A couple of days ago I got on a call with one of the most entrepreneurial students I’ve met in a while.

Alongside his degree, he’s building a community for young founders in London. It was his 20th birthday. He told me he’d grown it from nothing to a room full of people doing genuinely interesting things (I got to see the guest list from his last rooftop event in Central London, and everyone in it was doing something that makes you say, “Holy s****, this is cool!”)

After a handful of those events, he wanted to get intentional about what this should become, so he started gathering thoughts from people who’d walked the same path.

A DM later, we were on a call.

I get this question a lot.

I got to answer a version of it on Half Figured with , where we talked about how you figure things out, like yourself, and also building a community.

Because, apparently, everyone wants to build a community in 2026. But what does that actually entail?

Community has become such a buzzword that for a lot of people it’s lost its value. When I started House of Marketing two years ago, people were genuinely impressed we were building one. Now you say it, and you can watch the thought cross their face: here we go, ANOTHER ONE.

So what I told him on that call was, essentially, how to try not to be another one.

(If you're new here—I’m Dalila. I work inside the brands shaping what's next, building content and community-led growth engines. On the side, I run House of Marketing: 200+ founders, creators, and operators, built from zero. I share the patterns I spot from inside it all here.)

The Juice 🧃

→ When you should start a community.

→ The reason growth channels, pricing, and platforms are the wrong first questions, and why you should start with your Direction.

→ What I’m learning about money, why I don’t want to put HOM behind a monthly subscription, and the routes that are actually on the table.

→ On the Sponsorships path: the cards to play to convince a brand to sponsor you (from someone who now holds the budget)

→ The real return on investment, and why it was never the money.

✦ Start with your Inner Fire, not your FOMO

Basics first: why do you really want to do this? That’s the most important question of all.

I’ve written before about the difference between the Inner Fire and the thing that impersonates it: FOMO. FOMO is very good at dressing up as ambition, meaning it can absolutely convince you to build a community because everyone in your feed is building one. If that’s where this is coming from, I’ll save you the time: it won’t take you far.

Building a community is not as glamorous as social media makes it look. Traction is hard when a new community pops up every other day, the path to monetization is not straightforward, and it’s energy-consuming; you have to be present, active, and constantly putting things out there. Gatherings and events that take months of logistics and are over in the blink of an eye. Then you sleep, and repeat.

But if it is your Inner Fire, it is the most rewarding thing you can ever do, and personally I would choose it again—again and again.

✦ You then need a Direction

He asked me about growth channels. Whether to charge for events. Where to host it, if on WhatsApp or Discord.

I get why those questions come first. But I think they’re the wrong ones to start with. It feels like if you can just find the right tool, the right price, and the right platform, the thing will work itself out. I’ve learned it’s the other way around, and I told him so. None of the tactics mean anything until you know what you’re building toward.

I’ve written about finding your own direction (which is not building another plan or a strategy), but more about finding an orientation, a way of knowing, at any crossroads, which way is yours.

What I didn’t say in that piece is that the thing you build needs one too. A community without a Direction is just a group chat with catering.

Ours took a while to find.

In 2024, my Instagram was full of supper clubs. They were a by-product of the loneliness crisis the pandemic left behind: strangers around a table with nothing in common except a city, maybe an age bracket, and enough curiosity to go and meet someone new over dinner.

I thought, why not do this for people working in the same field, so we get to meet each other but skip the draining industry event where people scan you faster than a supermarket checkout and move on if you’re not “a fit”?

So HOM became a series of dinners. Small, curated rooms of people who wanted to find new buddies walking the same career path.

That was enough for a while, until it wasn’t, and it came the time when I started asking myself, what’s the actual impact I want to have here?

At the time we were reading a book—that the whole team ended up buying—Connect the Dots: The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck by Christian Busch. It’s about bringing more luck into your life by deliberately creating the conditions for Serendipity.

So we thought, why don’t we become vehicles for Serendipity? Why don’t we take what’s in that book and engineer the conditions for more lucky encounters, more unexpected opportunities, in people’s lives?

What happened next is history, and that’s stayed the core of what we are, but it soon required us to think even bigger.

If we could spark that much magic in one dinner, how do we make the impact outlive the night?

People kept messaging us afterwards. They’d finally taken action on an idea they’d been sitting on for years or started looking for a new job, making content, or building a brand: we were becoming an incubator without meaning to.

So we decided that would be our next step:

What comes after that? We’re writing right now. For you, the question to keep asking:

Without answering that, you’ll risk putting things out there just for the sake of it, saying yes to opportunities that don’t bring you closer to where you want to be, and lose motivation the moment it gets messy because you forget where you were headed.

Keep staying in alignment with your Direction and the next step will manifest itself.

✦ On monetization paths

Spoiler: making money can’t be the primary goal of building a community.

After that, it’s on you to decide which route is yours. We’ve looked at a lot of them, and none has felt fully right yet. We’re still figuring it out.

Subscriptions, for example, were something we never felt was completely right for us. People are already drowning in them—photo storage, a notes app, the gym, and Substack itself. There’s a tipping point, and I think we’re close to it: people are about to get ruthless about what they keep paying for.

We don’t want HOM sitting on that list next to your iCloud storage. We want people in the room because they belong there and want to contribute, not because they can afford the direct debit.

Other routes to consider:

One-off entry fee, tiered access, paid cohorts, virtual and IRL conferences, courses, sponsorships, and plenty more.

Pick the one that fits your values, what you’re actually offering, and the stage you’re at.

✦ On the sponsorships path and what makes a brand say yes

I only really understood sponsorship once I started sitting on the other side of it.

Since I’ve been leading marketing at tldraw, I’ve had a lot of these conversations, and I’ve often found myself thinking, “What value am I actually getting by putting budget into this?

Sponsorship can be expensive, and you have to be deliberate about it.

Here’s when I say yes

→ I want legitimacy in a space where I’m not established yet, and this is a staple event my ICP already treats as credible.

→ I want to get closer to my ICP, but my brand isn’t strong enough yet to fill a room on its own.

→ I don’t have the internal resources to run something for that audience, and someone else can bring the right people together better than I can.

→ I want to be associated with a cause or a group of people in a way that builds real brand equity.

And here’s when I say no

If the sponsorship doesn’t build a specific association and doesn’t get me meaningfully closer to a high-value audience that would cost far more to reach any other way, then that money does more work somewhere else.

What I’m buying is the room. So the only question that really matters is, who exactly is in it, and why does that matter to us specifically rather than generically?

Also, the pitches that land usually come from people I’ve already met—people whose events I’ve been to before they ever asked me to fund one. Cold asks mostly fail because they skip the part where I get to find out whether the room is one I want my brand standing in.

✦ The real ROI

It takes time, and, usually, longer than you think.

Pretty Little Marketer, here by , one of the biggest marketing communities out there, took 6 (S-I-X!!!) years to become what it is now.

Building a community is not the fast path to success that social media makes it look like. A lot of it is unglamorous.

What keeps you going is remembering that the real return was never the sponsorship money or the course sales. It’s the room itself.

I wrote a few months ago about why the room is capital infrastructure. There it was about pre-seed companies getting funded through referrals, and only 2% breaking through cold outreach, but that number describes almost everything.

Some of the strongest relationships in my life come from HOM. The biggest opportunities I’ve had landed because of HOM. People see me as credible in this field because of HOM. I get to talk publicly about my career and my ambitions because of HOM. I get to message people I’d otherwise never have a reason to message, because of HOM.

The community you build is for your own growth first. Everything else arrives as a by-product of you pouring love, energy, and effort into it, consistently.

✦ Finally, on the dance between motion and intention

Before we hung up, he told me he wanted to get fully intentional about the direction before committing to what’s next.

I told him not to let that stop him.

Yes, intention comes first, but intention is not the same as certainty, and a Direction evolves with you. Sometimes what this thing becomes is something you work out in the building, not before it. That kind of clarity only ever shows up once you’ve already started.

That’s been true of almost everything I’ve built. The vision gets sharper by doing, not by thinking harder about it in isolation.

Where I am with this right now ✨

I’m still in it. HOM is two years old, and I still don’t have the monetization answer, still redesign the format every few months, and still have nights where the logistics eat the week, and I wonder what I’m doing.

I’m telling you that on purpose. Most people writing about community write from the finished version. I’m writing from inside the build, and I’d rather you have the honest picture than the polished one.

Because the actual answer to “how do I not be another one” is unglamorous: know why you’re doing it, know where it’s going, and keep showing up long after the novelty wears off.

So if you’re building something right now or thinking about it, I’d love to know:

→ What’s the actual impact you’re chasing, underneath the dinners or the group chat or the events?

→ What’s the thing you’d keep doing even if it never made you a pound?

Drop it in the comments; I read everything. 👇

bisous 🧃

We also get into imposter syndrome, the rise of employee-generated content (EGC), and why “you are the niche.”

Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro

02:00 – What Kamya is building outside her 9-5

06:00 – World-building & why you don’t have to pick one lane

10:00 – Authenticity vs. perfection

14:00 – Imposter syndrome & comparison

22:00 – Early-stage startup marketing lessons

30:00 – GEO, AI search, and where devs actually hang out

34:00 – Advice for new creators

I spent years looking for a map.

Someone to tell me which path to take, which moves to make, and what the right answer was.

I come from a small town in southern Italy, where the options available to you are narrow, and the ambitions around you are even narrower. “Apply for a government job and aim for a stable salary”, they said.

What was the path to earn the bare minimum to survive was dressed up as the “safe path”.

My parents, however, were determined not to pass that on to me. Since I was a little girl, they told me I was special, that I could do anything. And I believed them completely in the way only a child can.

I was dancing in the middle of the annual summer town celebration, singing so loudly that my neighbours could hear me through the walls, drawing cartoons all the time, and didn’t hesitate to share my stories with everyone around.

I was embarrassingly, wholeheartedly, alive.

Then the environment did what environments know how to do best.

People started telling me I was too much. The message was consistent: shrink, make others comfortable, stop dreaming so big, stop being so you.

My confidence started cracking at the age of 10, and it took me years, honestly, until now, to rebuild it. But my Inner Fire? That never dimmed. It just went underground, building pressure, until I finally leapt toward a piece of the world that would let me be fully myself.

The feeling of being lost, though. That never left either.

I knew I had something burning inside me, and I just had no idea what to do with it. So I did what every ambitious, slightly lost person does: I consumed everything. LinkedIn profiles, podcasts, content, and interviews. I co-founded a student podcast specifically to meet people who had “made it,” convinced that if I studied enough trajectories, I could reverse-engineer mine.

What I didn’t understand then was that I was building a ceiling for myself, because the goal was never to follow someone else’s path. It was to build my own – and no amount of trajectory-stalking can show you your own Direction.

So, What Is A Direction, Really?

Here I am, on a plane back to visit family before a new thrilling chapter of my life begins, and I can say with real clarity: the most important thing I’ve ever done – and the thing I see most world builders I talk to struggle with – is finding your Direction. Not a plan, not a strategy, not even a purpose exactly, but a Direction.

Our Direction is the red thread that runs from your highest vision all the way down to the specific choices you make every day: the city you live in, the work you take on, the people you surround yourself with, the projects you say yes and no to.

When you know your Direction, the noise genuinely quiets down. Your ex-colleague leaving to open a bakery in Bali doesn’t make you question your life, your old friend going back to study doesn’t send you into a spiral – not because you’re rigid, but because you know what you’re moving toward and you can appreciate their story without needing to steal their path.

I also want to say something important for the multipassionate humans reading this – which is most of you.

The Direction is not a box, and it’s not about picking one thing and committing forever. It’s a red thread through the chaos of your interests, your passions, your ever-evolving ambitions – it moves with you and grows as you grow.

What it does is give you a filter.

When I feel overwhelmed, and genuinely don’t know what to do next, which opportunity to take, which project to say yes to, I ask myself one question: Does this bring me closer to my Direction?

That question has made more decisions for me than any framework, coach, or strategy session ever has.

For me, the Direction crystallised slowly and then all at once.

I knew, deep down, that I wanted to build a life that felt fully mine: creative, alive, made on my own terms. I have always felt called to support people in reaching their own dreams and fulfilling their wildest ambitions. So it felt natural when I realized I wanted to back the most ambitious people of my generation, and I wanted to be in it with them. Not cheering from the sidelines, but working alongside them, and support them in becoming who they were already trying to become. I wanted to be in the rooms where big things were being made, and I wanted to help make them bigger.

From there, everything became obvious: my community – HOM – The Unfold, the content I create, the projects I am working on, the opportunities I take, the ones I walk away from, the entire ecosystem (world) I’m building.

I’m not doing anyone else’s version of this. I’m doing mine, and that’s the whole point.

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So, how do you actually find your Direction?

Start by envisioning the best possible life. Not the most impressive version, but the most alive one. Where are you? What does a Tuesday look like? How do you feel about yourself at the end of the day, when there’s nothing left to perform? Get specific, because vague visions produce vague lives. And if the life you picture looks suspiciously like someone else’s, go deeper, ask what specifically about it calls to you. That’s where your actual answer starts.

Then listen to your Inner Fire. What do you keep coming back to even when there’s no reward for it? What could you talk about for three hours without getting tired? What do you consume just because something in you needs it, not because it’s strategic, not because it looks good? That pull has been trying to tell you something for a long time.

Build your Inspiration Board. Pick people that lights you up, for who they are or what they do, or for the type of life that they have built. Mine has many, but two examples: Emma Greede and Dua Lipa. A marketing world-builder and a global pop icon – seemingly unrelated, but what they activate in me is the same thing: the specific feeling of someone building something so distinctly, unapologetically theirs that the world had no choice but to make room for it. Look at yours and ask: what specifically do they activate in me? That’s the data.

Think about the people you want to impact and the kind of work you want to do alongside them. Not the job title, but the actual feeling of the work, and who it’s for. Who do you want in the room? What type of projects do you want to work on? The answer tends to reveal a lot about the life you’re actually trying to build.

The combination of all of this won’t give you a five-year plan. But it’ll give you something better: a direction to move in, a filter for your decisions, and a way of knowing, at any crossroads, which way is yours.

I spent the first chapter of my life shrinking to fit rooms that were too small for me, and I’m not doing that anymore.

What’s yours pointing at right now?

bisous 🧃

Hello to my lovely community of STEM people in SPAM, founders, 5-9 builders, and creator entrepreneurs.

I’m Dalila, a growth marketer, community and world-builder. I work inside the brands shaping what’s next, run HOM, my community and accelerator for the next era of builders and share the patterns I spot from inside all of it here.

If you are already subscribed, thank you. It means the whole world, and I’m immensely grateful to have you here.

If you just stumbled upon my profile, welcome! Here, I write about the intersection between Tech x Media x Community x Capital, a world I genuinely love and have been in for almost a decade. 2 years ago, I decided I was done with following the conventional path and was ready to let my light shine and build a life following what sparks my soul. I will be sharing everything about this journey on here!

Coffee catch-up ☕✨

Writing this after coming back from the most amazing Eurosummer trip I could have wished for. I ended up staying nearly 48 hours longer than planned, and those ended up being some of the most magical days of the entire trip, a reminder to always welcome serendipity into your life!

The most exciting part? Coming back to 200 of you!!! And 300 women builders reaching out to get their incredible stories shared with this community, still pinching myself 🥹

I also had the chance to be a guest speaker at a House of Marketing member’s podcast, talking about the art of figuring it out along the way - how many of you relate to this? 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️

On my focus list for the upcoming weeks: setting up first chats with the women builders who reached out and filled the form, testing new content formats across platforms, leveraging the momentum to fuel further growth, planning the next House of Marketing activations for the coming months, and finding the brands that want to be in the room. If you wanna collaborate or join us, slide in our DMs here.

Now let’s get into the juice!

The Juice 🧃

→ Lovable partnered with Creator Camp to make a short film about creators building software with AI, and in doing so accidentally wrote the playbook for every tech brand trying to win the next decade.

→ The creator house era - think Logan Paul, shared mansions, chaos for content - is quietly being replaced by something that looks a lot more like YC. Here’s what the new model actually looks like and why it matters.

→ CAA and TPG just announced a $250M holding company to acquire creator-led businesses. The same Hollywood agency that represents your favourite actors now thinks a YouTube channel is worth the same conversation as a film studio. The creator economy just had its institutional moment.

The era of the enabled builder is here. Lovable is writing the playbook.

Ok so Lovable just won the coolest brand in AI badge.

Their collab with Creator Camp, a short film part of the creative campaign Make The Process Lovable, is one of the most interesting things I’ve seen a tech brand do in a long time. Real creators. Wacomo, Elliot Choy, Cole Lee. Filmed doing what they actually do, translating wild ideas into real software. No friction between the spark and the thing. No technical skills, no months of coding, no big budget. Just: I have an idea, here’s a tool, here’s what I made.

One of my favourite moments in the film is when it captures how most creators used to feel excluded, like the world of building wasn’t meant for them. The gap between the idea and the reality was just too wide, too technical, too expensive. And now it isn’t.

I keep coming back to this because I think we are genuinely inside the third wave of The Enabler Economy, and most people haven’t clocked how structural this shift is.

Wave one: creative access. Canva made designers out of people who couldn’t afford designers. Students building portfolios. Founders running their own socials. Every day, people are finally able to put themselves out there visually. Wave two: commercial access. Shopify made merchants out of people who couldn’t code storefronts. Wave three, the one we’re in right now, is builder access. And it’s the biggest one yet.

But what I find even more interesting than the product itself is how Lovable understood its positioning.

They are not talking about model superiority. Not one benchmark. Not one “we outperform X.”

They built one specific association: their brand and the feeling of finally making something real.

They are the Genie. The user is Aladdin. That choice, so simple, sooo deliberate, is exactly what most AI companies keep getting wrong. We are absolutely drowning in “our model is 3% better” energy, and Lovable just walked past all of it with a short film about a person with a dream.

Think about it like this. Granola enables you to be fully present in your meetings. Fyxer gives you back an hour a day from your inbox. The AI products that will win are not the most powerful ones. They’re the ones that answer: what does this make you capable of that you couldn’t do before? How does this make you more human?

And through SheBuilds, their global programme where women build real software in 48-hour hackathons, no CS background, 100+ simultaneous build days worldwide, Lovable is also answering a harder question: who gets handed the tools next?

The brands that will cut through are the ones that know what they stand for and show up for their people consistently. Not the ones with the best model.

From Logan Paul’s creators’ mansion to creator incubators. The infrastructure era has begun.

Every week, I talk to builders through HOM. Founders, creator entrepreneurs, 5-9 builders doing extraordinary things between their 9-5 and bedtime.

And almost all of them say the same thing. This is so lonely.

Not tragically lonely. Structurally lonely. The information is out there. The courses, the pods, the playbooks, all of it exists. But here’s what nobody tells you: information doesn’t give you momentum. A room of people does.

I see it every single time we host an event or an accountability session at HOM. Something shifts in a room that cannot shift in a Notion doc or a podcast episode. You can’t manufacture it. You can only create the conditions for it.

And here’s what’s interesting: the industry is starting to figure this out too. Not just at a community level. At an infrastructure level.

What started as influencer houses, Logan Paul, 2017, shared mansion, chaos for content, is evolving into something way more interesting: the creator incubator. The shift makes sense when you think about it. The original influencer house model was built around proximity, generating content generating attention. But attention alone doesn’t compound. What compounds are the infrastructure, the systems, the relationships, the operational support that turns a moment of attention into a lasting business. So the model is changing to reflect that. Less about where creators sleep. More about how they’re grown.

New formats keep emerging, creator-coded flexible co-working spaces, community-exclusive short-term rentals built for collaboration and content production.

And even Cannes Lions is running a Creator Villa this year, a dedicated beach space for B2B creators, content studios, creators’ stage, editing suites, and direct lines to global brand decision-makers. B2B creators. At Cannes Lions. That shift alone from B2C to B2B creator infrastructure tells you where the next opportunity actually sits. The creator economy is not a consumer internet story anymore. It’s eating everything

The asset is no longer the creator. The asset is the infrastructure around them.

Which brings me back to where I started. The builders telling me this is lonely, they’re not wrong. But what they’re actually describing is a structural gap. A missing layer between the information that exists and the momentum that doesn’t. That layer is community. It’s rooms. It’s the infrastructure of being seen, held, and connected while you build.

That’s what HOM is built to be. And that’s what the whole industry is now racing to create.

The next era of creator support is not more content telling you how to build. It’s more structures built to hold you while you do.

Old Hollywood just placed a $250M bet on the creator economy.

The biggest signal of the fortnight came quietly.

Creative Artists Agency, yes, the Hollywood one, and private equity firm TPG just announced Compound Creative Holdings. $250 million. Built specifically to acquire and operate creator-led businesses across YouTube, podcasting, and digital media.

CAA. The agency behind the biggest actors, filmmakers, and musicians on the planet. The infrastructure layer of old Hollywood. Now putting creator businesses in the same category as film studios and record labels.

Sit with that for a second.

This is not influencer culture. This is media mogul culture. Arriving faster than most people are ready for.

What they’re building isn’t that different from what Emma Grede did for celebrity brands, except the new celebrities are creators. Acquire multiple businesses. Provide the operational infrastructure. Use the global network to scale. Extract value across multiple revenue lines. What Grede understood and what CAA and TPG are now betting $250M on is that the talent was never the scarce thing. Talent is everywhere. What’s scarce is the system around the talent that turns a loyal audience into a durable business.

Individual creator talent is abundant. The infrastructure to scale it is the moat.

The fragmentation era is ending. The consolidation era is beginning.

So what does this actually mean for you?

→ If you’re a creator: the most important question of 2026 is not “how do I grow my audience.” It’s “what am I building that could exist without me.” The acquirers aren’t buying audiences. They’re buying systems.

→ If you’re building creator-adjacent infrastructure, a community, an accelerator, a fund, a network, you’re building in exactly the right direction. The next wave of capital is not flowing only into individual creators. It’s flowing into the structures that hold them.

So, ride the wave.

The throughline 🧃

Three things happened this fortnight that look unrelated.

A software company made a short film about dreaming. Creator incubators started opening on beaches in Cannes. A Hollywood agency put $250 million into creator-led businesses.

But they’re all the same story.

The tools are becoming universal, the gatekeepers are gone, and the access is opening. The rooms are being built the industry is finally creating the infrastructure builders have always needed. And the capital is arriving not as a bet on individual talent, but on the infrastructure around it.

The through line is this: we are moving from an era where access was the bottleneck to an era where infrastructure is the moat. The tools exist. The rooms are being built. The money knows where it’s going.

The builders who will win are not the ones who waited until everything was perfect. They’re the ones who got in the right room early, built the world before the product, and started compounding trust before anyone was watching.

You already have the tools. The question is what room you’re in.

Drop it in the comments. I read everything 👇

bisous,
Dalila ✨

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What did you spot this week in your corner of this world? Drop it in the comments. I read everything 👇

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Hello to my lovely community of people in SPAM*, creator entrepreneurs, founders and 5-9 builders,

(*If you didn’t follow the latest juice on LinkedIn, Laura Cameron gave a name and a home to all the ones working in Social Media, PR, Advertising and Marketing. That home is the SPAM community)

@lauragcameronlet me be henceforth known as a woman in SPAM 👩‍💻👩‍💻👩‍💻👩‍💻 #socialmedia #publicrelations #marketing

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I’m Dalila, a growth marketer, community and world-builder. I work inside the brands shaping what’s next, run HOM - my community and accelerator for the next era of builders, creators, and marketing operators - and share the patterns I spot from inside all of it here.

If you are already subscribed, thank you. It means the whole world, and I’m immensely grateful to have you here. My little self would be so proud of who I am becoming and what I am building, and that’s also thanks to you supporting me here!

If you just stumbled upon my profile, I write about the intersection between tech x media x community x capital, a world I genuinely love and have been in for almost a decade. 2 years ago, I decided I was done with following the conventional path and was ready to let my light shine and build a life following what sparks my soul. I will be sharing everything about this journey on here!

Coffee catch-up ☕✨

I’m sooo back!! After a couple of weeks of being quiet to adjust to life changes, I have been waaaaaay more consistent in showing up to build my world. I had many reasons for not being as active, and I have been compassionate with myself — sometimes it’s OK to pause; however, I also realised that my lack of consistency stemmed from a subtle disconnection from my Direction. When what I am going to do gets blurry, it’s harder for me to know what to do next, causing a real creative block. When this happens, I give myself some time and then take my notebook and journal, answering the very basic questions: “Where am I going?” and “Why do I wanna go there?” Reminding myself of the very basics behind the work that I do gives me clarity and helps me re-align.

Another highlight of the week was inviting 7 of the most ambitious female founders I know from my HOM community to dinner. We got so vulnerable and shared our main challenges in building our worlds and businesses. It made me realise we are all figuring it out along the way, and the most important thing is to find a space to hold you and people to cheer for you. I am more committed than ever to build this and back the most ambitious builders of our generation ✨

Now let’s go to the juice of this week!

The Juice 🧃

→ Why “creator” is a word we should retire, and what to call yourself instead.

→ 3 builders who proved that the world always comes before the product, and the structural pattern behind all of them.

→ The pre-seed funding data point that reframes everything about why community isn’t soft. It’s the capital infrastructure.

1. We are not creators. We are CEOs of our own worlds.

We need to retire the word “creator” and substitute it with:

Creator Spotlight, one of the most thoughtful publications covering this space, published its 2026 editorial position plainly:

Needless to say, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS!

On Open Tab, the new Substack-owned show, , author of one of the hottest Substack publications, “Feed Me”, states:

Yes, you heard that right. What started in 2022 as a regular newsletter with the hottest takes in the business x tech x media space under a paywall has now become a content ecosystem — Multiple columnists focusing on different verticals; Guest Lecture, an exclusive interview series where paid subscribers can ask questions directly to high-profile business leaders; Expense Account, a dedicated business-meets-lifestyle podcast vertical hosted by J Lee; Job Board, a curated, internal platform that connects the newsletter’s professional reader base with companies in the creative and corporate sectors; Merchandise Drops, limited-edition physical products (like Feed Me hats and apparel) that treat the newsletter like a lifestyle brand; IRL Events & Community, like live networking events, dinners, and parties in New York and London to move the digital community into the real world.

Emily is rocking it, and her focus from now on will be strengthening the extensions of this world: more regular community meet-ups, properly designed product extensions of her Feed Me brand world, and — wait for it — potentially producing a movie. How cool is that?!

I highly suggest listening to her full interview to get to know better the journey that brought her where she is.

(For anyone who is already panicking and thinking “omg I’m behind” please bear in mind she started this project during Covid - GOOD THINGS, TAKE TIME)

Full interview here 👇

On Substack

Open Tab: Emily Sundberg

For our inaugural episode of Open Tab, we knew we wanted to speak with Emily Sundberg. Emily’s the founder and daily writer of Feed Me, a business, tech, and culture newsletter that’s been described as “must-read (and much-read).” She publishes almost every weekday— something like 250 sends a year—covering everything from DTC darlings and media industry churn to New York ho…

Listen now

4 months ago · 1084 likes · 1 comment · Hamish McKenzie and Emily Sundberg

To confirm the surge of media ecosystems over “creators” and what I call world-building, Jordan Schwarzenberger, in his latest Community Service issue, writes:

What he argues is that monolithic content-production thinking is being replaced by content-universe thinking, which answers the question: “How can I use content formats cross-platform as a distribution channel to convey the world I am trying to build?”

He says:

“The best podcasts — the ones doing the best, the most successful — create an environment for audiences to come into. A village. People take up residence there. They’re comfortable, they’re happy, and they stay for a long time. But they’re not defined by the medium. The same way a village has multiple amenities, a church, shops, and parks — a podcast has its membership club, its video content, its audio content, and its IRL events.”

Full piece here 👇

Community Service

The Podcast era is over - “content ecosystems” have replaced it

Hello and welcome back to another issue of Community Service…

Read more

3 months ago · 9 likes · 3 comments · Community Service

At YouTube Brandcast 2026, CEO Neal Mohan declared the modern marketing playbook had been rewritten. Creators are the gravitational force now. Not platforms. The most sophisticated ones are small media companies with audience data, format libraries, distribution strategies, and commercial infrastructure. The real shift is ownership. Long-term joint ventures where formats, audiences, and revenue are shared.

The reframe that matters for anyone reading this:

I built a framework to think like the CEO of your own world in my latest issue — go check it out if you haven’t yet.

2. Build the world first, ship the product later.

This is the part most people skip.

And if back then it could have worked when your product just had good features and solved a real problem, now it’s not enough anymore.

Good Good Golf started as five friends playing golf on YouTube. They didn’t treat this as “let’s just do some videos and see where it goes.” They started with the intention of building world-first: a lifestyle, a set of values, a community around the sport. The apparel, the live events, the NBC Sports deal — all of it followed the world, not the other way around. The $45 million raise, led by Creator Sports Capital and backed by Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, came because the world already existed and had been proven.

What made their model work:

• The founding lineup. Garrett Clark, Matt Scharff, Stephen Castaneda, Thomas “Bubbie” Broders, Micah Morris, and Tom “Tig” Broders came together like a founding team in a real startup would.

• The business catalyst. Garrett was already a prominent figure in the YouTube golf space, and, in 2020, entrepreneur and digital media strategist Matt Kendrick met Garrett at a golf tournament. Kendrick had previously helped launch The Googan Squad, a highly successful collective of YouTube fishing creators who bundled their audiences to build a massive merchandise and apparel brand. He recognised the same untapped opportunity in golf and pitched the exact same collective business model.

• The launch strategy. Unlike traditional creators growing organically from their bedrooms, Good Good was treated as a major startup from day one. Kendrick secured upfront capital to move the entire group into a single house in Texas to film content full-time.

The secret to their rapid growth:

→ Relatable recurring formats: fast-paced, chaotic match formats like 2v2v2 scrambles and Wheel of Fortune challenges — nothing like traditional golf.

→ A lifestyle brand first: three distinct pillars from the start — entertaining content, high-end apparel, and corporate partnerships. The YouTube channel served as a massive free marketing engine for the clothing line.

→ Mainstream crossover: their millennial and Gen-Z viewership unlocked hardware deals with Callaway, live-broadcast events with NBC, and eventually that $45M raise with Peyton Manning.

Different, but similar, has been the case of Alix Earle.

She spent two years in stealth. Not developing products — building the world.

Seeding unlabelled products into her content. Creating a mystery Instagram account called wtfisalixdoing. Letting her audience feel like they were inside something before it had a name. When Reale Actives launched in March 2026, all four products sold out in 10 hours.

Personal reflection ✨

I am so still figuring this out, and honestly, that’s why I think you should keep following me, because who else on here is sharing their journey starting from literally day 0? 🫠

This is the same approach I keep coming back to as I build my own world. When I started, I needed to adopt the mindset of “let’s just put something out there”, which I highly suggest to avoid getting stuck in procrastination paralysis, waiting to have it all figured out before starting.

However, I quickly realised that producing without a Direction would lead me to burnout and eventually a lack of commitment. I needed to know my effort was compounding toward a specific Direction.

This has been tremendously helpful in producing with more intention and having a guide for something I genuinely have no playbook for. The question I keep asking myself: Is everything compounding toward the world I want to build?

For me, that’s looked like:

→ Is my next gig going to 1) teach me the skills I need right now to thrive in this world and succeed in my own projects? 2) surround me with people who can fundamentally double down on my opportunities and get me closer to where I want to be? 3) Give me an experience worth telling about?

→ Is the community I’m building gathering the people I want to build for, people for whom my outlets can actually make a difference?

→ Is my content telling my story, sharing my skills, and building the audience that sits at the intersection of points 1 and 2?

3. And once you’re ready to launch, you need to be in the right room.

So far, we’ve talked about building with a world-builder mindset and putting audience before product. But once you do launch, there’s one more pillar you need: being in the right room with the people who can support your journey.

Your audience will be your key leverage point, your first supporters and advocates, but it may not be enough on its own.

Analysis of pre-seed deals from early 2026: 60% of funding is explained by category momentum, 30% by founder pedigree. But 98% of pre-seed companies get funded through referrals. Only 2% break through cold outreach.

The room you’re in before you have metrics. The room where people see you think, build, operate, and make decisions. The room that generates the referral that generates the conversation that generates the cheque.

The builders who understand this aren’t just building audiences. They’re getting in the right rooms. Curated, intentional spaces where the right people find each other early, before the category gets crowded, before the opportunity becomes obvious to everyone. That’s not community management. That’s infrastructure for everything that comes next.

I spoke about what Bulletpitch is doing, building a community where capital is handed to the next gen of startups over a dinner table, in one of my past issues, and this exactly what we are building towards with House of Marketing.

Translated:

→ The room you build today is the network that funds the next thing.

→ The people in the room are the pattern recognition before the pitch.

→ The trust built in person doesn’t need an algorithm to distribute it.

The throughline 🧃

We were all taught to start with the output, meaning: ship the product first, figure out how to get it into the right hands afterward.

But the more I study the builders actually succeeding right now, the more I realise they all started from this:

→ They decided to build the world before they built the thing.

→ They decided to create to send a specific signal to a specific audience, instead of talking to the mass and posting just for the sake of it.

→ They decided to join the rooms where they could find their supporters, collaborators, or even investors before even having a pitch.

I’m using this as my own compass right now. Every time I’m not sure what to do next - with my community-driven accelerator, with this newsletter, with my content across channels - I come back to these three questions.

→ Am I building the world first, or rushing to the product?

→ Am I building like a studio or like a content machine?

→ Am I building a room full of people that will be there before I even need them?

What did you spot this week in your corner of this world? Drop it in the comments. I read everything 👇

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Share The Unfold

I’m Dalila, a growth marketer and community builder. I work inside the brands shaping what’s next, run my community for the next era of builders, creators, and operators, and share the patterns I spot from inside all of it here.

Coffee catch-up ☕✨

I’ve been quieter on here lately, and not because nothing was happening. Actually, the opposite. I’ve been heads down figuring out my direction, asking myself where I’m going, what world I want to build for myself, and how content plays a role in all of that (I’ll write a full piece on it soon because the process taught me a lot).

And while I was doing all that, I also managed to tick off the biggest cell on my vision board bingo this year. More on that very soon 🤩🤩🤩

But today I’m back with three things I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

I absolutely L-O-V-E connecting the dots between what I consume, and that’s exactly what this newsletter is.

On that note, I cannot recommend enough Connect the Dots: The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck by Dr Christian Busch for anyone trying to create more luck in their life through exactly that.

The Juice 🧃

• Tech companies are quietly betting that story and belonging are the new growth lever.

• TBPN’s nine-figure acquisition revealed something important about who gets to hold the mic in tech, spoiler: it’s not women.

• The MrBeast HoldCo model gave me a new mental model for what world-building actually looks like as a structure.

Let’s get into it.

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1. When everyone can build, story is the moat

Something is shifting in how tech companies hire, and if you’re paying attention, it tells you everything about where the real competitive edge is moving.

New tech companies are launching faster than ever, and the AI boom didn’t just open doors for new businesses to exist; it made building software genuinely accessible. Vibe coding is real; anyone can ship a product now, which means the race to acquire and retain customers is more crowded, noisier, and honestly harder to win on product alone.

Software and product roles are still essential, and growth and GTM still matter, but they’re no longer enough on their own.

The most successful AI startups right now, Lovable, Granola, and many other tech companies, are hiring Heads of Content, Storytelling, Community, and Creator Partnerships early, not as afterthoughts or marketing support but as core strategic bets.

*We all saw this one, right?

This is the signal: tech brands are figuring out that features alone no longer convert, and that stories, identity, and belonging do.

Granola isn’t just building a note-taking product. They’re hosting coffee mornings, five-a-side football matches and weekly panels, building a world around the product, not just the product itself.

What this means for anyone in marketing, content, or community is that your skills are not becoming less relevant in the AI era; they’re becoming the irreplaceable ones.

AI will handle technical execution, data analysis, and most operational tasks.

*see Marie and Lise, Creator Marketing at Granola vibe coding a tool that manages all influencers, monitors their posts, pays their invoices on time, and shows campaign results!! 🤯

But humans will own the strategy, the creative direction, the cultural judgment, and the storytelling that makes a product actually memorable. And they’ll own the real relationships too, with customers, partners, creators, freelancers and specialists who come in with laser focus to solve specific challenges or shoot the next big campaign.

Everything that will really matter will come down to what makes us most human.

When everyone can build, the moat is human, and the people who know how to build that moat through story, community, and identity are the ones who will be most valuable in every room that matters.

2. What TBPN got right. And what it got very wrong.

OpenAI’s nine-figure acquisition of TBPN made waves, and it should, because buying a media property to control the narrative in the pre-IPO stage is a sharp move.

For context: TBPN, the Technology Business Programming Network, is a live daily tech and business talk show, often described as SportsCenter for Silicon Valley. Hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, it streams weekdays covering AI, startups, and venture capital, and was acquired by OpenAI in April 2026 with around 70k YouTube subscribers at the time. It now sits at 101k on YouTube and 300k on X.

“Only” 101k, you might think. But that’s exactly the point. TBPN doesn’t need millions of subscribers because it has the right thousands. It leads the conversation in the SF tech scene and globally, giving the platform to the most powerful people in the industry to shape the narrative, sometimes very strategically.

This is what we’re seeing across the creator and media landscape more broadly: the power is shifting from mass to niche, and whoever holds the mic in the right room shapes what the market believes.

But scrolling through their content, something became impossible to ignore. There isn’t one woman. Not in any episode I could find.

I can keep scrolling if you want…🫢

I could be generous and say it wasn’t intentional, but honestly, it doesn’t need to be intentional to be exclusionary. Look at the aesthetic: dark greens, black and grey, gaming-coded visuals, two male hosts in tech-bro attire leading conversations with the most powerful people in the industry. Every design decision signals who this space is for and who it isn’t.

That’s how organic exclusion works, not through a policy but through an environment that never considered you in the first place.

I want to push back on the narrative that there are fewer women in tech, because there are extraordinary women founders, investors, and journalists with sharp perspectives and real power who exist and are simply not being platformed in the rooms where deals get discussed and narratives get set.

The most interesting media opportunity in tech right now isn’t another show that looks like TBPN. It’s the one that holds the perspective of all players in the industry and brings those sharp voices into a different kind of room (what about a whimsical garden with rose wine?) and ideas sharp enough to close the next big deal. The brightest POV doesn’t always come from the loudest voice in the most institutional setting.

Platforms like Substack and YouTube proved that one voice with a supporting community can own an audience and reshape an industry without institutional approval.

The next breakthrough media property in tech will be built by someone who understands that, and it will include the voices that have been drowned out by louder ones for too long. And yes, I’m building towards that.

3. The Creators’ HoldCo model: a blueprint for world-builders

This week, I came across an analysis by Will Ventures of Beast Industries, MrBeast’s holding company currently seeking a $5 billion valuation, and it gave me a new mental model for something I’ve been trying to articulate for a while: what world-building actually looks like as a structure, not just a feeling.

Here’s how it works. MrBeast sits at the top as the holding entity, and underneath are Feastables, Beast Games, and Lunchly, each with its own business, its own team, revenue model, and audience segment, but all operating under one CEO, one strategic direction, one bottom line - the flywheel is coordinated so that every piece plugs the other, and nothing operates in isolation.

This is the model I want to apply to how I think about building my own world, and it’s not a “portfolio career” or a side hustle alongside a day job.

I asked Claude to draw it for me. Here is what I got. Cute, right? 🤩

Think of yourself as the holding company. Your job, your projects, your outlets, each one is a subsidiary with its own audience segment and its own monetisation model. Content becomes your distribution channel, feeding each sub-segment and always pulling them back to the same holding entity: you, your name, your vision.

The flywheel logic works here, too. Your LinkedIn builds the audience that fills the community. The community generate the stories that fuel the Substack. The Substack builds the credibility that unlocks brand partnerships and speaking slots. Each subsidiary feeds the others, and nothing operates in isolation.

And when it comes to capital, whether investment money or your own financial resources, the same logic holds. The holding entity pools the returns, and each subsidiary gets allocated based on its stage and needs, with the whole structure moving in one Direction.

This isn’t just a business model. It’s a way of thinking about how to build a life that compounds, where every choice, every project, every collaboration becomes a holding-level question: does this serve the flywheel, or does it fragment it? Does it move you toward your Direction, or does it quietly pull you off course?

That’s the question I’m asking myself more and more.

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The throughline 🧃

We are moving into an era where the human layer is the most valuable layer. In tech, story and community will separate the products people remember from the ones they forget. In media, the voices that have been excluded hold the most untapped potential. In world-building, the people who think in systems and see how their audience, their projects, and their ideas can compound together are the ones who will build something that actually lasts.

What did you spot this week in your corner of this world?

Drop it in the comments. I read everything 👇

Most of us reading this grew up with television running quietly in the background, not as a deliberate choice but as a constant presence woven into the fabric of everyday life, something that accompanied us rather than demanded our full attention.

I did too, and when I think back, I can trace almost every phase of my childhood through what was on the screen at the time: the shows that played in the morning while getting ready for school, the ones that stayed on while I did homework at the kitchen table, the programs that marked the gradual unwinding of the day as bedtime approached.

That scheduled programming wasn’t just entertainment. It was rhythm. It was familiarity. It was a kind of emotional scaffolding that brought a sense of order to the otherwise chaotic experience of growing up.

Television didn’t simply fill time; it taught us how life worked, what mattered, what success looked like, and how relationships unfolded. It became a shared cultural language, one we all spoke fluently because we were exposed to the same narratives, at the same time, in the same way.

And yet, looking back now, it’s impossible not to see that this shared experience came with a cost. Because that era was also defined by passivity. Someone else decided what we watched, when we watched it, and which stories were worthy of being told. Culture moved in one direction, from the top down, and we consumed it together without ever having a real say in its shape.

Growing up in Italy made this especially visible to me. Television wasn’t just a mirror of society; it was a tool used to mould it. Entire generations were fed content designed to distract rather than challenge, to simplify rather than deepen, to entertain while quietly eroding critical thinking and intellectual curiosity. Misogyny was normalised. Complexity was flattened. Information was framed, filtered, and, when inconvenient, censored.

What looked like a connection was often just synchronised numbness. People felt informed without being empowered, connected without being heard, part of something without ever shaping it. It wasn’t that television failed to bring people together. It did. But it brought them together as spectators, not participants.

For a long time, that model held. Until something fundamental cracked.

When the schedule broke.

In July 2022, streaming officially surpassed both cable and broadcast television for the first time, a milestone that made headlines across the media industry and was framed as the symbolic end of an era.

But the real shift had started long before that moment. Because what actually broke wasn’t television as a medium. It was the idea of the schedule itself.

For decades, mass media relied on a simple but powerful principle: you adapt your life to it. You sit down when the program starts. You structure your evenings around what’s on. Your attention moves according to a grid designed by someone else.

Then the world stopped. In 2020, routines dissolved almost overnight. Commutes disappeared. Time lost its familiar edges. Days blurred into one another, stretching and compressing in unfamiliar ways.

And in that forced pause, many people realised something they hadn’t consciously questioned before. They didn’t need the schedule anymore. They could watch what they wanted, when they wanted, and in the way that suited their own lives rather than someone else’s programming logic. More importantly, they could choose not to watch at all.

Once you experience that level of agency over your attention, it’s impossible to go back. Streaming wasn’t just a technological evolution. It was a psychological one. It disrupted the quiet agreement we had all made with systems that organised our time for us.

And that realisation didn’t stop at the media. When people were suddenly given back time, boredom, and silence, many discovered how little space they had previously had to think, to reflect, or to explore their own curiosity. Freed from rigid schedules, they started learning new things, revisiting forgotten interests, and questioning assumptions they had never had the time or mental space to examine.

The life we had been shown. The culture we had been fed. The version of the world we thought was complete.It turned out to be only a fraction of what existed.

The explosion of voices.

With time reclaimed and curiosity reawakened, people didn’t just change how they consumed media. They changed their relationship to expression itself.

The pandemic didn’t invent the desire to create, but it removed many of the structural and psychological barriers that had kept that desire contained. And almost immediately, new platforms emerged that were perfectly suited to this shift.

TikTok didn’t just grow. It detonated. Suddenly, millions of people no longer needed permission to speak. They didn’t need studios, producers, or approval from gatekeepers. They didn’t need to appeal to everyone. They only needed to find their people.

As new voices emerged, niche interests that had never been visible at scale found each other. Opinions outside the mainstream gained momentum. Entire micro-communities formed around aesthetics, values, humour, lifestyles, and worldviews that would never have survived the logic of mass television.

This wasn’t fragmentation for the sake of chaos. It was diversification after decades of enforced sameness. People weren’t craving more content. They were craving representation, resonance, and recognition.

And alongside short-form video, something else expanded in parallel: podcasting.

Long-form, intimate, unhurried conversations that allowed people to explore ideas fully, without compressing them into soundbites or optimising them for virality. A medium that followed listeners into their real lives, adapting to their schedules rather than demanding they adapt to it.

Unlike television, podcasts didn’t ask for full attention in fixed windows of time. They slipped into walks, commutes, chores, and moments of solitude. They didn’t perform for people. They accompanied them. And for the first time in a long time, media felt human again.

Depth versus distraction.

But this new media landscape carried an inherent contradiction.

At the same time, podcasting offered depth and slowness, short-form content exploded in the opposite direction, optimised for speed, novelty, and instant gratification. Endless scrolling. Fifteen-second dopamine hits. Infinite distraction.

Both responses came from the same place. The pandemic forced people into unprecedented levels of self-reflection. For many, that meant confronting dissatisfaction, uncertainty, and long-avoided questions about their lives.

Some responded by leaning into curiosity and creation. Others responded by numbing themselves. Short-form content became the perfect anaesthetic. No commitment. No emotional risk. Just enough stimulation to avoid sitting with discomfort.

And over time, the cost of that coping mechanism became visible. Attention fragmented. Anxiety increased. Loneliness deepened. We were more connected than ever, yet increasingly isolated.

Parasocial relationships filled part of the void. We felt close to people we had never met, listened to their voices daily, followed their routines, and absorbed their perspectives.

And eventually, that stopped being enough.

The pendulum swings.

Something is shifting again. People are tired of endless scrolling, tired of feeling overstimulated and undernourished, tired of being constantly connected yet fundamentally alone. They don’t want more content; they want a real connection.

Not more influencers to watch, but people to meet.
Not more viral moments, but shared experiences.
Not parasocial intimacy, but genuine belonging.

This hunger is reshaping media from the outside in: creators are hosting dinners, organising meetups, and taking conversations off platforms and into physical spaces. Audiences are showing up, paying, travelling, and committing their time and presence. Long-form is resurging, not just as content, but as experience. Conversations that last longer than sixty seconds. Ideas that unfold slowly. Communities built around shared curiosity rather than algorithmic pressure.

At the same time, there’s a growing pull toward the analogue, toward craft, slowness, and being present, not as a rejection of technology but as a correction to how it has shaped our lives.

When podcasts leave the headphones.

This is why podcasts are showing up in cinemas, on stages, and in theatres filled with people who arrive as strangers and leave feeling part of something shared.

A podcast episode watched together carries a different weight than one consumed alone, not because the content changes, but because the context does: it becomes a collective experience rather than a private one.

Across formats and creators, the pattern is consistent:

Free content as an entry point → Accessibility across platforms → Communities that offer belonging → Live moments that transform listeners into participants

This isn’t television reborn; it’s a different model entirely, where creators own their intellectual property. They have direct relationships with their audiences. They aren’t bound to time slots or locked into single platforms. Their communities don’t just watch; they shape, attend, and contribute.

Completing the circle.

This isn’t a story about the death of television or the triumph of podcasts: it’s a story about regained agency.

About moving from mass media, where we were passive spectators, to streaming, where we chose content but consumed alone, to social platforms that amplified voices while often keeping relationships one-sided, and finally to something new: ecosystems where content becomes community, and community becomes lived experience.

We are completing a circle, returning to what media was always meant to do: help humans feel less alone together.

But this time, without waiting for permission. Without fixed schedules. Without a handful of gatekeepers deciding what matters.

And honestly, I would rather pay fifteen pounds to sit in a room full of strangers who slowly stop feeling like strangers than spend another night alone watching something a network decided I should care about.

Because that isn’t just entertainment, that’s belonging. And that, to me, is worth it.

💌 a note to my readers 💌

Hello, my lovely readers,

It’s officially 2026, and I’m more fired up than ever.

This year, I made an intentional commitment to follow what sparks my inner fire. And lately, every article I read, every person I meet, and every dot I connect all point to the same transformation happening right in front of us.

The line between creator, investor, entrepreneur, and media company is blurring, and it’s opening doors for more people to shape the next wave of products, services, and stories that matter, breaking down the barriers to ownership of the cultural and economic pie.

We’re entering an era where attention, trust, and distribution are becoming as valuable as capital, and the people who control them are no longer traditional investors.

But before diving into the transformation I believe will disrupt the investing world, let me tell you a story.

about that time I regretted not becoming a traditional banker

When I started my career in marketing, I fell in love with shaping powerful storytelling to push the next wave of brands and products.

But over the years, I kept looking at my peers in VC and working in founding teams, the ones actually building, funding, and advising the companies I was marketing, and (hard realisation) I wanted to be at the table too.

I wanted to have a say in the building stage, to give a money injection to a company I truly believed in, and to support causes that were close to my heart, like backing more women-led businesses in gatekept industries.

What I didn’t realise then is that an entirely new table was being built, one that didn’t require permission from traditional gatekeepers.

Let’s dive into this.

there is a new exclusive club

Traditional VC has always been an exclusive circle: Ivy League degrees, banking backgrounds, institutional capital. That formula worked for decades.

But something fundamental is shifting. The venture capital playbook is being rewritten, and the most exciting conversations are happening in WhatsApp groups, creative studios, and dinner tables across the world.

Who’s in the room now? Creators. Community builders. Founders.

the creator and community-led investing movement

In early December 2024, Logan Paul joined Jake Paul’s VC fund, Anti Fund, as a General Partner. Anti Fund closed its oversubscribed $30 million Fund I, bringing total AUM to $65 million with a portfolio including OpenAI, Anduril, Ramp, and Polymarket.

What Jake and Logan are building is different. They’re not just investing capital. They’re offering distribution, media amplification, and cultural relevance, three things that are increasingly difficult to buy for early-stage startups.

alongside the creator-led investing model, the rise of community-led Investment platforms

(as a community founder, this excites me even more!! 🤭)

Maggie Sellers & HSR Angels

Maggie came from branding, not traditional VC, not MBA, not Goldman Sachs, just deep consumer insight and a TikTok audience.

Her Hot Smart Rich podcast hit Top 3 Business podcasts in the US (2M downloads in 8 months), and it was recently announced that Steven Bartlett just made a seven-figure investment to 10x revenue.

Through HSR Angels community events worldwide, she’s empowered women to become angel investors, leading to the foundation of HSR Ventures, where she’s backed 18+ startups, including Allara Health, De Soi, Mixlab, and Nudestix.

BulletPitch & SAUZ

BulletPitch was born from a weekly newsletter focused on highlighting early-stage startups that weren’t yet getting mainstream press coverage. Since then, it has evolved into a broader venture-media platform.

Their thesis? “Media drives deal flow.” The SAUZ deal proved it.

BulletPitch orchestrated a round that added 22 content creators directly to the cap table with a collective reach of 40 million followers. The brand’s investors became its primary marketing engine, and when your investors are your marketing channel, CAC approaches zero.

Gen She & Brydge Club

Avni Barman (Gen She) and Ruffin Mitchener (Brydge Club) are empowering women from all backgrounds to write checks, invest in brands they believe in, and build wealth through content and exclusive communities, breaking down the gates to a world that was gatekept for too long.

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why this model actually works

Creators understand consumers better than spreadsheets ever could.

They see what goes viral and what flops. They feel cultural shifts in real-time. They read 1,000 comments daily.

As The Psychology of Money states, financial decisions are driven by emotion and psychology, not just data.

They have a distribution that traditional VCs can’t match.

When Newcastle Network evaluates DTC brands, they give products to creators first: “We get their opinions, have them post, and see how it performs,” explains partner Vickie Segar. “You shouldn’t just have finance people making million-dollar decisions. You need people who understand consumer products differently.”

They turn investors into evangelists.

Every brand faces the same bottleneck: customer acquisition. Community investors don’t just write checks. Indeed, their followers, networks, and platforms become the distribution engine. When they have skin in the game, they promote authentically.

what this means for you

If you’re a founder

The centre of gravity is shifting. Capital still matters, but it’s no longer enough on its own. The founders who stand out are the ones who bring people closer early on by sharing the process, the thinking, the story behind what they’re building. When creators and communities feel involved, they don’t just amplify; they become part of the building process and advocate for you.

If you’re a creator or community builder

Attention isn’t just something to monetise anymore. It’s something that can turn into ownership, influence, and long-term alignment with the things you genuinely believe in. More and more, creators aren’t waiting to be invited into existing systems. They’re shaping new ones around trust, taste, and shared conviction.

If you’re a marketer

You might already recognise this world better than most. You’ve spent years learning how people move, what captures interest, and what builds trust over time. You understand timing, narrative, and cultural signals long before they appear in a dashboard. Those skills that used to be dismissed as intangible aren’t anymore. They’re often what separates ideas that work from those that don’t.

the future we’re stepping into

This shift is already unfolding.

Founders are looking for partners who can do more than wire money. They’re drawn to people who understand how stories spread, how communities form, how belief turns into adoption.

What’s emerging isn’t a rejection of traditional venture capital, but an expansion of it. New forms of access, new paths to ownership, new ways of deciding what gets built and backed.

Community creates trust → Trust creates momentum → Momentum attracts capital.

The infrastructure is taking shape, the rooms are filling, and the conversations are getting more interesting.

The question isn’t whether this moment matters; it’s what you choose to do with it.

Because this isn’t only about returns. It’s about who gets to shape what succeeds next: the products, the platforms, the stories that end up defining this era. And increasingly, that decision isn’t made behind closed doors. It’s being held, collectively, by the people willing to show up and build alongside each other.

Hello, my lovely readers, and welcome to The Unfold. This is Dalila, and I’m a marketer, founder, creator and professional over-analyser of why some things take off, and others don’t. I run a community-powered accelerator for marketers, creators, and founders, write about growth (the brand kind and the human kind), and believe the best strategy is one that makes people feel something. Welcome to my brain. It’s messy, it’s yours, and I promise it’ll make you think differently. Enjoy your read ✨✨✨

This past weekend, I did something objectively ridiculous: I stood in the pouring rain outside Sherjil Newsagent in London, surrounded by hundreds of others, waiting for a green baseball cap.

Not just any cap. A “thinking” cap from Claude AI’s pop-up café.

When a bewildered passerby asked what we were doing, someone in line said it perfectly: “There are actually fans of Claude here.” Fans. Of an AI company. Queueing in the rain.

And that sentence contains the entire future of tech adoption.

We weren’t there for free coffee or banana bread (though both are excellent). We weren’t even there primarily for merch, despite how well these caps match my outfits. We were there for something far more valuable in today’s fractured digital landscape: belonging.

The chance to signal - to the world and to ourselves - that we’re part of a tribe that still values deep thought, intentional creation, and intellectual craft. In a world drowning in AI slop and doomscrolling fatigue, Claude handed us a lifeline disguised as merchandise.

And in doing so, they cracked something most tech companies miss entirely: the emotional layer of product adoption.

✦ It’s Not a Hat. It’s an Identity Badge (And That’s the Whole Game)

Let’s be honest: baseball caps are more mainstream than Patagonia gilets at this point. But this one became a cultural token. A badge that says, “I’m not here to take shortcuts. I’m here to think. I’m here to elevate myself above those trading craft for speed.”

In an era where ChatGPT has become synonymous with lazy outputs and surface-level productivity hacks, Claude positioned itself as the antidote. When everyone zigs, you zag. The thinking partner. The tool for people who refuse to let AI do their thinking for them, but instead use it to think better.

That distinction matters.

The “thinking” cap isn’t just branding, it’s a rallying cry for a specific type of person. The problem solvers. The 3am tinkerers. The ones who can’t walk past a challenge without engaging. The builders who see AI not as a replacement for human creativity, but as an amplifier of it.

Claude isn’t selling software. They’re selling identity.

And that’s precisely what moves the needle now.

✦ Plot Twist: Traditional Marketing is Dead (And Founders Keep Missing the Memo)

A few months ago, I had a conversation with a tech founder building a legitimate Zapier competitor. The product was genuinely strong. But when I suggested treating marketing like they were a consumer brand - focusing on community building, content creation, and storytelling - they dismissed it as “lack of expertise in B2B SaaS.”

A few months later, Elena Verna published a post on Substack that validated exactly what I’d said:

“Traditional marketing isn’t the lever anymore. Paid marketing, SEO, campaigns, nurture programs. They’re fine. They help. But they are not what moves an AI company right now. The real distribution is word of mouth, creator economy, and community. This all looks more like consumer growth patterns than traditional B2B. If your product isn’t getting talked about, there is no amount of optimization that can backfill that gap.”

Elena's Growth Scoop

6 months at Lovable and why I had to throw out most of my playbook

I’m about six months into Lovable, but it honestly feels like six years. In a good way. I haven’t felt a learning curve like this since I was still climbing early-career rungs…

Read more

10 months ago · 162 likes · 10 comments · Elena Verna

We’ve entered what entrepreneur John Emery calls The Age of Presence, where showing up in the real world is the ultimate differentiator. It’s no longer enough to have the best features, the fastest model, or the most sophisticated algorithm.

In a crowded marketplace where competitors emerge overnight and AI capabilities commoditize at breakneck speed, emotional resonance and memorable brand moments become the main drivers of adoption.

People use what they remember. What triggers them emotionally. What helps them present themselves to the world in a way that feels aligned.

That’s why I (a long-time ChatGPT early adopter) found myself genuinely considering a switch. Not because Claude’s features are objectively superior (though after testing all weekend, they might be), but because the emotional trigger and sense of belonging Claude sparked in me was undeniable.

I want to be a thinker. What I need is a thinking partner. Too many times I’ve read ChatGPT outputs and thought, “I could do this 1000 times better.”

And I’m not alone.

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✦ When Tech Goes Analog: The Smartest Brands Are Logging Off

The Claude pop-up is part of a larger pattern I’ve been tracking: AI companies going analog.

Perplexity opened “Café Curious.” Notion has its cafés. Modal AI, Ramp, and Microsoft ran “Coffee with Copilot” events. There’s a clear trend emerging: tech brands are stepping out from behind screens and creating IRL touchpoints.

Why? Because in a world saturated with screen time and digital exhaustion, physical presence creates trust in ways pixels never can.

At Claude’s NYC pop-up, visitors weren’t glued to their phones. They sat around with coffee, books, pen and paper, not screens. Anthropic called it a “zero slop zone,” a pointed reference to the proliferation of low-quality AI-generated content flooding the internet.

The setup itself was a statement: AI doesn’t have to make us less human. Used intentionally, it can free us up to be more human.

That’s the cultural insight driving this entire movement. As AI anxiety intensifies and digital burnout hits new highs, Anthropic’s analog approach taps into something we’re all feeling but rarely articulate: a hunger for depth over speed, quality over quantity, human connection over algorithmic efficiency.

According to multiple industry reports, more than 70% of marketers increased spending on live activations in 2024, citing higher emotional engagement and long-tail social impact than traditional digital ads.

The numbers don’t lie. But more importantly, the feeling doesn’t lie.

✦ Okay But Claude, You Could’ve Gone Even Harder (Respectfully)

The London activation grabbed massive social attention and was brilliantly optimized for content capture: photobooths, Instagram moments, viral hat pics. The energy was there. The branding was flawless.

But it felt less optimized for shared experience.

What if Claude had leaned even harder into the “thinking partner” narrative?

Imagine: An analog “thinking zone” designed to spark new ideas. Custom “Thinking” notepads. A library wall where visitors could leave handwritten notes about what they’re building. Interactive screens where Claude helps turn half-formed ideas into concrete action plans. A free trial of Claude’s highest capabilities to keep the thinking going after you leave.

Something that creates not just a moment, but a memory. Not just content, but connection.

Because that’s where the real magic lives: in the conversations that happen after people leave. In the sense that you didn’t just visit a pop-up, you joined something.

Claude came close. Honestly, closer than most brands ever get. But there’s room to go deeper.

✦ The Playbook: What I’d Steal If I Were Launching Tomorrow

If I were launching a tech company, a product, or even a personal brand today, here’s what I’d take from Claude’s playbook:

→ Build identity, not just utility. Your product might solve a problem, but your brand should solve an existential one. Help people understand who they are and where they belong.

→ Create cultural tokens. Whether it’s a hat, a phrase, or a ritual—give your community something they can rally around. Something that signals belonging without needing explanation. (Notion has mastered this, spawning endless memes in the process.)

→ Go offline when everyone else is online. Physical presence is the new luxury. Host dinners. Run pop-ups. Create spaces where people can connect IRL around shared values. People want to disconnect. Have you heard about Gen Z reverting to analog phones? That says something.

→ Stand for something beyond features. In Claude’s case, it’s “thinking” in an era of intellectual laziness. What’s yours? What cultural tension are you addressing?

→ Tap into what people are already feeling. Claude didn’t invent AI anxiety or digital fatigue. They named it. They gave people language for what they were already experiencing. That’s the power of great branding.

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✦ This Isn’t Just About One Green Hat (It’s About Everything)

This isn’t just about Claude. This is about a fundamental rewrite of how we think about community, loyalty, and brand building in the 2020s.

In the 2010s, we measured success by follower counts and engagement rates. In the 2020s, it’s about community depth. About cultivating belonging, not broadcasting. About creating movements, not just marketing campaigns.

The brands that will win aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets or the flashiest tech. They’re the ones that understand this truth:

Trust isn’t declared. It’s demonstrated.

And demonstration requires presence. Texture. Humanity. Contact.

When you stand in the rain for a green hat, when you sit in a café with strangers discussing ideas, when you leave feeling seen and understood, that’s not marketing. That’s meaning.

And meaning is what keeps people coming back.

✦ The TL;DR You Actually Need

I walked away from that pop-up with more than a hat. I walked away with a renewed belief that even in the age of AI, even in the race toward automation and efficiency, the most powerful thing a brand can do is make people feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves.

Claude didn’t just launch a campaign. They sparked a movement.

And for those of us paying attention, for those of us building our own projects and dreaming our own dreams, the lesson is clear:

→ Don’t just build a product. Build a world.

→ Don’t just attract users. Gather believers.

→ Don’t just market. Show up.

Because in the end, presence is the strategy. And community is the endgame.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a green hat to wear, and a lot of thinking to do.

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Oh, some words before leaving!

If this resonated, you’re probably my people.

I write about the intersection of marketing, community, culture, and the glow-up energy it takes to build something real - whether that’s a brand, a business, or yourself. No fluff, no growth-hack nonsense, just honest strategy and the human truths that actually move the needle.

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Subscribe so you don’t miss the next one. I send insights like this straight to your inbox - on marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing, communities that actually stick, and the mindset shifts that make everything else easier. I promise to only show up when I have something worth saying.

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And seriously, if this sparked something for you, I want to know. What are you building? What are you stuck on? Hit reply. I read everything. This works better when it’s a conversation.

In one of my recent pieces, I talked about the people who carry what I call the Inner Fire. That warm, pulsing force that lives somewhere between your chest and your soul. The energy that nudges you forward, whispers visions of what your life could be, and then fuels you to go and make it real. It’s a propulsive energy, an innate drive, a perpetual force, a blessing from the Universe. But like every powerful gift, it needs care, intention, and conscious direction.

People with the Inner Fire often feel a distinct and compelling pull. A hunger to grow, progress, expand. To hit the next milestone, and then the next, and the next. To feel purposeful, seen, and capable.

People with the Inner Fire, however, soon realise that this will be a journey with no manual. No clear route. No blueprint.

How is it possible then, that everyone else seems to have a map… except us?

In the highlight reels of lives well lived, we only see the outcomes. And even when it looks like people are sharing their process, the messy, the rough, the in-between, we never really see the internal turmoil. The questions, the doubts, the back-and-forth on which path to take. The days spent scrolling endlessly looking for a clue. The hours of conversations hoping for illumination. The messy notebooks filled with half-formed ideas, the crumpled pages, the quiet tears when the plan you thought was “the one” reveals itself… not to be. We never see this. We only see the micro and macro outcomes of those tiny, private decisions, missing the entire inner journey that led there.

You try to connect the dots, to rewalk paths you haven’t taken, trying to envision every step until everything clicks. Until you find the formula. The playbook you can re-follow, expecting it to magically work the same way for you too.

Only to realise it’s just a myth and most likely a reassurance-seeking attempt.

✦ The Silent Killer

It’s here, in this precise stage, that the dark shadow of the Inner Fire’s worst enemy sneaks in. It pretends to be “drive,” “ambition,” “motivation.” It mimics the fire so well you almost believe it. But the attuned heart can tell the difference.

It doesn’t bring excitement or joy, it makes you shake.
It doesn’t bring enlightenment or inspired motion, it brings urgency and pressure.
It doesn’t adapt to who you are, it tries to reshape you to fit in.

It’s FOMO, disguised as “push for more.” But it is not your Inner Fire.

The second FOMO enters, your clarity blurs. Your joy dims. Your direction scatters. Suddenly, you’re absorbing everyone else’s momentum and forgetting your own. Your true ambition, that inner red thread, becomes harder to feel. FOMO makes you lose sight of who you are, what lights you up, and where your soul is pointing.

You start borrowing dreams because they look shiny. Picking paths because they seem safe or popular. Trying on versions of yourself that never belonged to you.
Choosing jobs, cities, projects, even aesthetics simply because they worked for someone else.

And slowly, you drift away from the very things that once made you feel alive.

Even your output changes. You start doing more, but feeling less. Producing faster, but caring less. Creating for the sake of keeping up instead of creating from the truth of who you are. It no longer comes from joy or alignment with your craft, it comes from the pressure to achieve the results others have achieved. Whether that direction aligns with your soul stops mattering. What matters becomes what people say is right, cool, or admirable… and what they’ll think of you while you’re doing it.

✦ The Myth of Constant Speed

We’re told to “just go.” Just post. Just move. Just ship it. Speed before thought. Output over craft. And yes, I believe in momentum. I believe in starting before you’re ready. I believe in escaping perfectionism and giving your ideas sunlight.

But I also believe in the pause. In the breath. In the quiet space where your Inner Fire can actually speak. Because that’s where your direction becomes unmistakably clear. I believe in fast action, but only when it’s aligned. I believe in jumping on opportunities, but only when they expand you, not drain you. I believe in curiosity, but the kind that feels like exploration, not pressure. I believe in growth, but growth grounded in you, not comparison.

So, in a world obsessed with sprinting toward an invisible finish line, I invite us to zag, don’t run.

To slow down just enough to hear your true rhythm. To give your craft the attention that makes it meaningful. To choose intentionally, not reactively.

Because when you tune into your fire, the overwhelm dissolves. The noise quiets. And what remains is a path that only you can walk, a path that becomes clear because you created it.

Looking at others should expand your sense of possibility, not convince you to replace your own dreams with theirs. Go fast when it feels right. Go slow when it matters. And trust that your Inner Fire always knows where to take you.

If you pay close attention, you can almost feel it, the pulse of something new taking form. We are living through the ascendency stage of a wave that will define the next decade of culture, creativity, and marketing. And honestly, I haven’t felt this excited in a long time.

As a Gen Z, I’ve grown up watching the tides of the internet shape who we are. I witnessed the .com boom, the rise and explosion of social media, and the age of lifestyle influencers who turned personal stories into global empires. Those were the years when millions learned to build careers, identities, and audiences online.

For a while, I thought I had missed the boat, that every opportunity had already been claimed.

But the beauty of evolution is that it never stops. Every time something reaches saturation, it makes space for something new to emerge.

And right now, we find ourselves at that turning point. The era of influencers, based on aesthetics, aspirations and an endless series of product placements, is quietly coming to an end. What is emerging in its place is much more interesting: the era of people-brand universes, where individuals are not only creators but also architects of ecosystems, building entire worlds and businesses around their ideas, values and tastes, backed by close-knit communities of superfans and supporters.

✦ When Waves Die, New Ones Rise

Every cultural wave goes through the same cycle: creation, saturation, death, and reinvention. For over a decade, our feeds have been flooded with curated snapshots of perfect lives. Influencers shaped the way we dressed, what we bought, and how we perceived ourselves. But over time, the formula started to feel empty. The sparkle faded because people no longer want to watch others live; they want to live, too.

Social media is evolving from a stage into a playground, from a place of performance into a space of collective creation.

Platforms are rewarding originality and realness; at the same time, new tools are giving people the power to build what once required an entire team, in their own voice and on their own terms. The result? An explosive combination of democratized creation powerhouses and empowered distribution.

✦ Why This Change Is Happening Now

To understand this shift, we need to zoom out. What’s collapsing isn’t just influencer marketing; it’s the cultural framework that sustained it. Over the past few years, five major shifts have converged, reshaping how people connect, consume, and create.

→ We’re craving realness again.
After years of filters and performative storytelling, audiences can instantly sense what’s fake. Studies show that 86% of consumers now say authenticity is a key factor when choosing what to buy or support. It’s not that we stopped caring about aesthetics; we just want them to mean something. The influencer “highlight reel” has become predictable. We’re drawn instead to people who share the process, the cracks, the humanity behind the work.

→ From authenticity comes belonging.
Once people stopped chasing approval, they started seeking connection. Community became the new status symbol. Over half of consumers say belonging to a brand’s community makes them more loyal, and 53% are more likely to try something recommended inside that circle. The internet has shifted from being a place of performance to a place of participation ; we no longer want to be seen by everyone, we want to be known by someone.

→ When people connect, power decentralises.
The moment belonging became the goal, gatekeepers lost their grip. Anyone with a phone and a clear point of view could build something meaningful. Platforms like TikTok, Patreon, and Substack reward originality, not celebrity. The new wave of creators aren’t chasing virality; they’re building micro-worlds; audiences that feel like ecosystems.

→ And with that, trust moved away from big corporations.
In a world where anyone can build something of value, the facelessness of big brands feels outdated. People want to know who’s behind a product, why it exists, and what it stands for. Founder-led and community-powered brands thrive because they speak at human scale - transparent, imperfect, yet deeply intentional. In a culture obsessed with scale, intimacy became the new luxury.

→ All of this led us back to individuality.
When creation is democratic, sameness becomes noise. We’re no longer trying to fit into the feed - we’re trying to design our own. People now treat their lives like personal art direction, curating around their own rhythm, energy, and taste. Research on cultural consumption shows that identity-driven expression is now one of the most powerful loyalty drivers. The influencer era sold imitation; this one celebrates invention.

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✦ The Rebirth of Influence

This shift is already reshaping what “influence” means. We no longer believe in the influencer post holding a latte and smiling next to a #ad. The trust is gone. Audiences can sense when something is purely transactional.

What resonates now is seeing brands appear in the actual lives of people we relate to: the ones juggling a 9-5 and a dream, showing their mess and their growth, sharing their craft and curiosity.

It’s not a coincidence that we now see brands like Pret collaborating with creator-founders to sponsor their real daily rituals. Or that a simple TikTok (a girl joking about having a tough week and asking for small gifts) turned into a wave of brands sending comfort packages her way. Even brand accounts themselves are evolving, now often run by creator-social media managers who understand that creator-led storytelling is the new engine of engagement and community growth.

These aren’t random marketing moves. They’re signs of a deeper shift.

→ From promotion to participation.

→ From brands trying to influence life, to brands choosing to be part of it.

And that’s why this new form of storytelling feels different. Honest, grounded, reciprocal. Not a fantasy to aspire to, but a mirror of how we actually live.

That’s where the magic is returning.

✦ What This Means for Brands

For brands, this means rethinking everything. The era of influencer marketing as a mass-media shortcut is over.

What comes next is slower and more deliberate. The work of embedding into culture, supporting creators who build real communities, and finding meaningful ways to be part of those ecosystems.

The brands that will win are those that stop chasing attention and start contributing to belonging.

✦ What This Means for Us

For us - the creators, the thinkers, the builders - this is the moment to begin.
The field has never been more open. The tools are here, the platforms are ready, and audiences are hungry for new voices and new role models to believe in.

Because let’s be honest: we’re living in a time that feels uncertain. Opportunities still feel gatekept. Success still looks reserved for the few. Many of us are exhausted from chasing the next thing, trying to find a job that matters, or creating meaning in a world that often feels transactional.

But this new era feels like a collective reawakening. This is the era of a generation finally done waiting for permission. Done begging for opportunities. Done watching those very few decide who gets seen.

So if you’ve read this far, take this as your sign. Don’t wait for the perfect timing. Start building your side project, share your process, and craft your own universe around what you truly care about.

The world doesn’t need more influencers performing relevance. It needs more people designing realities that others can belong to.

✦ Prologue: In case of inner combustion, read this.

You know that thing inside you, in your chest, near your heart, that feels deep - so deep it could touch your soul.

It pulses. It glows.

If I close my eyes, it has the same colour as my Fado lamp, set at its warmest orange. If I focus more, I see luminous borders shining bright and sparkles all around.

Maybe an orange disco ball.

It’s a propulsive energy, an innate drive, a perpetual fire. A full-body rush, a rocket engine, a booming star, a big bang, a glittery explosion.

They say you either have it or you don’t, that it’s in your DNA. But they also say that, actually, everyone has it; it just gets dimmed, hidden, shamed, or left unattended.
But then something, or someone, like a matchstick, lights it up again. And from that moment on, it never truly goes dark.

I don’t know which one is true. I just know I have it. And when I try to hold it, it feels like the excitement of a kid touching snow for the first time and the burn of sipping extremely hot chocolate.

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Chapter I: The Missing Manual (or: how to raise a fire child)

At birth, the nurse didn’t hand my parents a survival guide titled How to Raise a Child with a Perpetual Fire.

So it’s been me, myself (+ mum & dad) witnessing this unstoppable propulsion that no one really knew how to handle.

Nobody told me it would stay forever, whispering that something great was meant for me. Nobody told me to keep believing in it, even when that “great” didn’t look so great yet. And definitely, nobody told me that those who couldn’t access their own fire would try to dim mine, hiding it behind: “you’re too much,” “you’re obsessed,” “this is too ambitious,” “come back to reality,” “who do you think you are.”

Also, they never mentioned that sometimes the fire cools down, that it needs rest, glitter powder, and shiny wood to return to its natural state.

Or that to bring it back, I’d have to let it out.

Lesson one: there is no manual. Only sparks, guesses, and the art of figuring it out while slightly on fire.

Chapter II: How to care for your spark (without burning the house down)

If I could write a guidebook for it, I’d probably get lost in the first paragraph. Because the truth is, the beauty lies in figuring it out.

Like a kid given their first pet - curious, a bit scared, learning how to care for it.
This thing inside you was placed there for a reason: to learn how to nurture it, to understand it, to look at it with the same eyes you’d use for something marvellous and unexpected. A mix of excitement and fear, wonder and confusion.

If I could leave a scrappy note, a few field learnings, it would probably say:

Protect it at all costs.
There will be moments when the world will try to convince you that you can’t make it. That you should follow the safe, conventional path. That your fire is whispering unrealistic dreams. That dreamers are delusional. That dreamers lose.

Keep it warm. Keep it glittering, even when the energy around you feels turned down.
Don’t let external forces dim your light. Embody that “I’ll make it with or without you” energy. Move at your own pace. Whoever’s meant to, will follow.

Lesson two: if they can’t handle your heat, they can sit in the shade.

Chapter III: The Science of Letting It Out

Here’s the secret: fires suffocate if you keep them bottled up.

Write your ideas as soon as they come. Act on momentum. Don’t wait for inspiration; create your own weather system for it.

Go out there. Explore. Try new hobbies. Build things. Connect with people. Invite them to jump on your projects.

Create your own little portfolio of sparks, moments, and experiments.

Let the fire out. Let it burn bright.

Lesson three: creative combustion requires oxygen.

Chapter IV: Let Inspiration Lead Your Schedule (and other radical concepts)

For years, I was obsessed with doing things right: following the plan, the schedule, ticking every box. The result? I felt uninspired, depleted, suffocated by a to-do list that never ended. Then someone I deeply admired told me:
“Let your inspiration lead your schedule.”

I was speechless. Follow my inspiration? What did that even mean?

She explained that when you feel the spark toward something, follow it. If you want to write that post, start that project, make that call - do it now, on the spot if you can.

Progress, she said, will be made over time, with all those sparks adding up.

And if you’re not feeling the spark, find what could make it appear. The right playlist? A walk outside? A café? Lighting a candle? Whatever it takes - create your own conditions for the spark to arise.

Lesson four: discipline matters, but delight sustains.

Chapter V: Fire Management for Overthinkers

The most important one: don’t let anxiety, doubt, fear, or impatience take over.
You have time. You’re exactly where you need to be - in the process of learning how to give your fire centre stage so it can guide and elevate you.

Don’t rush. But act with urgency on what lights you up.
The world needs people who are alive.

Lesson five: burn steadily, not out.

✺ Epilogue: For the Ones Who Carry the Fire

This is a reminder for those who carry the fire, and for me.

To live a life guided by the things that light me up. A life made of projects, ideas, and creative outlets that let the fire breathe and grow. To connect with it. Protect it. Take care of it. But never take it for granted. To always look at it with marvelling eyes.

Lesson six: once you find your fire, never stop dancing with it.

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PS: from The Unfold

If this piece found you while your fire was flickering, take it as a sign.
You don’t need to build an empire today.
You just need to feed the spark.

Keep glowing,
Dalila

the rise of creator entrepreneurship: why this is your sign to pay attention 👀

Every career has that one rabbit hole you fall into and never climb out of — for me, it’s building and engaging communities of super fans through powerful storytelling and campaigns.

Influencer marketing and the creator economy fascinate me for their unique ability to shape and influence culture while building powerful communities. I went from literally DMing influencers one by one to build the influencer marketing engine of a niche food & wellness brand, to helping the L’Oréal Group shape a future-forward influencer and creator economy strategy for 35+ brands in 135+ markets. Wild? Yes. Exhilarating? Absolutely.

What truly hooked me wasn’t just the campaigns, the reach, or the creative freedom. It was the realisation that we were living through a complete inversion of how businesses are built. For decades, the product came first and the audience was something you had to work hard to find.

Now, the audience comes first — drawn in by who you are, how you think, and the universe you create — and products naturally emerge from that connection.

when the internet stopped being just for fun 😽

It started as cat videos. Now it’s billion-dollar empires.

Back then, platforms like YouTube were hobbies for a niche group of bloggers and vloggers. The real plot twist came when platforms started sharing ad revenue — YouTube’s Partner Program launched in 2007, making it possible for top uploaders to earn money from ads. By 2011, YouTube started calling them “creators” instead of “YouTube stars,” shifting the narrative from fleeting internet fame to craft and community.

What’s easy to miss is that this change didn’t just create a new way to consume content — it quietly rewrote the business playbook. In the old model, you needed capital, distribution, and marketing muscle to find customers. Now, with an engaged audience, you can launch products that are already sold before they even exist, because they’re born out of shared conversations and culture.

why you need to care about creator entrepreneurship 🫵

Because it’s already shaping what you buy, who you trust, and what your kids will want to be when they grow up.

The creator economy is now worth over $250 billion globally and is expected to nearly double by 2027. In Europe alone, it’s already a $13–16 billion market.

Creators aren’t just “influencers” anymore — they’re an economic force shaping consumer behaviour, marketing strategies, and even career aspirations.

This is why the most successful creator-led businesses don’t start with a product idea; they start with community. The trust, shared values, and inside jokes that form between a creator and their audience become the foundation. From there, every product, service, or brand extension feels like a natural chapter in the same story — not a random “launch” you have to convince people to care about.

If you’re in marketing, media, business — or frankly any industry where reaching people matters — creators are your new collaborators and competitors.

If you’re an individual, creator entrepreneurship is your permission slip to turn skills, art, or knowledge into a self-sustaining business.

what the hell actually is “creator entrepreneurship”? 🔮

Think of it as the lovechild of content creation and startup hustle. It’s the intersection of the creator economy and entrepreneurship: building multiple revenue streams, owning the audience relationship, and expanding into products or services.

The critical distinction?

Creator entrepreneurs don’t chase the next big product trend. They build a living, breathing ecosystem where the audience feels seen, heard, and part of something bigger.

The product is a byproduct of the relationship, and that makes it far harder for competitors to copy.

the many faces of creator entrepreneurs.

Some have hype. Others have a strategy. The smartest have both.

MrBeast turned YouTube views into a $5 billion empire, with Feastables snacks alone hitting $251M in sales in 2024. KSI & Logan Paul created Prime, a beverage brand that hit $1.2 billion in sales just a year after launch. Emma Chamberlain transformed coffee vlogs into Chamberlain Coffee, now with a physical café and premium product lines. Alex Cooper went from podcasting to launching “Unwell,” a wellness brand aligned with her audience.

What unites them all is this: the product is an extension of their universe.

Prime exists because KSI and Logan Paul’s audience was already primed to buy anything that deepened their connection. Chamberlain Coffee works because Emma’s brand is about lifestyle and ritual, not just caffeine. The same principle scales down — micro-creators are building thriving six-figure businesses by serving 1,000 true fans who trust them implicitly.

so you want to be a creator entrepreneur?

It’s less “post and pray” and more “nurture and expand”.

The real work is in showing up authentically, attracting the right people, and sparking ongoing conversations. From there, your audience will tell you — sometimes directly, sometimes between the lines — exactly what products or services they want from you.

Being a creator entrepreneur means:

→ you are the brand: your name, face, and voice become your company’s most valuable asset.

→ you diversify like a CEO: multiple income streams.

→ you start with community, not product: build trust, then monetise. the 1,000 true fans theory still rules.

→ you own your audience: no single-platform dependency. you build resilience by collecting emails, launching your sites, and going multi-channel.

→ you master both art and commerce: from analytics to storytelling, you become the hybrid leader of a one-person media empire

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the universe effect 🪐

This is where the paradigm shift becomes obvious.

When the audience comes first, the “brand” is no longer just a logo or a marketing strategy — it’s a world they actively participate in. Every interaction is a chance to deepen the connection, and every extension of that universe feels like a gift rather than a sales pitch.

The best creator entrepreneurs don’t just post content — they build worlds their audience wants to live in:

• consistent storytelling and style across every platform

• inside jokes, shared language, and community rituals

• multiple entry points — from free TikToks to premium products to IRL events

When you do this right, your audience isn’t just following you; they’re part of a movement. That’s where loyalty lives — and where businesses thrive.

why this is also relevant for you.

This is not just about a few lucky creators making millions.

It’s about the structural change that allows anyone to start from their own uniqueness, attract a small but deeply engaged audience, and build a sustainable business without needing massive capital or millions of followers. We’ve shifted from mass markets to niches, from broadcasting to conversations, and from products-first to people-first. That’s the new competitive advantage.

Whether you collaborate with creators, compete with them, or become one, understanding this shift will make you more future-proof.

And maybe, just maybe, this is your sign to start building your universe.

Share The Unfold

A journey of a human with bold dreams, a deep hunger for meaning, and an unshakable belief that life can be delicious and impactful.

I’m here to live it fully—and to empower other dreamers, builders, and creators to do the same.

Because honestly? I think this is the best time in history to be alive if you have big ambitions.

Yes, the world is chaotic. Yes, it’s competitive, uncertain, sometimes even terrifying. But has there ever been an easy era to dream big? Our ancestors built revolutions with way fewer resources than we have 🤯 Today, we have technology, tools, and platforms that allow us to connect across borders, express ourselves freely, and build things that matter.

So what’s our excuse?

For a long time, I let fear and perfectionism keep me in a box. I told myself the world wasn’t ready, or that maybe I wasn’t ready. But something inside kept growing—until the box finally burst.

I’ve always known I was meant to create, to contribute, to have impact. From a tiny town in the South of Italy to now living in London, I built a life and a career from scratch. No connections. Limited resources. No blueprint. And yet—I made it work. I worked at some of the world’s most admired companies, launched side projects, pushed every boundary I met.

But here’s the thing about growth: each level demands a new version of you 💫

So I’m breaking out again. This time, I’m showing up fully: my face, my voice, my scrappy drafts, my evolving thoughts. Because the only way to build something real is to let people see the process—not just the polished product.

This year, I found my ikigai: empowering people by building things. That’s how House of Marketing (HOM) was born—what started as a supper club for marketers is now evolving into something much bigger:

A community-powered accelerator for creators, brands, and ambitious humans.

Will it be easy? No.
Will it be worth it? Absolutely.

Because HOM is more than a project—it’s the embodiment of my mission: to help people create a life that feels like themselves in every way. A life that’s creative, connected, powerful, and expansive.

Check HOM out here.

This year, I also realized something fundamental:

I am not only my job. And my 9-5 alone will never let me step into my full power.

So I’m building a universe around me—and inviting other driven, curious, visionary souls to do the same 🪐

If you’re one of them, follow along. I’ll be sharing the BTS of my personal glow-up, the fire that keeps me up at night, the half-formed ideas, the breakthroughs, the learnings.

This is The Unfold—and it’s going to be big, messy, honest, beautiful.

I can’t wait to take you with me.

Love,
Dalila 💫

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