Most VCs hide behind pitch decks and private networks — Marshall Sandman is building a venture fund on social media, one daily post at a time.

In this episode of The Business of Creators, Ian Shepherd sits down with Marshall Sandman, founder of Animal Capital, to explore how social media is changing venture capital. Marshall shares how posting daily content online has helped him source startup deals, build founder relationships, and grow one of the top-performing seed-stage venture funds of its generation.

Marshall also explains why some of the best investment opportunities exist outside Silicon Valley — and why “boring” businesses may outperform the hottest AI trends.

Topics Discussed:
- How Marshall built Animal Capital from scratch
- Why social media is becoming a competitive advantage for VCs
- How Instagram content is helping source startup deals
- The role creators and celebrities play in startup storytelling
- Why overlooked industries can create massive investment opportunities
- Lessons from investing in billion-dollar startups

Key Takeaways:
- How posting consistently on social media can create real startup deal flow and business opportunities
- Why storytelling and distribution are becoming competitive advantages for modern venture capitalists
- How creators and celebrities can help technical startups communicate complex ideas more effectively
- Why some of the best investment opportunities exist outside Silicon Valley and traditional tech trends
- What founders can learn about fundraising, pitching, and simplifying their message for investors
- Why “unsexy” businesses and service-based companies may outperform overhyped AI startups

Listen to learn actionable strategies to grow your creator business — and don't forget to subscribe to the channel for more insights on the business of creators!

Now anyone can now build a binge-worthy series from scratch.

In this episode of The Business of Creators, Ian Shepherd sits down with Angela Yu to explore how AI is revolutionizing storytelling—and unlocking a new era where anyone can create, own and monetize their own story IP.

Angela shares the vision behind Storeel, an AI-native platform enabling creators to produce serialized, interactive dramas at scale. From micro-dramas to fully AI-generated production workflows, this conversation dives into what the future of entertainment and the creator economy really looks like.

Topics Discussed:
- The rise of short-form, serialized “micro drama” content
- Why AI is unlocking a new generation of storytellers
- How Storeel enables end-to-end content creation and distribution
- The shift from passive viewing to interactive storytelling
- Building a marketplace for creator-owned story IP

Key Takeaways:
- How AI is collapsing production time from years to days for creators
- What it actually takes to succeed as an AI-native creator (and why it’s not about coding)
- Why short-form serialized content is exploding—and how to take advantage of the trend
- How interactive storytelling is changing the way audiences engage with content
- The emerging business model for creator-owned IP in the age of AI

Watch to learn actionable strategies to grow your creator business — and don't forget to subscribe to the channel for more insights on the business of creators!

Most AI-generated content looks impressive — but almost none of it is actually usable for real brands.

In this episode of The Business of Creators, Ian Shepherd sits down with Simon Davis, founder of SecretSauce, to explore how his AI-native platform is solving one of the biggest gaps in AI content creation: turning raw AI output into cohesive, fully on-brand creative you can publish in 30 seconds.

After 22 years in game design, Simon made a bold pivot from building games to building an AI-native creative platform. Instead of complex dashboards filled with dropdowns and design tools, SecretSauce takes a radically simple approach: conversational prompts, brand memory, and production-ready assets that actually follow your brand guidelines.

If you’ve ever generated AI content that “looks good” but doesn’t look like your brand, this conversation will completely change how you think about AI workflows.

Topics Discussed:
- Why most AI-generated content fails in real-world brand production
- The shift from traditional creative workflows to AI-native design
- How SecretSauce builds “brand memory” and enforces consistency
- Using AI to power campaigns, product catalogs, and influencer content
- The future of AI-driven video, distribution, and performance insights

What You’ll Learn:
- How to generate AI content that’s fully on-brand — not just “good enough”
- Why most AI creative workflows are broken (and what to use instead)
- How AI agents can evolve into your built-in creative director
- How small teams can produce studio-level campaigns at a fraction of the time and cost
- Where AI content creation is heading next — from video to performance-driven optimization

Simon also shares how one solopreneur used SecretSauce to launch an entire Chinese New Year campaign and cut marketing time from dozens of hours a week to just two.

Listen to learn actionable strategies to grow your creator business — and don't forget to subscribe to the channel for more insights on the business of creators!