Creator Economy NYC

Creator Economy NYC is the largest network for creators and the ecosystem supporting them. Through curated events, strategic partnerships, and education, we empower creators to grow their businesses and shape the future of entrepreneurship.

Founder & Organizer 

siftsy

Siftsy is a consumer intelligence platform built for the modern age, using AI to extract rich insights from social media comment sections. Our tool helps brands and agencies tap into audience sentiment, uncover emerging trends, and make smarter business decisions.

Co-Founder

Kickstarter

Developed and executed Kickstarter’s content creator strategy, guiding top creators in transforming their audiences into engaged backers. 

Partnered with some of the biggest names in digital media — including Hank Green, Solar Balls, Brent Underwood, Jake Carlini, Haminations and more — to launch high-impact crowdfunding campaigns.

Head of Content Creators

Healthcare Huddle

(Acquired) Built a creator-led media company delivering concise, engaging healthcare news and insights for industry professionals. 

Through our newsletter and social media content, Healthcare Huddle made complex healthcare topics accessible and actionable. Successfully scaled the brand before its acquisition.

Workweek

Led strategy and execution for Workweek’s Creator Success unit, building the systems and processes that enabled creators to grow and monetize their brands. Oversaw the launch of 20 creator-led newsletters from 0 to 1, while developing scalable infrastructure to expand Workweek’s newsletter division.

Creator Manager

Capital One

Project & Process Manager

Good Uncle

Strategy & Growth

Analyst

United States Senate

Legislative Associate for U.S. Senator Cory A. Booker

Sharing musings on the creator economy | Managing creators and helping them scale | Built and sold a newsletter

Brett Dashevsky is a leading voice in the creator economy and marketing world as the founder of Creator Economy NYC — a community born in New York and built for global impact. He’s building CENYC with a bold vision: to unlock professional opportunity for every creator and help redefine what a modern career can look like. Under his leadership, CENYC has become the leading community for creators to build businesses, grow their networks, and access resources that move their careers forward.

He is also the co-founder of Siftsy, a consumer intelligence platform built for the modern age, using AI to extract rich insights from social media comment sections. Siftsy enables world-leading brands and agencies tap into consumer sentiment, uncover emerging trends, and make smarter business decisions.

Previously, Brett served as Head of Content Creators at Kickstarter, where he played a pivotal role in bringing top creators onto the platform and guiding them through successful crowdfunding campaigns.

Before these ventures, he built and sold a creator-led healthcare media brand, later leading content and monetization efforts across several creator-driven properties at the acquiring company.

Brett regularly speaks at industry events, moderating panels and delivering keynotes at conferences including Cannes Lions, South by Southwest, Social Media Week, VidCon, and more.

Brett Dashevsky

If you want to succeed, one of my best things you can do is bring like-minded people with a diverse skillset together.  

It’s how you learn and create real connections in an industry that moves fast and changes daily.

So last night, I hosted a Marketing Innovators Dinner in NYC with Creator Economy NYC and Siftsy 💬  (my worlds collide).

We brought together social listeners, influencer marketers, brand leaders, agencies, creators and solo operators.

Different roles. Same ecosystem.

We kicked things off with a question we love asking: “What’s your favorite campaign right now?”

Standout responses were Ticketmaster’s accessibility campaign with the NBA and Liquid Death x YETI’s coffin cooler. 

And, somehow the 'Uncle Bob scandal' made it's way into the convo too. If ykyk.

From there, we got into the topics that marketing teams are actively thinking about:

1️⃣ Should brands jump into the comments?

Does it humanize the brand… or create unnecessary risk? Do creators like it? No consensus, but just really honest takes.

2️⃣ Comments shape perception more than content.

Several people said the same thing: viewers decide what they think after the comments, not after the post. Brands need to understand what's happening in the comments!

3️⃣ Algorithms are too personalized to show a shared reality.

Everyone’s feed is different, which means everyone’s “truth” about how content performs is different.

So teams want more objective tools to cut through that.

These dinners always remind me why I love this industry.

More to come and a lil photo dump below!

Brett Dashevsky 💬

Building where creators, brands & culture meet

The most important role in social over the next few years might not be what you expect.

Social listeners.

I spent the week at Observe Summit in LA in a room full of the people shaping social insights, culture understanding, and data storytelling.

First off, it was great to finally meet so many folks I’ve been DMing with for months. 

There’s something about turning LinkedIn names into real conversations that never gets old.

Second, understanding the comment section is in great demand.

Every conversation I had circled back to the same element that the real signals, the rawest insights, are living in the comments. 

The appetite to understand them is bigger than ever, and it's exactly what we're building for at Siftsy 💬.

Third, people love hats that speak to them! 

We got unique and brought hats that said “social listener" on them.

I now know to bring double next time!

But my biggest takeaway overall:

As AI transforms how we work, it’s actually making the human layer of this industry more valuable. 

The role of the social listener - the people capturing what’s being said, felt, and shared online - is only growing in importance.

And the work of making sense of this social data has never been more essential.

Shoutout to The Social Intelligence Lab team for building such an inspiring space and community.

Building where creators, brands & culture meet | Founder of Siftsy & Creator Economy NYC

Being a creator can feel weirdly lonely sometimes, especially during the holidays.

There’s no office party, no team dinner, no end-of-year toast… just you, your work, and whatever you’ve got left in the tank.

So, for our last Creator Economy NYC event of 2025 (which is wild to even type), we wanted to flip that feeling on its head.

We’re teaming up with our friends at Shopify (with support from Adobe, Epidemic Sound, Teachable, and Siftsy 💬) to basically throw the creator holiday party we all wish existed when we were starting out.

Good people. Good drinks. Good bites. A DJ. And a room full of folks who get it.

And we’ve got a fun panel lined up on creator commerce and what to keep an eye on heading into 2026 featuring:

- Bryan Reisberg (and Maxine 🐶)
- Jess Goldsmith 
- David Roa
- Jacob McCourt

The promo image has two of the panelists with dogs on it… but unfort, I believe only one actual dog will be on stage. (and she's earned her spot.)

If you’re in NYC, would love to see you there. 

December 3, 6pm!

RSVP here: https://luma.com/9zqdr03v

Me explaining to my family what I do for work today:


Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. Grateful for this community.

NYC is the capital of the creator economy.

And I’ll tell you why:

If you asked me where to build a social-focused company today, where to get into marketing, where to be a creator...

I’d say NYC without hesitation.

New York has the thing that actually moves this industry forward:

Creativity, capital, and tech living on top of each other.

That mix is rare. 

And it’s why Creator Economy NYC was born here.

It’s why Siftsy 💬 was born here.

And it’s why NYC is becoming the real center of gravity for where the creator economy is headed.

Case in point - I host events every month where we able to bring together a diverse mix of creators, marketers, analytics, founders all in the same room together. 

Different people, same ecosystem. All here.

And the talent density is incredible.

I talked about this more on the Always Peaking podcast with Neal Jean - clip below.

Do things that don’t scale.

I didn’t fully understand that line the first time I read it a few years ago.

But the longer I build, the more real it feels.

It’s the reminder that growth doesn’t start with dashboards or funnels or polished systems. 

It really does start with scrappy, unscalable effort. 

The kind that takes actual sweat and time and awkward conversations and lugging things around you probably shouldn’t be lugging.

When we first started building Siftsy 💬, we didn’t wait around for our customers to stumble onto us. We met them where they already were.

Every Creator Economy NYC event I hosted became a chance to show what we were building. 

I’d put Siftsy on the sponsor board, give it a shoutout when I had a mic in my hand, follow up with people afterward. 

I wasn’t “pitching” though, I was just putting the idea in the room and seeing who leaned in.

And then there are the moments that really define the phrase.

Like a conference in LA this past month. We weren’t sponsors. We didn’t have a booth. We weren't on the signage anywhere.

So we made our own presence!

We designed hats for the exact people we serve - social listeners, insights folks, analysts - and overnighted them to the hotel. 

We stuffed each hat with a card and a sticker. 

And then I spent two days walking the conference with a backpack full of merch like some kind of hat-carrying nomad.

Every time I ran into someone I’d been trying to build a relationship with, I’d hand them one.

And every new convo the same thing.

A little moment of delight. A tangible reminder of the brand we’re building.

None of that scales.

Neither do the dinners we host, or the individual messages we send, or the 1:1 convos that lead to a customer months later.

Sometimes the most powerful growth comes from doing the things future-you won’t have to do anymore.

But right now you do them with intention.

Because they’re the reason you get to scale later.

There’s no shortage of differing opinions in the creator economy.

And that’s exactly what makes it so fun to explore.

At Creator Economy NYC, we’re always bringing together leading creators, marketers, and platforms to talk about the real questions shaping the industry.

This time, we asked a few pressing ones:

> Who’s your pick: NYC creators or LA creators?
> What’s stronger: building an IRL community or an online audience?
> What’s the better way to monetize: brand partnerships or digital products?

Curious what you think... drop your takes in the comments 👇

----
ft. Mariana Antaya, Jack Appleby, Dara Denney, Brandon Smithwrick 🧠, Jahbari Taylor 📘,

And a big s/o to Domunique Lashay for hosting and producing this segment.

“Comments are the new focus group.”

I’ve said that for a while, but Vogue Business just unintentionally dropped proof of it.

Their latest piece on Gen Z’s broken marketing funnel makes one thing very clear: research is happening in the comment section.

Before Gen Z buys anything, they scroll straight to:

- “Has anyone actually tried this?”
- “Is the quality real?”
- “Does this actually fit?”
- “Is this brand trustworthy?”
- “What’s everyone else saying that I should know?”
- "What's my take?"

That’s the modern equivalent of your focus group, review panel, or consumer survey... all in one messy, chaotic, honest thread under a TikTok or IG post.

And here’s the part most brands still miss:

This isn’t about just engaging in the comments. It’s about understanding them.

Because the comment section has quietly become:

- a product feedback loop
- a campaign barometer
- a cultural signal detector
- and the earliest warning system a brand has

The smartest companies already know this.

Think of e.l.f. Beauty literally shaping product innovation from TikTok comments.

Or operators at Red Lobster spotting menu ideas from the comments because customers were saying it out loud.

It's what we see at Siftsy 💬 every day.

So if Gen Z is treating the comments as a research phase, brands should be doing it too.

Ideally even more.

If you’re a brand and you’re not treating the comment section as a strategic asset… you’re flying blind.

MKBHD is shutting down his wallpaper app.

My thoughts on creator-led businesses: 

A big audience doesn’t guarantee a successful product.

Marques shutting down Panels is a perfect example. 

Not because he isn’t influential.

But because the content-product value prop never really aligned.

Marques creates some of the most popular tech reviews, storytelling, and product breakdowns. 

His value prop is trust, clarity, and helping people decide what tech to buy and how to approach it.

Panels was a wallpaper app.

Even if he genuinely loves wallpapers, or has cool wallpapers in videos, that passion isn’t fully the same narrative his audience knows him for. 

The throughline wasn’t obvious. 

The problem it solved wasn’t connected to the problem his content solves. 

There wasn’t an emotional or functional bridge between “I watch MKBHD to learn about tech products” and “I should download a wallpaper app he made.”

So even with millions of followers and a massive brand, Panels struggled with product-market fit because the audience expectations, the content value prop, and the product value prop were never tightly aligned.

And I believe that's what led to the product being a bit iffy + team dynamics falling apart.

So overall, my take is that creators don’t need to make products about their niche, but the most successful creator-led products tend to reinforce the creator’s core promise, not sit adjacent to it.

They feel like a natural continuation of why people follow them in the first place.

New Edition

A Fractional Head of Content for eCommerce brands, thought-leaders and service providers.

Managing Partner

For Others

For Others is a locally-conscious lifestyle brand based in New York City that gives back based on zip code. The brand was started in late 2021 by brothers Brandon and Jonathan, whose grandfather always emphasized the importance of 'doing for others'.

The goal was to create a clothing company that provided real impact to real people in their own local community - without compromising quality or style.

In just a few years years, For Others has built a growing and devoted following of customers motivated to leave a positive impact on their local community and the world at large.

Co-Founder & CEO

Axios

Account Manager

Meredith Corporation

Client Services Manager

The Atlantic

Digital Media Planner

Brandon is the Managing Partner of New Edition, a fractional Head of Content shop for eCommerce brands, thought-leaders and service providers looking to launch, maintain, grow and monetize their content marketing efforts.

He is also a cofounder of For Others, a locally-conscious lifestyle and apparel brand based out of New York City that gives back based on zip code.

Brandon has spent over a decade in Digital Marketing, working at companies such as Atlantic Media, Meredith Corporation and Axios before starting his own ventures.

Brandon possesses a blend of experiences spanning entrepreneurship, eCommerce, branding, digital marketing, digital media, content and storytelling.

Brandon Blum

New York City is still undefeated (and that's coming from a Sixers fan).

Another special group of founders and investors last night at Founders Basketball.

🔋 Powered by: New Edition, Stifel Financial Corp., Justworks and Law by Levin #stifelventurebank

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