Issue #27: Building the Table 💎

Issue 27
April 9th, 2026

There's a phrase I keep hearing in meetings with brands: "We need a seat at the table." It's usually about getting the right stakeholders involved in campaign decisions. But something I've been thinking about this week is how that phrase has totally flipped when it comes to creators.

Creators don't want a seat at the table anymore. They're building their own tables.

On Saturday, Fortune profiled Corporate Natalie as she launched Expand Co-Lab, an agency built on the premise that the entire system connecting brands and creators is broken, and that a creator is the right person to fix it. On Monday, Adweek dropped its Brand Genius Creators list and it reads like a who's who of creators who've gone way beyond content: Dhar Mann is the NFL's Chief Kindness Officer, Jenee Naylor launched a luxury sunglasses brand through her talent agency, and Ms. Rachel turned a YouTube channel into a Sesame Street partnership and a Spin Master toy line.

These aren't influencers getting brand deals. These are creators who became the business. And the infrastructure is catching up to make that path available to a lot more people. Let's dig in.

Corporate Natalie thinks influencer marketing is broken. So she built an agency to fix it.

Natalie Marshall started making content six years ago. Her first brand deal paid $500. Today she has 1.4 million followers on Instagram, 827,000 on TikTok, 276,000 on LinkedIn, a Forbes 30 Under 30 nod, and a Dunkin' Donuts commercial with Will Arnett. She's been on the creator side of hundreds of brand deals. And last week, she announced Expand Co-Lab, a creator-led influencer marketing agency built on one core belief: brands and creators need to actually talk to each other.

That sounds obvious. It's not.

Here's what actually happens in most influencer deals, according to Marshall: a brand creates a 60-slide creative brief packed with conflicting calls-to-action, text overlay requirements, and legal disclaimers. That deck gets passed to an agency, who passes it to a talent manager, who passes it to the creator. The creator has never spoken to anyone at the brand. They try to make something funny or authentic while hitting 14 mandatory talking points. The result is content that feels like exactly what it is: a compromise nobody's happy with.

Marshall told Fortune that brands "pay massive amounts of money for one singular video to creators, and they often never meet them or talk to them." Expand Co-Lab's fix is structural: bring creators into the room during the briefing process, not after it. Let them hear the brand's actual goals, ask questions, push back on what won't work, and contribute creative strategy before a single piece of content gets made.

The business model is intentionally different from traditional talent agencies. Expand Co-Lab doesn't represent talent and doesn't take commissions from creators. Instead, it works with a collective of creators on the consulting and ideation side, essentially treating creators as creative strategists, not just content producers. The collective includes names like Brandon Smithwrick, Corporate Bro, Sara Uy, Rachel Tokar, Matthew Kearney, and Morgan Young.

This is interesting for two reasons. First, it's a creator who understands both sides of the table building a bridge between them. Marshall isn't a former agency exec who "gets" creators. She IS the creator, and she's telling brands: the way you're working with people like me is leaving value on the table for both of us.

Second, it signals something bigger about where the creator economy is heading. We've watched creators go from content producers to brand partners to business owners. Expand Co-Lab is the next step: creators becoming the infrastructure that serves other creators. When the people who built their careers inside a broken system start building companies to replace that system, the center of gravity in the industry shifts permanently.

The bottom line: If you're a creator who's ever gotten a brief that made you want to scream, this is validation that the problem isn't you. And if you're good at understanding what brands actually need (not just what their brief says), there might be a consulting or strategy role for you beyond just making content. The creator-to-agency pipeline is opening up. Expand Co-Lab won't be the last.

Three data points that tell a bigger story.

Adweek's 2026 Brand Genius Creators list dropped Monday, and the through-line isn't follower counts or viral moments. It's business building. Dhar Mann (26.8M YouTube subscribers, Forbes' #2 Top Creator 2025) was appointed Chief Kindness Officer of the NFL and has exclusive deals with Samsung TV Plus, Fox Entertainment, and Holywater. Ms. Rachel turned a YouTube education channel (19.3M subscribers) into a Sesame Street partnership and a Spin Master toy line. Talent agency Kensington Grey grew its roster by 40% in a year and launched 12PM Studios, a luxury sunglasses brand founded by creator Jenee Naylor that sold out within minutes of launch and already surpassed its 2025 revenue goals. The list also highlights Jackie Gonzalez, a deaf creator with 1.9M Instagram followers who competed on Netflix's Squid Game: The Challenge and landed partnerships with Google, Instacart, and Ulta. The common thread: none of these creators are just making content. They're licensing IP, launching product lines, building agencies, and taking executive titles. The word "influencer" doesn't even begin to cover what they're doing.

On April 2, Snapchat expanded its Creator Subscriptions program from Snap Stars only to all qualifying creators. The feature, which launched in February for select verified creators, lets you offer paid monthly access to exclusive Stories, direct Snaps, priority replies, and ad-free viewing. Pricing ranges from $4.99 to $19.99 per month, set by the creator. Eligibility requires a Creator Account, a Public Profile, consistent posting to Stories and Spotlight, and an established audience. The announcement came during the inaugural Snappys awards and marks a significant shift: Snapchat is building a recurring revenue model for creators, not just a one-time payout structure. With 800M+ monthly users and far less creator saturation than Instagram or TikTok, Snap is offering something the bigger platforms can't: a subscription model where your audience pays you directly, monthly, in an environment that's still early enough that you're not competing with a million other subscription offers. If you meet the requirements, set this up now while the competition is thin.

This one flew under the radar. TikTok removed the dedicated YouTube and Instagram link fields from the "Edit Profile" section. The one-tap cross-platform buttons that let followers jump to your other accounts? Gone. You can still put a URL in your bio or mention platforms in videos, but the seamless cross-promotion feature is no longer available. The timing is notable: TikTok just emerged under new U.S. ownership and is clearly focused on keeping its 200 million U.S. users inside the app. While YouTube spent the last month building bridges to the broader ecosystem with Creator Partnerships and API integrations, TikTok is building walls. This is a quiet reminder that any platform can change the terms on you at any time. If your entire cross-platform funnel depended on those profile links, you just lost it. Diversify your distribution. Build an email list. Own your audience somewhere that isn't rented land.

What the platforms shipped this week and why you should care.

TikTok delivered its first NewFronts presentation since the U.S. sale, unveiling a suite of premium ad products. The highlights: Logo Takeover places a brand's logo alongside TikTok's on the app splash screen. Prime Time delivers up to three ads within 15 minutes during peak usage. And the Pulse Suite expansion is the big one: Pulse Tastemakers lets brands align ads with hand-selected creators, while Pulse Mentions places ads next to organic content that mentions a brand's products.

Why this matters for creators: Creator-led ads on TikTok drive 70% higher click-through rates than traditional brand content. With Pulse Tastemakers, your organic content just became premium ad-adjacent real estate. If you're consistently creating in a clear niche, brands using Pulse can now specifically choose to run ads alongside your videos. Make sure your TikTok creator profile is complete and your content is consistently categorized. The better the signal you send about who your audience is, the more likely brands are to target the space next to you.

Meta published the data behind its months-long push to reward original creators on Facebook. The numbers: views and watch time on original Reels roughly doubled in the second half of 2025 versus the same period in 2024. Meta removed over 20 million accounts impersonating large creators and cut impersonation reports by 33%. The updated content guidelines now clearly define "original" (filmed or produced by you, or adding genuine analysis/fresh information to existing material) versus "unoriginal" (reactions, borders, captions, re-uploads). Accounts that primarily repost face deprioritization and potential demonetization.

Why this matters for creators: If you're an original creator who's been frustrated watching reposters and content farms steal your work and your reach, this is Meta putting real enforcement behind the problem. The content protection tools now automatically scan Facebook and Instagram for Reels that match your originals and alert you to potential copies. Check your Professional Dashboard for any matches. And if you've been cross-posting original content to Facebook and feeling like it disappeared into a void, the doubled views on original Reels suggest the algorithm is now actively favoring you over the reposters. The environment just got meaningfully better for people who actually make things.

California's 2026 law requiring clear labeling of AI-generated influencer content is now active, and New York's synthetic performer disclosure law takes effect June 9. Both require creators and brands to disclose when content uses AI-generated or AI-altered human likenesses.

Why this matters for creators: If you're using AI tools that alter your appearance, generate synthetic voiceovers, or create AI imagery in your content, you may now have legal disclosure obligations. This is especially relevant given that 85% of creators say they're open to creating digital twins with brands (per Billion Dollar Boy research), and McKinsey projects the digital twin market will hit $73.5 billion by 2027. The opportunity is real, but so are the compliance requirements. The smart move: add a simple disclosure to any content where AI meaningfully altered the output. After the ALO Yoga lawsuit we covered two weeks ago, the disclosure lesson should be crystal clear. Over-disclose now. Don't become the test case later.

You don't have to launch an agency. But you should be building something beyond content.

The Corporate Natalie story is inspiring, but I don't want anyone reading this to think "well, I'm not launching an agency, so this doesn't apply to me." It does. The lesson isn't that every creator should start a company. The lesson is that the most durable creator careers are built on something beyond a content calendar.

Look at the Adweek Brand Genius list. Every creator on it has something beyond content: Ms. Rachel has a toy line. Jenee Naylor has a sunglasses brand. Dhar Mann has studio deals and an executive title. Dr. Joel Bervell created an animated series. These aren't side projects. They're the core business. The content is what drives awareness to them.

Here's a practical framework for thinking about what your "beyond content" play could be:

What do people DM you about? If people regularly ask you questions about a specific topic (how to do their makeup, how to start a business, how to train their dog), that's a signal. Those DMs are market research. A course, a guide, a paid community, or a consulting offer can turn that attention into recurring revenue that doesn't depend on any algorithm.

What would your audience pay for that isn't content? Snapchat just opened Creator Subscriptions to everyone. YouTube has memberships. But subscriptions are just one flavor. Think about physical products (Jenee Naylor's sunglasses), services (Corporate Natalie's agency), events (Canva's Kailyn Nunn ran a World Tour across 30 countries), or licensing deals (Dhar Mann with Samsung and Fox).

What expertise did you build that others would pay to access? Corporate Natalie didn't just build an audience. She built expertise in how brands and creators work together. Then she packaged that expertise into a business. You've probably built expertise you don't even recognize as valuable yet. If you've run 50 brand deals, you know more about what makes a good brief than most agency employees. If you've grown a channel from zero, you know more about audience building than most marketing consultants. That knowledge is an asset. Package it.

The platforms are investing more in creators than ever. That's great. But platforms change their terms, remove features, and shift algorithms constantly. (Just ask anyone who relied on TikTok's profile links for cross-promotion.) The creators who'll thrive in five years aren't the ones with the most followers. They're the ones who used their audience's attention to build something they actually own.

That's all for this week. If you're a creator still thinking of yourself as "just a creator," the Brand Genius list is a good reminder that the ceiling is a lot higher than you think. And if someone forwarded this to you, sign up to get your own issue every Thursday.