Issue 7
November 5th, 2025
We're 7 weeks into The Creator Trove with around 200 subscribers, and I want to take a moment to get personal with you. For those who don't know me yet: I'm building this newsletter on the belief that authenticity and real human connection are the biggest currency in today's creator economy. In a world flooding with AI-generated content, the human-to-human stuff matters more than ever.
I co-founded a company called Trovio with my friend Andrew. We're building tools to support creators in ways that don't exist yet. The creator economy is projected to be worth half a trillion dollars in a few years, but creators see very little of that value. The platforms have been incredible at giving creators access to audiences from zero, which is huge – but there has to be a better balance once those audiences are built. Not just enough to keep creators placated, but actually fair. That's the vision behind Trovio.
This week, Andrew and I spent from early morning until the wee hours of the next day working on what we think could really disrupt this industry in a way that benefits creators. It sounds big. It sounds hard. It might even sound impossible to some. But I want to share it with you here first, before we take it to a broader audience.
Drum roll, please 🥁
We're building a digital agent for creators. Think about it this way: before Expedia and Kayak (and William Shatner's career rebirth, thanks Priceline), people had to book everything through a travel agent. Now that's pretty much history. Sure, travel agents still exist for high-end trips, and representation will always exist for top-tier creators – but it shouldn't be the only way.
A creator with 15,000 followers shouldn't feel like the only path to brand deals is hiring an agent to “join the club.” And maybe a brand deal isn't even the best move for where you want to go. Maybe it's affiliate links, or growing your audience in a new direction, or supporting a side business. A digital agent is akin to Expedia putting together the right "vacation package" but keeping you in the driver's seat. Trovio will be the alternative that doesn't exist today, and we couldn't be more excited.
This newsletter isn't here to promote Trovio, so if you want company updates, reply and I'll add you to our actual company newsletter. Or follow us on Insta or LinkedIn. I'm only telling you this today to give you the inside scoop and so you can get to know me a little better.
And I'd love to know who you are too. If you have a second, send me a quick note about what you're working on. I might even feature some of your stories in upcoming issues.
Alright, enough about me. Let's get to the news.
– Derrick
Biggest News This Week
TikTok announced a new suite of AI-powered creation tools late last week. The two most important are:
Smart Split: An AI tool that automatically "clips" your longer videos. You can feed it a long-form video, and it will find the best moments, reframe them to vertical, and even add captions and transcriptions.
AI Outline: A tool to fight creative block. You give it a prompt or let it analyze trending topics, and it will generate a complete, six-part video framework for you, complete with a title, hook, and hashtags.
This is the "AI assistant" model. TikTok is commoditizing the mechanical part of editing – the grunt work of slicing, captioning, and reframing – and giving it to you for free, just to keep you creating on their platform.
Did You Know?
It seems likely that almost half of Gen Z now prefers YouTube and TikTok over traditional TV, largely driven by addictive microdramas and short-form series. The takeaway is creators should lean into serialized, bite-sized storytelling to capture this demographic, acknowledging the debate around screen time but embracing the engagement potential.
Essential Reads
This one nails the fundamental shift happening in media right now with side-by-side comparison tables showing traditional "content-first" versus the new "audience-first" model. The new approach borrows from software development's "build, measure, learn" methodology—create continuously, get live feedback, iterate fast. It's not just about new tools; it's a complete cultural shift in how content gets made. If the old playbook isn't working for you anymore, this explains exactly why.
This one is interesting! A report on Instagram's November algorithm confirms the platform is explicitly rewarding "genuine conversation". Comments, replies, and DMs now play a much bigger role in your reach. Your new KPI is "replies-per-post." Stop ending captions with a statement and start ending them with a question. Your goal is to get a comment, and then reply to that comment to start a thread the algorithm will value.
It’s such a big conference so there are definitely more creator focused inferences out there, but looks like they’re going big this year to celebrate 40 years. Definitely worth checking out. Dates are March 12th through March 18th. Reply and let me know if you have plans to go!
Instagram rolled out a 'Friends Map' (another Snap Maps clone you can safely ignore). But the real news is the new 'Watch History' feature for Reels. This is a huge, unsexy win. It means your content is no longer a flash-in-the-pan. When a follower DMs you "I can't find that Reel you did," you can now tell them to just check their history. It makes your back-catalog a referenceable library.
This is your low-effort algorithm-boost for the week. The top trending audio on Reels right now is "House Tour" by Sabrina Carpenter. The trend is simple: create any kind of "tour" video (office, setup, bookshelf, new product) and sync your video transitions to the lyric: "I could take you to the first, second, third floor".