How Creators Inc. CEO Andy Bachman Built the Business Behind Creator Fame

Andy Bachman, founder and CEO of Creators Inc. and BuzzStar, has built a reputation as one of the most powerful behind-the-scenes power brokers and dealmakers in the creator economy.

Bachman, who has orchestrated some of the most visible and valuable deals in the creator space, was born June 9, 1983, and grew up in Wayland, Massachusetts, in a household of physicians.

He attended Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, a school renowned for its focus on entrepreneurship, and graduated in 2006. After much success in the late 2000s, Bachman funded a scholarship at his alma mater for aspiring creatives.

Bachman’s first major venture took shape while he was still a student.

In 2005, he joined fellow Babson students Lin Miao, Lucas Brown and Lee Brown to start Tatto Media, an internet advertising and marketing company based in Boston with additional offices in Seattle and Los Angeles. The company offered advertisers performance-based online banner campaigns, with payment tied to results rather than impressions.

Photo credit: GEO Media

By 2008, Tatto Media had been named a Top Global 250 company by AlwaysOn and reported annual revenue of about $40 million.

The next year, revenues topped $100 million, and by 2010, the company ranked as the third-largest ad network in the world, according to comScore, with a staff of about 120 employees.

Tatto halted its operations on Facebook in November 2009.

After the sale of Tatto, Bachman moved into consumer protection.

On March 1, 2011, he joined Miao and Jay Edelson, managing partner of law firm Edelson PC, to launch Scambook.com, a consumer-complaint platform that connected users with attorneys to address scams by companies. Bachman served as president of Scambook.

Later that year, Bachman appeared on the Empact 100 list of top U.S. entrepreneurs under the age of 30 and received an invitation to the White House, where he was honored for his work with Scambook. He sold his shares in the company in July 2012.

Bachman’s next venture, Game Plan Holdings, pushed him into sports nutrition and fitness. In April 2012, he became president and chief financial officer of the supplement company, which he co-founded with two former Babson students. He took over as chairman and chief executive officer in March 2013. Game Plan Holdings traded publicly under the ticker GPLH.

Game Plan previously operated sports-related social networking sites Hazzsports.com, Totalscout.com and CheckinSave.com, which were folded in February 2013.

Photo credit: GEO Media

At that time, the company acquired Sporting Blood, a vitamin and nutritional supplements business, and launched Game Plan Nutrition, a line of protein shakes and other products sold through an online network of trainers who earned commissions by recommending the brand. The nutritional line was used by athletes in the NFL, NBA and MLB.

Bachman now runs Creators Inc., which has been described in recent profiles as a fast-growing media and talent management firm in the creator economy industry.

The company operates at the intersection of content, technology and business, with services aimed at monetization, brand partnerships and long-term business strategy for digital talent.

Creators Inc. helps influencers structure subscription and paywall offerings, negotiate sponsorships, and expand into new revenue streams while handling operations behind the scenes.

“My job is to structure the deal so the creator earns far more over ten years than they thought possible in one. That means telling them no as often as yes, pushing them to think like owners, and protecting them from people who only see a quarter or a campaign, not a life or a balance sheet,” Bachman tells Market Realist.

Alongside Creators Inc., Bachman oversees BuzzStar, a one-on-one video call platform built for creators and influencers.

BuzzStar lets fans book live, paid calls of set lengths, receive notifications when a creator goes online and download recordings afterward.