Over the last 3 years, Stan has helped our Creators make over $300 million.
We ourselves have also scaled from $0 to $30 million ARR, all while maintaining profitability.
We’ve seen this kind of success because of one, simple thing: we care deeply about our customers.
As Creators ourselves, we live, breathe and bleed this experience of being a Creator-Entrepreneur.
We know just how difficult this journey is — how terrifying it is to put yourself out there, how intense the ups and downs can be, and yet, how incredibly meaningful and fulfilling it can be if you can just get to the other side.
We’ve also learned that in order to succeed as a Creator, you have to skirt the conventional ‘system’ and blaze your own path.
It’s why despite how many traditional VC investors have approached us to invest, I’ve always turned them down.
Because Stan isn’t about maximizing ‘shareholder returns’ for some private equity investor.
Stan is about building a movement, and a community.
It’s about building the most ‘for Creators, by Creators’ brand out there — and making sure we champion the rising tide of entrepreneurs who want to do good and do well.
Enter Steven
For those of you who don’t know Steven’s story, you should.
Steven came from very little. A child of immigrants, he was born in Botswana before moving to the UK.
Steven likes to say that he grew up "just rich enough to be poor in a middle class neighborhood" — constantly feeling like he was on the outside looking in.
But instead of letting those circumstances break him, Steven used it as fuel.
At just 18, he dropped out of uni to start Social Chain, scaling it to a $600M+ valuation before he was 30.
Many of us now take seeing Steven’s podcast clips on our feeds for granted — but few know that he built The Diary of a CEO brick by brick from his tiny apartment closet — starting with nothing but a dream.
He’s now the world’s biggest business podcaster — and my bet is that soon, he’ll be the world’s biggest podcaster in general.
Steven is Stan’s values manifest: he’s deeply driven, kind, empathetic and intensely mission-focused.
He’s also the definition of a self-made Stan entrepreneur — building from nothing, he’s used social media as an equalizing force to build an audience for himself.
But what makes Steven such a good fit to join the Stan team is that he always tells me, ‘John — the very hardest download I ever got was my first download.’
He knows just how much pain, toil, and self-questioning it takes to get your first post out there.
It's why he's so hellbent on helping us achieve our mission here at Stan: of helping anyone make a living working for themselves.
And why he's pouring his support and mentorship into giving a leg up to our thousands of customers with his knowledge and advice.
There is no better feeling than seeing the thousands of our customers who’ve used Stan to start from nothing, and build real, durable businesses for themselves.
And now, we have one of our generation’s greatest Creator-Entrepreneurs to bolster that.
This next step of Stan is about bringing in the best Creator-Entrepreneurs to inspire, educate, and pay it forward.
The world needs symbols of hope now more than ever.
And that’s why I couldn’t be more excited to welcome Steven as not only an investor, but as a Co-Owner in Stan.
To every little Steven and John out there — this is for you.
Steven — I’m very grateful to welcome you to the team.
Let's build. 😤
Beautiful
Saw this over on LinkedIn, biggest of congrats John, what a win!