The Best Articles in Creator Economy
The most useful articles and videos in Creator Economy from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Creator Economy Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Creator Economy by Refind users in 2023.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
How to come up with good business ideas
This was recorded on Monday, February 7th for Cohort #3 of The Minimalist Entrepreneur Course.You can learn more about the book this content is based on here...
I Make $1.3M/Year With One Skill
🚀 Head to https://www.starterstory.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=brett<ft=true for your $1 seven-day trial of Starter Story! 📩 Business Ideas News...
How to Turn Ordinary Moments Into Extraordinary Success
In his latest book, Clear Thinking, Shane Parrish explores the ways we can make the moments in our lives where we're not thinking very much, still work to ou...
How Nathan Barry Built a $30 Million Software Company
10 years ago Nathan Barry started a web app challenge where he spent $5,000 of his own money to create a startup that would generate recurring revenue. The s...
How Stacked Marketer grew to over $600k in revenue
By the time Emanuel Cinca launched his Stacked Marketer newsletter around five years ago, he already had a successful affiliate marketing business, but that ...
What is ...?
New to Creator Economy? These articles make an excellent introduction.
What is Good Data?
In this monthly series from Sounds Profitable, we mine the latest audio industry studies and spotlight valuable insights.
NFTs 101: A Useful Beginner’s Guide for Content Creators
Creators must demystify NFTs if they want to control their intellectual property rights and build a business. - The Tilt
How to ...?
How to pick a side project strategically
Three important criteria for picking a side project are longevity, the monetization sweet spot, and the scope.
«identify the primary search keywords, find their search volume, and analyze the top ranking websites.»
How to Invest in Episodic Content that Promotes Itself
I've long been bullish on episodic content; in fact, I think it's likely the best kind of long-term content investment most online brands can make. The
How to Create a Niche Site That Earns 4 Figures a Month in 6 Easy Steps
Shared by 339, including Michael Kolade
How to create a newsletter to build a loyal community with consistent connection
Learn how to create a newsletter to build a consistent connection with your audience to develop a loyal following.
How to start your own podcast
Don’t worry about the equipment … the most important thing is the idea
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Creator Economy on Refind.
How to Create So Much They Can’t Ignore You
Isn’t the Internet great? Never in human history have we had a better tool for getting our creative work in front of more people.
The lie of “deinfluencing”
Influencers will never influence us to buy less stuff. It’s antithetical to the job.
Julia Child's Kitchen Notes
“Rushing from stove to typewriter like a mad hen...”
Create online courses with Notion
Noggle transforms your documents on Notion to fully functional free or paid online courses in minutes!
Inside an OnlyFans empire: Sex, influence and the new American Dream
The fast-growing platform is the creator economy at its most bluntly transactional, where sex is just another unit of content to monetize.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Creator Economy—all under 10 minutes.
17 Life-Learnings from 17 Years of The Marginalian
The Marginalian was born on October 23, 2006, under an outgrown name, to an outgrown self that feels to me now almost like a different species of consciousness. (It can only be so — if we don…
Is My Writing a Hobby Or a Career?
I'm the author of two books, but I'm used to writing on the side of other jobs. Maybe that means it's a hobby—or maybe it's what knits my whole life together.
Why are cafes, restaurants, and even towns banning influencers?
From a picturesque town to a Brooklyn cafe, popular destinations are closing their doors to influencers.
Permission
You have the power, not Google.
«Google has steadily been manoeuvring their search engine results to more and more replace the pages in the results.»
Mastering Product Idea Validation and Being A Content Creator w/ Sam Dickie
On this Sausage Factory pod episode, we speak to Sam Dickie, about mastering product idea validation and the art of being a content creator
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Creator Economy.
The Strange Logic of Value in the Attention Economy
Did you know that 54% of 18-38-year-olds want to be influencers? Or that kids these days would rather be “influencers” or “YouTubers” than firefighters, astronauts, or teachers? Okay, Boomer. Calm…
What's New: Getting free users to convert
*(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)* Freemium, free trials, paid freemium...the debate rages on: - **Regardless of where you stand...
My solopreneur story: zero to $45K/mo in 2 years
Today is exactly 2 years since I quit my job and become a full-time indie hacker.
For your next side project, make a browser extension
Reflections on the benefits of tweaking an existing app, instead of starting from scratch.
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Creator Economy, including:
Li Jin
investing @VariantFund, writing http://li.substack.com
a16z
we invest in software eating the world http://a16z.com/portfolio/ http://a16z.com/podcasts/ Check out our AI Canon: https://a16z.com/2023/05/25/ai-canon/

TaylorLorenz.Substack.com
Tech journalist / Buy my book EXTREMELY ONLINE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF FAME, INFLUENCE, & POWER ON THE INTERNET via link below!👇🏻 extremelyonlinepress@gmail.com
Starter Story
Discover business ideas that make money and learn how to start them with our real-life case studies

Newsletter Crew
Tips to help you grow, operate, and monetize your newsletter.
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful. We favor timeless pieces—links with long shelf-lives, articles that are still relevant one month, one year, or even ten years from now. These lists of the best resources on any topic are the result of years of careful curation.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Who are the thought leaders in Creator Economy?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Creator Economy, including Li Jin, a16z, TaylorLorenz.Substack.com, Starter Story, Newsletter Crew.
Missing a thought leader? Submit them here
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
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