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.
May is AAPI Heritage Month, and we wanted to use this week's spotlight to celebrate someone who's been in the CENYC community and building something seriously worth paying attention to.
Sarah Whittle has been behind billions of views for some of the most recognizable brands on the internet, like Duolingo, Crocs, and more. And about six months ago, she left it all to bet on the one brand nobody else can copy: herself.
This week: what Sarah's refuse-to-fit-one-box career actually teaches us about building something uncopyable.
Let's get into it.
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A smart example of how creator monetization is continuing to expand beyond just products and brand deals.
Your uniqueness is your superpower. This NYC creator is building a business on it.
Most creator advice tells you to pick a lane.
Sarah Whittle's entire career is proof that the lane is you, and you're allowed to be more than one thing.
Over the last decade-plus, Sarah has been the brain behind billions of views for some of the most recognized brands on the internet: Duolingo, Crocs, and more.
She made Ad Age's 40 Under 40. And about six months ago, she walked away from her role at Duolingo to build two things simultaneously: Unicorn Social, her social media consultancy, and her own creator brand.
She didn't leave because she had it all figured out. She left because the market kept telling her something she finally decided to listen to.
Here's what that actually looks like in practice:
Your best signal isn't an epiphany. Often, it’s a pattern.
Sarah will tell you she's a "woo-woo Aquarius who listens to signs." But strip the woo-woo out and what you're left with is pattern recognition.
For two to three years straight, major brands kept coming to her with the same pitch: "We want you to come in and make our brand big. We want our brand as well known as a Crocs."
Same ask. Different company. Over and over.
"I took that as a sign of: okay, I am really good at this," she says. "I knew I was good at it, but having that outside reinforcement... now I think it's my chance to make that brand for myself."
That's pattern recognition. When the same opportunity keeps knocking, eventually you have to ask yourself why you're not answering.
🔒 Don't fuggedabout it: The signal you're waiting for has probably already shown up. Start noticing what keeps coming back.
"Build it as it comes" is a strategy, not a cop-out.
When Sarah announced her departure on LinkedIn, the advice she kept getting landed on the same line: "You'll figure it out as you go. Build it as it comes."
She's not pretending the bet is easy. There's an "unspoken (but very loud) pressure to perform perfectly" inside social media jobs, a pressure to craft the perfect post and drive the perfect results. Stepping out from under that is its own adjustment.
Her reframe is worth writing down:
"Professional athletes don't even have a perfect record. Yet they're still considered 'the greats.' … Trying is actually DOING. And putting yourself out there is 99% of the work."
It also changed what her own channels are for. Inside a brand, everything she posted had to drive impact and results. On her own, the rules are different. Her platforms are her "public creative journal," a place to "create and post what I want without the reliance of bringing impact or results."
That's a different standard, and for creators early in building their own thing, it might actually be the more sustainable one.
🔒 Don't fuggedabout it: If you're waiting until you can guarantee results before you start posting, you're just waiting.
Your unique background is the product.
So why "Unicorn"? Sarah made the handle back in 2011, when she says "you didn't dare put your government name on social media." Lol.
She picked the name for anonymity, and it turned into something she actually meant.
"I am a unicorn of media and social," she says. "From television, from short form, from brand marketing, product marketing, tech marketing — I've really done it all. So to me, having multi talents and a big portfolio career kinda fits into who I am myself, because I have different personalities depending on the room I'm in."
The career path that might look scattered on a resume, TV production, then creators at Smosh, then brand marketing at Crocs, then Duolingo, is actually the whole point. She's the person who's done all of it, and that combination is what no one else can replicate.
"I've always just been a storyteller at heart," she says.
Television, short form, brand campaigns, the medium kept shifting, but the core skill traveled with her.
This is also, not coincidentally, what makes her perspective as a Korean American creator so central to her work. With AAPI Heritage Month as the backdrop for this spotlight, we asked Sarah what her background means to what she builds.
"I am so grateful for the experience that I had growing up in a mixed race household that make me as curious and creative as I am today."
She went further:
"I'm Korean-American, I'm a woman in a male-dominated field, I'm a TV and pop culture stan, I'm a cat mom, I'm a wife, I'm a daughter of an immigrant. All these pieces are a part of the mosaic of me that influences how I see the world and tell the stories only I can tell."
That's a content strategy as much as it is a personal reflection. The more specifically you can name the mosaic that makes you you, the harder you become to copy.
"Each of us have that special POV in us that we can express through our content and I fully believe: there's so much space for all of us to tell our stories."
🔒 Don't fuggedabout it: The zigzag path, the unusual combination of experiences, the things you've been downplaying on your resume, those are probably what make you hardest to copy. Name them. Use them.
Sarah's story is a reminder that you already have one of your own.
The question is whether you're treating the most specific, unusual, hard-to-categorize things about yourself as noise to manage or material to build with.
Figure that out, and you're most of the way there.
P.S. You can find Sarah pretty much anywhere social:
Community is how you stay sane while building.
Sarah at our January “Creator Kickoff” event sharing her F*ck It, Create It goal
One more thing worth calling out, because Sarah said it better than most:
"When I first went into building my own social media consulting business, I was told I would be lonely. Creator/entrepreneurship has proven the opposite. I've been able to find myself in so many rooms with like-minded people and often run into the same people multiple times a week at different events."
She added: "Tell everyone about your dreams and aspirations. You never know who is listening."
Building something uncopyable takes time, and having people around you doing the same thing is what makes that sustainable.
Which is exactly why we keep building these rooms through CENYC.
Next event coming soon, but while I have you…
We’re collecting responses for our 2026 State of Your Creator Business survey, and I’d really love your input.
It’s a quick, anonymous 2 minute survey about how creators are actually earning, managing money, and operating their businesses right now.
The goal is to bring real creator perspectives directly to the brands, banks, platforms, and software companies building for this industry, so the future of the creator economy is shaped by actual creators, not assumptions!
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. If Sarah's story doesn't make you stop trying to fit into someone else's box, I don't know what will. See you next week.
F*ck It, Create It,
Brett
With research, interview and editorial support by Taylor Cromwell
