That high-end focus carries over to Guo’s personal life. She’s thrown parties at Coachella, been spotted with celebrities such as Billie Eilish and Charli XCX, and in 2023 staged a Passes-hosted birthday party for herself dubbed “Lucypalooza.”

Based in Miami at the time, Passes that year raised $9 million from a group of investors led by Multicoin Capital and acquired Fanhouse, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup that helps creators monetize their audiences. The acquisition added employees and creators who were using the platform. Passes had only about 40 creators at the time. 

Today, Passes remains far behind Patreon, which has over 100 million memberships, and OnlyFans, which boasts nearly 380 million fan accounts. To keep growing, Guo began guaranteeing creators’ incomes if they switched from other platforms, offering some as much as $500,000, according to a person familiar with the agreements.

“There’s a lot of competitors in this arena,” said Andrew Graham, head of business development for digital media at Creative Artists Agency. “In many instances, they get business just because they’re the ones willing to put up money.”

In January 2024, the creator app Fanfix sued Passes, alleging the company stole confidential information in order to poach clients. Fanfix also accused the company of selling content below cost and making misleading claims about how much money creators were earning by boosting payouts with temporary cash incentives.

According to Guo, Passes offered creators minimum guarantees of two times their income, but on average they saw their revenue grow sevenfold. She denied that Passes was losing money and said the company was profitable at the time.

“I think it’s a one-sided beef, like, it’s not true, we got no trade secrets,” she said. “They lost like every motion they filed.”

A lawyer representing Fanfix said the case is active and ongoing. 

The suit didn’t slow the startup’s growth. In February 2024, Passes raised $40 million from investors led by Bond Capital. 

Passes long had a reputation for allowing edgier content than some other subscription apps for influencers. It allows bikini pictures and suggestive photos but bars nudity or explicit sexual content, according to company policies.

Until recently, Passes allowed creators between the ages of 15 and 17 to sell content on the site. But those policies were changed in February, the same month the company was hit by a class action lawsuit alleging distribution of child pornography. 

The suit was led by Alice Rosenblum, an OnlyFans creator who was 17 at the time she joined Passes. Rosenblum alleged Passes employees, including a former Fanfix employee, recruited her to create sexually explicit content and then marketed it to users on the site, even though she was underage. The suit also alleges Guo overrode safety controls designed to protect underage creators. 

“The lawsuit, at least as it is related to Passes AND myself, is utterly meritless,” Guo said in a lengthy response on X at the time. “The conduct described in the complaint is a direct violation of our terms of service, content guidelines, and everything Passes stands for.”

Guo maintains she never met or interacted with Rosenblum, and called the case a “shakedown,” saying one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys once represented her. 

Lawyers representing Rosenblum didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

Tim Humangit, who joined Passes in September 2024 as head of trust and safety, said the company had planned to remove minors from the site before the lawsuit. At the time, he said, fewer than 1% of its creators on the site were underage. Today, the company employs about eight full-time staff and 70 contract workers based in Asia to prevent harmful content from appearing on the site. 

Meanwhile, Passes has grown to millions of users and thousands of creators, several of whom have become millionaires, according to Seth Melnick, chief business officer. 

To keep attracting more influencers, management plans to hire more staff and offer creators additional benefits, such as health insurance and wealth management. Guo’s goal is to eventually go public.

“I see it growing much larger than Patreon,” Guo said. “Sorry Patreon.”