MrBeast officially takes YouTube crown

Zoom out: Donaldson now runs multiple businesses outside of his YouTube channel, which is estimated to command a few million dollars per video between ads and brand deals.

• There's a merch store, ShopMrBeast, filled mostly with apparel.
• He has a chocolate brand, Feastables, which I've tried and is pretty good.
• And there's MrBeast Burger, a delivery-first restaurant brand with one physical location in New Jersey.

What they're saying: "In the history of commerce, the way commerce is created is as follows," Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, which powers MrBeast's merch page, told Axios earlier this year on the sidelines of the NRF conference in New York:

• "First, you build the product, and then you built an audience. And now for the first time ever, first you build an audience then you build a product."

Yes, but: Finkelstein cautioned that not every creator can or should pivot to extending their brand, especially into areas they know nothing about.

What we're watching: Some creators are learning hard lessons about what it takes to run a physical goods business.

• YouTuber Emma Chamberlain has an eponymous venture-backed coffee brand, which she says she's at one point regretted starting.
• Prime, the two-year-old energy drink brand from Logan Paul, has recently come under scrutiny for its alleged use of excessive caffeine and "forever chemicals."