How (and Why) I Think About Assets in My Business
This year marks a very special milestone on my journey as an online entrepreneur. In March 2026, my companies will turn ten years old.
In that context, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the future holds—and also about what I want to revisit and deepen for myself.
One topic that becomes very clear, and that has run through all phases of my business, is this: building assets.
Before I talk about what that means exactly and why asset building is, in my opinion, one of the most important skills any business owner can have, I want to briefly clarify what I mean by it.
(Because depending on whether you’re currently in the real estate bubble or somewhere else entirely, “assets” can mean very different things.)
What are assets in the creator economy?
For me, assets in a business context are simply things you build once and can continue to benefit from over time. In the best case, the value of an asset even increases as time goes on.
That can happen because you actively expand it—but of course there are also assets that function relatively passively.
In the financial world, real estate is a classic example of an asset, as are stocks that can increase in value.
So what do I mean by assets in the context of the creator economy? Fundamentally, this can include a very wide range of things.
For example, products that can be sold independently of you and that you can theoretically sell an unlimited number of times—classically, a template from a shop.
Another category includes things you build within your brand, such as strong brand photos, your logo, or your name being known for something specific. These assets are a bit softer, but at least just as important.
And one asset that is, of course, extremely important—and repeatedly mentioned by most online entrepreneurs at a more advanced stage—is the email list. This means that you “own” something, in quotation marks, that belongs only to you and can’t be taken away from you—except by the email recipients themselves.
What is considered an asset—and what I personally define as one—changes over time.
Fundamentally, most assets have one thing in common: you usually have to invest a significant amount of work or money upfront and receive the return on investment over a longer period of time.
Concretely, this means:
If you develop a product, you first have to create the product and the prototype, have it produced, and so on, before that product can eventually stand on its own—without your continued input—and be “released into the world.”
However, you can also apply this asset mindset to areas that aren’t classic products. In my case, for example, I realized relatively early on that SEO—search engine optimization—was a smarter long-term strategy than social media marketing.
That’s why I built my first truly strategic, large-scale blog, which I started in 2019, entirely around Google. Over several years, this genuinely became an asset for me, because Google continuously sent traffic and visitors to my website.
That worked until AI came along and certain things collapsed.
(Still, I firmly believe it was a smart move. Because AI also searches—and recognizes that over the years there have been countless articles, references, and pieces of content that can be pulled directly from my site and recommended to people.)
For the next phase of the current creator economy, I want to go one step further and consciously optimize for assets in the classic sense—things that generate income over time. That means traditional products or other structures that earn money long-term.
Which assets are relevant in today’s creator economy?
The list of what can function as an asset in a creator business is endless. Here are a few classic examples.
Hard assets (relatively directly monetizable):
Digital products (templates, courses, bundles)
Physical products (books, merchandise, print products)
Licensable content (stock assets, music, illustrations, text)
Memberships / libraries
Evergreen workshops
Soft assets (indirectly monetizable, but extremely valuable):
Brand & name (as a promise of quality)
Positioning / “What am I known for?”
Trust & authority
Email list
Content back catalog
Search visibility (Google + AI)
The distinction between hard and soft assets is relatively fluid, and the two often blend into each other. Every digital product needs a visibility strategy—and an email list is only valuable if there’s something behind it, meaning something you can sell.
(Of course, that “something” can also be advertising. But more and more people are realizing that advertising is not the easiest—and often not the most lucrative—way for mid-sized or smaller creators to monetize.)
What matters most is understanding how these assets work together and identifying which ones depend on others. Typically, soft assets enable hard assets.
In other words: without trust and authority, most products can’t be sold. You usually also need visibility or your own platform to bring something to market.
That said, there are business models where this is less necessary—classically, for example, an Amazon KDP business, where books can take off solely through the Amazon platform.
Do you really own your assets—or are you exposed to platform asset risk?
The key question is whether you’re building assets on external platforms or assets you truly own.
This has been a major topic in the creator economy lately, because many people have treated platform channels as assets—and in a way, they are.
If you have a large Instagram account, that is an asset. After all, you have the password.
Same goes for a YouTube channel.
The problem is that these are assets controlled by a single company, meaning you have no real control. That’s why some people argue they aren’t true business assets.
I don’t see it quite that strictly—the value is undeniable.
Yes, a platform account is an asset. But it’s a very risky one. It’s like a stock that can drop to zero overnight.
If TikTok decides to ban you, you’re banned. That’s it. And suddenly, your asset is gone.
I don’t know about you—but building my livelihood (and especially my future self’s livelihood) on high-risk assets doesn’t sound appealing.
That’s why, from a risk-management perspective, I always recommend that creators start building their own assets as soon as things begin to work. That includes a website, an email list, a shop, your own products, books, or events—anything you can control, as much as possible.
Social media accounts are great for attracting people. But what happens to them—or to your account—is ultimately out of your hands.
That’s why many people have started converting TikTok followers, Instagram reach, or YouTube subscribers into email list subscribers.
In the past, only course creators and traditional online business owners did this. Today, many lifestyle creators have realized it’s a smart move.
Even if you don’t plan to sell anything yet—for example, if you’re a lifestyle influencer—it still makes sense to run an occasional newsletter, maybe once a month.
Why?
Imagine you’re creating food content and monetizing only through ads. How great would it be if, three years from now, you decided to launch your own healthy chips brand—and already had an email list of several hundred thousand people?
From conversations I’ve had, many people who relied solely on external platform assets end up regretting it later.
I personally live by the motto: I want to be able to say later, “Je ne regrette rien”—especially about the things I didn’t do.
So: think about this early.
Common asset mistakes creators make
As mentioned earlier, putting all your eggs in one basket is a huge problem. At the same time, almost every platform—if you take it seriously and don’t have a big team—demands nearly all your energy.
So should you focus fully on one platform, or diversify your platform risk?
It’s a tough question.
My recommendation is to have at least one discovery channel and one channel to create depth, connection and trust with the people who have discovered you.
That means: build your “going-into-depth channel” intentionally, and push your discovery channel to its maximum before adding additional discovery channels.
Most people do the opposite. They focus on multiple discovery channels (like TikTok or YouTube) and neglect their depth channels.
You should also make sure the assets you’re building align with where you see yourself in the future—and with your energy. A simple rule of thumb: ask yourself whether what you’re building could come back to haunt you in a few years. If yes, don’t do it.
Three thoughts to deepen the “asset creation” topic for your business
1. Assets are frozen decisions
One of the biggest challenges in my business is using my personal willpower and decision-making capacity as efficiently as possible.
In my twenties, I felt like I had endless energy. You probably know the feeling. I could drink ten or twenty tequila shots on a random Tuesday—gold tequila only, silver tastes awful—and jump out of bed the next morning, happily heading to university.
Asset creation works similarly. The earlier, the better.
Like a good ETF, compound interest can work in your favor over time.
As you get older, the same effort usually feels more exhausting. That’s why I like to think 20 years ahead and ask myself: what will I be like at 50?
I want my future self to be deeply grateful to my current self and think: “Great job investing in things that paid off over many years—so I don’t have to work myself to the bone now. Thank youuuu.”
This also ties directly to decisions.
Assets—especially product-based ones—are decisions you preserve over time. They continue to create value in the future, so you don’t have to keep making the same decisions again and again. You can close loops.
Which brings me to the next point.
2. A good asset keeps working even when you reinvent yourself
This has become incredibly important to me, because my personality type loves starting new things every few years.
The more assets you’ve built—especially those that work passively—the more freedom you have to change direction. Your assets can keep working even without you.
That doesn’t work for everyone, but for some people, it does.
A clear example: producing a Christmas song. If you own the rights to “Last Christmas,” spent five to ten years in the music industry, and the song gets played every year, you could theoretically retire and become a painter—or a tequila bar owner. Your income probably wouldn’t suffer much.
That said, very few creator assets are truly that passive. Most don’t continue to perform if you completely switch fields.
Still, it’s worth thinking in that direction—and many people can come up with strong ideas.
For example, I still earn lifetime affiliate income from SaaS companies whose customers I referred. Will that income eventually dry up? Yes. But it will take a few more years—and in that time, I can build new assets.
3. Assets give you the freedom to change your mind
Many things I did in the past are no longer up to date. Still, I’m grateful they exist.
A concrete example: blog posts. Earlier, I mentioned that blog posts were my strongest assets for a long time, because people found me passively through Google. I could sell my website courses, and so on. And they still work today.
The best part is that I wouldn’t write many of those thoughts the same way today. I have a different perspective now, I’ve changed my mind, and I see things more deeply.
But the audience those articles were written for may not want that depth. For them, what I thought back then was exactly right.
That means I can publish updates today without having to redo old content. And that’s incredibly valuable to me.
So what about AI? Can’t everyone just build massive amounts of assets now?
I don’t have a final answer to this yet. But as of now, I’m convinced we’re in the middle of a massive gold rush.
Yes—assets can now be produced at scale. Videos, texts, blog posts—everything, in huge quantities.
That leads me to believe that soft assets and personal trust will become much less “soft” than we think.
In a mashed-potato-like mass of rushed content—even if it eventually no longer looks rushed—humanity will still stand out.
We’re already seeing early signs of this. Raw content performs extremely well, because people are always drawn to what’s rare.
So while I don’t have a final answer yet, I’m already asking myself: what will be rare in the future? And based on that, which assets should we build now?
A concrete example, to keep this from being too abstract: in highly digitalized countries—and there are more and more of them—loneliness is increasing dramatically.
That means communities and real-world spaces where people can meet and connect will become valuable assets. Rare assets.
So think about what might become rare in your own bubble—and connect that to the question: how can I create something that has lasting value and doesn’t depend on my constant input?
How can I create something I can finish, leave behind, and that continues to live on—maybe even developing a life of its own?
Most people immediately think of books, music, or YouTube videos. But maybe you’ll come up with entirely new ideas.
Sit down, brainstorm for your topic and your field, look at future trends—and you’ll probably uncover some surprising insights.
And once you have them, pitch yourself as a guest on my podcast—but only after you’ve implemented them. ;-)
