.@JoshRichards is one of the world's most famous TikTok stars. He has 23.9M fans on the platform.
His goal? Be the first influencer billionaire.
The crazy part? He's 18, but already on his way to accomplishing it.
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2) Josh started his social media career on Musically at age 14. His goal was to have 10,000 followers before he entered high school. He spent up to 5 hours a day creating videos
He ended the summer with 26,000 followers.
3) ByteDance purchased Musically and all his followers transferred over to TikTok.
He started making money on TikTok and by the age of 17 had signed brand deals with Reebok, CashApp and Crocs.
He decided to pursue social media full-time.
4) Today Josh has 23.9M fans on TikTok, 7.5M followers on Instagram and 2.45M subscribers on YouTube.
He began to realize that there was a lot more opportunity to earn money than just signing brand deals.
5) In 2019, Josh Richards made $1.5M on TikTok. This made him the 5th highest earning TikTok star.
Josh started taking some of that money and began angel investing. His portfolio includes Stir, Atmos, Chalk Messaging & more.
Remus Capital, a VC firm, took notice and hired him.
6) In August 2020, he joined Triller, a TikTok competitor, as its chief strategy officer. He announced he was going to create content exclusively for Triller, but has since begun producing content on TikTok again.
7) He launched an energy drink with fellow TikTok star, @BryceHall. Their goal?
To be the biggest energy drink in the world.
The energy drinks space had more than $12.8B in sales last year.
8) He invested in Ellen Degeneres's company, UnHide. Unhide is a faux fur brand dedicated to finding alternatives to fur for the fashion industry and consumers.
He's not only an investor but a co-creative director in the business.
9) He has a budding music career. He's only released one song on Spotify, but it has over 20M listens. He signed a joint venture with Warner Music to produce his future music.
10) He launched the BFF's podcast with @stoolpresidente, founder of Barstool Sports.
Its consistently been a top 100 ranked podcast in the United States.
11) He is an even actor. He has starred in movies like his Brother's Keeper and has Gersh Agency representing him
12) He even has big-time mentors:
• Sean Rad, founder of Tinder
• @aplusk
• @wolfejosh, partner at Lux Capital
• Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, founders of Gemini
13) Josh Richards is the perfect example of the Creator Flywheel. Build an audience. Leverage that audience into other areas:
Today, I published the 50th episode of my podcast. I started it in March of 2020. The podcast has 4.9K downloads. The YouTube channel has 4,700 views.
Here's what I learned.
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Starting the Podcast
• I started my podcast as an excuse to talk to people
• It was originally launched as a live-stream
• My logic was that I could collect email addresses and use that for a future newsletter
My First Guest
• My first guest was @petermartindc
• We live-streamed it via Zoom and 14 people showed up
• Live-streaming video is F**king hard
• You have to worry about people showing up and technical problems. Don't start with this.
• Everyone needs to work, but not everyone is passionate about it
• Are people working because they are passionate or because they need to?
• Some people have lost faith in the system or can't find a job
How the Creator Economy Evolved
• The first collab house was started in 2009
• People developed content as a means of self-expression and/or creativity
• Influencer wasn't considered a "normal" job or a way to make money
• Now it's changed
8 Lessons I Learned from Enzo Ferrari on Building the World's Most Valuable Brand — Ferrari.
"Race cars are neither beautiful nor ugly. They become beautiful when they win."
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Exclusivity as a Marketing Strategy
Ferrari doesn't want just anyone to own a Ferrari. "If anyone can walk into a dealership and get one, then it loses what makes it special ... for the model to work, you have to keep prices up.”
Their €3.7B in net revenue proves it works.
Be the Best At One Thing
Ferrari has won 237 F1 Grand Prix races. It's closest competitor has 56 fewer wins. Ferrari is first and foremost a racing company. Its success in racing has increased the demand for its road cars. People want to drive the best and the best is Ferrari.
1/ I grew my newsletter from 0 to 1,000 subscribers in 5 months. Here's how I did it.
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2/ When COVID began, I stopped traveling and taking meetings. My business partner, @ChrisBerryOH, encouraged me to create content. I didn't have a focus or an audience but did have experience with content creation.
3/ One of my current endeavors is running the Cleveland Tech Newsletter. Each week I'd interview a guest in the Cleveland Tech scene. I was going to apply that same lesson to my new newsletter.
1/ In 1975, Gary Dahl started selling rocks for $4. Six months later, he made $15 million dollars.
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2/ Gary Dahl was employed as an advertising executive in California. He was at a bar with his friends listening to them complain about their pets. He had an idea.
3/ He joked to them that they should have a rock as a pet. He decided to turn that joke into an actual product — "The Pet Rock"