Good morning. Quick reminder: There’s a solar eclipse (when the sun goes behind the moon) happening across North America today. Depending on where you live, it might get really dark really fast this afternoon. For New Yorkers still rattled by Friday’s earthquake: Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world (yet).

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

Golf Creators Bet On Themselves

Good Good Golf cast member Luke Kwon recently shared that he’s leaving the golf creator group to invest more in his solo YouTube career.

“Good Good has gotten to a point where they’ve gotten so big, which means there’s going to be more time commitment with them,” Kwon said in the announcement video. “And I wanted to do more of my own stuff.”

Context: Kwon is the third Good Good cast member to leave the group since 2022, following Micah Morris and Grant Horvat. All left to pursue their own content and their careers in professional golf.

It seems to be working for Morris and Horvat:

• Morris averages 2 million views a month, while Horvat averages 4 million.

• Each has grown by over 150K subscribers since leaving Good Good.

Good Good hasn’t publicly disclosed how much they pay their cast members, but Kwon said the risk of going solo comes with reward.

“If you give me two options where one is a more safe job, where your upside and downside is limited, and option two your upside is unlimited, but same with your downside, and it could crash and burn…I’m likely going to go with the second option. It makes me feel alive,” Kwon said in the video.

Zoom out: Golf YouTube is a fast-growing genre. In just four years, Good Good has collected 380 million views across 450 videos, plus over 1.4 million subscribers (which is slightly more than the PGA Tour’s official channel, which has been uploading videos on and off for 15 years). Another example? Bob Does Sports, which has accumulated over 120 million views since launching in 2021. 

Creators and professionals alike are starting to catch on: NELK recently started a golf channel and PGA tour player Bryson Dechambeau began investing in his own YouTube videos.

Epic Gardening Launches Rebrand

Gardening content brand and ecommerce site Epic Gardening unveiled a new look and feel across its platforms—here’s founder Kevin Espiru’s POV on the redesign.

The details: Epic’s old logo was made for $10 via Upwork. The new logo, which has been in the works since December and was made by design agency The Vaan Group, is more simplified and stylized. 

“[The old logo] is a classic, but as I built out each platform, the design coherence got sloppy,” Espiritu said on X.

The new branding is more cohesive on multiple fronts, according to Epic. It… 

• Ties together Epic Gardening and Botanical Interests (the seed company Epic acquired last year).

• Allows for better retail presence (Espiritu told us last year that retail accounted for 90% of Epic’s revenue).

Zoom out: Epic is growing in public. Espiritu continues to detail the ups and downs of running his business, from testing new products to choosing logo font weights to sussing out new content verticals.

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The Latest on TikTok’s Uncertain Future

It’s been one month since the House of Representatives passed a bill that would force TikTok parent company ByteDance to sell the app or risk being banned in the U.S.

The latest headlines:

• A TikTok whistleblower comes forward. Former TikTok employee Zen Goziker claims the platform is more closely linked to China than leadership has let on. A TikTok spokesperson says his claims are “outrageous.”

• TikTok cranks up marketing spend. Since the House passed the bill, TikTok has spent upwards of $3 million on TV commercials and Facebook and Instagram ads that highlight its creators. 

Catch up: We break down how TikTok got here on today’s episode of the Colin and Samir Show. Listen here for the full rundown.

👀 Creator Moves

• Mythical is hiring an associate technical project manager to supervise development on the company’s websites and app. 

• Brandon Williams is looking for a video editor with expertise in Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro X.

• The Why Files is hiring a script writer with experience in research and video essays.

Calling all creators: an exclusive opportunity to tell the story of freelancers and get paid for sharing your experience. Join the Fiverr creator network today.*

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🔥 Press Worthy

• John Green’s book Turtles All The Way Down has been adapted into a movie for HBO Max premiering May 2.

• Dude Perfect launches a new video series testing their athletic skills against professionals.

• Tax deadline is next week! Sign up for Kick, a self-driving bookkeeper for creators (backed by OpenAI). Get your 2023 books handled for free and 20% off 2024. *

• Alex Cooper is hosting Paris Olympics watch parties on Peacock.

• FaZe Clan lays off 110 employees.

• Instagram is testing a spring bonus program for creators.

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