Building a brand in 2025 doesn’t start with a product. It doesn’t start with a logo, a Shopify store, or even a business plan. It starts with distribution — with attention. For the first time ever, the order of operations has flipped. Before you build anything, you need an audience that listens, watches, and cares. That’s what I’m doing right now with California Collective: building the ecosystem first, and stacking the business on top after.
Most of my life I’ve done it backwards. I built businesses, then hoped clients would show up. Now I’m switching the formula. Shorts, TikToks, blogs, long-form content — all of it is the new frontline. Not optional. Not “nice to have.” If you want reach, if you want customers, if you want a real chance to scale, you need platforms that move at the speed of the internet. YouTube is the new TV. TikTok is the new billboard. And creators who learn these tools today will dominate the next 5–10 years of digital business.
This doesn’t mean exposing your whole life. It means letting people see enough to build trust. It means showing your work, your ideas, your projects, your wins, your process. Even with my daughter — teaching her early how to play, create, and express herself online — not to chase “fame,” but to build confidence and skill in the medium the whole world operates in now. Public presence is leverage. It’s distribution. It’s direct access to your future customers without middlemen.
California Collective is the long game: build the audience, understand what they want, and then create products that actually serve them. Whether it’s fitness, digital art, photography prints, tea, online studios, coaching, or whatever comes next — the foundation is the same. Attention first. Business second. That’s the new blueprint for e-commerce, creators, and entrepreneurs who want to play at scale.