306. From Swiftie to CEO: How Olivia Levin Built a Bestseller and Six-Figure Creator Business Around Taylor Swift

Trading Secrets

Sony Music Entertainment

Self-improvement, Education, News, Entrepreneurship, Business News, Business

4.9 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on Trading Secrets, Jason Tartick is joined by entrepreneur, creator, and New York Times bestselling author Olivia Levin. What started as a Taylor Swift fan account at age 13 has evolved into one of the most influential fan communities on the internet, with over 630,000 followers, major brand partnerships, a thriving ticketing business, and a bestselling book, The Story of Us. Olivia shares the incredible story of how a difficult season of layoffs, loss, and uncertainty led her to bet on herself, turn her passion into a full-time career, and build a business at the center of the creator economy. She breaks down the realities of monetizing a niche audience, securing brand deals, helping fans access face-value concert tickets, landing a publishing deal with Simon & Schuster, and consulting artists on fan engagement strategies. Plus, Jason and Kathryn dive into the power of fandom, Taylor Swift's business genius, creator monetization, entrepreneurship, community-building, and what Olivia has learned from spending more than a decade at the heart of one of the world's most passionate fan bases. Whether you're a Swiftie, creator, entrepreneur, or simply curious about how passion can become profit, this episode is packed with lessons on business, branding, and building a career on your own terms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets.
0:16.7	Today we are joined by a woman who turned her childhood passion into a New York Times best-selling
0:23.2	career. Olivia Levin, the creator behind the account, Swift's Fraternity, and the author of
0:29.8	The Story of Us, How the Taylor Swift Fandom Changed Our Lives. Olivia started her Taylor Swift fan
0:36.2	account at just 13 years old. And what began as a
0:39.7	Tumblr page has become one of the most followed Swifty accounts on the internet with over 630,000
0:46.3	Instagram followers, a U.S. Today recognition as one of the biggest Taylor Swift influencers in the
0:52.6	world and now a New York Times bestseller.
0:55.4	We're talking about how she turned fandom into a full-time business.
0:59.2	What really goes into monetizing a niche community online, the power of super fans in the economy,
1:06.2	landing a book deal in what her story says about the new creator economy.
1:10.7	Olivia, welcome to Trading Secrets. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to have you. It's been a long time coming. And I got to say, once we had this booked, I had to call Catherine. And I'm like, Catherine is a major Swifty. She turned me into a Swifty. And so she's my backup resource when I don't know things and specific questions.
1:29.4	So we got the whole Swifty crew here.
1:30.6	I love it.
1:31.2	Thanks for coming, Catherine. Yeah, my first co-hosting game. Let's go. You ready to go? All right. I should have let you do the intro. I could talk about Taylor Swift. All day. All right. Let's go back. So 13 years old, right?
1:40.9	You're on Tumblr and you're starting to build this social media account.
1:44.2	Obviously a very strong passion of yours.
1:47.3	Talk to me about... 13 years old, right? You're on Tumblr and you're starting to build this social media account.
1:56.0	Obviously, a very strong passion of yours. Talk to me about what that was like and when you actually started to get recognition and how that led to Taylor Swift's seeing your account to kind of put you on the map in the Swift community. So I started that account when I was 13. And just because it's only because I found out that there was a whole community of people who loved Taylor's music online.
2:05.2	And it was kind of during the rise of social media, you know, 2013, 2014.
2:10.1	And I discovered Tumblr.
2:11.7	I didn't know what Tumblr was before I heard that Taylor Swift was on it.
	...

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