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What’s up, everyone! Welcome to my channel. Please make sure to like, comment and subscri… oh wait, wrong platform. This is Creator Business. We’re the newsletter that hits you with the best creator economy stories in a super entertaining way once a week. We also promise to never leave you stranded on a deserted island.

Here’s what the algorithm was pushing last week:

• Jake Paul raises $50M for a new media and gambling company

• Mr. Beast shares his next goal after passing 100 million subscribers

• Elon Musk hints at starting a new social media platform

Jake Paul raises $50 million to launch Betr

Fresh off the heels of his August 6 boxing event at Madison Square Garden getting cancelled, Jake Paul has bounced back in the sports media scene in a big way. Paul announced the launch of Betr, a sports micro-betting and media company.

Okay, but what is Betr?

1. Sports media content, starting with its first sports show, “BS w/ Jake Paul,” on YouTube.

2. Sports betting and online casino focused on micro-betting, which means betting on individual moments in a game unrelated to the final score. The app will be launching in beta in the coming weeks.

Paul's co-founder and CEO is Joey Levy, a Thiel Fellow who founded Simplebet, a leading technology supplier for micro-betting products on US sports.

Is this just another influence side-project?

Nope. Betr has raised considerable money, including:

• $30 million in a Series A closed earlier this year, led by Florida Funders

• $20 million Series A1 led by Aliya Capital Partners and Fuel Venture

Stars like Travis Scott, Ezekiel Elliot, Dez Bryant, Richard Sherman, and DeSean Jackson also joined in the early funding.

Reacting to: Jake Paul launching Betr

Jake Paul noticed that if gambling companies are willing to pay him $40 million to promote their product, he should probably just launch his own betting platform to make multiples more money. Also, Joey Levy seems to be wrapping the tech he's built in Simplebet with the branding of Betr and a massive figure like Jake Paul. If I were Barstool Sports Book, I'd be nervous about what these two guys can do together.

Mr. Beast unveils his next follower goal

After passing 100 million subscribers, you’d think Mr. Beast would want to spend some time relaxing on a beach somewhere with a Beast Burger in one hand and a Beast Bar in the other. Wrong. After all, we’re talking about the guy who literally built a mini apartment attached to his office so he could work more.

Here's his next goal:

But how?

Growing his non-English channels. He already has his main channel translated to over five different languages, with MrBeast en Espanol having 20 million subscribers.

Reacting to: Mr. Beast's 1 billion follower goal

I’ll do some back-of-the-envelop math here that may be entirely off. But hang with me. Earth has 7.8 billion people. 13% speak English, so that’s 1 billion English speakers. That means 1 in 10 English speakers have already subscribed to Mr. Beast. Suppose Mr. Beast can obtain that same viewership level across all other languages. In that case, that’s another 680 million subscribers on YouTube alone. So once you add all the followers on his other platforms, achieving 1 billion followers is possible. Wild stuff.

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Sponsoring this newsletter would also make our lead writer feel like spending his entire weekend writing this thing is actually worth it. If you're interested in placing an ad, fire an email to our editor-in-chief, Calvin, at [email protected], and he'll see if we can work something out!

Elon musk hints at launching new social media platform X.com

Elon is in the thick of it right now with the Twitter acquisition battle. But if he isn’t forced to close the deal on its original terms, he may just start his own social media platform.

Okay, so what's going on?

What the heck is x.com?

Time for a story that starts in 1999 (or, as Gen Z likes to say, the late 1900s) when Musk co-founded x.com as an online bank, which merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal. eBay later bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Musk bought back the domain x.com in 2017 from PayPal, saying it had “great sentimental value” to him.

Is something actually going to happen?

It’s still unclear if Musk is serious about reviving x.com, using x.com as some sort of leverage in the Twitter battle, or just trolling.

Reacting To: Elon and x.com

Elon Musk is the 5th most followed account on Twitter, and he’s talking about starting his own platform. It’ll be interesting to see if the future of social media is platforms owned by creators themselves.

Also on the FYP

• As of writing, BeReal is #1 on the iPhone’s free app chart.

• Andreessen Horowitz Leads $20M Funding Round for CreatorDAO, which “invests in creators in exchange for a percentage of their future earnings.”

• TikToker Jules Terpak, with 300,000 followers, will be writing a weekly advice column for the Washington Post, discussing tech and digital culture.

• This could be an ad, but it isn’t. Promote your product, announce a job posting, or just say high to your audience. This would be an excellent spot for an ad right here.

• RushTok is BACK!

• This video of Mr. Beast’s “MEGA-STUDIO Tour!” is the most in-depth yet and has nearly 10 million views.

That's all for now. See you 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.