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The first to appear was Creator. Then the goods arrived. Many prominent social media personalities profit from their platforms, and one of the ways they do so is by selling products associated with their brands.e.g. youtuber Mr Beast (103 million subscribers) line released chocolate bar. TikTok star Charlie D’Amelio (145.4M) Unique enough sales clothing It means someone can wear a different outfit every day for two months.flat Jonathan Graziano (4.5M) — Noodle owner and favorite TikTok pug who refuses to get up most mornings — Noodle inspired release Product T-shirts, pillows, children’s books, etc. Noodles and No Bones Day.
Many startups are entering this new market, streamlining their product supply chains and letting creators create the content they do best. This week, Observer’s Rachyl Jones spoke with Ronak Trivedi, co-founder and CEO of Pietra, one of the companies powering this sector of the creator economy.
What Pietra does
“Pietra gives you access to the back-end unsexy infrastructure you need to run your brand,” says Trivedi about finding the right manufacturers, storage warehouses and delivery services. “So socially savvy entrepreneurs don’t have to worry about that.”
Trivedi, a 33-year-old from Toronto, came up with the idea while working as a product manager for Uber Pool. This is a subsection of Uber that allows people to share rides at a low cost. He was inspired by the idea of a virtual kitchen, a delivery-optimized restaurant, after seeing how next-generation food brands are doing with apps like his Uber Eats. At the same time, his friends were trying to launch their own product line, but he saw how little support was available to them. He combined this interest in his chain of supply with the resource gaps he found to build Pietra.
Creators can use Pietra to bring products to market in a month or two and spend hundreds instead of thousands, he said. Creators pay Pietra a monthly subscription of $39. Pietra works with his 750+ factories to cat eye sunglasses, blush makeupWhen swimsuit Made from recycled materials. You can also pay for warehousing services and a pickup fee of $1 per item on top of shipping costs. The experience is customizable so creators can opt out of any segment and take responsibility for it themselves.The company currently has 20 full-time employees.
A new era of collectibles
In 2019, Pietra started working with 25 creators.Over 50,000 creators currently use some of Pietra’s products, sell tens of millions worth of branded products, he said. Trivedi said he expects that number to double by the end of the year.
Niche products allow creators to build deeper relationships with their audience. Charlie Jordan (8.1M) traveled to see what people around the world were smoking and developed a business selling it. Smoking blunt filled with rose petals— for mental health.
Launching consumer product brands through one of these services is not just for celebrities. Isabella Grandick, a student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, “Boob Blub” Trying to normalize talking about women’s bodies and health.she sells games in pietra e-commerce market It works like Etsy, an online retailer of homemade products.
This interview was published in The Creators, a newsletter about the people behind the creator economy. Have it in your inbox before you go online.
