The Creator Class

Ronit Cohn
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The creator economy is a $200 billion industry, and the people who built it are still being asked to navigate it without a playbook. For 15 years, I've been the person creators call when the stakes are highest. The deals, the partnerships, the moments where everything they've built is suddenly at risk. This show opens the room where those conversations actually happen. Real stories, real decisions, the thinking behind them. For creators at every level, the people who help them build, and the parents of creators trying to understand a career that didn't exist a generation ago.

Episodes

  1. 2 days ago

    One of the Internet's Most Influential People Wanted Off the Internet

    Joy Cho started Oh Joy! 20 years ago. She was named one of TIME's most influential people on the internet twice, holds the Guinness World Record for the most followed account on Pinterest, published 7 books, and built over 50 licensing partnerships with brands like Target, Band-Aid, and Keds. At the peak of all of it, she wasn't happy. She was projecting colorful, happy Oh Joy! to the world while privately wanting to get off the internet entirely. Instead of quitting, she redesigned everything. She scaled her team from 8 people down to just herself and rebuilt her business around the life she actually wanted to live. In this conversation, Ronit and Joy get into how she pitched her way into every major opportunity of her career, the licensing playbook almost no creator knows exists, the moment she realized success had stopped meaning what she thought it meant, and what 20 years on the internet teaches you about lasting. Follow Joy at @ohjoy. Subscribe to The Creator Class for more conversations with the creators shaping the industry. Chapters 00:00 — "How does one of the most influential people on the internet want to get off the internet?" 00:50 — "I had built what I think was a dream situation" 02:37 — Reconnecting after 8 years 03:46 — 20 years of Oh Joy!: the records, the books, 50+ partnerships 04:16 — When success started meaning something different 04:57 — Hitting every goal and never celebrating 05:42 — The 4,000 square foot studio and the team of 8 06:36 — "I was realizing I wasn't happy" 07:58 — The flu in January 2020 that changed everything 08:43 — The advice to take funding and blow it out 09:27 — Scaling from 8 people to 2, then to just her 10:04 — The hardest thing to let go of 11:06 — Letting go of a team you love 12:48 — Getting the fun parts of the job back 13:31 — Designing work around her kids' remaining years at home 14:26 — The hustle that built everything 15:54 — Why waiting to be discovered doesn't work 16:36 — Landing jobs at companies that weren't hiring 17:43 — The Target pitch built overnight 19:21 — Showing up 15 minutes late to the biggest meeting of her career 20:49 — Pitching the bigger vision 21:10 — The best time to pitch the 2.0 23:33 — What a bad pitch looks like 25:01 — What a good pitch looks like 26:07 — "You have to serve it all up on a platter" 27:10 — The blog as a marketing vehicle 29:00 — The heyday of getting paid to post 29:29 — When content turned into commercials 30:49 — Creativity watered down 31:28 — The hamster wheel 33:39 — Creative lulls and the 2-year funk 34:43 — Nothing stays exciting forever 35:46 — "What do I really stand for now?" 36:54 — Why she got rid of her content calendar 37:12 — Wanting off the internet 38:02 — Thinking about getting a regular job 38:52 — "My name is Joy and everyone thinks I have to be happy all the time" 39:35 — Watching the numbers drop when you take a break 40:36 — If her daughters wanted to become creators 41:30 — The hardest part: online criticism 43:11 — How to protect young creators while they learn 44:43 — Licensing 101 46:57 — The anatomy of a licensing deal 48:04 — Royalties from 2.5% to 25% 49:36 — Minimum guarantees and why to always ask for one 51:30 — Do you need to be big for brands to take you seriously? 53:36 — When a deal goes wrong mid-contract 55:05 — "You have to trust me": pushing back on a brand 55:55 — See something, say something 57:21 — What she'd tell her 2005 self 58:41 — What she tells herself now 59:31 — Where to follow Joy

  2. 14 Jul

    The Editor Behind Billions of Views Says We're Chasing the Wrong Metric

    Hayden Hillier-Smith has edited videos watched over 5 billion times. He worked with Logan Paul and Mr Beast at the peaks of both their careers. He won a Streamy. He's shaped how millions of people watch video. He's also spent the last several years convinced that the creator industry is measuring the wrong thing. Views work as a substitute for connection. The chase for more of them is volatile, shallow, and increasingly dangerous. Hayden has watched the algorithm hijack the careers of almost every creator he knows. In this conversation, Ronit and Hayden get into why retention editing kills story, why your first hundred videos are supposed to be bad, what it means to treat content as a bid for connection, and how grief shaped his entire creative philosophy. Follow Hayden at @hilliasmith. Subscribe to The Creator Class for more conversations with the creators shaping the industry. Chapters 00:00 — "We need to stop looking at analytics. You're all doing it wrong" 00:14 — Editing billions of views for the biggest creators on the internet 00:41 — Why fame on the internet is volatile and shallow 01:28 — The video that saved Hayden's life 02:27 — Meeting at the bat mitzvah 03:07 — Hearing Hayden speak at VidSummit 04:26 — The most pivotal moment of his career 05:09 — Retention editing vs storytelling 05:46 — Telling a data conference to stop looking at data 06:28 — Getting hired as Mr Beast's story specialist 06:41 — The isolation video where the engagement ring was the throughline 07:55 — "People don't care about emotions" 09:42 — Being afraid to put himself on camera 09:55 — Watching his mother die at seven years old 10:50 — Logan Paul gave him permission to be big 13:44 — Putting himself in front of the camera for the first time 15:17 — The validation he'd been deprived of his whole life 16:54 — His CPTSD diagnosis 19:01 — Why creators feel isolated 19:29 — The pandemic creator economy boom 20:22 — When a million views stops being enough 21:13 — "It's the same as drug addiction" 22:38 — When shareability was the metric that mattered 23:54 — The best videos are the ones people sit you down to watch 24:33 — Finding your passion as a creator 26:13 — Why most men never figure out what they're passionate about 27:30 — Finding your art outlet 29:38 — Why all creators feel the same emotionally 31:13 — Why your first hundred videos should be bad 32:00 — When the algorithm hijacks your channel 33:35 — Treating the channel as leverage, not the destination 34:52 — Why Hayden's YouTube channel is his editing show reel 35:32 — Ending the editing podcast 38:20 — Forced accountability 39:09 — How to find a mentor 40:33 — Content as a bridge toward future possibility 41:16 — Making content for the specific people you want in your life 43:04 — Why art is the biggest form of connection 44:16 — The video that saved his life 45:07 — How toxic ego led to one of the worst things in internet history 47:04 — The decision not to take his life 49:06 — Being celebrated, then vilified 51:45 — What it means to be a creator today 53:14 — Where to follow Hayden

  3. 30 Jun

    The World's Most Influential Beauty Creator Broke Every Rule

    The most influential beauty creator in the world built her career by breaking almost every rule she was told to follow. Shima Katouzian has 3.5 million followers. That's a fraction of the platform most top beauty creators have. Yet she's the number 1 creator in the world powering conversation around beauty, number 6 by Earned Media Value globally, and number 3 by impressions. The reason is trust. Shima built that trust through radical honesty. She only promotes what she actually uses. She refuses to soften her opinions for brand partners. She's open with her audience about money, products, and the industry itself. That honesty has come with a cost. The Iranian regime banned her book. They banned her from returning home. When her father passed six months ago, she couldn't attend his funeral. In this conversation, Ronit and Shima get into the real cost of honesty, what it takes to survive coordinated cancel campaigns, and how to stay yourself when the world wants you to be someone else. Follow Shima at @herosheemaz. Subscribe to The Creator Class for more conversations with the creators shaping the industry. Chapters 00:00 — "You are the number one creator in the world powering conversation around beauty" 02:35 — Meeting Shima at a brand conference 03:39 — The moment on the panel that stopped Ronit cold 04:39 — The stat that makes Shima different from every other beauty creator 06:06 — What Creator IQ's data says about her influence 07:11 — Leaving Iran in 2017 with no plan 09:30 — Landing a job at Tesla without knowing what Tesla was 10:39 — Posting through the pandemic while everyone else stayed home 12:18 — "It felt like FaceTiming my friend" 12:27 — Could she have done this if she'd stayed in Iran? 14:09 — How cancel campaigns work at her scale 15:29 — The coordinated attack that nearly destroyed her business 17:57 — The two-week rule a podcast taught her 19:30 — The morning ritual that got her through 20:46 — Why the campaign ended in 200,000 new followers 21:21 — Why it took three years to quit Tesla 22:24 — The "fuck it" moment 23:12 — Discovering affiliate links by accident 25:02 — The $6,000 she didn't know she'd made 26:02 — Why her conversion rate is unlike anyone else's 27:28 — Launching her beauty line three years ago 29:05 — The gap she saw in beauty 30:23 — Building her products with her followers 30:41 — The Immigrant Girl eyeshadow palette 32:15 — Sitting with Selena Gomez and Jennifer Aniston 36:17 — Why she'll never become a lifestyle creator 38:04 — The bubble she built with her audience 38:27 — "They can relate to me because I never changed" 40:38 — The book she wrote 15 years ago 42:03 — Becoming the best-selling book at the Tehran book fair 43:00 — The moment she realized her audience was real 45:05 — "I care about your hard earned money" 46:25 — Losing her father, banned from going home 47:00 — "I'm the biggest threat to the Iranian regime" 47:30 — "We are a real person in a digital world" 50:00 — The cost of honesty 51:23 — Why influence invites envy 52:34 — Where to follow Shima

  4. 24 Jun

    How to Pitch Yourself as a Creator (Jessica Kaylee Live Workshop)

    One of the biggest challenges creators face isn't building something valuable. It's recognizing and articulating the value of what they've already built. Over the last five years, Jessica Kaylee helped pioneer a storytelling format that has since become one of the most-watched content genres in the world. What started as a creative experiment grew into a global audience of more than 20 million followers and billions of views. But what makes this episode unique is that it becomes a live creator positioning exercise. As we unpack Jessica's audience, impact, bio, social profiles, visual identity, and public-facing brand, a larger story begins to emerge - one that even Jessica hadn't fully articulated herself. Together, we explore why her content resonates so deeply, the role creators can play during some of the most formative years of their audience's lives, and how the way you tell your story shapes the opportunities available to you. The conversation also examines the often-overlooked relationship between audience psychology and creator positioning. Jessica didn't just build an audience. She became part of her audience's lives during some of the most memorable and influential years of their development. What follows is a conversation about storytelling, influence, audience connection, creator positioning, and the power of understanding your own narrative. Because many creators aren't struggling to build something meaningful. They're struggling to tell the story of what they've already built. This episode doesn't just tell Jessica's story. It helps her discover it.

  5. 16 Jun

    This Former Video Game Addict Built an 8-Figure Creator Empire

    Kevin Espiritu paid for college with online poker winnings. Then he became addicted to video games. Then he accidentally discovered gardening. Today, he runs one of the largest creator-led businesses in the world—an eight-figure company built around one of the least likely categories imaginable: gardening. What started as a personal attempt to improve his own life grew into Epic Gardening, a business spanning content, commerce, community, publishing, and acquisitions, reaching millions of people around the world. But what makes Kevin's story so fascinating isn't the scale. It's how he built it. He didn't start as an expert. He started as the audience. In this conversation, we explore how a complete beginner built one of the internet's most trusted brands, why solving real problems beats chasing attention, and the lessons he learned scaling from solo creator to CEO. Because Kevin didn't just build an audience. He built something people depend on.

  6. 10 Jun

    What a Hollywood Actor Had to Unlearn to Reach a Billion Views a Month

    Hollywood actor and digital creator Adam Rose gets a billion views a month. For someone whose career grew up inside the traditional entertainment system, what he's built online now reaches an audience that eclipses many television shows. The biggest TV programs in the world attract a few million viewers and call it a hit. Adam's videos can clear a million views in a matter of hours. But the part of his story worth sitting with isn't the scale. It's everything that came before it. Decades of creating, posting, auditioning, and trying to make it. Following rules that didn't work. Chasing versions of success that never quite fit. In this conversation, Adam shares the hard-earned lessons behind his success, the mistakes that kept him stuck for years, and what finally helped him break through. We talk about building a career that can thrive both inside and outside the traditional entertainment system, creating sustainable systems for long-term success, and what it really takes to succeed as both a Hollywood actor and digital creator. Subscribe for new episodes. Timestamps:00:00 Cold open 01:30 Two worlds, one career 05:00 Hollywood is a permission-based business 09:00 What the early YouTube years actually looked like 15:00 The dance video that hit a million views overnight 20:00 What changes when you don't need anyone to say yes 23:00 The Seth Rogen quote about quitting 26:00 The years Adam spent trying to look cool 30:00 Posting for everyone else, not the people who know you 35:00 Building the team, and the mistakes that came with it 44:00 Where the creativity actually happens 48:00 Why repeatable formats aren't lazy 50:00 Working smart inside an unpredictable schedule 56:00 Does Adam need Hollywood 01:00:00 How a billion views changes the room 01:05:00 Where the money actually comes from 01:09:00 The three things every piece of content has to do 01:13:00 Sharing is the metric Adam optimizes for 01:17:00 The trampoline problem 01:20:00 Audience questions 01:31:00 The person underneath the character

  7. 3 Jun

    What Really Happens After Creators Go Viral

    Reza Khan has 6 million followers, 100 hundred million monthly views, and brand deals coming in. By every external measure, he's winning. So why does it still feel like none of it is building toward something meaningful? In the first episode of The Creator Class, I sit down with Reza Kahn, one of the internet’s leading family creators, for a live strategy workshop on the future of his business. We dive into audience psychology, community-building, and how creators can move beyond chasing momentum to building something more intentional, mission-driven, and personally fulfilling through the content they create and the businesses they build. We also unpack the realities of brand partnerships, the major shifts happening inside the creator economy, and what creators need to understand if they want to stand out to brands, platforms, and entertainment companies today. If you're a creator who's growing and can't shake the feeling that none of it is adding up, this episode is for you. Follow Reza:Instagram: @therezakhanYouTube: @rezaandpuja/ Follow Ronit:Instagram: @ronitcohnLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ronitcohn Subscribe to The Creator Class for new episodes every Wednesday.

  8. 3 Jun

    How Creators Survive After Growth Plateaus

    Sean Does Magic grew 1M followers a week for 7 weeks straight. By 21, he had 25M followers across his platforms, billions of views, and a meteoric rise the entire industry was watching. It was also the lowest point of his career. In this episode of The Creator Class, I sit down with Sean for a live strategy workshop on what it actually takes to come back from a stalled career. We unpack the unspoken cost of growing too fast, the difference between viral content and a career that lasts, why most creators are jumping on a trampoline when they should be building a skyscraper, and how Sean is now navigating one of the hardest pivots in the creator economy: evolving from a magician into a lifestyle and travel creator without losing the audience that built him. This episode is for creators at every stage of growth, the industry professionals shaping their careers, and anyone trying to understand the human side of building a life inside this business.

  • 8 Episodes

About

The creator economy is a $200 billion industry, and the people who built it are still being asked to navigate it without a playbook. For 15 years, I've been the person creators call when the stakes are highest. The deals, the partnerships, the moments where everything they've built is suddenly at risk. This show opens the room where those conversations actually happen. Real stories, real decisions, the thinking behind them. For creators at every level, the people who help them build, and the parents of creators trying to understand a career that didn't exist a generation ago.

Information

  • Creator
    Ronit Cohn
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    8
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Ronit Cohn
  • Show Website
    The Creator Class

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