I made the experience if you want to “influence” a developer you get no good thoughts anymore. Creators need the freedom to do their creativity. Usually, they do not care about the business much. Therefore don’t upset them or you will get less.
I made my point above already, just put your eggs in different baskets. Work with different groups of developers, so that IC still has the advantage to choose from and guide the development teams, but not anymore depend on one in general.