Good morning. According to TikTok, “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday,” but we may have the next best thing: a one-day summit for the creator economy on September 4 in Brooklyn.

With Press Publish NYC just 50 days away, make sure you reserve your spot now.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Six months ago, Substack announced the launch of its Creator Accelerator Fund, pledging $20 million to creators who move their paying subscribers from another platform to Substack. Among those benefitting from this new program is comedy creator Eric Williams.

Prior to the switch, Williams used Patreon to engage with the paid subscribers for his podcast, That’s A Gay Ass Podcast, but?

“There's no organic discoverability on Patreon,” Williams told us. “It's a place where you can post and then go, but it's very hard to actually grow your audience.”

So Williams opted to make a change.

“Substack felt like a place where there was so much more opportunity to find like-minded people,” Williams said. “I've only been on it for a few months and I've already seen really great growth and just felt more inspired creatively.”

Substack has guaranteed that, as part of its Creator Accelerator Fund, Williams will make 120% of the revenue he was making on Patreon. Substack will foot the bill if he comes up short.

Zoom out: As more creators flock to subscription tools, in-platform discoverability through exposure to an algorithm or recommendation system will continue to be an extremely important draw—so creators don’t have to rely on heavy-friction cross-platform promotion as much.

French storytelling creator Romain Bernus began running operations for Le Petit Four, the bakery run by his mom, Valérie Coullete, 10 months ago. The business’s HQ was Coullette’s garage in Needham, Massachusetts, and it was doing around $200K in yearly revenue. 

Today, though? Le Petit Four has a brick and mortar store and grew revenue by over 10x year-to-date with no paid marketing or online sales. How? By implementing a distinctly creator-style strategy of niche social content and word of mouth, Bernus told us.

Build in public: Bernus found a local audience by posting behind-the-scenes videos to his 1 million TikTok followers when he joined his mom’s bakery last October. By the time they soft-opened their storefront in December, there was a line out the door and pastries sold out within two hours.

“They came because they saw the videos,” Bernus said.

Commit to 1,000 true fans: Bernus’s videos range from 1,500-4,000 views on the bakery’s social accounts and 10,000 views on Bernus’s Instagram. 

“Now is the time to not care about getting 100 million views. I did that and know what it entails, but this isn’t that,” Bernus said. “If 1,000 people truly see it, and it’s local, then that’s 1,000 customers potentially. And that really made the difference in the way I approach my content now.”

Zoom out: Bernus joins other creators like Ashley Alexander and Graeme Barrett in scaling their businesses by leveraging their social following—with no paid marketing. For these creators, storytelling the brand in their own voice is more effective (and economical) than paid marketing.

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— Colin & Samir

Creators are hitting a “monetization ceiling” as the gap between high and low earners widens, according to a new report by creator marketing company NeoReach.

The details: More than half of the study’s 3,000 respondents make under $15K a year (and that income group is growing as a percentage of the overall industry). Only 5% make more than $200K annually.

To note: Creators with management make 3x more than creators who lack representation, and creators who own a brand take in twice as much as those who don’t.