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Amanda Northcutt, founder and chief executive officer of Level Up Creators. Level Up Creators

"The vast majority of my career has been made up of many happy accidental events," starts Amanda Northcutt the founder and CEO of Level Up Creators. "My path has been super irregular and non-linear. However, that's the case for most people. It's not uncommon for us to land in the place we're supposed in the event that we're deliberate and strategically."

Her parents always joke that she never spoke before my brother started university. "My brother's an extremely well-known lawyer, but he took up every inch of airspace in the house. He attended college when I was 14 and was about to enter high school. I started coming into my own when that space was available inside the house."

Amanda's first position was in the shoe store. "Everyone was convinced that I'd be a failure because I was very shy. I completely came out of my shell, and I began selling shoes in a blaze of glory and breaking sales records across the country. I loved it! I fell in love with business at the age of 16, and I was sure at this point that's what I wanted to pursue."

Then Amanda went to university and linked up with a friend who was launching a website and needed someone to sell advertisements on the site. "This was in 2005 when selling online advertisements was similar to banner ads. It was like selling air! I heard the word "no often and got past any apprehension of selling my products to customers quick," she recalls.

Then being thrown to the bottom of the

"I learned my craft from being in the deep end," she continues. "I parlayed that little sale into a much bigger sales gig at a young company known as TexAgs.com and ended up working there for more than a decade. That's where I really learned business." At this point she came up with the model of membership that recurring revenue can bring, increasing value, increasing LTV as well as selling sponsorships.

"It's no longer a cute small site anymore. It's the biggest collegiate fan website in the world. I was the 2nd employee there, and I had an absolute blast," she smiles. "I learned how to run and manage employees. This is where I was enthralled by the concept of membership as well as recurring revenue. That was in 2005. In the next year, I'll be here for more than two decades. Amazing how quickly time passes!"

The company attracted thousands of customers who paid $13 per month for details about Texas A&M University sports teams. "We have also broken the secret to changing banner advertisements to sponsorships (brand contracts in modern terms). The companies were trying to get their message out to our readers and we were allowing them very unique access points which could be tracked and made a difference for these companies," she says.

Amanda adopted the model and created Northcutt Media, using the sponsorship model that they refined at TexAgs Then, they expanded the model to other websites across the country. "That was my first business when I was 22 years old. It was a great opportunity to travel a lot and such things."

A few years after, her health began to suffer. "I required some time off, but also dial in on living a healthy lifestyle," - Amanda needed to adjust the balance of her daily life priorities which included her husband, health and baby son.

Amanda has started to share about her journey to health more publically and is planning to share more. She's found that women with high stress jobs are more likely to be afflicted with an autoimmune condition or similar. "The more I am at risk, the more likely I can lead the charge in that way," she says. "Every time I say something concerning my experience, somebody is new and comes up to me, messages me and says 'Hey, do we want to talk?', and it's so amazing."

Amanda has changed the rules. "I had to be mother to my children. I needed to be the person who was in charge of my health, and I wanted to become an expert." In an effort to bring back some order to her job, she and her husband sold their business partner from Member Up and took it over, to run as a consultancy.

"I enjoyed my experience helping members run businesses that covered all kinds of topics. It was stuff people would not even think about except if you're living in this universe and know there's an area for every sort of topic, and there are users on the web who would like what you offer." Following a lengthy stint in the membership niche then she switched to part-time executive roles at various SaaS organizations around the world.

In this new more balanced life, Amanda reduced her work by 20-30 hours a week, but she was determined to be "extraordinarily effective" for every organization she worked for. She quit Silicon Valley at the end of 2022, to found Level Up Creators: "I decided to apply everything I'd learned in the B2B and primarily SaaS industry, and apply that to creators - especially women.

"I'm keen to help women to create wealth cycles that last generations and leverage their knowledge through providing enormous value to their communities and people who follow them and receive compensation in kind."

Level Up Creators offers services. Level Up Creators

What is it that Level Up Creators do? "We're seeking to increase impact and income specifically for female creators. I truly believe I've assembled the most experienced team of entrepreneurs in the world," she replies.

They aid people to determine their current location, the direction they're heading and what's preventing the way to get there. They then plan the best way to break down these barriers and get you the direction you'd like to take. "Our ideal situation is when you've gathered followers around one particular topic that's crucial - and you have 50,000 social media followers and or more than 2,000 email users."

"When you contact us, I'll probably ask you about a hundred questions at first," says Amanda. "I'm always trying to figure out before I'm able to comprehend." Amanda collects both qualitative and quantitative data of a creator to ensure they are able to help them determine their options.

"We would like to help specialists in the field create an entire product line. We'd like to have to create lead magnets. Then, a course, perhaps a three-part masterclass or similar And then, we'd change to a recurring income product. It could be a $49, $179 or even an annual membership of $249."

In the future, Level Up Creators would move customers to group coaching with greater levels of recurring income. This happens the time when "you are capable of providing consistently high-quality, repeatable quality that is on the mark for your audience of followers and customers," she adds.

The Level Up Creators team - image (c) welevelupcreators.com

This is how she assists people to develop their creative mindset. "Oftentimes experts in their field of expertise creators are hesitant to do brand deals or to make items and then ask the audience to purchase the products. My goal is to educate creators about the fact that they're in such an extraordinary position to provide value over and above what can be provided for free on social media.

"We all want to be respected, power relationship, love and respect - foundational desires," she continues. "We believe that we are connected to the creators that we admire. We have a lot of information about their lives and we want to emulate them." Amanda believes that when creators provide the opportunity for us to grow than them, it's a great possibility for them to market items that are valuable and assist followers in achieving their goals, resulting in "a virtuous cycle of value".

"We have a greater affinity for creators than we do these gigantic global legacy brands because we're talking with a person, not the logo. Our mission number one is to say, 'It's fine to make money from selling stuff because customers want to buy the products you've got.' We don't do poor sales or marketing and we don't work with people who aren't offering real value to their communities. It's like table stakes."

The future, and the demise of legacy brands

"I'm excited to be in a place that we're assisting creators once in a new way, and also expanding our help to women,"" Amanda muses. The company is a professional company, however we're striving to mirror our clients' business, by being a Creator-first firm ourselves." She sums in the sense that they're here to educate creators on how to think like CEOs and properly run their businesses.

"We are developing some amazing products!" she laughs. The team is launching an initiative called the Level Up Creators School on the 1st of March 2024. This is a subscription-based educational institution for creatives. "We'll provide our expertise and know-how to offer the exact training, community, tools, and high-touch support to aid creators to reach the next milestone in their income which for many artists will be $50,000 MRR and we'll use our Fastest Path To 50 framework for helping people get there. This is awesome!"

As a last thought on the entire industry, Amanda concludes: "The world is moving toward this direct-to-consumer approach where the creators hold more control in consumer spending and content curation. It's amazing the amount of affection that fans have for creators they love."

Amanda explains that millennials and Gen Xers aren't relying on big legacy brands to get their information anymore "These major cable networks are nothing but dinosaurs! They can either get on this train or they are gonna die."

"I have decided to take my shots: that's the future. I've built a company to make that dream a realisation and assist people to become immensely prosperous. I'd like money to be distributed to creators, instead of huge corporations. The idea is, "All right, let somebody else get a chance! This is a great time to become a creator of content!" she smiles.

More information

Amanda Northcutt is a consultant as well as a coach, and six-time executive who has developed and scaled online businesses for D2C B2C, D2C, as well as B2Bs.

She established Level Up Creators to help influential creator educators build profitable businesses that are sustainable. Level Up Creators offers strategies and tools to those who have at least one existing product in fields such as wellness, personal finance, travel or sports, and is ready to expand the impact of their work and earn a profit. For more information, visit welevelupcreators.com.