Welcome to the Creator Renaissance
Creating, building, and making is (finally) cool again
Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If you’d like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one). Or just read on…
First: Welcome to all new subscribers! If you know someone interested in running a business remotely, I’d be grateful if you forwarded them this newsletter.
Today: We talk about cities versus rural a lot. But what about creation versus consumption in the remote work world?
The historical period we affectionately call the Renaissance (roughly the 15th to 17th centuries in Europe) was marked with an explosion of creation: new forms of art, architecture, politics, science, and literary exploration. Completely new creations, happening in tandem with massive social change, brought what seemed to be a whole new world (cue Aladdin and Jasmine singing).
Looking at what many historians cite as the launchpad of the Renaissance, it’s easy to see parallels with the 21st century:
After over a century, deep issues with prevailing economic systems came to the surface.
Pandemics and crises ravaged the world and pushed many people to the edge.
New technologies allowed incredible new forms of scalable expression that were nearly impossible until that point.
In the 15th century, we’re talking about the cracks of feudalism, the aftermath of the Black Plague, and the invention of the printing press.
As the Renaissance took off, we began to see critical changes:
Individuals - particularly those at the lowest ends of the social ladder - got (some) more rights and (relatively) better treatment.
Key thinkers of the day used a more humanistic theory of life - that we are not animals to be tamed but are capable of creation and creativity.
New technology expanded the economy and opened a few new slivers of mobility.
In the 21st century, we’re talking about the cracks of unfettered capitalism, Swine Flu, Ebola, and now Covid, and the explosion of creator-driven and no-code technologies. We’re also recovering from decades of sameness, with remakes, sequels, prequels, and revivals dominating our would-be creative energy.
Will we see the same next steps now as we did 600 years ago? It seems that we’re both on that path already (with large scale social movements, particularly those originating out of the US), and leaders around the world calling for a more humanistic, holistic approach to public health, business, and welfare (seemingly except for the US). Further, history is pretty clear that large scale wars, pandemics, or otherwise have a way of accelerating massive social change.
Where the 21st century differs
As the world largely continues to sit remotely, our changes are happening in a virtual world running in parallel to the physical world we occupy. This alone creates a significant difference in comparison to any changes in the past.
When plagues and wars raged, the whole physical world was chopped up - that meant the next step was to rebuild. During COVID, we see a world emptied but not necessarily destroyed. The result is not to rebuild but escape, and so a new digital world got built.
This Creator Renaissance - building a virtual world while advocating for change in the physical world - is already being characterized with some key differences compared to the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.
Instead of individuals getting more rights in the current system, there’s an opportunity to build new systems.
Instead of only looking upward, more opportunities exist to operate and grow laterally.
Instead of promoting employment, the Creator Renaissance is promoting creativity and entrepreneurship.
Instead of seeking only to influence, we are prizing those who are capable of creation.
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The power players of the Creator Renaissance
As the world seeks to create new things once more, the Creator Renaissance power players typically come from one of four categories:
Creators and influencers.
Tools and platforms.
Funders.
Community infrastructure builders.
Who are these people, you may ask? Well, keep scrolling for their names.
Note: None of these lists are exhaustive. Add your thoughts in the comments!
Creators and influencers
It seems that this category fits into one of three buckets:
Thinkers: The people behind platforms.
Doers: Stars in the community.
Evangelists: The community and growth managers that connect with new people.
A few names for your perusal:
Thinkers
Ryan Kulp, Fork Equity.
Hamish Mackenzie, co-founder of Substack.
Sahil Lavingia, founder of Gumroad.
Doers
Preetam Nath, micro-SaaS entrepreneur.
Zoe Chew, serial entrepreneur.
Sarah Stockdale, founder of Growclass.
TS Madison, digital creator.
Evangelists
Helen Ryles, Project Manager at MakerPad.
Rose Sherry, Community Manager of IndieHackers.
Josh Tiernan (JT), founder of NoCodeFounders.
This list isn’t exhaustive, but newsletter Springup frequently shares new creators and their work. Know of a creator the world should know? Leave a comment!
Tools and platforms
On a platform level, there tend to be three types:
Media.
Ecommerce and sales.
App and web builders.
So what are the platforms powering creators these days?
Media
Ecommerce and sales
App and web builders
Am I missing a platform? Drop a link in the comments.
Funders
Ah yes, the money people. They’re so glamorous, aren’t they? Keeping a trend of three, here are the subcategories:
People who fund the Builders.
People who fund the Infrastructure.
People who fund those ignored or pushed out of other mechanisms.
People who fund the Builders
People who fund the Infrastructure
People who fund those ignored or pushed out of other mechanisms
Who else has money? Leave their name in the comments.
Community infrastructure
When it comes to community, we’ve got:
Hosting communities.
Growing communities.
In this context, I mean empowering creators to host and grow their own communities, not necessarily large platforms that are / have communities unto themselves.
Hosting communities
Substack.
Growing communities
Twitter.
YouTube.
Instagram.
Tiktok.
Reddit.
What other platforms power communities? Drop a comment below.
Image via Unsplash.