I didn’t mean to become a creator. I launched Open Gardens as a personal push—a way to hold myself accountable to exploring what’s next. If I committed to publishing every week, I’d be forced to read more, watch more, dig deeper into the shifts happening around us: AI, short-form storytelling, audience migration, creator ecosystems.
It wasn’t about building a platform. It was about building a mindset.
The only way to see the blue ocean ahead is to stop staring into the blood-red one you’re swimming in. That’s where this started.
Twice a week, I sit down with Mitch and Fernando—my small but mighty team. Mitch comes from the music world. Fernando came up on Wall Street. Very different paths, but we’re united by a shared passion: we all love great storytelling—whether delivered in a song, a show, a doc, a movie, or whatever’s coming next. We grew up on it, worked in it, still believe in it. And now we’re trying to figure out how to keep that love alive in a rapidly changing universe.
Open Gardens started as a personal challenge—but it’s become a shared practice. A way of looking at the world not through fear, but fascination.
Not just “what’s being disrupted?”—but “what’s being created?”
I’m still the CEO of 3Pas Studios, and we’re still deeply committed to making great TV and film. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is how we think about it. We’re exploring how to build audiences before we build content. How to hold them in. How to find new opportunities in the creator space—especially across Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic market. We’re asking how to create real hybrids between digital and legacy storytelling. In that way, Open Gardens isn’t just a newsletter—it’s the R&D lab for how we apply these ideas in the real world.
I love movies, and I’ve found a new kind of cinematic ambition in what Creator Camp is building—genre-driven storytelling that’s fast, inventive, and emotionally resonant. It’s filmmaking outside the system, but with all the energy and vision that made me fall in love with movies in the first place.
I love TV, and watching Kinigra Deon create her own multi-character sitcom universe has been a revelation. She’s writing, producing, and starring in something that feels like classic television—but she owns it, controls the cadence, and reaches her audience directly.
I love unscripted, and the joy I get from watching The Sidemen is real. They’ve turned YouTube into their own reality playground—chaotic, funny, and endlessly watchable. It’s the kind of group chemistry and episodic storytelling that traditional unscripted TV used to thrive on, now fully reimagined.
I love podcasts, and Sonoro impressed me with how they’ve evolved. What started as a network has become a full creator-driven ecosystem—building franchises, developing IP, and treating audio like just one entry point into a larger story world.
So today, I want to share some early observations—a working list of mindset shifts that I think can help legacy producers, creatives, and executives not just survive, but thrive. It’s incomplete by design. I’ll keep revisiting it. And I hope you will too. Use the discussion section to drop your thoughts. Let’s crowdsource this puppy. Hold hands. And jump into the void.
The Mindset Shift
1. Creators aren’t talent—they’re studios.
They write, shoot, edit, distribute, and market. They are the machine. If you treat them like a hired actor or influencer, you're missing both the point and the upside. And honestly, they won’t even take your call unless you bring something they actually want or need. The question I’m always asking now is: where’s the white space? Where does one plus one equal ten?
2. Which means the best legacy producers are now Sherpas.
You’re not there to direct the vision—you’re there to help them climb. Creators aren’t just personalities—they create. They know how to build for their community in their native mediums. They know what their audience wants, how to speak to them, how to make it land. If you’re bringing them into legacy storytelling, you better bring them in with respect—and a clear understanding of what’s working for them already. You can help shape the arc, heighten the emotion, and craft the structure—but you’re not the star. You're there to elevate, not overwrite.
3. And if it’s a legacy project, make it feel like an event—not just an extension.
Once you've earned their trust, don’t just try to convert their content into a more “official” format. That’s not the win. The win is to make something that feels like a moment for their audience. Something new, different, and worth showing up for. That doesn’t mean abandoning their DNA—it means remixing it. The best projects in this space feel like both an evolution and a celebration. They're not just branded content or up-leveled YouTube videos—they’re narrative milestones. They deepen the relationship between creator and community because they feel earned.
4. If you're coming from legacy and trying to build something on social platforms like YouTube, it means you need to define what quality looks like.
Remember when punk rock hit in the ’70s? Parents said it was trash. And musically, a lot of it was—at least by traditional standards. But it meant something. It was raw, loud, and disruptive. And it inspired a wave of artists who took that energy and turned it into something more expansive, more ambitious. That’s how we got The Clash, even the Talking Heads—bands who were shaped by the chaos, not defined by it.
Same goes for creators. As Doug Shapiro puts it: first they disrupt, then the quality rises. Disruption comes first. Then come the creators who grow up inside that chaos and start to do something more with it. We’re already seeing that shift play out—which leads to my next point...
5. That said, quality is starting to matter—but only if you can do it scrappy.
The best creator content is getting sharper: MrBeast, Michelle Khare, Mark Rober. But if you tried to make those shows in Hollywood, they’d cost four times more. The creator mindset is: build it lean, test it fast, profit on the long tail.
And now, the market is starting to expect more. We’re seeing a real demand for premium: over half of YouTube viewership now happens on TV screens, not phones. That changes the expectations. Audiences want content that can hold up on a 65-inch OLED. And YouTube knows it—just look at how they’re organizing channels into seasons, episodes, and collections. They're nudging creators toward longer-form, serialized, higher-quality work. But make no mistake: even as quality goes up, budgets can’t balloon like they do in legacy. The magic trick is doing it better, without doing it bigger. That’s the game now.
6. Which brings me to a term I just heard: Bootstrap VC.
A manager/entrepreneur in the creator space I just met in his early 30s is crushing it—he’s built a talent management company and the picks-and-axes around it with no outside capital. Just sweat and instinct. Build it small, scale it smart, then go raise. Classic startup wisdom. But it’s a deeply creator-native mindset.
7. And that takes us to VC vs. PE—know your capital lane.
VCs trying to back wild new creator business at seed stage are falling on their face. Why? They’re betting on unproven ideas. PE, meanwhile, is rolling up mature businesses and finding operational efficiencies. Translation: creators don’t need your seed money. They need leverage. That’s a very different pitch.
8. Legacy isn’t dead—and your skills still matter.
It’s getting harder to get things made. For some, it’s a drought. For others, it’s one project instead of four. The studio world is contracting—that’s real. But it’s not over. There’s still a path forward if you can stay nimble. Keep the plates spinning where you can, even as you start experimenting in digital.
And this is also what makes you valuable to creators. Many are hiring legacy execs to run their companies, advise on development, or consult on scripted. They don’t have your reps—you do. You’ve seen how to shape an arc, build a world, hold tension. Nobody’s built The White Lotus or The Bear on YouTube yet. That kind of depth still requires craft. But the distance is shrinking. So don’t lose sight of your value. It’s not obsolete. It just needs to evolve.
9. And creators? They experiment by default.
They develop in real time. Kinigra Deon drops a 30-minute short—if it hits, she builds it into a series. If not, it stands alone. No big deal. Whalar didn’t build The Lighthouse until creators in L.A. literally told them what they wanted. Creators lead with testing, not theory (which is why VC is the wrong bet, they don’t even believe in their ideas until they see how they build and grow).
10. That’s why you can’t judge creator content through a legacy lens.
Your eight-time Emmy-winning FX drama isn’t the right comparison for a guy slinging watches in Times Square. Different goals. Different context. Same emotional triggers. Story still matters—we’re just using different tools to tell it.
11. But that only works if you’re actually paying attention.
Don’t critique from the sidelines. Watch more shit. Be curious. Get lost in the weird corners of YouTube and TikTok. Study what’s working and ask why. Curiosity beats credentials—especially here.
12. Because distribution is no longer the moat—attention is.
Anyone can upload. The real challenge? Making someone care. And harder still: making them stick around.
13. But here’s the flip side: in a world of infinite speed and scale, the handmade and human will become more valuable, not less.
And so will hybrid work—AI plus human craft. Use the tools or don’t, but you better be thinking about what’s going to feel premium in a sea of sameness. What signals care, perspective, originality? What stands out because it couldn't be made by a bot in 3 seconds? That’s what grabs—and keeps—attention.
14. And don’t assume the model that works today will still work tomorrow.
As Reid Hoffman said recently on Colin & Samir: expect that things will always evolve. Don't get precious about the playbook that’s working now. Platforms shift. Algorithms change. Audiences drift. The mindset has to be: tomorrow will be different—so how will you flow with it? That’s not panic. That’s resilience.
15. Which leads to a simple truth: there is no one model.
Some people will watch AI-generated content. Some won’t. Some will pay for Netflix and HBO. Others will live on YouTube and TikTok. Some will prefer paid subscriptions, some will want ad-supported, some will want everything free. So stop searching for the silver bullet. Instead, build a portfolio of models. Diversify. Test. Don’t try to make one thing work for everyone—build different businesses that serve different behaviors. That’s how you survive change: not with dogma, but with options.
16. Which brings us right back to the world creators already understand.
They’re not waiting for someone to declare a dominant format. They’re building, testing, tweaking. The only “model” that matters is the one that works for your community.
17. And remember—we’re still in the early innings.
I’ve heard this again and again from smart, successful people working deep inside the creator space—even just this week. No one has all the answers. There are no true experts. Creator companies that have only existed for a few years are being acquired for massive multiples. That doesn’t mean everyone selling is a genius. It just means the business is evolving—fast.
So if you feel behind, don’t. There’s still time to figure this out. I don’t pretend to be an expert either. But I’ve read, watched, and absorbed so much that I’m becoming more fluent every day. It starts with one thing: shifting your mindset. The rest builds from there.
18. Think about where communities exist—but haven’t been claimed by creators.
There are shared-interest ecosystems out there just waiting for someone to build around them. I got hit up this week by someone on LinkedIn who’s creating content for armed forces vets. Brilliant. Specific. Purpose-driven. And most importantly—no creator owns it yet. Now he does. These are open gardens—places where people gather but no one’s planting content designed for them. Find those. Build there. Hold them in your flywheel.
19. And if you’re chasing capital, don’t think like a legacy producer.
Brands are hard to reach. And most of them aren’t interested in your scripted dramedy about three Gen Zers living in Chicago. They have their own mandates. But capital is coming into content—just through different doors. If you can get to a brand or backer, ask what they actually want. What community are they trying to serve? Then ask: Can you build something repeatable and scalable for that audience?
Don’t just pitch a show—pitch a system. Pitch a world. Better yet, pitch an underserved community and show why they need content now. If you can do that—and figure out how to project the value around that idea (let me know when you figure that out)—you might get in. Most capital will chase creators with communities already. But if you can build the map to a new one, they might just follow.
20. And while we’re on that subject—the long tail might be commerce.
You might love making documentaries or digital shows. Great. But you could also be bootstrapping your way toward something bigger: a community that buys what you believe in. That’s the long tail. So as part of your portfolio mindset, ask yourself: What’s the idea? What’s the community it serves? And what’s the commerce it could generate? Maybe it’s a show about wellness—and the perfect creator to lead it already has a loyal following in that space. Great. Now build the content to hold that audience and the infrastructure to activate them.
That’s the full-stack play: community, content, commerce.
It’s already being tested at scale. And it’s one more lens for building a business that lasts.
As a fresh creator coming from a theater background this is so useful.
Something I might add to that list is the idea of being prolific versus being perfect.
Traditional development processes for film take years without any testing.
Today, people are creating vertical dramas in less than three months with the same amount of money.
By the end of the experiment (around three months) they have a 90 pages script, just like a movie, with an actual series filmed, edited and tested with audiences.
There's an opportunity in changing that "development" mindset from investing in household names to develop projects into financing new creators to developing proof of concept for shows in a short-form format.
That's another way studio execs could gain the trust of creators: you bet on a bunch of promising ones before they get huge, test the IP with a proof of concept in short-form as part of the "development phase", and scale the ones that work out as you mentioned to get a better pay off.
Prolific beats perfect.
Who are the creators building communities around fictional narrative to watch out for? You mentioned Kenigra Deon. Any others recs?