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What Can Media Entrepreneurs Learn from OnlyFans?
It’s pretty clear what people think of when they hear the brand name ‘OnlyFans’. I won’t say it out loud, because this is a respectable blog, but it rhymes with cornography. But is that really fair?
Founded in 2015 by British entrepreneur Tim Stokely, OnlyFans has become the internet’s best home for NSFW content creators through luck rather than design. At its heart is something deeply simple, no different to Patreon or even Substack, a mechanism for people to build a personal brand with their own bespoke content and monetise it in a simple, effective way. It’s one of the fastest growing platforms for digital media, and yet it often gets left out of these discussions (I too am guilty of this) because somehow it feels seedy. But ignore OnlyFans at your peril.
In order to better understand how the platform works for creators, I sat down for a conversation with Cat Grande, a top 0.2% OnlyFans creator, and one of the few users on the platform who speaks openly about the financials. You can watch our conversation below or read a full transcript (which will really show up how much I talk in interviews where I’m supposed to be the one learning something…)
