From Creator to Company: A Manager’s Guide to Corporate Hygiene and Enterprise Value

At VidCon Anaheim this year, several sessions focused on something other than the expected discussions about content strategy, authenticity, parasocial relationships with the audience, and navigating platform algorithms. The programs instead discussed the dynamic business ecosystem supporting the creators—talent managers, bankers, lawyers and accountants—intimately involved in building the creator economy.

Reflecting a new-found maturity in the creator space, panels of these representatives dug into the current creator landscape that is consolidating fast, as digital-native shops are absorbed by legacy players and founders sell businesses they spent a decade building. Industry reporters noted a sharp year-over-year jump in creator-economy M&A activity in 2025 and 2026, with software, agency and talent management transactions all increasing in pace.

For agents and business managers sitting across the table from creators, this ongoing wave of consolidation raises a practical question: what does a creator’s business actually need to look like to be a credible acquisition target, a credible investment, or even just a credible counterparty in a brand deal? The honest answer is that most creator businesses are not built to withstand that kind of scrutiny. They grow organically around a person, a phone and a ring light, not around the entity structure, books, contracts and IP portfolio that buyers, investors and serious brand partners expect to see.

That gap is exactly where professional advisors add the most durable value. Below are the corporate hygiene basics every representative should be thinking about before their creator hits the next stage of growth and why getting them right now pays off later, whether “later” means a seven-figure brand partnership, an outside investment or an eventual sale. That same corporate hygiene also helps mitigate costly disputes by reducing ambiguity around ownership, obligations and rights before disagreements with business partners, employees, contractors, brands or investors ever arise.

1. Set Up the Right Entity Before Going to Market

Most creators start as sole proprietors by default, meaning there is no legal separation between the creator and the business. In this setting, if a partnership goes sideways or a collaborator sues, personal assets are exposed. An LLC is usually the right first step: it is relatively simple to maintain, it shields personal assets and it can elect S-corporation tax treatment once income justifies the added complexity.

For creators running multiple distinct ventures (a product line alongside the content business, for example), consider whether a single-purpose entity for the higher-risk project makes sense, so a bad outcome in one venture doesn’t drag down the rest. However, drawing bright lines against comingling of funds between the creator and their business entities, and between each of the entities, and winding them up when they are no longer needed is critical to avoiding unnecessary tax bills and legal exposure.

Once a creator brings on co-creators, producers or business partners without paperwork, California law can treat that as a general partnership, meaning each participant can be on the hook for the others’ mistakes, and creative contributions can result in unintended joint ownership of the underlying business or copyright.

A properly drafted operating agreement should specify management structure, a right of first refusal if a member wants to exit (but be wary of unenforceable non-compete provisions) and an explicit IP ownership matrix so there is no ambiguity about who owns what.

2. Treat the Books Like a Buyer Is Already Watching

Clean financials are not just good practice, they are the single biggest lever on what a creator business is ultimately worth. Acquirers and investors in this space are increasingly disciplined about the key performance indicators and metrics they apply to media and talent businesses: the slope of the EBITDA, recurring revenues, fair market salaries for employees and contract enforceability all factor directly into valuation.

A manager doesn’t need to be a CFO, but pushing a creator toward separate business bank accounts, consistent bookkeeping, paying employees at or near market rates, proper 1099 issuance for contractors, and sales tax compliance on merchandise and digital products is some of the most concretely valuable advice available because it directly determines whether a future buyer can underwrite the business at all.

3. Hire and Manage People the Right Way — Especially in California

As a creator’s operation scales from a one-person channel into a small studio with editors, assistants, and producers, employment law exposure grows right alongside it. California is an aggressive enforcement environment, and misclassifying a regular contributor as an independent contractor rather than an employee can expose the business to wage-and-hour claims, PAGA penalties and back taxes that dwarf the savings of avoiding payroll in the first place. Other best practices include:

• Confirm whether workers meet California’s test for contractor classification, and hire/contract accordingly.
• Put written agreements in place for every regular contributor that address IP ownership and work-for-hire status. Without it, a departing editor or co-host can walk away with a claim to content they helped create.
• Build basic HR hygiene (compliant payroll records, employee handbooks, offer letters, expense policies, anti-harassment policies, severance agreements) before headcount makes it unavoidable.

4. Protect IP in a Way That Brands Actually Notice, and Trolls Won’t

Brands increasingly diligence the creators they partner with. This involves more than a web search for show titles and usernames across platforms. Instead, it means a creator with registered trademarks on their name or show title, a documented copyright registration practice for key content and a track record of successful brand-deal contracting. These efforts make for simply a lower-risk, more attractive partner.

Disciplined IP protections also prevent creators from falling prey to litigious rights owners or IP trolls that crawl the internet looking for easy marks. A clever turn of phrase on merchandise or a live event can turn into an expensive shakedown if business names, logos or art veer too close to another’s library of IP. Clearing ideas with upfront IP searches and registrations with the USPTO or Copyright Office creates a public record that can provide strong leverage for creators resolve or avoid entirely cease and desist letters and demands for high settlement payments.

5. Approach AI Tools Thoughtfully as the Rules Change in Real Time

AI is now a tool in nearly every creator’s workflow, from editing to thumbnail generation to full synthetic performances, and the legal landscape around it is moving quickly. A few developments that managers should be tracking on behalf of their creators:

• The U.S. Copyright Office continues to take the position that purely AI-generated material lacks the human authorship required for copyright protection, which means content that is too heavily AI-generated may not be protectable at all, and content that blends AI output with substantial human creative input needs to be evaluated carefully for what is actually protectable.
• California’s AI Transparency Act (SB 942, as amended by AB 853) becomes operative on August 2, 2026, and will require large generative AI platforms to offer content-detection tools and to label AI-generated images, video, and audio with visible and embedded disclosures. These obligations will likely add to the creator’s growing list of upfront required disclosures (e.g., the FTC’s “material connections” disclosure for brand partnerships) and highlight the protectability issue to would-be partners.
• At the federal level, the NO FAKES Act (which would create a federal right against unauthorized digital replicas of a person’s voice or likeness) advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2026 with broad entertainment-industry backing, though it has not yet been enacted and its final shape is still being negotiated.

Until that federal picture settles, the contract is still the most reliable tool: brand deals, collaboration agreements and AI-tool vendor terms should all address whether and how a creator’s voice, likeness and content can be used to train or generate AI output, and who bears responsibility if an AI tool produces infringing or unauthorized material.

6. Help Creators Build the Right Team Around Them

One VidCon panel emphasized that as creator businesses mature, they need the same advisory bench that any growing company needs: an entertainment and business attorney, an accountant who understands platform-based revenue and, when a brand investment, strategic partnership or sale comes into view, an M&A advisor who knows how creator-economy deals are actually priced and structured. Sophisticated buyers and investors expect a real diligence package built well before any letter of intent arrives, including a data room with financials, contracts and a clean IP chain of title. Creators who wait until a deal is on the table to organize this information routinely aren’t seen as ready, having too many red flags, and lose a potential deal.

Why It Matters

None of this is about turning every creator into a Delaware C corp with a full-time general counsel on staff. It’s about recognizing that the creator economy is rapidly evolving into a sophisticated industry, moving well past the point where a handshake and a Venmo link was a sustainable way to run a business. The managers, agents and advisors who build these fundamentals into their creators’ businesses early are the ones positioning their clients (and themselves) to capture real value as the industry matures and consolidates around them.

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Jesse B. Levin is a Partner at Glaser Weil in Los Angeles, where his practice covers entertainment litigation, business disputes and counseling for creators, talent representatives and the companies that work with them. 

Roland Templeman, a transactional associate in Glaser Weil’s Entertainment Department, contributed to this article.