Content Isn't Your Business. It's Your Marketing.
Aiden Hiko
MrBeast's chocolate business made more money in 2024 than his entire YouTube operation.
His media company, the thing he built his name on, the thing that turned him into the most-subscribed creator in YouTube history, reportedly ran at a loss. Feastables didn't. And that's the whole story, if you know how to read it.
This isn't about MrBeast specifically. It's about a model shift that's been happening quietly for five years and is now undeniable. The creators winning at scale are not the ones with the best content strategy. They're the ones who figured out that content isn't the business. It's the marketing.
When the Biggest Creator on Earth Can't Profit From Content
Let's be precise about what happened here.
MrBeast didn't just "launch a food brand." He used a hundred million subscribers, the result of fifteen years of obsessive content investment, as a zero-cost distribution channel for a product business. Feastables reportedly spends close to nothing on paid advertising because every MrBeast video is, functionally, a product commercial reaching more people than a Super Bowl spot.
The YouTube channel is overhead. The chocolate is the business.
Now he's acquired Step, a Gen Z fintech app, for the same reason. Not because he's passionate about banking. Because he has a hundred million young people watching him, and financial products are high-margin. The content is the customer acquisition channel. The products are the revenue.
Most people reading that news cycle saw a creator diversifying. What they missed: if the content business was more profitable, he wouldn't need to.
The Model That Actually Works — And Always Did
This isn't new. It just took MrBeast going public with the numbers for people to name it.
The pattern has always been: the operators who win in creator-driven marketing aren't the ones who produce the best content. They're the ones who understand what the content is for.
I saw this firsthand building out HYPR's work with Kirgo Casino. We activated 186 creators across their launch campaign. Over 300 million in social reach since March. That number looks like a content story. It isn't. It's a customer acquisition story. Every piece of content we built was designed to move someone from passive viewer to registered user. The content wasn't the point. It was the machine.
The question we asked ourselves before briefing a single creator: "What would we want to see if Kirgo was a physical casino?" That reframe changed everything. When the content is the marketing, not the product, you brief differently, you measure differently, and you get very different results.
What This Looks Like at Every Size (Not Just MrBeast's)
You don't need 100 million subscribers to run this model.
The principle works at 10,000 followers. It works at 500,000. It works for the creator who's been grinding for three years and wondering why brand deals feel like they're going nowhere.
Here's the practical version: content is your distribution. What are you distributing toward?
If the answer is "more content," you're on a treadmill. If the answer is a product, a service, a course, a community, a newsletter that you own, you're building something with actual equity.
The difference between a creator with 200K followers who earns $80K a year on brand deals and one who earns $400K on the same audience is almost never content quality. It's business structure. One is selling inventory. The other built the store.
The brand deal model isn't going away. But the creators who are using it as their only revenue model are the most exposed in 2026. Platform-dependent income with no product underneath is a job, and your employer is an algorithm that can change the rules without notice.
The Question Every Creator Should Be Asking Right Now
Not "how do I get more brand deals?" The better question: what am I building toward?
If your content disappeared tomorrow, what would be left? If the answer is nothing, that's the problem. If the answer is an email list, a product catalogue, a community, a business that uses content as its primary distribution channel, you're in the right model.
MrBeast's media company losing money isn't a failure story. It's proof the model works exactly as designed. The content pays for itself by acquiring customers for the businesses that actually generate margin.
The question isn't whether you're the next MrBeast. It's whether your content is working for something, or you're working for it.
Aiden Hiko is the co-founder of HYPR, a global influencer marketing agency that has driven 300M+ in social reach for creator-brand campaigns across iGaming, entertainment, and consumer brands.
