Balancing Business and Self-Expression as an Internet Creator

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Navigating the intersection of self-expression and business as an internet creator involves a careful balancing act between authenticity and marketability. The term 'art' can feel overwhelming, as it implies a seriousness that may not align with everyday content creation. Creators often grapple with their own motivations, determining how much of their work is driven by personal passion versus financial necessity. Each individual has their own 'ratio' of self-expression to commercialism, which influences their creative output. Focusing on a specific niche, such as AI, productivity, or psychology, allows for the opportunity to explore interests outside that lane while still maintaining a coherent brand identity. This approach provides the freedom to pursue personal projects that may not attract widespread interest but fulfill deeper intellectual curiosity, thereby fostering genuine creativity and self-satisfaction. Ultimately, establishing a baseline can alleviate the pressure to optimize constantly, enabling creators to explore new ideas and topics spontaneously.

Steph Smith is the ultimate internet explorer. I spent an hour talking to her about the future of creating on the internet in the age of AI. She’s our first-ever repeat guest, and if you watch the episode you’ll see why: It’s a curious, fun, experimental romp through the best of the digital world. We try out four underrated AI products, go through a list of Steph’s favorite niche internet creators, and follow her creative process in Midjourney in granular detail. We had a wide-ranging discussion about:

How AI changes what humans perceive as valuable in art and creativity
The type of AI tools that are poised for success
How AI narrows the gap between ideas and execution

If you don’t know her, Steph is the host of the @a16z podcast and the creator behind Internet Pipes, a toolkit to surface useful insights on the internet, and many other cool internet projects. This is a must-watch if you make things on the internet and are interested in how AI is changing what it means to be a creator—and how creator businesses work. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper:

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Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Teaser 00:00:46 - Introduction 00:09:08 - How Steph uses Midjourney to find her aesthetic 00:20:45 - Steph predicts how creating on the internet will evolve with AI 00:32:51 - Rapid-fire rundown of Steph's favorite niche creators 00:42:58 - How Steph trains her brain on better data 00:48:19 - The AI research tool Steph uses for health information 00:56:25 - The future of AI tools—and one of Steph's top picks 01:01:20 - Dan and Steph use AI to create a simulation of the internet 01:05:09 - How LLM hallucinations can be useful 01:12:06 - Dan and Steph make a song about what they learned on the show Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Steph Smith: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio Internet Pipes: https://internetpipes.com/ Doing Content Right: https://doingcontentright.com/#features A few of Steph’s favorite niche creators: India Rose Crawford, Blackforager, David Zinn, David Bird, WatchMaggiePaint The podcast episode Dan did with filmmaker Dave Clark: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/how-a-hollywood-director-uses-ai-to-make-movies The AI tools Dan and Steph use on the show: Consensus, Globe Explorer, websim.ai, Granola, Suno