Creator Collective
Product Design, Branding | January 2021-Present
Creator Collective is a service marketplace that matches Content Creators with subject matter experts who can help Creators grow their businesses.
This model is mutually beneficial for both parties: Experts gain qualified leads and generate new business by providing thought leadership, and Creators get personalized support and feedback from credible sources to help them reach their goals. Our hypothesis is that the strong value proposition of Creator Collective will encourage both Creators and Experts to re-engage with the product.
Product Discovery
My Role
I served as the lead designer on this project, owning each step of the design process from start to completion. I collaborated with engineering, product management, data science, UX research, and business stakeholders to build a user-centric experience.
The Vision
Build education products that equip Creators with targeted business knowledge and mentorship to grow audience and revenue across popular & emerging platforms.
Our Mission
Empower Creators to grow and monetize their passions, personalities, and business endeavors.
Background
World-class talent agency Endeavor seized a market opportunity to leverage its extensive client base and create an online education platform that would compete with the likes of Masterclass and Monthly. We began Product Discovery and started talking to entertainment business professionals. A recurring theme arose from these conversations: people were more interested in learning how to grow and scale their creative passions rather than hearing about celebrity case-based learning. This led us to dive deeper into the digital creator economy.
The Creator Economy
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The creator economy is the class of businesses centered around independent creators, curators, and community builders, including social media influencers, bloggers, videographers, and more. This new economy has seen explosive growth over the last decade with the expansion of the internet.
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Our initial direction was to build an education platform for digital creators looking to learn how to grow and monetize their brands. Our product would equip creators with targeted business knowledge and mentorship to grow audience and revenue across popular/emerging platforms.
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The democratization of media & entertainment has fully changed the landscape for how the world creates and consumes content. As a result, more creators than ever no longer need industry support to build full-time income and “make it.”
This new economy, the creator economy, results in an entirely new sector of jobs and skills that are not supported by the current education market. As of now, creators are flooded with unreliable offerings intended to help them “beat” the platform algorithms and grow at unrealistic speeds. This results in false hope and user frustration when it doesn’t happen.
“The majority of Creators lack the knowledge and know-how to build a niche brand and create a full time business for themselves.”
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We planned to fill the gap and be the go-to platform for learning how to grow your passion into a business within the emerging creator economy. We aimed to build an education platform that provides knowledge and support for independent Creators trying to grow their brands at different stages of their business journey.
Core features:
• Signals: We will inform our community on consistent trends, which keeps Creators up to date on how content platforms, tools, and the creator economy are shifting
• Micro-courses and template resources: Provide support on niche business topics that Creators can execute for their own business upon completion
• Community: Peer feedback, collaboration, and mentorship
Creator Collective will be the go-to place to learn and find support to succeed as an independent creator running a business in the evolving creator industry.
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• The amount of Creators have increased by roughly 16% YoY since 2017 on the top nine content platforms
• The earnings by US Creators have increased more than 15% YoY since 2016. Creators have earned a baseline of $6.8B in 2017 alone (and likely much larger in 2022)
• 1.2% of instagram accounts have more than 50,000-100,000 followers. This is 12,000,000 accounts based on their 1 billion MAU’s. 7.58% of accounts have 10K-50K followers (76M accounts). These accounts are all at a level to be monetized.
• Of the 38M youtube channels, roughly 1M creators have over 10K subscribers, but only 3% of these creators make more than $17,000 annually in ad revenue.
The Creator Journey
Creators are experiencing different tension points depending on where they are at in building their brand and business. Regardless of segment, our customer insights show a consistent problem set at each stage of business and a lack of satisfaction in the solutions offered to solve them.
Design Sprint
I ran a Design Sprint with the goal of solving problems and testing new ideas quickly with the help of marketers, product managers, business stakeholders, and engineers.
Our results were shocking and invalidated our initial direction. We found that traditional online education platforms, such as Coursera and Skillshare, did not resonate with our testers (Content Creators). In fact, one user expressed sheer disgust at the traditional learning approach; she found it completely irrelevant to her day-to-day and said it reminded her of being back in school.
The Sprint also led us to new opportunities: people wanted access to mentors and experts they could tap for direct advice on their niche businesses.
By the end of the week we had a fully functioning prototype to test with creators
We created a storyboard based on our idea
Insights
Key takeaways
A traditional education platform does not fit our target customer
Creators need specific, direct advice to fit their niche businesses
Time plays a factor: Creators need to cut through the noise and don’t have time to sit through courses or prolonged education
Multiple Creators expressed needing mentors or someone to partner with to resolve issues
Top Insight
Digital Content Creators who are already monetizing have the vision and passion but lack the know-how and access to the right people.
As they scale, the burden of managing the day-to-day of their business grows heavier. The problem is finding support that fits the specific needs of a Content Creator and their business.
Prototype Testing & Needs Analysis
Based on the insights gathered during our Design Sprint, we set out to quickly test a new prototype. In order to create an innovative, solution-based product I applied the Design Thinking framework (shown below). Through this methodology, we’re able to maintain our focus on the user.
Test Goals
For this test, we wanted to test the idea of matching Creators (demand side) with digital experts (supply side) to provide mentorship, advice, support with brands deals and negotiations, etc.
Test creator prototype with digital content Creators and gather user insights on the overall usability, value, and feature satisfaction of the experience
Have creators force rank features, explaining the why behind their feature preferences and use top feature priorities to inform the solution we build
Method Applied
Qualitative Usability Test
60 minute moderated user interviews
Hosted and recorded on UserTesting
1 users sourced from UserTesting and 3 through personal connections
Testers
User Flow
Prototype
Insights
Key takeaway
When testers were asked how likely they would be to use this product (1-10):
4/4 ranked it 8 or higher
3 of 4 ranking it a 10/10
Our ideal customer ranked the top solutions to their pains as getting personalized advice from agents & industry leaders and receiving help with execution from service providers.
After going through the prototype, we ran a Needs Analysis Survey with 20 content creators and asked them to force rank needs and services they were most interested in.
Needs
"I lack access to mentors and experts who can give me personalized advice for my brand."
90% of creators ranked this pain 4/5 or higher
"Running my business while creating content and growing my brand leaves me feeling overwhelmed."
85% of creators ranked this pain 4/5 or higher
"Finding the right service providers is difficult, expensive, or lacks the credibility I need to trust their work."
65% of creators ranked this pain 4/5 or higher
MVP 1: Landing Page, Marketing MVP
Overview
Our initial pre-launch landing page was intended to be a marketing MVP. We used this marketing MVP to build and engage with a pre-launch audience that helped drive conversion for our public launch.
It allows us to test:
Product value proposition
Product messaging
Product positioning
Target audience validation
What it does not do…
Market product features
Offer pre-launch purchases
Serve as a future site for the product
Main Objective
Drive application submissions to receive product updates and early access to our product.
Key result 1: 300 applications
Key result 2: 30 qualified service provider applicants to be onboarded for future supply side needs
Insights
Key Takeaway
By creating this simple landing page we were able to drive the users attention to our value proposition. With the help of Data Scientists we were able to track key metrics to further validate product direction.
We did not hit our benchmark of 300 applicants, however, we drove 82 applications by spending only $30 on Google Search with a $0.68 CPA.
We gained ~27% qualified expert leads
Key Results
Overall Sentiment
We gathered enough signal to validate a need to bring this product to life. We pushed ahead and focused on building MVP2.
MVP 2: No-Code Marketplace
Overview
MVP 2 was intended to be a stepping stone for us to validate building an in-house product. In order for us to maintain velocity and keep costs low, we decided to present our users with a no-code, out-of-the-box solution (Sharetribe). In other words, the difference between spending 100s of thousands of dollars and 1-2 years of building vs. a fraction of the cost and 3 months to build.
This no-code (or minimal code) marketplace allowed us to test a transaction between a Creator needing expert services and a vetted service provider that can provide these services for them. Our objective was to prove that Creators who have expressed value in our solution are also willing to pay for it.
Problem Statement
Creators struggle to grow and monetize their businesses. Specifically, once Creators reach a level where they can monetize, they struggle to diversify into the right income streams and also lack the know how to execute on their goals with the time they have.
Hypothesized Solution
A service marketplace that matches Digital Creators with talent agents & digital experts to help expand their income opportunities through personalized support.
Branding & Components
Information Architecture
Creator: Tasks to complete
Task/Goal
As a Creator, I want to be able to find experts that match my needs
As a Creator, I want to be able to request a service provider to work with
As a Creator, I want to be able to book a time to receive advice from a service provider that matches my needs
As a Creator, I want to build a profile to allow service providers the ability to see more about me and my work
As a Creator, I want to view service provider profiles to see their expertise and goals
As a Creator, I want to confirm services with an expert and pay for the project we agree to
Service Provider: Tasks to complete
Task/Goal
As a Service Provider, I want to be matched with Creators who meet my services
As a Service Provider, I want to be able to request a Creator to work with who has open projects that fit my services
As a Service Provider, I want to be able to set my availability for Creators book a time to receive advice from me
As a Service Provider, I want to build a profile to allow Creators the ability to see more about me and my work
As a Service Provider, I want to view Creator profiles to learn more before deciding to work with them
As a Service Provider, I want to confirm services with a Creator and be paid for the project we agree to
Sitemap
Creator Booking an Expert Flow
Service Provider Create a Listing
Landing Page
View site at joincreatorcollective.com
Search & Expert Profile
Create Listing & Inbox
Booking & Transaction
User Profile
Become an Expert Landing
Insights
Key Findings
While Sharetribe enabled us to put together a marketplace relatively quickly, it unfortunately lacked key functionality in many areas.
Main problems
Sharetribe did not support native video calling.
This meant users would book time with an expert and need to schedule their own meetings outside of the app. This is a problem because it does not retain users within the platform which meant communication and payments could easily take place elsewhere.
We did not have the ability to offer shorter time increments within the platform.
We were forced to have all meetings set for 1 hour. The ability to have shorter meeting times in 15 minute increments would have made more sense.
Experts were charging high fees which made it difficult for new users entering a new platform to commit to paying. Our research showed that users would be willing to pay between 50-100 dollars. Some experts were charging as much as $500 for an hour conversation.
What you receive from the expert wasn’t always clear.
We found some users dropped off because they simply did not fully understand what deliverables they would receive from experts.
It was unclear to users how experts were vetted.
Positive Findings
Design and branding was well received
We validated willingness to pay
Next Steps
We will build the product in-house, launching with an initial feature set that will generate a strong BETA audience. This audience would be highly likely to convert to paying customers as they discover the value of future offerings as we build and release them.