Have we reached peak Wrapped culture?

This year, it felt like every software or app that you've ever used released their own "Our Company Wrapped." For example, engineers at Beacons showed me our Sentry Wrapped, an unexpected but undeniably lit recap of our dev team's activity on our application performance monitoring software 😅

These are all obviously inspired by the iconic Spotify Wrapped, which I recently learned has been a thing since 2016. Eight years later, it's a mainstream staple in EOY marketing.

... As it should be. It's smart for other companies to jump on this this form of content because:

People love reading things about themselves (not unlike horoscopes, which I'm also down for)
People love sharing things about themselves
Other people get FOMO when they see people sharing their Wrapped, and want to join in with their own
It gives brands a chance to show off their personality and design chops in a fun, experimental, one-off way

The trend has become so ubiquitous that it even extends beyond natively digital content, like to @ShakeShackUK.

Whether or not it's overdone now, I personally am still a huge fan of "Wrapped" content of any sort—and maybe it's just because I like reading things about myself. I'm only human!

But what I came here to ask you is: are you oversaturated with Wrapped content, or do you want more? Would you want to see your own "Beacons Wrapped" with your engagement data?

Vote and let me know! Depending on the response, we may be able to add some cool additions to Beacons—not just one-time roundups, but more permanent insights that you can use year round.

Yes, I want that!

Nah, don't need it

(Voting takes you to the new Analytics page in your Beacons account, which is by no means a Wrapped page but does have some pretty great new graphs & stats 😎)

I would also be remiss not to mention that this will be our last Get Rich or Reply Trying newsletter of 2024. I'll be back with the newsletter next year, but in the meantime, we're still cooking up some new things for you through the end of December...

I have two exciting topics to share that can be filed under "new stuff" this week:

New brand deal opportunities on Beacons
New Years Beacons Boot Camp

First, I want to highlight two Beacons creators who have recently been matched with brands through Beacons for brand deal partnerships 🤩

The first is @hall_of_tech, who recently partnered with Perplexity AI, a free AI-powered answer engine that provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.

She created a campaign video with Perplexity about their answer engine to find unique, creative gifts for family & friends during the holidays. Check it out for yourself 👇

@TheChandler1 on YouTube (another Beacons creator) also just did his own super successful brand deal partnership with BenQ, a tech and electronics company.

He partnered with BenQ to makeover his home, transforming his empty apartment into his dream space with at-home projectors from BenQ. Check it out! 👀

Huge props to @hall_of_tech and @TheChandler1! 🙌

We're super excited to keep partnering with brands in 2025 to make more partnerships like this happen for Beacons creators! If you want to get in on the action, make sure your Brand Deal Profile on Beacons is up to date.

My Brand Deal Profile

The other exciting new Beacons shoutout is actually not a feature at all, but a special course that we're offering for free in January 👀

That's right—the Beacons Creator Bootcamp is coming!

Kick off 2025 on the best foot with 10 days of tips, tutorials, and hacks from Ivan to learn how to use Beacons to the fullest to monetize your content and grow your business.

This is the first time we're offering a course that's this comprehensive and covers all of our newest features.

➡️ It's free, so sign up at our Link in Bio! We'll see you in your inbox on January 2nd...

Sign up

👉 What are you most excited to learn in the Beacons Creator Bootcamp? Hit reply and let me know...

This week's hot take: the PDE (product, design, & engineering) team at Beacons needs to be less humble and get their dues for being one of the sickest PDE teams in the creator economy.

Beacons really wouldn’t exist without every single one of our talented, hardworking team members. And while you may see some of our team members more than others in community events, email newsletters (hi!) and support responses, there's a huge part of the team that builds everything behind the scenes that you don't see every week.

Our product designers are responsible for the UX, layouts, beautiful styling, and images you see throughout the Beacons product. They also make thoughtful and detailed decisions about placement of everything you see on Beacons.

Our engineering team is the largest team at Beacons and, of course, is the backbone of our company. You can’t build great software without great engineers! This team is incredibly innovative and user-focused, always creating the new features our users really want and need.

We are a startup, after all, and the Growth team is an essential part of our success in 2024. They’re focused on the best ways to bring Beacons to new users, help you understand what we do and how to use us, and tapping into new markets for, well, company growth!

Like I mentioned, you'd probably recognize some of our marketing and customer success team from social media, email newsletters (hi!) and support responses. We help bridge the communication gap between users and the rest of the team, sharing info with you about what’s happening here at Beacons, and bringing your feedback to the larger team.

The managers and brand deals team may be a little more under the radar to many Beacons creators, but they’re a core part of what we offer (see the creator partnerships for examples of the kinds of partnerships that they make possible!).

Our creator manager product has become best-in-class over the last year thanks to this team, and they’re hard at work on our new initiatives to bring brands and creators together for more paid opportunities, so you’ll be seeing more of them in 2025 for sure.

Of course, we can’t forget our leadership: our founders and department heads who guide our strategy, focus on our long-term success, and bring us all together with a vision of what Beacons can be. 🫶

So if you have any words of thanks or feedback for our PDE team, send them to me here and I'll pass them along (and might share their reactions in January)!

Yesterday, the team did our own company Wrapped to celebrate our personal milestones and reflect on the year—so I'm sharing some of the slides from our all-hands meeting!

One of the most exciting parts of the year was adding 5 new team members across engineering, design, creator success, and go-to-market 🥳

There were a lot of personal updates to cover, with engagements, weddings, and college graduation 🥹

There were many happy memories with pets who kept us company while we worked from home, or were there to ~listen and not judge~ when we got back from the office.

Of course, there were general fun times and shenanigans at company offsites (in 2024 we went to Orlando, FL and Nashville, TN).

What was your highlight of the year? I'm going to collect responses and share them when we're back in the New Year, so let me know!

Whatever it is, we're proud of you at Beacons for working towards your goals and blazing a new path for yourself.

Happy holidays and Happy New Year from the entire Beacons team! ❤️ We'll see you in 2025 ☺️

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