpoints for their customer over time that stem from and rely on the creator’s brand and community.

The line between “founder building in public” and “creator-founder” isn’t always perfectly clear, but understanding where someone falls on this spectrum really matters as we evaluate potential creator investments. One is largely about transparency and awareness; the other is about building a full-fledged ecosystem where content, community, and business reinforce one another.

If you come across an emerging Ryan Serhant in any niche, or think you might be one yourself, let us know!

Excited to see many of you this week.

— Megan