The corporate consultant who did not have anyone to ask for career advice now guides 400,000 followers through the workplace hurdles he overcame, mostly by himself. 

Colin Rocker (@careercolin) transformed his professional ‘isolation’ into a business model that challenges conventional creator metrics and monetization. 

When Colin began his career at Deloitte as a consultant, he entered corporate America without the inherited knowledge or networks many colleagues took for granted.

“It’s been, honestly, even to this day, a pretty lonely road,” Colin admits. “In my work life, I’ve probably had one really good manager. One good manager, and then the rest have been pretty terrible.”

Colin believes this corporate isolation extends beyond his personal experience. He reveals that millions of professionals enter corporate workplaces each year without family precedent, facing systemic disadvantages in knowledge, networking opportunities, and relationship-building skills.

The pandemic created Colin’s catalyst moment. As friends reached out for career advice during the 2021 Great Resignation, he recognized a pattern: “If you all are coming to me, maybe other people can get value out of what I’m saying to you all,” Rocker recalls. “I started putting it up on TikTok. Garnered a bit of an audience. I didn’t have a plan for it, but it gave me a creative outlet besides the data, corporate numbers-driven work I was doing.”

TikTok was a platform he initially resisted: “I actually hated TikTok. My girlfriend, now wife, used it a ton, and she would always send me videos. She would download them and have to text them to me because I didn’t have the app. I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, who would ever use this? But the first night I downloaded it, I was up until 2:00 a.m.”

His early experiments with fitness tips, motivational content, and business stories gained little traction: “I was posting about fitness and working out and eating healthy. I was posting about motivation or cool business stories that I liked. And so I tried some things that people didn’t care about.”

The breakthrough came when he recognized his distinctive perspective as a first-generation professional that could differentiate him in the career advice space:

Colin explains, “I sat down with myself and asked what was specific or unique about my path. And what I realized is really that POV of coming at it from a first-gen professional. My parents don’t have retirement accounts. They didn’t come from a corporate background. They didn’t know much about even the available job paths. Every job I’ve ever had, no one else in my family has ever had.”

Content Creator to Community Builder

The key distinction in Colin’s approach is his shift from digital content to physical community-building. After building a substantial online following, he launched “For the First,” a monthly professional meetup club in New York City.

“I wanted to create some physical space for people who I call ‘a first,'” Colin explains, noting that this concept, in addition to professionals, includes “first-gen Americans, first-gen students, first-gen homeowners; the first person in your family to leave your tight-knit suburban community and maybe go to a city or go to another country.”

These gatherings deliberately avoid corporate aesthetics in favor of authentic connection: “It’s held in a loft in Tribeca, not in a corporate hotel or a sterile environment. We serve pizza; we drink beer. It’s very relaxed and meant to bring exceptional people together for intimate moments and real connections.”

This online-to-offline transition represents an opportunity for creator economy platforms and agencies. As Colin observes, “We’re in a moment where the URL is going to IRL.” 

He notes that services that help creators establish physical communities could address substantial unmet demand among audiences seeking more meaningful connections than digital content alone can provide.

A Multi-Faceted Monetization Approach

Colin’s revenue streams form a diversified portfolio built on genuine connections rather than pure reach metrics. 

Brand partnerships with companies like Ally Bank, Glassdoor, and Adobe represent his primary income source. These alignments are driven by his specific positioning rather than follower counts alone. 

He supplements this through digital resources priced at $5-10, with his most successful being a goal-planning workbook developed from his personal practice with his wife. 

Public speaking engagements frequently lead to paid opportunities from audience members, creating a virtuous cycle of visibility and income. 

His “For the First” community events also present growing potential for brand sponsorships as they expand in reach and impact.

Most notably, Colin recently secured a partnership with Apple focused on first-generation stories in education, a campaign he describes as “giving credit to the people whose shoulders essentially you’ve been able to stand on.” 

He adds that this partnership exists precisely because of his positioning: “They would have never come to me if I had never shared that part of my story. If I was still showing up every day saying, ‘Here are five things you need to do on your resume,’ no one would have any idea who I am.”

This success, Colin argues, challenges conventional creator economy metrics that prioritize reach over relevance. “I’m seeing people every day with 5k-10k followers get massive deals because they’ve spent the time speaking to that specific person,” he says.

Success and Expanding Creator Categories

Unlike many creators who constantly chase algorithmic favor and expand reach, Colin prioritizes deepening his connection with his existing community.

“If I never grow another follower, I will be okay,” he states. “The biggest goal for me is to stay as relevant and as authentic as possible with the audience that I’ve built thus far and to continue to speak into their lives by speaking into my own.”

This sustainability-focused mindset extends to his definition of impact. Colin has established scholarships at his hometown high school in Georgia and nationally, viewing his platform as a vehicle to “lift as I climb.”

Alongside this redefined success model, Colin identifies an important emerging market that expands the traditional creator definition. He sees growing opportunities for what he calls “career creators” – professionals who maintain their corporate jobs while building content platforms.

“People who don’t necessarily want to become huge influencers. They are professionals; they’re people with careers. But they want to become career creators too,” he explains. “Everyone wants to know how I did it in seven months, and I want to share that knowledge.”

An Abundance of Opportunities

According to Colin, creator economy professionals should identify authenticity arbitrage opportunities, recognizing that creators with specific lived experiences addressing underserved audiences may deliver higher ROI than those with larger but more general followings. 

Developing URL-to-IRL support systems emerges as another priority for Colin, as services helping creators establish physical communities could address unmet demand revealed by his NYC meetups.

Finally, Colin’s observation that “LinkedIn is criminally undervalued” for video content suggests opportunities on platforms not typically associated with creator success.

The creator’s focus on authentic positioning, community building, and sustainable growth shows how his peers can build resilient businesses while serving previously overlooked audiences.

As Colin puts it, reflecting on both his personal and professional development: “I think I’m as big as I need to be. If I continue to grow, that’s amazing. But I think now it’s about how I maintain this and how I give back.”