At no top-tier accelerator event where no decacorn founder spoke, a woman with her laptop applied the viral notion of “founder mode” to her own world...
For a year now, I’ve struggled with my intro. Not only am I embracing a fulfilling portfolio career, but I’m also post-”exit” from my last business (and anyone who is on the other side of their own company knows the identity challenges this brings). Anyway, as a marketer / host / interviewer, I *listen* to what other people say, and the specific choice of words they use. I’ve noticed being described more and more as a “creator” - which is both wide and accurate enough to encapsulate what I really do these days (I regularly produce various long and short forms of written, audio, visual content - whether it’s for social media, my podcast, my blog, or my talks).
Hence: creator mode.
Operating in the tech sector surrounded by startup founders, I couldn’t have missed Paul Graham’s blog post on a Brian Chesky speech re “founder mode” if I tried - and have since reflected on the parallels closer to home with creator mode in the social media space. So here’s my remix:
In effect there are two different ways to operate within the social media landscape: creator mode and consumer mode. Consumer mode puts you on the back foot before your day has even begun, and fosters a harmfully critical view of the strivers who are creating & outputting publicly (i.e. “spectators of the sport versus players on the field”). Consumer mode also leaves people feeling “icky,” unsatisfied, and more disenfranchised with the social media game in general. (Enter: “I don’t do social media.”)
Creator mode aligns to founder mode in the sense that it’s scrappy, unscalable, and requires you to be in the weeds - whether it’s keeping on top of trends or algo updates as a creator, or being attentive to customer conversations or continuing to meet with junior staff as a founder.
But what does creator mode really mean?
It means regularly outputting relevant & valuable content that’s timely, engaging, entertaining, educational, and/or thought-provoking. This is a challenge in itself, let alone dealing with the constant tension between having enough space for exploratory creativity versus generating high-quality output.
Consistency is key, too - but part of that consistent schedule means you’re also on a gruelling treadmill that rarely lets up. (Social media never sleeps). This is where you have to enjoy what you do. Yes, “do what you love” can be bad advice, but if you don’t naturally enjoy a game like this then I don’t know how one can maintain the levels of self-motivation required to sustain long-term efforts.
Then there’s the personal brand strategy to take into consideration. In business I acutely felt the tug of war between being strategic versus scrappily rolling the dice. The same is true in creator mode; balancing jumping on trends & being part of relevant conversations in the right way at the right time, versus producing the content that’s consistent with your key messages, in-line with your enduring manifesto, and true to your personal style.
Like founder mode, there are also moments where it’s easy to serve the wrong audience (i.e. investors for founders, brand sponsors for creators). Your audience is always and will for ever be your end users - whether that’s customers for founders or subscribers for creators. You don’t have anything if you don’t have them.
Last but not least, there are the mental health dangers of tying your self-worth to black and white numbers glaring at you on a screen. Founders live by metrics like CAC, churn/retention rate, or company valuations. For creators it’s your number of followers, your engagement rate, your subscriber growth… And even if you go viral, you’re subjected to the Thriller effect - competing with your own sublime moment of success.
As an occupation that is so individual, the topic really does call into question - much like founder mode at a high-growth, VC-backed scale-up - how does one scale up a creator business whilst avoiding those manager mode traps?
As we define more of what it means to be in creator mode, perhaps we can unlock the operating system to achieve similarly lofty goals in founder mode but for creators.
Curiously enough it's an encouraging thought that we still know so little about founder or creator mode. Look at what founders and creators have achieved already, imagine what they'll do once we crack creator mode in a scale-up environment.
Stephanie Melodia is a keynote speaker, podcaster, VC scout, startup advisor, and mentor to MBA students in Entrepreneurship. Topics of passion & expertise include marketing, entrepreneurship, and gender equity. Connect here.
Comments