“Creators shouldn’t just be influencers-for-hire”: Meet the new talent company pairing entrepreneurial creators with startup founders

Creator industry veteran Phil Ranta founded his new company based on one core principle: “Creators shouldn’t just be influencers-for-hire. They should be owners.”

That company, Stealth Talent, turns creators into business owners by pairing them with “ambitious startup founders,” it tells Tubefilter. The plan is to give creators long-term ownership stakes in (and potentially executive roles at) early-stage businesses, giving them a way out of the brand deal grind and setting them up for a “storied career,” Ranta says. Meanwhile, participating startups benefit from having skilled and savvy in-house digital video creators who are personally invested in their success.

“Many of the top creators I worked with in 2012 are no longer professional content creators today. Some quit, some burned out, but others simply lost their relevance. The brand deal grind is tough,” Ranta, who’s been in our industry for two decades and was an executive at Fullscreen, Studio71, Facebook, and Fixated, says. “Much like smart workers invest their earnings to prepare for the future, creators and celebrities from MrBeast to Ryan Reynolds figured out how to invest their influence, building long-term company value while making short-term financial gains.”

Ranta says the highest long-term value a creator can shoot for is partial or full ownership in companies, and that he founded Stealth Talent to serve as a “co-builder” for these companies. Once it hooks up a creator and a startup, creators will “help shape go-to-market strategies, product launches, and audience-first innovation from day one,” it says. “The result? Startups with instant cultural cachet, and creators with long-term equity upside.”

Stealth Talent is co-owned by venture studio Nobody Studios, which describes itself as being run by a team of “startup artisans and serial entrepreneurs.” Also on the Stealth Talent team are:

• VP of sales Brian Foster (formerly Super League Gaming and Yellow Pike Media)
• Senior Talent Manager Kasia Turek (formerly MoreYellow and Fixated)
• and Senior Talent Manager Katarina Marossy (owner of Disrupt Management)

It’s launching with a roster of over 40 creators, including:

• Cozy Ivan, a lifestyle ASMR chef with 11M followers on TikTok
• Legendary Jay, a special effects/mobile filmmaking expert with 3.7M on TikTok and 2.6M on YouTube
• Paper Eats, a crafty foodie TikToker with 1.1M on TikTok
• Devan Key, a comedian with nearly 9M followers on TikTok

Stealth Talent says it’s signed additional creators in gaming, sports, fashion, and entertainment, and that together, its roster has a following of over 80 million people across platforms.

On top of its Nobody Studios partnership, Stealth Talent teamed up with creator venture studio Butterpie, which does investment and fulfillment across consumer packaged goods, beauty, and apparel. It’s also partnered with Hollywood production studio/representation firm 5x Media for “premium IP” development.

For now, like many businesses in our industry, Stealth Talent is primarily focused on building companies with an artificial intelligence component.

Ranta tells Tubefilter Stealth has already begun building a supplements brand with a “top athlete” and is bringing “top talent” to support Nobody Studios ventures like startup assessment tool Evalify and psychedelics education platform Webdelics. It’s also been pairing creators with existing global IPs via 5x Media.

“Every company in the future will use content as a core part of their go-to-market strategy,” he says. “It’s an exceptionally efficient way to build a customer base. We’re here to help them tap into the right creators, creative, and audience to reach their goals.”