“Our investment paid off, because two months later, COVID hit and TikTok booms,” Johnson said. “This is where it really all began in terms of the TikTok creator economy.” Sway House was like a TikTok frat house: their content often involved several members doing dance trends or lip-syncing to funny audio, while neighbors reported regular food deliveries, the sound of paintball guns firing in the morning, “chug chants,” and more.

Early on in their career (Sway House officially dissolved in February 2021),thecrew signed deals with Warner Music and Sony.

“Labels realized whatever sound we danced to would go number one on Billboard,” Johnson said. “Then we translated that to CPG [consumer packaged goods] because it was COVID, you couldn’t get people in stores, and TikTok Shop wasn’t a thing because the app hadn’t developed yet.”

In 2020, Johnson said Sway House — at the time, a group of five — brought in a $1.5 million deal with Reebok. “We were kids, some of us were like 16 years old, getting handed $300,000 each.”

After having demonstrated their ability to translate views into sales on a still somewhat untapped social platform (from a brand perspective), the Sway House members were brought into an exclusive investor-focused Clubhouse chat to give advice to investors like the Musk family, Mark Cuban, and Bethenny Frankel on how to speak directly to Gen Z. That very same Clubhouse chat helped lay the groundwork for Johnson’s VC firm, Animal Capital, which he started in 2021.

Johnson says brands would seek their advice on how to translate their audience into product sales in ways that felt organic to creators. “Then we realized, we are not going to answer for free, so we started Animal Capital,” he said.

Since then, Johnson has become a creator and investor, getting in early on the social-first Poppi soda brand, which was acquired by PepsiCo in May 2025 for nearly $2 billion. He says he made “almost 250 times” his initial investment, though he declined to give financial details.

Johnson’s Animal Capital, which he started with fellow creators Josh Richards and Noah Beck, and investors Dylann Sands and Marshall Sandman, has worked with names like Mark Wahlberg, Kevin O’Leary, Paris Hilton andUsain Bolt. The company has helped strategically place products and structure brand deals for Snoop Dogg and has invested in Whop, and Roblox. Johnson is perhaps most proud of Animal Capital raising over $100 million for Colossal Biosciences, a genetic engineering and biotechnology company focused on de-extinction. 

“We’re at almost 3,000X our investment,” Johnson said, though he declined to share details.

Johnson’s latest endeavor involves mixing his investment knowledge with his years of content creation expertise — he’s been working on increasing brand awareness and engagement around horse racing.

Sandman was involved in the horse racing scene, and offered Johnson a 2.5 percent stake in a racehorse in exchange for posting about it on social media.

“I did around 300 million impressions during one week of Derby,” Johnson said. A study he shared with Digiday claims his videos had 3.3 million engagements and 35 million views. He even earned $20,000 when his horse named after him his friend, Sandman, won the 2025 Arkansas Derby. 

Nowadays, Johnson’s posts are mostly about Sandman, and the life of being a horse owner. He told Digiday he’s not concerned with a posting strategy, though he shares content around three times a week.

He’s leveraged a connection by an investment in the Breakaway Music Festival that he made through Animal Capital to continue a long-term advertisement with Celsius energy drinks.

“What I’m able to do with my TikTok degree — I have a doctorate in TikTok — it’s going to serve me for the rest of my life,” he said.