50 Creators to Watch in 2025
A list of 50 dynamic creators who will lead the creator economy’s evolution next year.
Three years ago, when I published the first ultimate guide on the creator economy, the category was booming at an unprecedented speed of growth. Three annual Creator Economy Reports have followed, mapping the fascinating evolution of the sector: 2022, 2023, and 2025.
Alongside our annual report, we now highlight 50 creators—ones we’ve been watching closely and ones recommended to us by creator economy operators—who are pushing the boundaries and leading the evolution of the sector.
We just wrote about next year marking a bold new chapter of AI, community, and revenue diversification for the creator economy. But which creators will be leading the charge in 2025?
We are excited to publish our list of 50 creators to watch across the following roles:
Creators: People who either: 1. Shot to fame in a very short period of time (separate from the size of their following); or 2. Became notable creators in their country or subject matter.
Founders: Individuals who are building creator-led platforms.
Journalists: Reporters who are broadcasting the evolution of the sector in real time—and are influencers in their own right.
Operators: Heads of creators, creator partnerships, or community who are at the forefront of enabling creators to monetize via their platforms.
We also share a list of our top 10 “rising stars” who are gaining impressive traction—creators who have rocketed to fame in the last two years and those who are gaining impressive momentum and reach at the same time.
Meet the 50 creator economy players who need to be on your radar in the coming year.
*Disclaimer: We acknowledge there are many other leading creators who are worthy of being featured. This list is based on our observations of the creator landscape and the recommendations of leading operators in our network. We have not excluded influencers based on gender, religion, race, or any other demographics. To submit a nomination for next year’s 50 Creators to Watch list, add your suggestions to the comments!
Podcasting
In our recently published Creator Economy Report 2025, we highlighted how creators are experimenting with different types of content across audio, short- and long-form video. With over three million podcasts existing globally today, audio has become a much easier way for podcasters to interact with their fans. People are digging in—the average audio length is now thirty minutes according to Riverside.FM, who we featured in our annual report.
Here are 10 podcasters to tune into in the coming year:
Chloe Shih and Eric Wei
Podcast: Jomo Podcast
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Chloe Shih and Eric Wei are go-to thought leaders focused on the creator economy. Chloe is a YouTuber while Eric is the co-founder of Karat, a financing platform for creators. The pair recently launched the Jomo Podcast—one of the fastest-growing podcasts that provides career advice.
Cleo Abram
YouTube channel: Huge If True
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Until recently, Cleo was a reporter at Vox before going independent. In just a few years, her channel Huge If True has amassed 4.2 million subscribers. Cleo interviews global technology leaders and shares insights into the latest technology trends.
Amelia Dimoldenberg
YouTube channel: Chicken Shop Date
Location: U.K.
Why you should watch them this year: Amelia is the host of Chicken Shop Date, a show where she has casual conversations with some of the world’s biggest celebrities. Amelia’s YouTube channel has gained 2.7 million subscribers in just a few years.
Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry
YouTube channel: The Colin & Samir Show
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Whether you are new to the creator economy or have been exploring the ecosystem for a while, you have probably come across The Colin & Samir Show, a channel educating viewers on the people and platforms shaping the creator economy. In just a few years, they have gained 1.5 million YouTube subscribers.
Ali Abdaal
YouTube channel: Ali Abdaal
Location: U.K.
Why you should watch them this year: Ali Abdaal is a doctor and one of the world’s most-followed productivity experts. In 2017, during his final year at Cambridge University, Ali started posting YouTube videos about health and productivity on his channel, which now has close to 6 million subscribers on YouTube alone.
Guy Raz
Podcast: How I Built This
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: In his podcast How I Built This, Guy interviews household names, including creators and founders about how they have built some of the most legendary companies and platforms in existence today.
Simran Kaur and Sonya Gupthan
Platform: Girls That Invest
Location: New Zealand
Why you should watch them this year: Simran and Sonya are the co-founders of Girls That Invest, which aims to help women—especially those from diverse backgrounds—access tools and information to build their wealth. The media platform currently generates approximately $1.4 million in annual revenue.
Newsletters
How the way we consume media and who we trust is changing at a dizzying pace. As we explore in The Creator Economy 2025, creators have one mighty advantage versus mainstream media publications: the trust of their fans. This opens up a number of wide-ranging opportunities for creators with successful newsletters.
These are 10 newsletter writers worth paying attention to next year:
Taylor Lorenz
Newsletter: User Mag
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Until recently, Taylor was a journalist at The Washington Post and is now working full time on her newsletter, User Mag. Taylor is an example of a mainstream journalist going independent—similar to Cleo Abram, who is also featured in this list.
Eric Newcomer
Newsletter: Newcomer
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: After leaving Bloomberg four years ago, Eric’s technology newsletter, Newcomer—where technology and venture capital intersect—has become one of the most popular technology newsletters on Substack. It currently generates $2 million in revenue and $1 million in profit. This goes to show, a successful creator team can be small but mighty.
Kaya Yurieff
Newsletter: The Information’s Creator Economy Newsletter
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Kaya’s daily newsletter, The Creator Economy by The Information, is a must read—breaking down the latest insights, news, and trends happening within the creator economy. The newsletter also highlights the latest individuals making moves within the ecosystem, as well as the latest startups who have raised from investors.
Lenny Rachitsky
Newsletter: Lenny’s Newsletter
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: If you are an operator working in tech—you have probably come across Lenny’s Newsletter. Since its launch four years ago, it has become one of the most notable tech-focused newsletters out there with 850,000 subscribers. Lenny expanded his platform and influence by launching a podcast, occasionally investing in startups, and recently launching a conference called Lenny & Friends. This is a prime example of creators becoming the new media moguls. Once they have accumulated a large enough following, they have huge opportunities to spin off and create new product offerings.
Rex Woodbury
Newsletter: Digital Native
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Until recently, Rex was an investor at the renowned VC firm Index Ventures, investing in early- and later-stage companies. Rex is now the author of Digital Native, a newsletter “about how people and technology intersect.” Rex says: “the things that interest me are the ways that humans use technology to communicate, to collaborate, to create.’’ Recently, similar to Harry Stebbings who is also featured in this list, Rex launched his own fund, Daybreak Ventures, to “build and invest in internet, software, and technology-enabled businesses.’’
Amanda Cua
Newsletter: BackScoop
Location: Singapore
Why you should watch them this year: Amanda is the founder of BackScoop—the go-to newsletter for consuming technology news across Southeast Asia. At just 21, Amanda has grown her subscriber base to 10,000 readers.
Packy McCormick
Newsletter: Not Boring
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Before launching Not Boring, Packy spent six years at Breather, where he served as General Manager and VP of Experience. Since then, Not Boring—whose mission is to "make the world more optimistic"—has grown to over 230k subscribers. In 2021, the newsletter expanded by launching a venture firm, Not Boring Capital, which announced its third fund in 2023.
Mario Gabriele
Newsletter: The Generalist
Location: U.K.
Why you should watch them this year: Mario launched The Generalist four years ago which ‘‘helps you understand what matters in tech, artificial intelligence, and venture capital.’’ Since launching, the publication has grown to 125k+ members.
Jack Appleby
Newsletter: Future Social
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Since launching Future Social three years ago, the publication has become ‘‘The largest newsletter teaching social media, content, and creator strategy.’’ To date, the publication has 70,000+ readers.
Emily Kramer
Newsletter: MKT1
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Emily is the founder of MKT1. a newsletter for B2B Startup Marketing. Since founding MKT1 four years ago, the publication has grown to 150,000 subscribers which also launched a venture firm called MKT1 Capital.
Products: Creators becoming founders
Contributors to The Creator Economy 2025 agree: more and more creators will become founders themselves by launching their own physical product lines or becoming software founders. They will rally their impressive fan bases to become their loyal customers.
Here are 10 creators who launched their own products—and may launch additional ones—to have on your radar:
Sean Evans
Product: Hot sauces
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Sean is best known for co-creating and hosting the series Hot Ones, where he interviews celebrities as they eat progressively spicier chicken wings. Building on the success of the show, Sean and his co-producers have launched a merchandise shop selling sauces featured in the show. We’ll be closely watching to see if Sean and team launch their own branded sauces.
Jacksepticeye
Product: Coffee
Location: Ireland
Why you should watch them this year: Seán (aka Jacksepticeye) is an Irish YouTuber with over 30 million subscribers to his channel. He is also the brainchild behind coffee brand Top of the Mornin Coffee.
Brian Awadis
Product: Candy
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Brian is the founder of 1UP Candy—another example of a creator who has turned their followers (in Brian’s case, 11 million followers on TikTok) into a potential source of revenue.
Cherie Luo
Product: Matcha
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Cherie Luo alongside her sister Jean Luo are building on the success of their podcast Tiger Sisters Podcast by launching Sisters Matcha—a low-quantity matcha brand inspired based on their experience working on a family farm where the matcha is grown.
Rhett McLaughlin & Charles Lincoln “Link” Neil
Product: Cereal
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Rhett and “Link” are lifelong best friends and co-hosts of Good Mythical Morning, a show that has been running for 23 seasons with more than 5 million subscribers. The creator pair is diversifying their revenue streams by launching their own product line, a cereal brand called MishMash.
Yumma Jawad
Product: Oats
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: After starting to share recipes on Instagram in 2013, Yumma founded Feel Good Foodie. Since then she launched Oath Oats in celebration of her love of oats—a health-minded brand offering plant-based, gluten-free, oat-based products with no refined sugar.
Tim Hayden
Product: Watches
Location: U.K.
Why you should watch them this year: Tim founded Hagley West, an affordable watch brand company, from his TikTok channel. He would gamify giving away free watches by giving clues to his followers about his location. Whoever found him first and shouted “Love Your Journey!” would be gifted one of his watches. While watches are not products people tend to purchase recurrently, Tim’s product line is a springboard from which he can launch different products in the future for his fans to collect.
Jon May
Product: Cookbooks
Location: U.K.
Why you should watch them this year: During lockdown, Jon turned to Instagram to brighten our days up with his cooking adventures. Since then, he has launched his own cookbook—Dinner with Jon—and is teed up to publish subsequent books.
Pokimane (Imane Anys)
Product: Snacks
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Pokimane used her YouTube channel (with 6.5 million subscribers) as her foundation to launch her first product line in 2022: Myna Snacks—a snack brand that is “filled with all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff.”
Operators
Most of the thought leaders we spoke with for The Creator Economy 2025 agree that the creator economy is here to stay. But who are the leaders at creator-focused companies expanding the influence and profit potential of millions of creators around the world?
Here are 10 sector-shaping operators you should know about:
Sandy Lin
Company: Creobase
Location: Taiwan
Why you should watch them this year: Sandy is the co-founder of Creobase, a platform that connects creators to brands. On top of this, Sandy is actively promoting the creator economy across the world.
Harry Stebbings
Company: 20VC
Location: U.K.
Why you should watch them this year: Harry is the founder of 20VC, one of the most prominent podcasts in the venture capital ecosystem that receives millions of downloads monthly. A few weeks ago, 10 years after launching 20VC, Harry announced he’d raised $400 million for his venture fund. This is an exciting example of how a podcaster-turned VC can use their reach to launch spin-off companies. We expect to see similar creators launching their own funds in the future, if they can generate sufficient backing.
Jim Louderback
Company: Inside the Creator Economy
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Jim has been a figure in the creator economy for many years, including being the former CEO at VidCon, one of the leading creator conferences globally. He is currently writing regularly about The Creator Economy with his newsletter, Inside The Creator Economy.
Stephanie Hind
Company: Patreon
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Stephanie is the Head of Top Creator Partnerships at Patreon, one of the most notable and recognized platforms within the creator economy. Before joining Patreon, Stephanie spent just over five years at TikTok.
Adam Mosseri
Company: Instagram
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Adam is the Head of Instagram, where he oversees all functions of the app including engineering, product, and operations. As we know, Instagram is one of the most prominent platforms for creators to reach their fans. Adam also provides helpful tips on his personal Instagram channel on how to succeed as creators on the platform.
Kim Larson
Company: YouTube
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Kim is the head of creators at YouTube, supporting creators in becoming the next generation of media moguls. Over the years, YouTube has become a key reason why creators succeed, giving them the platform and infrastructure to reach a global audience. Since the inception of YouTube and according to recent research, today there are roughly 64 million YouTube creators.
Ayumi Nakajima
Company: Pinterest
Location: Singapore
Why you should watch them this year. Ayumi leads the content and growth business for Pinterest in the APAC region. Pinterest—which launched in 2010 and currently has 520 million active monthly users—is a platform that is often used by creators in the art and creative industries.
Harley Finkelstein
Company: Shopify
Location: Canada
Why you should watch them this year: Harley is the President at Shopify, which was originally created to sell snowboarding equipment. Since its launch, Shopify has grown to support almost five million stores across 175 countries as of 2024. Harley is an active champion of creators and, as we highlighted in our annual creator economy report, commerce presents huge opportunities for content creators.
Tyler Chou
Platform: The Creators Attorney
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Every creator needs legal support. Tyler’s channel—The Creators Attorney—provides supportive insights on how to avoid legal obstacles as a creator. We believe over the next few years, Tyler will become a key voice for creators, guiding them on avoiding difficult and distracting challenges. As we have seen with the MrBeast lawsuits, when creators reach the very top of the field, entering murky waters is inevitable.
Christen Moore
Company: Twitch
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Christen leads the North American Partnerships team at Twitch—the most notable platform for gamers and streamers. With 3.2 billion gamers globally, platforms such as Twitch will increasingly become a vital asset for content creators so long as they have a creator–first mindset.
Rising Stars
Many of us will become creators in the future. But which ones will persist and rise to the top of the constellation? Being a creator is a full-time profession and not for the faint hearted.
Over the last 12 months, we have tracked rising stars in the creator universe, looking for ones making waves within the ecosystem and likely to achieve greatness in the coming year.
Here are 10 rising stars who’ll have our attention in 2025:
Haliey Welch
Creator
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: By now you’ve probably seen the viral video of Haliey coining the phrase “hawk tuah.” In just a few months after creating huge buzz on social media, Haliey has launched her own podcast Talk Tuah, rising from anonymity literally overnight.
Jimmy Zhang
Creator
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Jimmy is an amazing and highly ambitious creator who just launched a dating reality series—House of Feelings—that generated millions of views. This helped Jimmy improve his subscription business where viewers are paying for early access to his next episode. Impressively, he doubled his subscribers after the launch of the dating show!
Nons Miraj
Creator
Location: Nigeria
Why you should watch them this year: Nons is an amazing creator out of Nigeria, with many Nigerian fans located all around the world, giving her unique monetization opportunities. Nons demonstrates that quality and relevance are the great equalizers and will always win, providing huge opportunities for creators all over the world, regardless of their location.
Simon Wilson
Location: U.K
Why you should watch them this year: Simon was an estate agent before starting his YouTube travel channel six years ago. He began by traveling around the world with no money and documenting his journey for everyone to follow. Since then, he’s become one of the most recognized YouTubers with his 1.2 million subscribers.
Mario Joos
Creator
Location: Bulgaria
Why you should watch them this year: Mario is the brain behind many big creators such as Stokes Twins and previously worked with MrBeast. He built a strong reputation in the industry for being the person to talk to when thinking about retaining eyeballs throughout video content, an essential topic every creator craves to understand more about.
Lucy Guo
Founder
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Before founding Passes.com—a creator-to-fan engagement platform that has raised $49 million to date—Lucy co-founded Scale which is currently valued at $14 billion dollars.
Simon Squibb
Creator
Location: U.K.
Why you should watch them this year: Since selling his company, Fluid, Simon has been deeply passionate about inspiring people to achieve their dreams. He is the founder of HelpBank, a platform for anyone to source inspiration. Across all his channels, Simon has amassed over 10 million followers within just a few years.
Zaria Parvez
Operator
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Zaria is the brains behind Duolingo’s social media channels. Duolingo’s channels moderated and created by Zaria are great examples of how creators can create entertaining and engaging content while selling a product at the same time.
Alexandra Cooper
Creator
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Alexandra has been the creator and host of the most listened to podcast by women—Call Her Daddy—since 2018. She cuts through the BS with topics and guests, asking burning questions people want answers to. Previous guests include Kamala Harris, Katy Perry, Kate Hudson, and Post Malone.
Jonnie Forster
Creator Agent
Location: U.S.
Why you should watch them this year: Jonnie Forster emerged as a music entrepreneur after graduating from San Diego State University. He joined A&M/Tuff Break Records, implementing marketing plans for their hip-hop roster before moving to Capitol Records. As a marketing executive, he was instrumental in campaigns for the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix, The Beach Boys, Tina Turner, Pink Floyd, and a host of other artists. In 2020, Jonnie rebranded his company to The Penthouse, which currently represents creators including Haliey Welch of Hawk Tuah.
Read the hottest trends and our biggest predictions for the sector in our 2025 Creator Economy Report.
To submit a nomination for next year’s 50 Creators to Watch list, add your suggestions to the comments below.
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Nice digest but it underlook Asia while many trends are coming from there
Wow! This is amazing content. Love the graphics!!!