Digital first entrepreneur and influencer Grace Beverley has launched a new company which is aiming to “democratise the creator industry using AI”. Called Retrograde, the firm is a partnership with seasoned tech entrepreneurs Jake Browne and Gary Meehan – and is aiming to become the ‘future of talent management’.
Beverley (pictured), who has previously founded three firms, TALA (sportswear), Shreddy (fitness) and The Productivity Method (planner/diaries), said Retrograde will help “all creators – no matter their size – earn more from their work”.
Speaking via LinkedIn, Beverley said: “The context you need is that over the last decade the creator industry has grown and matured massively to the point where there are now millions of creators of all sizes, and as a result it has become too large for a one-size-fits-all management model. I’m lucky enough to have worked – and continue working – with some incredible talent agents, but there are so many creators who can’t get access to that level of support; or the 20% of income model doesn’t make sense to them due to the simplicity of their deals; or they are keen to self-manage but don’t have the time/infrastructure. That’s where Retrograde comes in.”
Beverley and her new partners have added more detail on Retrograde in a new episode of her podcast, Working Hard, Hardly Working. Asked by Beverley to explain how the business came about, Browne said: “The idea for Retrograde started my last company (Peblo), which Gary worked at. Basically, we were financing invoices for content creators and talent agencies. A lot of the content creators were pretty unhappy with some of the stuff for talent agencies. And a lot of the talent agencies had so many new creators that they couldn’t cope or grow as fast as they wanted to. And then AI became a big deal, and we realised that possibly the two things could marry, and that the problem of the agencies and the creators could be solved with AI.”
Meehan noted on his own LinkedIn profile that Retrograde is AI for “content creators who are serious about brand deals”. A full explanation of the Retrograde proposition can be found here, and there is a link for creators that want to join the Retrograde waiting list. Beverley is a client of talent agency YMU – but believes the new AI-powered business is complementary to the existing agency structure.
