I founded The Portal to offer an alternative to the mainstream creator economy: a space dominated by profit, algorithms, and isolation. Most existing platforms were never designed with you or your community in mind. They pushed an individualistic approach to business, asking creators to compete endlessly while navigating the messy realities of building a business alone.
It was business as usual. Profit for shareholders. Projects for exploding egos. People and planet? Left behind.
So I began to design something different. First The Portal 1.0, and then, thanks to February 2025 funding, the next stage: a place where creators can share content, foster community building, and grow together.
Since then, The Portal has received £45,000 in investment from five members of our community. We’ve already welcomed 800+ Experiencers and 140 Creators. We can see 10% of members are naturally engaging with multiple offerings, showing us that wisdom sharing works when the right conditions are in place.
To understand why The Portal matters, here’s how much investment the big-name platforms have received:
- Circle: $33.3 million
- Instagram: $57.5 million before being bought by Facebook in 2012
- Mighty Networks: $67 million
- Teachable: $15.2 million
Source: CrunchbaseBehind these numbers is a deeper problem: many of these investors are also fuelling the multibillion-dollar AI arms race and climate catastrophe. The mainstream creator economy has been built on extractive growth, prioritising returns over relationships.
By contrast, the first iteration of The Portal costs around £60,000 to build. The full vision with all the interactive features we want, will take around £500,000. Not small, but rooted in sustainable growth.
The Portal is not just another tool. It’s infrastructure for a different kind of creator economy - one that mirrors how nature thrives.
- Shared resources, not silos
- Collaboration between Creators and their work
- Free content for experiencers
- No ads, no algorithms deciding what matters
- Community-owned, not investor-driven
- A place where you can speak freely like “Free Palestine” without being shadow banned.
This is about interactive learning that actually engages people, supported by a network of Creators working together instead of against one another.
The Portal represents a shift away from hustle culture and towards sustainable growth. We are building slowly and transparently, knowing that it takes time to nurture something real.
The creator economy doesn’t need to be extractive. It can be collaborative, regenerative, and deeply human. That’s why wisdom sharing is at the heart of The Portal.
As we’ve already seen, when Creators cross-pollinate their work, new opportunities emerge and communities flourish. This is proof that people want to move beyond the shallow engagement of mainstream platforms.
They may have all the money in the world. But we have each other. And that solidarity is the seed of something far greater.
If you’re interested in investing or know someone who might, I’d love to hear from you. Investors speak directly with those who’ve already contributed, learn about their “why,” and test The Portal for themselves before deciding.
