What We Look For: The Creator

Part 1 of 4

July 02, 2025

Last week we outlined the four areas we consider when evaluating a creator opportunity: the creator, the community, the category, and current scale. This week we’ll zoom in on the first pillar. From our last newsletter:

Creator: We bias toward creators who act like founders. They’re an authority in— and are obsessed with their niche. They’re magnetic, great at world-building, and can rally audiences, employees, and investors to come along for the ride. In short: they’ve got rizz and tizz (h/t AZ). Compared with creators who consider themselves “talent” and for whom fame and notability are paramount, creator-entrepreneurs strive to generate and capture enterprise value, rather than creating it solely for others.

In many ways, creator investing is a natural extension of our seed practice, where we often invest when it’s just a person and an idea. In that context, we search for many of the same qualities in a creator as we do in a breakout founder — but with a community twist. Below we outline what we look for in a creator; and to better illustrate it, we’ll evaluate these traits through the lens of the OG creator entrepreneur: Martha Stewart.

  • Fanatic core with an expanding funnel: they are fiercely loved by a few and have a growing base of loyal and engaged fans as proof that their circle can widen

    • Martha’s 1982 book Entertaining blew through its first 40K print run and passed 500K copies within a decade. Her debut TV season pre-sold into 80 markets, reaching 75% of US households

    • She routinely sold out $900/seat classes at her Westport home as well as $10K lectures, all while fielding more than 1M letters, e-mails and phone calls a year

  • Deep understanding of the community: they can name their “white-hot center” in a sentence — describing who they are, why they care, and what they want

    • Martha defined hers as “the modern homemaker who wants her craft validated and elevated.” She listened and intuited where they were going, eventually expanding into travel, health, and fashion

  • Unique category insight: they have a differentiated perspective about their niche and spot whitespace that others miss, supporting their path to category domination

    • Martha reframed homemaking as an aspirational luxury rather than a mundane chore. Her Kmart consulting deal proved big-box retail would pay premium rates for “everyday elegance,” a lane no one else served at scale

  • Personal brand as the operating system: their personal brand serves as a franchise hub, underpinning each spoke

    • She incorporated this principle: “There is a reason we called our company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia… our goal was omnipresence”

    • Martha’s name traveled with every channel, product line, and deal. For example, when Martha Stewart Everyday launched at Kmart, she kept her face on every hang-tag

  • Extreme focus and drive: they play for 100x outcomes, are relentless in this pursuit, and have a long-term orientation

    • Martha is as industrious as they come. Colleagues recall Martha scoffing at parties under 1,000 guests; a 2001 profile cites 4:30 a.m. call times and multi-day projects — habits established well before her IPO glory

  • Capable, iterative operator: they have built a business (even if a small one) and/or have demonstrated a strong desire to build. They test, learn, and iterate quickly

    • Martha grew a basement catering outfit into an upscale firm serving A-list clients, and eventually grew a single editorial into magazines, TV, web, and e-commerce. She even launched her website, catalog, and floral shop all in the same month (!!!)

  • Strong hiring and team-building instincts: they attract A+ employees and advisors to join the journey, often when little is there

    • Ex‑McKinsey exec Sharon Patrick joined in 1993 to help stitch TV, print, and licensing into one P&L

    • By 1995, TV production had scaled from her kitchen to a dedicated studio complex staffed by multiple specialized crews

  • Savvy capital allocator and fundraiser: they are the best investor in their own business. They know how and where to accumulate and deploy time, resources, and capital to drive durable growth

    • Martha’s 1987 Kmart contract delivered $5M in non‑dilutive funding and national marketing. She bought back Time Inc.’s stake in 1997 to set up a clean cap‑table for her 1999 IPO

Long before her public market debut, Martha Stewart had demonstrated every trait on the creator-founder scorecard: a fanatic early fan base, sharp community and category vision, disciplined capital bets, and the operational muscle (and hires) to turn attention into a multi-channel enterprise. We don’t expect creators to score 100% on each dimension but much of the above needs to be true.

Next week we’ll move from who to whom: the community that turns a creator’s enterprising nature into a multi-dimensional empire.

Have a very happy Fourth of July!

— Megan

P.S. Read more from the archive here