Intrepid

Intrepid is a financial technology company that brings innovation, inspiration, and opportunity to every entrepreneur and business in the creator economy.

Our core product "Superstar" is a creator marketing management software designed to automate the way data-driven marketing teams operate. It offers an integrated platform to manage the entire lifecycle of creator marketing campaigns. 

The objective is to streamline processes from the creator discovery phase to payments, all while leveraging data-driven insights and fostering enhanced collaboration among stakeholders.

I recruit customers, partners and lead our global community.

Co-Founder | Community | Growth 

Activate America

Producer of Amplified Avondale https://www.instagram.com/amplifiedavondale/ 

Activate America leads urban transformation and regenerative placemaking projects, creating vibrant cultural hubs for economic revitalization and fosters community connection and cultural diversity.

As the Founder and CEO of Activate America, I orchestrated a transformative journey that significantly impacted the local community. We've achieved remarkable milestones:

Community Development: Our festival transitioned from a homogenous gathering into a diverse and inclusive event, with over 1,000 monthly attendees representing a rich tapestry of backgrounds, fostering an inclusive sense of community and cultural diversity.

Revenue Growth: Doubled and tripled revenue for local merchants, contributing to the economic vitality of the community.

Urban Revitalization: Pioneered the creation of a net-new entertainment district, catalyzing urban revitalization and cultural enrichment.

Founder and CEO

Delivering over a hundred keynote speeches, panels, and moderated discussions on Fintech, Modern Banking, Web3, Blockchain, AI, and the Future of Work.

Translating deep tech trends into human-centric insights, driven by my entrepreneurial, executive recruiting, and advisory background.

Public Speaker

Silver Creek Partners

Full time through 2016, select long term clients through 2023. Global reach.
Key Contributions:

Recruited and onboarded over 2500 professionals, driving substantial revenue growth and innovation for diverse organizations. Hundreds of customers from idea stage to F50.
Functional areas: Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Corporate Development
Roles: CSuite to individual contributor.
Google, SAP, SingTel, AIA, Flipt, Anheiser Busch, Salesforce,

Key Accomplishments:
Scaled startup engineering teams from initial hires to robust units of up to 40 engineers.

Led talent acquisition for a HealhTech startup from idea to a teams 140+ employees.

Led talent acquisition efforts for a Fortune 100 electronics manufacturer, resulting in 35 senior manager and executive hires within 12 months.

Scaled a Fortune 50 insurance company's newly formed division from a single employee to 35 senior hires in just 18 months, including relocating 25 senior executives to Singapore.

Oversaw organizational design and talent acquisition for a corporate development and Innovation business unit, culminating in 14 executive-level hires.

Drove early success for startups, consistently recruiting first customers in zero to one environments.

Founder | Executive Recruiter

Intrepid Ventures

Intrepid Ventures was a Blockchain and Web3 startup studio and innovation lab for founders and chief innovation officers.

Customer-facing leader with a proven track record of success in growing and engaging communities, launching successful events, and building relationships in the blockchain and Web3 space.

Grew a global invite-only community from 0 to 30,000+ members in 18 months. Community led insights and guidance helped to shape the thinking of community members and position them for success in the rapidly evolving blockchain and Web3 space.

Developed and launched more than 20 sponsored events across Southeast Asia through ecosystem partners including Visa, Prudential, AIA, IFC World Bank, IBM, and others, attracting over 10,000 attendees. 

Facilitated community-driven innovation and collaboration, resulting in the launch of multiple successful blockchain/crypto products across insurance, fintech, security, and gaming.

Intrepid Ventures | Co-Founder | Blockchain & Web3 Venture Studio

Creator Economy | Influencer Marketing | Community | Sales and Partnerships | Recruiting

I help Influencer Marketing teams unify, automate, and scale their operations so they can focus on growth vs. administrative tasks.


I've recruited and helped build amazing teams (onboarded 2500+ professionals).
I've designed and built global communities from zero to 30K+.
Designed, launched and produced 18 Music and Art Festivals, 5 large scale conferences and 100+ events
Co-founded 4 startups in  Blockchain, Healthech, Fintech and AI/Automation.

Zach Piester

Fixated

Building a next-generation digital media studio and talent representation firm with 'The Avengers' of the creator economy.

Chief Operating Officer

Nobody Studios

Radically rethinking how companies are built. Creating 100 revolutionary companies in 5 years.

Chairman, New Media Advisory Board

Creator Authority

Creator Authority is the one-stop shop for LinkedIn influencer campaigns.

Advisor

Alfan

Advisor to one of the largest digital talent, influencer marketing, and creator technology networks focused on the Middle East region. If you're looking to break into this exciting region with your content, let me know!

Advisor / Board Member

Spree

A healthier social feed.

Building a media company in the health and wellness industry using shoppable video to tell inspiring stories with creators and brands.

Please let me know if you want to join us on our mission to create a healthy, non-interruptive, positive social platform!

Chief Executive Officer

We Are Verified

Top-tier digital management agency (Insider's 2023 Top TikTok Agencies) focused on building businesses around creators that move culture including original content, NFTs, creator services on premium platforms, and influencer marketing campaigns, featured in MTV's 'Tana Turns 21'.

Wormhole Labs™

Building a live simulation of the real world generated by the power of the crowd, where users navigate the world as avatars to 'Wormhole', or teleport, to locations around the world to meet, chat, shop, and play.

Chief Executive Officer / Board Member

Facebook

Managed a team focused on signing and managing game live streaming talent, evangelizing new product to the market, and building programs for creators to find success on the Facebook platform. We give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.

Head of Gaming Creators, North America

Mobcrush

Built and managed creator network comprised of over 600,000 authenticated live-streamers. Based in Santa Monica, CA, Mobcrush is a technology and entertainment company at the epicenter of mobile gaming, live streaming and the creator-driven media revolution. The Mobcrush app, coupled with the newly announced ‘Go Live, Get Paid’ platform, provides a set of free tools and features that enable any mobile gamer to reach and grow an audience, where they are guaranteed to earn from $15 to $2,500 an hour for live streaming their gameplay. Mobcrush is venture funded by KPCB, Evolution Media, Raine Ventures, and First Round Capital.

Head of Creators

Studio71, LP

Oversaw the talent network, tech, and network operations teams at one of the largest influencer-driven digital entertainment companies, acquired by ProSieben.Sat1 in 2016 and received investment from TF1 and MediaSet in 2017. During this tenure the network grew over 700% by monthly views.

Digital Media Veteran / Building Digital Businesses, Moving Culture

Phil is a pioneer of the digital media revolution, working as a pre-YouTube professional web video producer in 2005, video content app creator before the smartphone revolution in 2007, an early exec in the MCN boom with two successful exits, and as the Head Gaming Creators at Facebook and Mobcrush, driving the live streaming and the creator-driven media paradigm shift. Currently, as CEO of Spree, Phil is building a media and technology company focused on shoppable video in the health and wellness space.

Previously, Phil was the Head of Gaming Creators, North America at Facebook and the Head of Creators at Mobcrush. In both roles, the departments saw significant growth working with top game streaming talent including Ronda Rousey, Disguised Toast, Corinna Kopf, Shroud, and Nate Hill, to name a few.

Phil was the COO of Studio71, one of the world's largest MCNs, growing the network from 1 billion to over 8 billion monthly views in 3 years with over 1,000 creators.

Before S71, Phil joined Fullscreen as the Head of Channel Partnerships as the 9th employee, completing his tenure as the VP of Networks. He grew the network to the largest MCN in the world (on comScore) in less than 1 year. He was the recipient of Fullscreen's first "Founders Award" for his role in building the industry-leading company.

In May 2006, Phil worked for Viva! Vision, who powered the #1 Latin channel designed specifically for mobile (Viva! Vision TV), the #1 Action Sports channel on V-Cast, and over a dozen mobile phone channels. Phil produced hundreds of hours of successful, digital-endemic original content.

In 2005, Phil created a comedy series for Turner's broadband channel SuperDeluxe.com, for which he acted as producer, director, and editor, called "Party Animals."  A trailer for the pilot was shown on national television when it placed top 5 in FX's "Make Your Own Pilot Competition."

Phil was also a popular comedian, performing at such prestigious LA venues as the Second City Los Angeles (and acting in their touring company aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines), the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater (improv program graduate), and comedy festivals across America. As a content creator, his videos have received over 100 million views on digital platforms bolstered by his work as a talent/producer on the YouTube channel "PronunciationManual" and co-hosts the "Two and a Half Sportsmen" podcast.

Phil Ranta

The out-of-control bump in health insurance costs is brutal for small businesses.

I can vouch. I run one of them.

The 66% estimated bump in premiums in California is already being felt.

By me.

I'm currently pricing that out for my team.

My napkin math puts me at an extra $10k+ I have to spend per month on insurance for my very small team, compared to a few years ago.

The cost of health insurance means I'm going to hire less people.

And each person I do hire is going to have to make a heck of a lot more revenue.

And that stress is going to mean less time for exercise, eating lousy food on the go, and less sleep.

Which will make them sicker.

Which will cause rates to rise even further.

This isn't a politically partisan post. This is a pragmatic business post.

How the heck are we the richest country in the world and so economically-disasterously terrible at keeping our workers healthy without destroying their finances?

CEO, Stealth Talent - Building Digital Businesses, Moving Culture / 20 yr Digital Media Veteran

What's happening with the creator economy in the Middle East?

In the past few weeks, MrBeast has announced a theme park in Saudi Arabia (a temporary pop-up, but still) and a non-profit initiative at the 1 Billion Follower Summit in Dubai.

In this edition of 'The Creato Rep', I go all-in on what's happening in MENA around creators, from their government support to their branding problems to the opportunities.

Also in this edition:

🇩🇰 Something’s Sensible in the State of Denmark
👻 Snap Gets Perplexity to Fix Complexity
🧑🏽‍⚖️ Mamdani Wins in Social-Media Forward Mayoral Race
👮🏻 Logan Paul Wins Lawsuit With a Bit of Shade From the Judge
💪🏼 Jobs from Fox, FaZe Clan, and UTA
🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Check out the full edition here >>> https://lnkd.in/d3HT_RdG

And, as always, if you like it, share it around!

A HUGE thank you to RockWater Industries and Chris Erwin for sponsoring this edition. If you're selling your creator economy company or looking to buy others, hit them up!

The most important convo we never have: what’s your desktop layout strategy?

My strategy:

I use a 34” LG curved screen as my second monitor. It’s about $300.

I keep 4 windows always up and in the same place:

- LinkedIn (messaging / lead lookup)
- Asana (task management)
- CRM (company info/tracking)
- ChatGPT (gets me unstuck)

I use my laptop screen as my ‘working screen’ for anything I need to swap in and out quickly.

Need a contact? LinkedIn or CRM.

Get distracted from my task? Look at the top of my Asana.

Get writer’s block? ChatGPT.

Have a manual task you don’t want to do? ChatGPT in agent mode.

Finish a task? Check off on Asana, go to the next item on the list, go to ChatGPT to give me a framework to complete the task efficiently if it’s a big one.

Need to change Spotify because you started on NoFX and ended up on Baby Shark Trap Remix? That would be the laptop screen.

I’m not joking when I say this method makes me twice as fast as when I’m on my laptop alone.

Maybe more.

What’s your desktop layout strategy?

The team from Stealth Talent breaks down all of the creator economy news and company happenings from the week!

Phil Ranta, Chris Ryan and 3 other attendees

Thank you to Favikon for featuring me at #14 on your influencer marketing Power 25.

I promise to wield my power as king, queen, and jester.

With an iron fist.

With a soft touch.

And as a ruthless cultural critic.

With my new found power, I now decree: “All influencer marketing shall be entertainment first and commercials second.”

I also decree: “Results are more important than attribution.”

And finally: “Low budgets can always be overcome with big creative.”

I’ll be awaiting my crown, scepter, and castle, which must be delivered to Mid-City Los Angeles post-haste!

Influencer marketing takes forever to figure out. But it's the fastest way to reach millions.

For years, marketers asked: does this actually work?
Influencer people kept defending their $1,500 reels.Then a few voices changed everything.

They didn't just talk.

They built it.

Shared what works, what doesn't.

We learned a lot from them.

Here are the 25 most influential voices in US influencer marketing right now.

Not theorists. Actual builders running real creator partnerships. They cover performance, content, micro campaigns, big brand deals.

Could we add more?

Yeah.

Tons of smart people in this space.

But these 25 are shaping things today.

If you work with creators, follow them.

IM Power 25 U.S.

You can't do everything yourself and grow optimally.

Well, in an AI world, you will, but is that really doing it all yourself at that point?

I digress...

Right now, you may have to build a creative team.

And most of you suck at it. Sorry...

I'll give you my framework to make it super easy to build a creative team that can nail your brand voice without a bunch of hiring and firing.

As always, if you like 'Grow 1%', share it with everyone!

And a HUGE thank you to RockWater Industries and Chris Erwin for sponsoring this newsletter. Selling your creator economy company? Exploring buying others? Hit them up!

This is 'Grow 1%', the short weekly newsletter with tips to improve your social media strategy by 1%. Subscribe so it gets delivered to your inbox! An

Open article: Building the Right Team by Phil Ranta • 5 min read

Beehiiv has announced a significant suite of updates for its newsletter platform.

It's not fair to call them a 'newsletter platform' anymore.

I'll discuss the challenges and benefits for platforms and creators when a platform begins to become more of an 'everything store'.

Also in this edition:

📳 Syracuse Goes All-In on the Creator Economy
📝 TikTok Puts Up a Bulletin Board
💰 YouTube Courts Advertisers with Show ‘Premieres’
❤️ iHeart and TikTok Podcast Together
💪🏼 Jobs from TMZ, Team One, and Sepulveda Sanchez Accident Attorneys
🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Check out the full edition here >>> https://lnkd.in/gjFqY68Y

As always, if you like it, share it with everyone!

And a HUGE thank you to my sponsor RockWater Industries and Chris Erwin, the leaders in creator economy M&A. Reach out and sell your company for a boatload!

Just got back from the AI & Creativity Summit: LA Edition (thanks for the tix Shira Lazar!)

There were a ton of amazing companies doing wonderful work with tools that allow creatives to do what they do better, faster, and stronger.

Then there were the AI-forward creatives themselves.

Those were tougher for me.

I'll break down what I think they keep getting wrong in this edition of 'Grow 1%', and how I believe you can use AI without lying to yourself so you can feel better about using AI.

As always, if you like it, send it to everyone you know!

Open article: What Everyone Gets Wrong About AI by Phil Ranta • 6 min read

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