In the thriving creator economy, female founders are making a significant name for themselves by harnessing their creativity, expertise, and entrepreneurial spirit to build successful ventures.
Through innovative platforms, tools, and services, these women are empowering creators to monetize their content, connect with brands, and take control of their careers.
We’ve rounded up the top 30 such female founders whose contributions are reshaping the landscape of the creator economy, opening up new opportunities for individuals to succeed in the digital age.
Analisa Goodin Balancing Catch+Release and Motherhood
Analisa Goodin is the CEO and Founder of Catch+Release, a platform that addresses a common challenge that almost every marketer, producer, and content creator face in the communications industry.
It simplifies the process of discovering and licensing high-quality content from the internet for top brands worldwide.
Before starting Catch+Release, Goodin was a Founder/Executive Producer at Visual Catch, LLC. She has a Master’s degree from the California College of the Arts.
Goodin enjoys problem-solving and engaging in various physical activities such as skiing, hiking, climbing, and playing with her kids outside of work.
With Catch+Release, Goodin is excited about creating a new category in the industry and elevating the medium of found content.
Analisa Goodin believes that “found content deserves recognition, and Catch+Release is making seen content broadly accessible for the first time. It’s bold and transformative, which is exhilarating.”
Rosie Nguyen Empowering Creators & Fueling Passion Through Fanhouse
Rosie Nguyen is the Co-founder and Chief Creator Officer at Fanhouse, a subscription platform for creators to monetize, share exclusive behind-the-scenes content, and connect with their top fans.
As Chief Creator Officer at Fanhouse, she works to empower and advocate for fellow creators and build a truly creator-first platform.
Nguyen is an immigrant from Vietnam, she graduated in 2020 as a first-generation, low-income student from the University of Pennsylvania.
She began her content creation journey as a way to pay her way through college and support her family. Now, she is living her dream life in LA with her rescue dog, Jackfruit.
Klaia by Sofia Solis: Helping Smaller Creators to Get Paid Enough
Sofia Solis is a content creator who started creating content five years ago, she is a Co-Founder of Klaia.
She faced numerous challenges while juggling college, part-time jobs, internships, and her passion for content creation.
Solis also recognized that content creators have numerous tasks to manage, including marketing, production, advertising, collaborations, and content creation itself.
This realization led her to develop Klaia, a project management tool tailored to the needs of content creators. Recognizing the difficulties faced by creators like herself, Solis developed Klaia.
It is a tool designed to help creators manage administrative tasks efficiently and focus on their creative endeavors.
Elizabete Ludborza, Dorothee Grant, & Christine Shen’s Teamwork In Building Kaveat
Elizabete Ludborzad is the COO and Co-Founder of Kaveat, a platform that simplifies contract analysis and provides clear explanations to users.
Before Kaveat, she worked as a Legal Officer at eBay, conducting due diligence on startups and analyzing international contracts at the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Ludborza Met Dorothee Grant in an Entrepreneurship class at Cornell Tech, they both recognized the widespread issue of confusing contracts in various industries.
They aimed to create a solution that could benefit influencers, models, and everyday individuals dealing with contracts.
Inspired by the Model Alliance, a non-profit organization advocating fair treatment in the fashion industry, they established Kaveat.
Kaveat’s goal is not to replace legal professionals but to offer users a platform to connect with specialized professionals for legal advice and assistance.
Ludborza and Grant developed Kaveat as part of the Cornell Tech Startup Studio program, where they collaborated with software engineer Christine Shen who is now serving as the Chief Technology Officer and a founding member of Kaveat.
Amber Venz Box Grew LTK Out of Her Love For Fashion
Amber Venz Box is the Co-Founder and President at LIKEtoKNOWit.
Amber was already an experienced entrepreneur during her college years, earning $100,000 annually from the jewelry business she started in high school.
Her passion for fashion and retail continued to grow, leading her to launch LIKEtoKNOW.it in 2014, the service enables users to purchase items posted by their favorite Instagram influencers.
Users who like a picture on Instagram receive an email with purchase information. To date, shoppers have bought over $250 million of merchandise through the LIKEtoKnow.it
On March 6, LIKEtoKNOW.it introduced an app allowing consumers to purchase screenshot products.
Sanne Fouquet’s Melon: Your Go-To Organizing Tool
Sanne Fouquet is the Founder & CEO of Melon, a list-making tool that allows users to save and organize content from different social media sources.
Users can make their lists public, allowing others to follow them and discover their saved content.
Back to Fouquet, she grew up in Sweden and moved to London to work at Goldman Sachs before transitioning into the tech industry.
She worked at Palantir for three years and left in 2021, a year after the company’s IPO, to start Melon.
“We spend hours per day scrolling & micro-learning on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram, but once we find something valuable we often forget about it or lose it in a pile of screenshots. Our brain needs to revisit what we learn over time – this strengthens our memory and improves our brain’s ability to recall information.
Melon is leveraging machine learning and scientific methods such as active recall to turn insights saved at Melon into long-term knowledge – and to ensure that our users get the most out of their time scrolling social media.” – Sanne Fouquet.
Kinsey Grant & Jenny Rothenberg’s Smooth Media: All-In-One Solution for Creators
Kinsey Grant and Jenny Rothenberg previously worked together at Morning Brew and founded Smooth Media as their own startup.
Grant served as a newsletter writer, business editor, and podcast host, while Rothenberg started as the company’s first marketer and later became head of growth.
They departed Morning Brew after it was acquired by Insider Inc. and established Smooth Media in 2021.
Smooth Media specializes in helping creators and media brands expand and grow their businesses, the startup offers three main services:
- Smooth Holdings: Creates joint-venture media ventures with creators
- Smooth Newsletter Services: Develops and publishes newsletters for creators and media brands
- Smooth Advertising Services: Sells advertising campaigns integrated into client content.
Grant and Rothenberg assist creators in diversifying their revenue streams, developing new products, hiring, and other operational aspects.
This approach enables creators to go beyond relying solely on their time and personal brand, allowing them to scale their businesses and build long-term value.
Nicole Tj Made Travelling Easy for Creators with Travis
Nicole Tj Co-founded Travis, a travel creator platform that empowers creators-as-businesses in the online travel industry, backed by Skalata Ventures.
Together with her partner, Thomas Lo, they are building consumer travel technology for millennials and Gen Z travelers.
Travis offers a centralized platform for users to discover, curate, and book their next trips.
Tj and Lo have worked together for 11 years, navigating side hustles, career changes, and their first business venture before founding Travis.
The Co-founder has 10 years of experience in the travel and creator industries, having worked as a creator, influencer manager, and strategy consultant at Deloitte Digital.
Through Travis, he and her partner aim to revolutionize the way people explore and plan their travel experiences.
Luba Yudasina Helping Creators Generate Revenue through Zarta
Luba Yudasina is the Founder of Zarta, a micro pay-per-view video platform for creators.
As a former Airbnb engineer and a YouTuber herself, she understands the challenges creators face in monetizing their content.
With Zarta, she aims to empower creators to generate revenue per video while offering fans access to valuable content.
Currently, in limited alpha testing, Zarta plans for a broader launch later this year.
Yudasina’s personal journey as a creator inspired her to create Zarta, providing an alternative to brand deals and subscriptions by enabling microtransactions.
She believes that “in the future, good content from creators won’t solely be supported by ads or subscriptions and that Zarta has the potential to enable this transformation.”
Sherry Wong Revolutionizes Talent Discovery with Roster
Sherry Wong, a Canadian living in Singapore, is the Founder & CEO of Roster, a creator recruitment platform.
Roster connects creators with talented professionals like video editors, thumbnail designers, and scriptwriters who have worked with renowned creators such as Dude Perfect and Ali Abdaal.
With over 10 years of experience as a YouTuber and millions of views, she encountered the challenge of finding creative talent herself.
Roster aims to address this problem by providing accessible data on talented individuals in the creative industry, similar to IMDb, for social content.
Besides being an entrepreneur, Wong is also a passionate cyclist.
Christen Nino De Guzman’s Clara Is a Glassdoor for Creators
Christen Nino De Guzman is the Founder of Clara for Creators, a community that empowers creators through transparency, brand reviews, and discoverability.
She compares Clara to “Glassdoor for creators.” Originally from Los Angeles, CA, Clara for Creators has grown into a community of 30,000 top creators, providing accessible pay information to creators worldwide.
Christen herself is a social media personality and TikTok content creator known for sharing career coaching and resume tips on her verified account.
She worked with small to prominent content creators, from one thousand followers to millions.
The creators she has worked with don’t understand how to price themselves, so brands pay some creators 10x more than others.
After seeing this issue go unsolved year after year, she created my own solution by building Clara to allow creators to connect, share pay information, brand reviews & experiences, and ultimately be discovered by top brands.
Sima Gandhi Simplifying Financing Via Creative Juice
Sima Gandhi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Creative Juice, a company focused on simplifying banking and financing for creators.
Previously, Sima Gandhi worked as the Head of BD & Strategy at Plaid.
Apart from her professional endeavors, Sima enjoys spending time with her 4-year-old child, hiking, reading, and sharing meals with loved ones and she also has interests in board games, jigsaw puzzles, and needlepoint.
When Sima and Ezra (the other Co-Founder) met in 2020, they had no shared connections.
Both of them agreed that traditional financial institutions continue to misunderstand inventors, and it was finally time for the creator and FinTech sectors to collaborate and grow the creator economy.
That’s when Creative Juice was founded, which assists creators in realizing they are businesses and provides the first-ever creator business banking solution.
Cynthia Ruff Empowers Creators to Demand Fair Compensation with Hashtag Pay Me
Cynthia Ruff, CEO & Co-founder at Hashtag Pay Me, is a city dweller in Atlanta, GA, who shares DIY projects, heirloom recipes, and her favorite Southern places on her blog, Darling Down South.
Currently, she’s focused on installing panel molding in her 1920s condo and learning Python for her tech startup in the Creator Economy.
With a background in sales, HR, and compensation consulting, Cynthia created Hashtag Pay Me to address the needs of creators.
Hashtag Pay Me empowers creators to set their own terms and negotiate brand deals using corporate compensation pricing models and CRM tools.
It’s the only platform allowing creators to act as their agents and secure brand deals on their own terms.
Tiffany Kelly’s Curastory: All-In-One Platform For Sports Creators
Tiffany Kelly is the founder and CEO of Curastory-an all-in-one platform for sports and fitness creators to build and monetize video content.
She is a sports entrepreneur, data scientist, public speaker, and philanthropist based in New York.
Her company has successfully raised over $3 million in funding from notable investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, Techstars Investors, Mindspring Capital, and Google.
With a projected revenue of $9 million this year, Tiffany’s disruptive approach at Curasotry has garnered attention and support.
Despite facing challenges as a self-taught, black, female programmer in a male-dominated industry, her love for sports and determination led her to a career at ESPN.
Tiffany’s ultimate goal is to inspire individuals to share their stories, take ownership, and empower them using her technological expertise.
Ayomi Samaraweera’s Canopy Is A Safe Space To Crowdsource Info
Ayomi Samaraweera is the CEO & Founder of Canopy, an anonymous-but-verified platform for Creators to crowdsource information to accelerate their careers and spill the tea in a safe space.
After working in the Creator Economy for over three years, Samaraweera has transitioned from her roles at TikTok and Jellysmack to become a startup founder and TikTok Creator.
With a focus on sharing career advice with her 23k followers, Ayomi is now the CEO & Founder of Canopy.
Following her layoff from Jellysmack in December 2022, Ayomi utilized her experience to launch Canopy as a side-hustle startup.
Eventually, she decided to dedicate herself full-time to Canopy when she lost her job.
Kelsey Davis Connecting Creators To Paid Opportunities With CLLCTVE
Kelsey Davis is the Founder/CEO of CLLCTVE, the portfolio platform connecting creators to paid opportunities which partners like Google and Techstars support.
CLLCTVE acts as a matchmaker between college creatives seeking freelance work and Gen-Z brands. Davis has previously worked at Conde Nast Entertainment and Uniworld Group.
With her background as a freelancer creating content for brands like Coca-Cola and Puma, Davis realized the need for a platform that could support creative ventures.
The idea for CLLCTVE originated from her high school experience as a videographer for local customers.
By reflecting on her freelance challenges and lessons, Davis developed a streamlined platform where job prospects can showcase their talents through rich media portfolios.
Destinee Berman Empowering Wellness Through Future Digital
Destinee Berman is the CEO & Founder of Future Digital, a women-led performance marketing agency in digital health, wellness, and beauty.
It specializes in driving customer acquisition & retention for female-focused brands.
She focuses on customer acquisition through platforms like Meta, Google, and TikTok while also implementing lifecycle campaigns to boost retention and engage repeat customers.
Berman is also a launch strategist who assists offline business owners, entrepreneurs, experts, and educators.
Through webinars and research, she recognized the future potential of online courses and identified her strengths in marketing.
By cold pitching and supporting business owners in the mind-body space, she helped them create online courses, reducing their reliance on in-person teaching for profit.
Within six months, she achieved six-figure revenue by betting on herself and incorporating revenue splits into consulting payments.
Word-of-mouth referrals then brought in clients organically.
Jennifer Phan Simplifies Monetization With Passionfroot
Jennifer Phan is the Co-Founder and CEO at Passionfroot.
With experience as a venture builder and early-stage VC investor, she discovered the joy of being a creator by starting a newsletter and building a community for tech individuals with immigration backgrounds.
This inspired her to co-found Passionfroot, a platform that empowers creators, solopreneurs, and small media to monetize and manage brand partnerships and sponsorships.
Passionfroot supports content creators, including newsletter writers, podcasters, YouTubers, and social media creators on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.
Its mission is to enable individuals to pursue their passions and work on their own terms.
Danielle Bernstein Let Creators Have Control In Their Hand With Moe Assist
Danielle Bernstein is the Founder & CEO of Moe Assist, a platform designed to help influencers streamline collaborations, brand partnerships, and payments.
With over two million followers on Instagram, Bernstein gained recognition at a young age, being featured in Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list.
She has launched multiple companies, including tech startup MOE and clothing brand Shop WeWoreWhat.
Recognizing the lack of platforms addressing influencers’ needs, Bernstein aims to empower influencers by putting control back in their hands.
The platform’s name is derived from Bernstein’s long-time assistant, Moe Peretti, who now serves as the chief brand officer. Bernstein says: “Everybody needs a Moe.”
Jacquelle Amankonah Horton’s Fave Is A Cool Fan Driven Marketplace
Jacquelle Amankonah Horton is the Founder and CEO of Fave, a social platform dedicated to empowering superfans and giving them a prominent voice.
She has a Master’s degree from the University of Southern California, and now with FAVE, she wants to empower fans to create immersive video content and connect & bond with other like-minded fans.
Also, with fun challenges, she wants them to exchange both physical and virtual goods and rack up points throughout it all to prove their top fan status, gain recognition in the fandom, and earn exclusive rewards around the artists and creators they love.
Prior to Fave, she spent 7 years at Google, including 5 years at YouTube, where she played a pivotal role in developing monetization and analytics features for creators and artists.
She launched award-winning music and entertainment apps at Viacom, innovated music distribution at UMG, and headed operations for teams spanning music label startups.
She is recognized as a young entrepreneur and has authored a bestselling book called “Purposeful.”
Keren Sachs’ Luupe, A Perfect Destination For Shutterbugs
Keren Sachs is the Founder and CEO of The Luupe, a one-stop production marketplace helping underrepresented photographers and creators connect with brands worldwide.
She recognized a lack of brands hiring women photographers, therefore, she founded The Luupe to connect more women and nonbinary photographers with job opportunities and income.
Sachs has previous experience as the director of content development at Shutterstock, as well as roles at the National Geographic Society and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
She has also worked closely with photographers and businesses to shape their creative visions.
And now, being the CEO of The Luupe her goal is to address the need for diverse photographers as brands prioritize capturing a range of perspectives in their content across various channels.
Lilac Bar David’s Lili Is The Bundle Of Business Finance Solution
Lilac Bar David is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lili, the all-in-one banking platform designed for small business owners.
This business finance platform is specifically created for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and creators in the passion economy.
With over 10 years of experience in fintech, the founder Lilac Bar David is skilled in establishing and managing finance companies.
Lili offers essential tools such as business banking, smart bookkeeping, unlimited invoices and payments, and tax planning to provide business owners with clear insights into their financial standing.
Recognized as one of the Top 50 World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2022 by Fast Company, Lili aims to support and empower businesses by simplifying their financial processes.
Natalie Barbu Helping Creators Expand Their Business With Rella
Natalie Barbu is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rella, a startup building software to help influencers and content creators manage and expand their businesses.
She has done Industrial engineering at The University of North Carolina State University.
Before launching Rella, she kept running into the same issue: dissatisfaction with the several tools she needed to handle brand partnerships, revenue, projects, and so on.
At that stage, she felt like she was piecing together so many tools, aside from having to create the content herself.
She would ask her friends what they were using, and they would say the same thing, they were using a bunch of tools that are not made for creators, which was inefficient, this complication led Natalie to create Rella.
Annie Hwang’s Jemi Is Best For Creating Websites Without Coding
Annie Hwang is a Co-Founder and co-CEO of Jemi, a user-friendly platform for creating websites and e-commerce stores without coding.
Jemi offers essential features like attractive product pages, pricing details, and secure payment processing to support smooth business operations.
With Jemi, anyone can establish an online store that aligns with their brand, fosters customer trust, and enables digital commerce.
Before Jemi, Annie worked at Facebook for 2 years as an RPM & Product Manager after studying Computer Science and Psychology at Harvard.
Her passion for assisting independent creators and entrepreneurs led her to leave Facebook and co-found Jemi with Jason.
In recognition of their work, Jason and Annie were honored on the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 List in Consumer Technology.
Lindsey Lee Lurgin FYPM Allows Creators To Compare Brand Deals
Lindsey Lee Lugrin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fuck You Pay Me (FYPM), a platform that allows creators to review and compare brand deals, including payment information and their experience working with different brands.
It’s similar to Yelp or Glassdoor but specifically for influencers, before FYPM, Lindsey worked as a Community Manager at Poo~Pourri, where they handled community engagement, social media strategy, and influencer outreach.
Before that, they worked as a Research Associate at Westwood Holdings Group, Inc., conducting equity research.
With a background in finance and experience as a freelance model and influencer, Lindsey has leveraged their network to grow FYPM’s user base.
Despite being a small team of two, Lindsey and Co-Founder Isha Mehra recently secured pre-seed venture funding and are now focused on hiring and expanding the company.
Danielle Li Helping To Sell Globally With PopShop Live
Danielle Li is the CEO and Founder of Popshop Live, a mobile, live-streaming marketplace where up-and-coming brands and individuals can create and host their own pop-up shopping channels and sell directly to a global audience.
Danielle Li has been working as a Chief Executive Officer at Popshop Live for 7 years.
The application idea came to Li in 2016 after watching hundreds use Snapchat and Periscope to live to stream an Obama speech she attended.
While online commerce continues to grow, it often lacks that kinetic energy that is found in being around others, and sellers struggle to grow amid a crowded online marketplace.
Tezza Barton Building Vibrant Creative Community With TEZZA
Tessa Barton, known as Tezza, is the Founder and CEO of the TEZZA brand and app, she also has an online following of over 1.5 million.
With 10 million+ downloads, the TEZZA App nurtures creativity, photography skills, and a vibrant creative community.
Tezza’s app is a pure replication of herself, as her influence as a trailblazer in blending editorial photography with social media has inspired others to embrace their artistic essence in photography, interior design, and fashion.
She also showcases her musical abilities as a songwriter, lead vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, with her debut EP featured in Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger and Lucifer.
Specializing in photography, creative direction, and social media, Tezza has directed campaigns for various renowned brands like TRESemme, Chloe, Anthropologie, Free People, and Aldo.