Mike BifulcoThis is Tiny Improvements. I'm Mike by ko. There have been lots of interesting announcements from creators and startups this month. Many apps and services that once felt like they were here to stay are now shutting down. Similarly, many creators are announcing big changes to their strategy or even stepping down from their roles entirely. I. It seems like it's all happening at once, right? Well, in a sense it is, and there are a few reasons why this might be the case for creators.
December and January are the slowest months of the year. Advertisers budgets are spent and people are spending time with their families. As a result. Many creators use this time to reflect on the past year and to plan for next year. For startups, the new year is often tied to intense budgeting and planning. The new year is a time when they need to show their investors that they're on track to meet their goals. If they're not, they may need to pivot or even shut down. Have you felt it?
I've certainly seen a good number of surprising announcements. Here's an incomplete list of companies and creators who have announced big changes since the start of the new year. A few days ago, artifact, the news aggregator app created by the founders of Instagram shared that they're shutting down their services after failing to find product Market Fit mint, the personal finance app is shutting down completely. Their orphaned users have been desperately searching for alternatives.
Similarly Prism, A finance app used for automating bill payments is also shutting down in the creator world. Matt Pat hosted the YouTube channel. The game theorists announced that he's stepping down as the face of the channel. The game theorist has 18.7 million subscribers on YouTube YouTuber. Tom Scott posted a video explaining that after 10 years of videos every single week, he's taking a break for an undetermined amount of time.
Tom currently has 6.4 million subscribers on YouTube and filed under sort of both and kind of neither you may have seen recently that newsletter platforms Substack is bleeding creators left and right over their spineless content moderation, policy decisions, or lack thereof. Newsletter creators are jumping ship to other platforms left and right. Patreon announced a major change to their business model, which will affect creators and patrons alike.
Patreon has been the place where fans can support creators. They love by pledging a monthly amount to them. Patreon takes a cut of the pledge, though a much smaller cut than YouTube might, for example, and the rest goes to the creator. With their new pivot, they're now hoping to become the place where fans can go to see what creators are making without being subject to the algorithm. In short, Patreon itself is trying to become a social network. Will it work? Who knows? But it's a big change.
And while this announcement happened back in October, Patreon has steadily been rolling out changes to align with their new vision since then. And it's really starting to feel real now. These changes create opportunities. This dear listener, is where you come in as the market shifts with these changes, there are opportunities for you to make your mark if you're looking for inspiration. Here's a couple examples over on Threads.
Derek Gaston is an indie hacker who has been building a personal finance app called Splurge Budget. He's been building it out in the open and sharing his progress and learnings on threads. Developer focused email platform. Resend just announced a feature called broadcasts. It suddenly allows them to compete with existing newsletter platforms and other email marketing tools like MailChimp and ConvertKit.
I'm planning to give Resends newsletter feature shot and hopefully will live stream my experience building with it on my YouTube channel at Mike by Foco. As ever. If you've been working on building something, now is the time to step on the gas. Particularly if you're building something that suddenly fills a void, which once felt permanent. Use the momentum of these changes to your advantage and find places where you can make your mark.