How Long Does It Take for Creators to Become Financially Independent?

Living the life of a creator has become a great deal easier in the modern age, and that is largely due to the high quantity of platforms that you can use to push content to consumers and potentially developing a following. In spite of the fact that this is the case, earning a living as a creator is not as easy as you might expect, with a recent survey by The Tilt shedding some light on this aspect of the creator economy.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that most creators need to wait almost full five months, or 4.9 months to be precise, before they have even earned their very first dollar. As for true financial independence, this usually takes them around eighteen months to accomplish. More specifically, the average amount of time required for this goal is around 18.4 months.

Hence, if you want to become a creator, you need to be ready to spend eighteen months supporting yourself through other means before your creative pursuits can start paying all or at least some of your bills. Another way to look at this is by analyzing how long it takes for creators to become capable of hiring others to help them out in various processes. Most creators need approximately 18.8 months on average in order to be able to afford hiring staff.

Generally speaking, creators need around 12.3 months before they can start to turn a profit. This is when their revenues will finally start to surpass their expenses on a more or less regular basis. Around 12.7 months into your attempt at becoming a creator, it is very likely that you will have the opportunity to turn it into a full time job with all things having been considered and taken into account.

This survey also revealed some more details about how creative careers tend to work. It turns out that the average creator had about 4,000 followers throughout their various channels and platforms. This seems to suggest that the average creator actually has a surprisingly small audience, but they can still earn a living by driving engagement.

All in all, obtaining an engaged audience will prove to be far more profitable than simply striving for the largest audience base you can think of. Engaged audiences can earn you more than might have been the case otherwise, so this is a worthy aspiration to strive towards.

Getting started as a creator will cost around $10,700 on average, and 66% of creators said that they saved this amount up themselves. 35% of the people that responded to this survey were Millennials, with Gen Z comprising an additional 40%. This indicates that the vast majority of creators, three out of four, belong to the younger demographics.

76% of creators also said that they are now using AI to boost their businesses. This will be an interesting development in the creator space as the industry continues to push forward, since it might end up transforming many career paths and making them easier to tackle. The future of the industry will be enormously impacted by the presence of AI.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World