Hey! Welcome back to the Creator Economy NYC newsletter, your weekly hit of insights and strategies to help you build, monetize, and scale as a creator.
A lot of creators spend months agonizing over their niche, their format, and how they're going to monetize before they ever hit publish.
Ian Sowden skipped straight past that.
He launched an Instagram and TikTok account around something he already knew inside and out: New York City. In a matter of weeks, he built an audience of 200,000+ followers. And because he built it on top of a skill that already had a price tag, professional tour guiding, that audience converted into revenue almost instantly: $1,000 private tours, booked out from day one.
This week: Ian on how he found his lane, why he went high-ticket instead of high-volume, and why having too many leads is a very real operational problem.
(Editorial note: Ian took our interview call while walking the streets of Manhattan. The background audio included sirens, traffic, and him stopping to say hello to his local deli guy. It doesn't get more New York than that.)
Let's get into it. Plus, our next event on $$$
How Ian Sowden turned a lifetime of New York knowledge into a creator business
Ian spent years working behind the scenes in the creator economy, helping creators with millions of subscribers run Kickstarter campaigns and figure out monetization. Because of that proximity, people kept asking him for content advice.
"I didn't really feel like I was actually qualified to give advice on content," Ian told us. "I kind of thought, well, I might as well actually practice what I preach and show that I know how to make a good video, too."
He picked tour guiding as his lane. It was his first job out of high school, he loved doing it, and he had an endless supply of interesting facts about the city memorized. It was low-friction content to produce.
"It's an endless source of interesting facts because it's New York," he said. "Something I'm uniquely positioned to do because I am in New York and most people aren't. And most people in New York aren't tour guides."
What started as a low-stakes experiment turned into something much bigger. Here's what he learned building it.
Find the audience, don't wait for them to find you
Most creators start with what they want to make, and then try to convince an audience to care. Ian did the opposite.
He started out making history-driven content: videos about the 1811 Commissioner's Plan and architectural deep dives.
"Actually, people really don't care about that," Ian laughed. "Most people really want to know where to get a nice meal next to Times Square. They want to know what's a great bar they can go on a date night for."
He kept experimenting with formats until the data told him what the audience actually wanted. He ran a "Why does New York..." series. Then a "The biggest mistake you can make in New York is..." series. When a video outperformed the baseline, he doubled down.
@ian_in_nyc Actually one of my happiest videos to have filmed and Joe was such a pleasure to hang out with. He’s not on TT but check out his IG!
His current winning format? "Did you know that if you come to [landmark] and go left, right, up, down, you'll arrive at [hidden gem]."
"I like to say that I found the audience instead of them finding me," Ian said. "I tried to find what type of content there was a big demand for and then supply it, rather than saying this is the type of content I make and I'm going to try to get people to want it."
🔒 Don't fuhgeddaboudit: Your first format is rarely your best. Keep testing until the data tells you what your audience actually wants, then build a repeatable format around it.
Face familiarity builds high-trust businesses
From day one, Ian had a hard constraint: his face had to be in the videos.
"It doesn't really matter if I get a billion views. If people don't know who I am and what I have to offer, it's worthless," he said.
That familiarity is what builds trust. Most of his viewers get served one video, save it because it's useful, and then Ian starts showing up in their feed again and again. Before long, they feel like they know him: the guy with the funky glasses who knows New York inside and out.
Ian realized early on that he couldn't compete in the commoditized market. He wasn't going to sell $30 tickets for a double-decker bus tour, competing on volume and price against companies that have been doing it for 50 years. Instead, he went high-ticket. He charges $1,000 for a private, day-long guided trip around the city.
"If you've already paid three grand for a business class flight and you've already paid $700 to $800 a night for a hotel... that guy that you really trust that knows everything about New York, why wouldn't you spend a grand to have him be your buddy for a day and show you around?"
The trust he builds through content is what makes that price feel like a no-brainer to the right person.
🔒 Don't fuhgeddaboudit: Competing on volume is often a losing game for solo creators. A $1,000 offer needs a lot fewer yeses than a low-ticket one to hit the same revenue, and trust is what gets you there.
The operational reality of going viral
Ian's content strategy was designed with one simple funnel in mind: watch the video, trust the guide, book the tour.
It worked almost too well.
If he posts three days in a row, he averages a new inbound lead every 10 to 15 minutes. The day before we spoke to him, he had sold four $1,000 tours in a day.
But having too many leads is a real operational problem when you're a solo operator. Ian admits he's terrible at texting and emailing, and that his most expensive mistake early on was letting warm leads go unanswered because he couldn't keep up with the volume.
He also noted that high-ticket sales rarely happen on autopilot.
"Everything had to ultimately be done with a personal touch," he said. "There is almost nobody that is just booking because they clicked the link in bio and pulled out their card. They almost always require a little bit of, yeah, just make sure you're a real person, make sure everything's okay."
🔒 Don't fuhgeddaboudit: A great content funnel doesn't replace a great follow-up. Your leads are only worth what you actually close.
Steal This Playbook
Three things to steal from Ian's playbook:
Pick a topic you can talk about effortlessly. If content creation feels like pulling teeth, you're in the wrong lane. Pick the thing you already have an endless supply of stories about, or feel comfortable doing.
Build on a skill you can already get paid for. Ian didn't sit down and design a monetization funnel. He was already a working tour guide before, so the value existed before the content did. The videos just had one job: prove he was legit and drive the business.
Trust scales better than volume. Ian didn't need a massive audience to hit real numbers, he needed a smaller number of people who trusted him enough to say yes at a higher price. Figure out how many actual yeses you need to hit your goal, not how many followers. Often that comes down to the game you’re playing - lower ticket and higher volume or higher ticket and lower volume.
The NYC Minute
We've started asking creators what it's like to build their businesses specifically in NYC. For Ian, the answer is pretty simple: this business could not exist anywhere else.
"I wouldn't be able to do something like this in London, even, let alone Philadelphia," he told us. "No offense…but people just aren't that interested. Everyone in the world is interested in New York. There are 55 million tourists a year that come here. It's a lot of people."
Ian is running what is, technically, a very online business. But because of New York, he spends less time staring at a screen than he ever has.
"I wake up in the morning, I walk out the door, and I do a tour of New York, or I start filming. The guy at the halal cart knows me. I'm always on the street."
Our next event: Sept 9th - Creator Money Moves Mixer with Relay
We’re teaming back up with our friends at Relay for another night bringing together some of NYC’s top creators, operators, and industry leaders.
This time, we’re talking money moves as a creator.
Join us for drinks, meeting people worth meeting, and a live conversation with leading NYC creators on how they’re growing beyond brand deals, building new revenue streams, and turning creator income into something bigger.
If you’ve already built real momentum and are thinking about what’s next, this night is for you.
Come meet. Come learn. Make some money moves.
Two free tools top creators use to keep themselves moving
The Creator Goal Setting Guide (FREE): A simple but powerful document to help you declare who you want to BECOME in 2026. Get it here.
The Creator Accountability System (FREE): Your visual companion for consistent creation in 2026. Get it here.
Thanks for reading! Ian's story boils down to one thing: pick a lane you can talk about in your sleep, then build trust before you ask anyone to pay for it.
Before you post again this week, ask yourself: are you making the content you want to make, or the content your audience is actually asking for? Go find out.
F*ck It, Create It,
Brett
With research, interview and editorial support by Taylor Cromwell - a newsletter and creator economy expert and founder of Creator Diaries. Follow Taylor on LinkedIn.