Good morning. Someone made a new tool where you can flip through 12 television “channels” that play videos from creators in the same niche on loop. Between science, food, and automobiles, which channel would you watch the most? 

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

On Wednesday, the White House hosted a group of 100 creators and creator industry professionals for its inaugural Creator Economy Conference. Speakers, from deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo to President Joe Biden himself, touched on key issues for creators like artificial intelligence and mental health.

Here’s what three attendees shared about the event→

Eric Wei, the co-founder of creator finance startup Karat, described it as a landmark moment. “To have a president show up…for the first time, recognition for [creators] really matters beyond the transactional, ‘Let’s film a TikTok together,’” he told us.

Wei also said that Adeyemo spoke knowingly about some of the business challenges of being a creator, such as applying for credit from banks—which is one of the main reasons Wei started Karat.

Lia Haberman, a marketing consultant and newsletter creator, told us that “the White House administration comes off seeming very progressive and in tune with where the average American spends their time.”

She noted that while time during the event was limited, she would’ve preferred if the discussion topics weren’t as structured. “Some more freeform conversation would have been appreciated,” Haberman said.

Rohan Kumar, the head of vertical platforms at MrBeast, said that the event “felt like a first date” where organizers and attendees were getting to know each other for the first time.

While Kumar appreciated the input of leading policy officials, he mentioned that a key perspective was missing: technical experts. “We were having a conversation about AI, and there’s not, like, a machine learning engineer present,” he told us.

Ali Abdaal is attempting to solve the age-old problem of writer’s block with his new app, Voicepal.

“The concept [was] if we can create tools that genuinely help me in my own workflows, chances are they will work for other people as well,” Abdaal told us. “And the biggest nightmare in my life was dealing with the blank page.”

How it works → 

Abdaal has been building the app over the last eight months with a team of product developers and designers and testing it with 3,000 creators and tech engineers. It saw early success in beta, with 96% retention in the first month and 1,000 users paying around $9/month (so the app was making $9,000 a month prior to launch). 

Now it’s available for free on Apple’s App Store, with a Pro option for $10/month.

“I love the idea of building a holding company where we have multiple profitable businesses underneath it,” Abdaal said. “One would be our YouTuber academy, our Productivity Lab, my media team, Voicepal, Odyssey (another app we’re working on)...and a relationships app we’re potentially going to build. I would have 100% ownership in some of these businesses and a 20% stake in others.”

Worth noting: The AI app sector generated $1.8 billion last year and is estimated to grow to $18.8 billion by 2028. Abdaal says the goal for Voicepal is to make $1 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of this year.

Last week, business and culture writer Emily Sundberg published a newsletter that sparked conversation among writers and creators about what it means to be a professional “writer” monetizing your work.

The details: In her newsletter, Feed Me, Sundberg argued that platforms like Substack and Beehiiv are doing to writing what Instagram and YouTube did to photography and videography—making it more accessible for anyone to publish and monetize. That comes with pros (more people willing to pay for writing) and cons (more writers who are hard to “tell apart” and “monetize their diary entries,” as Sundberg put it).

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

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