touch grass, get paid: how creators turn taste into an irl business

The only creator event this week that isn't about online attention. This one's about what happens when you meet the people who follow you.

Everyone's calling offline the next big thing. Nobody's telling you how to actually start hosting, fill your plans, charge for them, or keep it going past the 3rd month.

The good ones don't just happen. Someone decided who's in the group, who gets introduced to who, and what happens in the first 10 minutes when nobody knows anyone. Curating it, pulling it together, making sure people actually connect. That's taste, and it's a skill. It's the part of the creator economy that can't happen on a screen, and it's the bit nobody teaches.

It's also a real business. 15 people paying $50 to eat dinner with you doesn't need a brand deal, an algorithm, or 100K followers. Most people who could do it have never tried.

So we're asking people who do.

Duy Nguyen — co-founder of Koreatown Run Club, a handful of friends in 2016 that became one of the most recognised running communities in the world. He also founded Long Distance, a publication and creative consultancy rooted in running culture. His whole thing is how you build partnerships, events and businesses around a community without turning the community into the product.

Camille Mejia — founder of Pickle N Tequila, an LA pickleball social club she runs alongside a full-time job, with a loyal following and events that sell out in under 3 minutes. She's also a creator, making content about how to build a social club.

Randy Tun — the LA creator behind Weekday Maxing, a series about making the most of your weekdays around a full-time job, now reaching over a million views a month. He built the audience first and then started taking it offline — park hangs, beach bonfires — while working 9-to-5 in tech sales. His whole thing is getting people to stop waiting for the weekend to start living, online and off.

Then we build. Everyone leaves with something real on the calendar: a dinner, a…

Part of Los Angeles Tech Week. RSVP on tech-week.com.