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Amanda Northcutt, founder and the CEO of Level Up Creators. Level Up Creators

"The most of my career was comprised of many happy accidents," starts Amanda Northcutt, founder and CEO of Level Up Creators. "My path has been super fluid. It's the path of most people. The way we end up is exactly where we're supposed to be as long as we're being conscious and strategic."

Her parents always joke that she didn't speak before my brother started university. "My brother's an extremely accomplished lawyer, however his practice took over most of the airspace within the home. He started college when I was fourteen and heading into high school. I began to come into my own once the airspace was readily available within the home."

Amanda's first gig was the shoe store. "Everyone was convinced that I'd not be successful due to my shyness. I completely came out of my shell, and I began selling shoes in a blaze of glory with record sales across the nation. It was amazing! I fell in love with business at the age of 16, and I was sure at that time that's the path I wanted to pursue."

After that, Amanda went to university and teamed up with a friend who had a site up and running and required someone to market advertisements on the site. "This was 2005, when selling online advertising was like advertising on banners. It was like selling air! I heard the word "no frequently and got past any apprehension of selling to people pretty quickly," she recalls.

Then being thrown to the bottom at the bottom

"I gained my skills through being thrust into the deep end," she continues. "I parlayed that little selling gig into a larger sales gig at a young business known as TexAgs.com and ended up working there for almost a decade. It was there that I truly learned the business." At this point, she figured out the membership model that recurring revenue can bring, increasing value, maximising LTV and selling sponsorships.

"It's no longer just a fun tiny website anymore. It's the biggest collegiate fan website in the world. I was the second employee there and enjoyed it to the fullest," she laughs. "I learnt how to manage and lead individuals. That's where I fell in love with the membership model and the recurring income. That was in 2005. The next year, I'll be in the space for more than two decades. Crazy how time flies!"

The business attracted thousands of users who pay $13 monthly for details about Texas A&M University sports teams. "We also cracked the mystery of moving from banner ads to sponsorships (brand agreements in the modern world). The companies were trying to get their message out to our readers and we were allowing the access of very specific points that were trackable and moved the needle for those companies," she says.

Amanda adopted the model and started Northcutt Media, using the sponsoring model they had developed at TexAgs then applied the same model and applied it to websites throughout the nation. "That was the first time I had a business, at age 22. It was a great opportunity to travel often and other similar things."

But a few years after, her health began to decline. "I required the time off but be aware of my the way I live my life," - Amanda needed to change the order of priorities in her life including her husband, health and the baby boy.

Amanda has begun to talk about her journey to health more publically and is planning to share more. She has found that many women working in high stress jobs are more likely to be afflicted with an autoimmune condition or similar. "The more I can be at risk, the more likely I am able to lead with this kind of vulnerability," she says. "Every whenever I talk concerning my experience, somebody who isn't familiar with me comes in and texts me and says 'Hey, do we want to talk?' and that's wonderful."

Amanda has changed the rules. "I wanted to become a mom. I was required to be a person who was in charge of my health, and I needed to be a consultant." In an effort to bring back some order to her profession, she along with her husband sold their business partner from Member Up and took it over, to run as a consultant.

"I have had an amazing moment helping businesses with memberships which covered all sorts of topics - things people would not even think about except if you're living in this universe and realize that there's an area for every type of interest, and there are online users who would like what you offer." After a long time in the niche of membership her focus was shifting to the part-time executive roles at various SaaS organizations around the world.

As part of this re-balanced life, Amanda reduced her work by 20-30 hours a week but focused on being "extraordinarily influential" for each of the organizations she worked with. She left Silicon Valley at the end in 2022 and founded Level Up Creators: "I was looking to bring everything I had learned in this B2B, primarily SaaS industry, and apply it to creatives, particularly women.

"I'm very interested in helping women to create wealth cycles that last generations and apply their expertise through providing enormous value to their communities and followers and get paid in kind."

Level Up Creators offers services. Level Up Creators

So what does Level Up Creators accomplish? "We're looking to optimize earnings and impact for female creators in particular. It's my belief that I've gathered the most experienced team of entrepreneurs in the world," she replies.

They assist people in determining the place they're at, where they're headed, and what's keeping the way to get there. And then they plan out how to knock down the barriers that are holding you back from getting where you want to go. "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 over 2,000 email subscribers."

"When you contact us, I'll probably inquire about 100 questions first," says Amanda. "I'm always seeking to know before being understood." She gathers a quantitative and qualitative data collection from the creator, so they are able to help them determine their options.

"We are looking to assist subject matter experts create a product suite. We'd like to create lead magnets. Then, an educational course, maybe a three-part masterclass or something like that, and then we would shift to a recurring revenue product. It could be a $49, $79, or the $249 monthly membership."

When you do that, Level Up Creators would move customers into group coaching and greater levels of recurring income. This happens when "you are able to provide consistently high-quality, repeatable quality that is on the mark to your customers and followers," she says.

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

This is how she assists people professionalize their creator mindset. "Oftentimes, subject matter expert creators are hesitant to do deal with brands or even to create items and then ask the audience to buy them. I'm on a mission to assist creators in understanding they're in an incredible position to provide value over and above what can be provided with no cost on social media.

"We all desire power, respect, authority, love, relationships - foundational desires," she continues. "We feel that we know creators we follow. We know so much about their lives and we want to live like the way they live." Amanda believes that when creators provide opportunities to us all to become more like them, there's an opportunity for creators to sell things that add value and help those followers achieve these goals, thus creating "a beneficial cycle".

"We have a greater appreciation for creators than do these gigantic global legacy brands because we're speaking to an individual, not a logo. The first mission we have is to say, 'It's fine to make money from selling stuff because people want to buy what you have. We do not engage in icky marketing or sales, and we do not work with people who aren't providing real legitimate benefit to their communities. That's table stakes."

The future, and the demise of brands that have been around for a long time

"I'm thrilled to be in a place where we're helping creators yet again and doubling down on helping women,"" Amanda muses. We are a professional services firm, but we're working toward mirroring our client businesses, being a creator-first firm for ourselves." She sums in the sense that they're working to teach creators how to think like CEOs and run their business effectively.

"We have been working on some awesome product!" she laughs. The team has announced the Level Up Creators School on March 1st 2024. This is a subscription-based business school specifically designed for creators. "We'll provide our expertise and experience to provide an environment of education, community, resources and support that will assist creators in reaching the next milestone in their income which is for a lot of creators, $50,000 MRR and we'll use our Fastest Path To 50 framework to get people there. It's exciting!"

As a last thought on the business in general, Amanda concludes: "The industry is moving towards this direct-to-consumer system where creators hold more control with regards to consumer spending and content curating. It's incredible the degree of loyalty that people have for creators they love."

Amanda clarifies that millennials as well as Gen Xers don't go to the big brands of the past for news anymore "These major cable networks are nothing but dinosaurs! They have the option of getting on the train or will be dead."

"I am totally calling my shots: that's the direction of the future. I've built a company to help bring that vision into realisation and assist people to become wildly successful. I'd like money to be distributed to creators, as opposed to gigantic companies. This is like saying, "All right, let somebody else have a turn!' This is a great time to be a content creator!" she smiles.

More information

Amanda Northcutt is a consultant, coach and six-time exec who has developed and scaled online companies for D2C B2C, D2C and B2Bs.

She created Level Up Creators to help influential creator educators build profitable businesses that are sustainable. Level Up Creators offers strategies and systems to people with at least one product that is already in use, such as fields like wellness, personal finance sports, travel, or wellness and is ready to expand their impact and income. For more information, visit welevelupcreators.com.