Beast Burger IRL

Read Time4 min 47 sec

What’s up everyone! Welcome to my channel. This is Creator Business. We’re the newsletter that will stick with you while we wait in line overnight in a New Jersey mall, hoping to meet Mr. Beast or one of his friends.

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Here’s what the algorithm was pushing last week:

• Mr. Beast Burger opens its first physical location

• A tech YouTuber raises over $350,000 for a new product line

• Adobe’s “Future of Creativity” study shares crazy numbers about the current state of the creator economy

Beast Burger opens first restaurant

Let’s get right to it. On September 4th, Mr. Beast opened the first Beast Burger physical location and broke a world record.

First location? But haven’t Beast Burgers been available for a while now?

Up until last weekend, this was the Beast Burger business model:

• Create a burger-chain menu tied to Mr. Beast’s brand

• Create instructions on how to prepare each menu item

• Partner with Virtual Dining Concepts to outsource preparation and delivery of the food to ghost kitchens around the world

• Sit back and count the money as Beast Burger earn about 70 cents for every dollar of food sold (local ghost kitchens earn about 30 cents; it’s unclear how much Virtual Dining Concepts keeps)

With the opening of its first brick-and-mortar Beast Burger located at the American Dream mall in New Jersey, Beast Burger is now officially in the physical restaurant game.

What was the launch event like?

Controlled-chaos. Spectacle. Shock and Awe. Pretty much on-brand with anything Mr. Beast does. Over 10,000 people waited in line for a chance to meet Mr. Beast, Karl, and the rest of his crew. Some even stayed overnight to guarantee a spot.

Does opening a physical location move the needle at all for this business?

Not immediately. Mr. Beast has stated that Beast Burger has already crossed $100 million in sales since launching in late 2020. However, having a physical location that doesn’t require the knowledge and use of smartphone-powered delivery apps is a game changer. In addition, it unlocks a more mainstream demographic of people to become customers of Beast Burger without even knowing who Mr. Beast is.

Reacting To: Beast Burger physical launch

We are living in real-time through the renaissance of content creator entrepreneurialism. The 1800s had P.T. Barnum, the 1900s had Walt Disney, and we have Mr. Beast. What a time to be alive!

Sara Dietschy launches Lab22, raises over $350,000

Sara Dietschy is a tech YouTuber with over 870,000 subscribers. Her content includes docu-series, tech reviews and vlogs. And last week, she raised an eye-popping $350,000 through a Kickstarter for her new brand, Lab22.

What is a Lab22?

Lab22 is the brand Sara created to sell the “Ultimate Line of Adjustable Tech Stands.” The products include a “premium family of adjustable magnetic iPad stands, wireless charging phone stands, and a stylish headphone stand.”

How did she make these stands?

This project was a collaboration between Sara and Moment. And in case you haven’t heard of Moment before they:

• Are a brand whose stated mission is to “grow the creator middle class”

• Have raised $4.5M across two funding rounds and have been around since 2013

• Offer physical products like camera gear, creator-led courses, LUTs and presets packages, and what can be best described as “creative trips” to Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

• Help popular creators launch successful brands

Gimme some numbers on this Kickstarter:

• Sara’s original fundraising goal was $10,000, which got blown out of the water

• Over $350,000 was raised from just 1,842 backers

• Backers who pledge over $59 get up to 55% discounts on the various products

So this was just the perfect launch, right?

Not exactly. Sara initially planned to launch Lab22 in February 2022 but hit delays due to supply chain shortages.

This also isn’t Sara’s first collaboration with Moment. She’s previously worked with them to launch a line of custom Airpod cases and Apple Watch straps.

Reacting To: Lab22's big launch

Researching this story led your writer down a rabbit hole of “Rate my desk setup” videos on YouTube. Now he’s starting to second guess whether minimalism is the way to go or if he should drop $1000 on a maximalist desk setup. Desk setup pics coming soon?

This would be a great place for a sponsor

You have the product, we have the audience. You have the glasses, we have the eyeballs. You have the content, we have the platform. I think you get the idea by now. If you want to put your brand in front of an audience of creators, founders, and digital marketers, this is the place to do it. Send an email to [email protected], and let’s make it happen!

Adobe reveals the truth about the creator economy

Adobe recently published findings from its “Future of Creativity” research study, and there are some big numbers. You can find details on the methodology here if you’re into that stuff.

• 165 million creators joined the global creator economy in the last two years

• 42% of creators are millennials, 14% are Gen Z

• 40% of creators were motivated to start creating by the chance of turning it into a career

• 60% of creators treat creating content as a side hustle rather than a full-time job

• More than 51% of influencers (creators with at least 5000 followers) are earning in the top income bracket of the US or bringing in a household income of $100,000

• Full-time influencers earn, on average, $162,000 annually

Check out this fun graph too!

Reacting To: The “Future of Creativity”

The average income figures shared in the report seemed a bit high. So we on the Creator Business team are wondering how much the income of the top 1% skews these findings. For the math nerds who read this, using the “median” as an average would have probably been better than the mean. And, of course, there are additional expenses that creators incur, which means they don’t get to keep all $162,000. Nevertheless, in case you still had any doubt on if its financially possible to be a full-time creator, Adobe wants you to know you just gotta be average to do it. How thoughtful.

Also on the FYP

• Logan Paul shares how much he thinks his brand PRIME is worth

• Snoop Dogg launches a kid’s YouTube channel, Doggyland

• Brands are getting real on BeReal

• Edited Tweets are coming!

• This would also be a fantastic place for an ad

• Mr. Beast has a “runner” with him 24/7 to do anything he wants because its not worth his time to go to the store

That's all for now. See ya next week!

About Calvin Caracciolo, Editor-in-Chief of Creator Business

Calvin Caracciolo is a content creator who keeps you up to date with the fast-moving world of business in the creator economy. He’s also a really great guy!

Contact him about anything creator economy related at [email protected]. Follow him at tiktok.com/@calvincaracciolo and subscribe to his YouTube channel if Shorts are more of your thing.