Everything You Need to Build Your Creator Business & Upskill Your Career in 2026: A Massive Thank You Resource Library From Operating by John Brewton
Two weeks ago, I had 1340 Substack subscribers. This morning, I woke up to 4,970 amazing subscribers and new Operating by John Brewton community members, builders, creators, founders, dreamers (like me).
I became a bestseller. I crossed 100 paid subscribers. And 89 of you signed up to work with me on building your creator businesses this year, as Operating Founders
FOR 100 CREATOR FOUNDERS
I want to bring operating strategy, competitive positioning, and financial planning to the community of creators, writer, founders and small business builders here on Substack.
Four 60-minute 1:1 advisory sessions for $99.
Limited to 100 spots. 89 of 100 have filled. I’m extending the offer until 10:00 AM on Monday morning, or until we hit the 100. Grab one of the last 11 spots before the offer disappears forever.
I’m sitting here at my desk in McLean, Virginia at 5:52 AM on a Saturday, and I keep coming back to the same thought: Helping people is the only thing that matters.
I didn’t run ads. I didn’t hire a growth consultant. I didn’t game algorithms or hack systems. I just kept showing up, day after day, writing about what I’ve learned building and operating businesses over the last twenty years. I wrote about economics research that matters. I built templates and frameworks. I gave away everything I knew.
And you showed up.
So this is my thank you. Not the kind where I say the words and move on, but the kind where I take everything I’ve published over the last two months, every framework, every worksheet, every system, and organize it in one place so you can actually use it.
Consider this your operating manual. The complete system for building a sustainable, profitable creator business in 2026.
Everything I’ve learned is here. All the resources are linked. You don’t need to dig through archives or wonder what to read next. It’s mapped out. You just need to start.
Hope this helps!
THANK YOU.
- john -
How to Use This Library
I’ve organized everything by where you are in your journey.
If you’re in your first 90 days, start with Section 1.
If you’re building systems, jump to Section 2.
If you need to understand the economics and strategy, go to Section 3.
Each article includes a short description and links to all associated templates and worksheets. You can download everything. You can make copies of the Google Docs. You can use these with your own clients or teams.
Start where you need help. Work through what matters most.
Come back when you hit the next challenge.
SECTION 1: Starting From Zero
For creators in their first 90 days
0 to 55,000: The First 90 Days Playbook
The hardest part isn’t creating content. It’s showing up every single day when nobody’s watching, nobody’s reading, and nothing’s happening. This playbook compresses two years of mistakes into one guide: the commitment that actually matters, the expensive mistakes to avoid, and exactly what “good” growth looks like at Days 30, 60, and 90.
What you’ll learn: Why daily posting is non-negotiable, how algorithms reward presence over perfection, the 8 metrics that matter, platform-specific strategies, week-by-week benchmarks from Days 1-90.
Resources included: Content tracking methodology, engagement rate formulas, platform comparison framework, weekly milestone guides.
The Operating Creator: Step One + Day One - Building Your Personal Brand
Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech in Nashua taught us that a personal brand is a promise you make and prove so consistently that people can predict what you’ll do next. That predictability is trust. This working session walks you through building your 3-page brand strategy: your foundation (why you’re building), your 5 content pillars (what you’ll be known for), and your content-to-conversion funnel (how people discover you, trust you, and support you).
What you’ll learn: How to define your brand in one sentence, identify your 5 core content pillars ranked by importance, map your four-stage content funnel (growth → positioning → conversion → paid), study 15 iconic brands (from Nike to MIT to Barack Obama).
Resources included: 3-Page Brand Strategy Worksheet (downloadable), brand attribute framework, content pillar ranking system, funnel mapping template, brand study links for all 15 examples.
SECTION 2: Building Your Operating System
The daily and weekly habits that separate businesses from hobby projects
Operating Habits Week 1: The Daily Content Performance Tracker
Before dashboards and automation, you need to understand your business with your own hands. This introduces the discipline of manual tracking: 8 data points per post, 5-10 minutes daily, the foundation of all future optimization. You’ll track every post across every platform for at least 12 weeks. You’ll see patterns with your own eyes. You’ll develop intuition that no dashboard can teach.
What you’ll learn: The 8 metrics that actually matter (post type, platform, impressions, reactions, comments, shares, follower growth), why manual tracking builds better instincts than automation, how to set up your daily tracking ritual, what to observe after 7 days, 30 days, 90 days.
Resources included: Daily Content Performance Tracker Template (Google Sheets with 9 columns), step-by-step setup guide, daily observation log, weekly reflection questions.
Operating Habits Week 2: The Friday Forensic
Your 15-minute weekly review ritual that transforms raw numbers into concrete decisions. This teaches you to separate vanity metrics (likes, raw views) from sanity metrics (followers gained, conversations started, relationships built) and make explicit Kill/Keep/Double calls every Friday. Most creators either never look at their data or binge it after viral moments. You’ll build the discipline that compounds.
What you’ll learn: The 5-pass system (vanity vs. sanity, format efficiency, outlier hunt, relationships, decisions), how to identify time vampires (formats that consume hours but deliver nothing), when to kill content that isn’t working, how to double down on what works.
Resources included: Content Performance Tracker v2.0 (6 tabs: Daily Log, Weekly Summary, Format Analysis, Platform Comparison, Outlier Log, Kill/Keep/Double Log), Weekly Analysis Worksheet (5-pass decision system), decision log template.
SECTION 3: Strategic Frameworks & Economics
Understanding the competitive landscape and business fundamentals
Easy to Start, Hard to Win: What 50 Years of Economics Research Tells Us About Building Creator Businesses
Four landmark economics papers spanning five decades explain why markets with low barriers to entry develop extreme barriers to success—and exactly how to become one of the winners who “takes most.” When anyone can start a Substack or YouTube channel, competition drives profits toward zero. But some creators break out spectacularly. This explains why and how.
What you’ll learn: Dixit-Stiglitz on monopolistic competition (why free entry creates crowded markets), Hopenhayn on firm selection dynamics (why most creators quit and few capture the majority), how daily posting trains algorithms and compounds advantage, why discipline matters more than talent in the first 90 days, network effects and reputation-building strategies.
Resources included: Content commitment framework, algorithm training methodology, tracking system that reveals productive edge, power law distribution analysis.
The Venture Dictionary: 25 Essential Startup Concepts Adapted for Solopreneurs
Silicon Valley’s vocabulary (product-market fit, unit economics, burn rate, network effects, moats, unit economics) was built by founders managing radical uncertainty with limited resources. These frameworks apply perfectly to creators and solopreneurs—you just need to scale them down. This translates 25 essential concepts from top VC firms and business schools into practical frameworks for one-person businesses.
What you’ll learn: Product-market fit for creators (the Sean Ellis test adapted), MVP development (launch in 24 hours, not 24 weeks), unit economics (CAC/LTV calculations for content businesses), burn rate and runway (how long can you sustain this), moats and competitive advantages, power law thinking, doing things that don’t scale.
Resources included: Complete 25-concept dictionary with startup definitions and creator applications, PMF testing framework, unit economics calculator, runway projection template, moat identification worksheet.
The Operating Creator: A Weekly Note About the History, Economics & Future of the Creator Economy
The creator economy is consolidating and professionalizing. Goldman Sachs projects $480B by 2027 (up from $235B today). This deep dive synthesizes 98 sources to explain what’s happening: M&A trends (81 transactions in 2025, valuations at 5-9x EBITDA), platform monetization evolution (Snapchat raised requirements from 1K to 50K followers), creator business formalization (high performers operate multi-year strategic plans across 6-8 income streams), and what it means for individual creators.
What you’ll learn: Why the market is maturing (from experimentation to cash flow focus), which platforms are tightening monetization requirements, how successful creators stack revenue (platform monetization + brand partnerships + digital products + subscriptions + affiliate commerce + merchandise + experiences), vertical integration strategies (Beast Industries as the model), regulatory standardization coming in 2026.
Resources included: Industry growth projections, M&A valuation benchmarks, platform-by-platform monetization comparison, multi-revenue stream framework, vertical integration case studies.
SECTION 4: Advanced Concepts & Team Building
Scaling yourself and eventually building team capacity
Work Rules for Creators: What Laszlo Bock Learned Building Google
Laszlo Bock scaled Google from 6,000 to 72,000 people using five operating principles rooted in one belief: people are fundamentally good, and transparent systems compound that goodness. These principles work even better at small scale, when you’re the entire team and every decision cascades immediately. This translates Bock’s five principles for creators building alone.
What you’ll learn: Structured hiring (how to evaluate contractors without gut feelings), power law thinking (why your top 20% of content drives 80% of results), separating creation from monetization (quarterly creative time vs. annual business reviews), paying unfairly (value-based pricing, not time-based), performance conversations that drive improvement.
Resources included: Contractor Hiring Scorecard (structured evaluation framework), 90-day content audit template (identify your top 20%), tier-based pricing framework (low/medium/high-impact work), quarterly creative time planner, annual business review template.
SECTION 5: Mindset & Philosophy
The beliefs that sustain you when algorithms change and nothing’s working
Greed is Good: Why I’m Betting Everything on People in an AI-First World
In a moment when AI threatens white-collar jobs (software development, law, consulting, management, accounting), the contrarian bet is generosity, gratitude, and betting on humans. Buffett made his fortune being greedy when others were fearful. I’m doing the same—except the asset I’m buying is community, relationships, trust, and the skill of building small businesses. This explains why.
What you’ll learn: Why the careers we were promised (law, consulting, tech, finance) no longer feel safe, how AI exposes which skills were always commodity work, why small business building becomes the most valuable skill in an AI-first economy, the generosity flywheel (give value → build trust → create community → generate opportunity), my full commitment for 2026 (7 days/week, 52 weeks of creator-focused content).
Resources included: Generosity Flywheel Workbook (downloadable), weekly content commitment framework, community-building principles, 2026 publishing calendar.
AI Didn’t Steal Our Greatness. AI Didn’t Steal Our Jobs.
A necessary reality check. We’re having a cultural meltdown, celebrating typos as “100% human-made” badges while AI exposes the mediocrity of our work. The truth: AI didn’t steal anything. It held up a mirror revealing that most of our professional output was always derivative, protected by organizational friction and information asymmetry. This isn’t a crisis. It’s an invitation to stop defending average performance and build something genuinely excellent.
What you’ll learn: Why “AI slop” is really just a reflection of our own mediocre output, how organizational friction protected average performance (until AI removed it), what Ethan Mollick, Marc Andreessen, and Andrew Ng say about AI integration, why becoming a “cyborg” (human + AI) beats staying purely human, which skills to add to your toolbox right now.
Resources included: Cyborg integration strategies, workflow augmentation examples, skill-stacking framework for AI-era professionals.
SECTION 6: AI & Future-Proofing Your Career
The complete upskilling system for the AI era
The Ultimate Upskilling Playbook: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Building AI-Era Career Resilience
Most professionals are building AI skills wrong. They’re collecting prompts and tools without strategy. This introduces the research-backed Three Pillars Framework: AI Fluency (technical competencies), Human Capabilities (EPOCH), and Strategic Acumen (business judgment). Harvard Professor Karim Lakhani says “AI won’t replace humans, but humans with AI will replace humans without AI.” This is your complete system for becoming the human with AI.
What you’ll learn: Why 97% of executives recognize AI as transformational but only 13% create measurable value (the 84-point capability gap), the Three Pillars Framework and why all three must work together, how to self-assess your current baseline, how to build a 90-day roadmap, the weekly Learning OS that makes this sustainable.
Resources included:
Three Pillars Self-Assessment (score yourself across all three pillars)
90-Day Upskilling Roadmap (choose your focus pillar and weekly milestones)
Weekly Upskilling OS Template (one-page system: Learn → Design → Apply)
The Ultimate Upskilling Playbook (Pillar 2): The Human Capabilities That AI Makes Matter Most
MIT’s EPOCH framework identifies five human capabilities that become MORE valuable as AI handles routine work: Empathy (understanding what people actually need), Presence (how you show up and build trust), Opinion (making sound judgments under uncertainty), Creativity (seeing non-obvious possibilities), and Hope (articulating compelling futures). These aren’t soft skills anymore. They’re strategic capabilities that determine whether your AI workflows serve people or exploit them.
What you’ll learn: The MIT research behind EPOCH (19,000 tasks across 950 U.S. occupations), why each capability matters more in an AI era, how to practice each one daily and weekly, how to pair each EPOCH capability with AI tools, the three scenarios (efficient mediocrity, visionary ineffective, amplified leader).
Resources included:
EPOCH Self-Assessment & 90-Day Practice Planner (score yourself 1-5 across all five)
5 EPOCH Practice Guides (one-pagers with daily 10-minute practice + weekly 45-minute deep dive)
Human-AI Collaboration Playbook (pairing templates for empathy + sentiment analysis, presence + automation, opinion + data analysis, creativity + idea generation, hope + proof points)
EPOCH Resource Library (curated books, articles, assessments organized by capability)
90-Day EPOCH Mastery Roadmap (week-by-week implementation plan)
Upskilling Masterclass: From Prompt User to Workflow Architect
Most people build AI workflows wrong. They watch a tutorial, write clever prompts, get excited, then hit a wall. True AI fluency means you can map a process, spec it completely, build it to be resilient, measure whether it’s working, and iterate based on data. This is your system for moving from prompt user to workflow architect—someone who designs, builds, measures, and maintains production-grade AI-enabled processes.
What you’ll learn: The three layers of workflow thinking (task → workflow → system), the five phases of workflow development (inventory & spec → build & test → measure & iterate → scale & portfolio), how to run a 12-week workflow architecture sprint, the four data-driven decisions that determine everything.
Resources included:
Workflow Specification Template (map problem, human-AI swimlanes, failure modes, success metrics before you build)
LLM Guardrails Checklist (input safety, output validation, audit trails, escalation triggers)
Workflow Evaluation & Iteration Framework (measure reliability, efficiency, safety after 4 weeks)
Workflow-First Resource Library (organized by bottleneck: can’t map process, worried about hallucinations, context window confusion)
90-Day Workflow Architecture Roadmap (prescriptive weekly plan: what to do, what to deliver, what to decide)
Master Resource Index
All downloadable tools organized by category
Getting Started
AI & Upskilling (15 Total Resources)
5 EPOCH Practice Guides (Empathy, Presence, Opinion, Creativity, Hope)
Quick-Start Paths
If you have 15 minutes right now:
Start with The First 90 Days Playbook and Operating Habits Week 1. Download the Daily Content Performance Tracker and commit to 90 days.
If you’re stuck on strategy:
Jump to Section 3. Read Easy to Start, Hard to Win for the economics, The Venture Dictionary for frameworks, and The Operating Creator for market context.
If you need AI skills:
Go straight to Section 6. Take the Three Pillars Self-Assessment, identify your weakest pillar, and follow the 90-day roadmap for that pillar.
If you’re ready to scale:
Section 4 covers team building and advanced systems. Start with Work Rules for Creators and use the hiring scorecard before you bring on your first contractor.
What This Represents
This isn’t just a collection of articles. It’s a working operating system for your creator bsiness or startup, synthesized from twenty years of studying economics, building businesses, scaling companies, building teams and learning from all the fails and losses along the way.
If you hired me for advisory work, my standard engagement starts at $10,000 per month. What you’re looking at here represents several years of frameworks, hundreds of hours of research and experimenting with technology and operating models, and decades of experience, organized, documented, and made accessible.
I’m giving this away for one reason: I believe the democratization of business-building is the most important economic shift of our generation. When AI eliminates traditional career paths, the ability to build a sustainable one-person business becomes THE ESSENTIAL SKILL.
You shouldn’t need family wealth, an elite degree or venture capital to build something meaningful. As individuals, we have more technological leverage to build businesses than at any other point in our lifetimes, if not across the entire expanse of business history. You should just need commitment, discipline, and the right operating system.
Execution is always the variable.
Disciplined, consistent execution wins always and forever.
What’s Next
I’ll keep expanding this library. New frameworks, new tools, new research. This is version 1.0. Consider it your foundation.
If you want to work together more directly, I’m still working with the first 100 creator founders: four 60-minute 1:1 advisory sessions for $99 (my standard engagement starts at $10K/month—this is me learning from you while helping you build something sustainable).
89 of 100 spots are filled. Click the link below to grab one of the last spots:
Otherwise, everything you need is here. Start with what matters most to you right now. Work through it systematically. Come back when you hit the next challenge.
Share this with someone who needs it.
Most importantly: use it. These aren’t theoretical frameworks. They’re practical tools built for people actually building businesses.
Build something real. Build something sustainable.
Build something that gives you the freedom and income you need.
The tools are here.
The rest is the work and disciplined execution
Thank you for being part of this community.
Thank you for showing up.
Thank you for building alongside me.
Let’s keep going.
Time to build.
- john -
Operating by John Brewton | McLean, Virginia | February 7, 2026, 5:52 AM
John Brewton documents the history and future of operating companies at Operating by John Brewton. He is a graduate of Harvard University and began his career as a Phd. student in economics at the University of Chicago. After selling his family’s B2B industrial distribution company in 2021, he has been helping business owners, founders and investors optimize their operations ever since. He is the founder of 6A East Partners, a research and advisory firm, asking the question: What is the future of companies? He still cringes at his early LinkedIn posts and loves making content each and everyday, despite the protestations of his beloved wife, Fabiola, at times.
Really enjoyed this )) not just because it’s practical, but because you didn’t stop at how to build, you asked what building actually changes
The strength of this piece personally for me is that you make tools feel like choices, not prescriptions. It’s easy in the operating world to default to the latest framework or checklist, but you keep bringing the focus back to why we’re building in the first place. That shift – from execution to intention – is where most people lose clarity..
Thanks for writing something that feels both useful and honest!! It reminds us that building is a practice, not a ritual..
This is super comprehensive and really helpful for people at all stages of their creator journey. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with us, John!