🧠 Let’s expand your creator mind.

Talking Business Growth with 6 BIPOC Entrepreneurs

In 2022, Thinkific surveyed over 1,000 U.S. entrepreneurs and almost a third (29%) of women of color answered that because of their race, they’ve had negative experiences in entrepreneurship. The data proves that women and BIPOC individuals face specific hurdles to entrepreneurship and success in the creator economy that others don’t.

In the past few years, however, more and more women and BIPOC creators have been able to successfully launch online businesses as creator educators. This year at its annual Think in Color event, Thinkific spotlighted some of these creators to help inspire and educate other women and BIPOC creators looking to start or expand their own business. The best part? Their sessions are now completely free for you to access in the article below.

Little Extras

✨ Our new, AI-powered platform allows you to create digital products — and everything you need to start selling them — in a matter of minutes.

🗣️ Meet your new gossip hub. Canopy is a social networking app created by an ex-TikTok employee to create a space for peer-to-peer chats among creators. Intrigued? You’ll need to get on the waitlist.

🔐 Instagram is experimenting with a new Stories segmentation, which will provide space for nuanced conversations, deeper connection, and more privacy online.

🎉 Social media managers, rejoice. TikTok is introducing a “Direct Post” feature that will finally let you post through a third-party app, starting with platforms like Adobe, CapCut, and others.

✍️ Are we in our writing era? YouTube is adding a text-based feed, aka a Twitter (X) dupe, which indicates a trend (and need) for more conversational spaces online.

🎒 Being an influencer is big business, and The University of Southern California knows it. Which is why they have a class dedicated to this $21 billion industry. No textbooks required, only TikTok.

The 17 Best Community Platforms for Creators

Since the dawn of AOL and MSN, we’ve been finding ways to connect with pals and like-minded individuals online. Luckily for us, we don’t need to enter obscure chat rooms or play a round of checkers to meet new people anymore, because there are a plethora of platforms that help you connect, network, and socialize in various ways. Whether you’re looking to meet new people, link up with coworkers, or foster a safe space for your audience, apps like Discord, Humhub, even OGs like Reddit and Facebook, provide distinct tools for you to grow, monetize, and expand your network online. Curious about some options? We have a feeling there are a few on this list you might not have considered yet.

Meet Dawn, the Brains Behind Tech Savvy Creative

In 2017, one of the most intense weather systems to ever hit the United States pummeled Texas. Homes and businesses were lost, in no small part due to destroyed equipment and lost data. That’s when Dawn Richardson, who had just pivoted full-time to photography, got the idea for what would become Tech Savvy Creative.

Richardson launched Tech Savvy Creative in 2020. Today, she sells digital products like ebooks, guides, and workbooks. And she recently launched a new mini-course on data disaster preparedness, which is available for free. She wants as much of her content as possible to be accessible to her audience, which is why she’s looking to partnerships and ads as a way to make money as a creator educator.

TL;DR

🍵 Love sipping some creator tea? You’ll love the new platform called Canopy. Other things you may love: YouTube is working on its own Twitter dupe; TikTok is introducing a direct post feature on third-party apps; and Instagram is helping us find more privacy with Stories segmentation.

👑 Entrepreneurs are just built different, especially women and BIPOC business owners. Here are 6 to glean from at Think in Color. Speaking of learning, The University of Southern California is teaching students all about influencing, and Dawn Richardson is teaching the internet how to properly store data.