Patreon CPO says the company will double in size in 2022
- ByStartupStory | December 22, 2021
Creator monetization startups are cropping up left and right as the tech world embraces the fast-growing creator economy. But Patreon, founded in 2013, has been around since before words like “influencer” were in our vocabulary — back when “Tik Tok” was a Kesha song, rather than the social platform that everyone is trying to emulate.
After tripling its valuation to $4 billion earlier this year, Patreon is at a crossroads. Will it continue to be the company to beat when it comes to building for creators? At the same time, can Patreon stay ahead of its competition while making creators feel that the product is looking out for their best interests?
“We are not going to be one of those companies that defined the first eight years, but not the next eight years [of the creator economy],” Patreon Chief Product Officer Julian Gutman.
Speaking with TechCrunch about the platform’s plans for 2022, Gutman said that Patreon hopes to stay ahead of the curve by aggressively hiring, especially in product and engineering. Gutman himself only joined Patreon in January, bouncing over from Instagram, where he was head of Product for Instagram’s home feed experience. In August, Patreon also hired Senior VP of Engineering Utkarsh Srivastava, who formerly led teams at Google and Twitter.
“We’ve hired 60 folks across product, engineering and design in the last quarter, and kind of expect that pace of hiring to continue into the next year,” Gutman said. “We have folks joining from Instagram, Uber and Square, and all these companies that I would say are like the first generation of the creator economy.”
Patreon isn’t a new company, but Gutman thinks that since its mission from the get-go has been to help creative people make money, it’s better prepared to lead in this supposed “second generation” than social media platforms like his former employer Instagram. Regardless, social platforms are investing heavily in direct-to-creator payments. But Patreon’s model enables sustainable, monthly creator payouts, as opposed to one-time surprise bonuses.
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