Helping Creators Make Money on Livestream Events Tuesday, May 5th, 2020
Welcome to another edition of Snail Mail! To say a lot has happened since we last checked in would be an understatement. We hope you and your families are all doing well.
This week, we're excited to share a project we've been working on to help creators continue to make money on livestream events in the current climate.
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| | 🚨 Helping Creators Make Money on Livestream Events
Slow isn't an incubator, but we do like to work on projects from time to time from the ground up. We wanted to share a project with the Snail Mail community we have been working on since COVID-19 lockdown started in California.
The project is called LiveStack. It is a dead simple way for any creator or creative to create an event, set a ticket price, and host a livestream they get paid for through ticket sales to their community. You should check it out, and we would love it if you would tell your creatively minded friends to bang on it.
Below is a bit on the service and some of the big picture lessons we have learned getting our hands a little dirty and doing some building vs. just taking pitches all day ;)
Why: Creators Need a Dead Simple Way to Charge Admission
Yoga Instructors, Comedians, Musicians, Teachers, … the list goes on and on of people who earn a living when people pay them to attend their events live… we all recognize that that their income, and their creative outlet has been displaced by work from home - and likely will be for some time to come.
There are lots of people working broadly on giving creators the tools to monetize their content from home. It isn't a novel idea… The big platforms are getting big stars and paying them for upfronts. Zoom and Paypal have done an integration for paid live streaming, and ticketing companies are jumping in as well to try to help.
But, what we have found (and the point of building LiveStack) is that the alternatives we have seen are hard to set up and manage as a solo creator without a team or the technical inclination to figure out long setup processes, plugging together services, etc.
LiveStack is super simple. You set up an account, connect stripe to get paid, set an event time and price. Share the link to invite your community to join (via social, email, whatever), and then we send the calendar invites with links for everyone to log in. We host the livestream for you (no software needed), so it is all a simple & nice to use package.
Some Things We Have Learned So Far
(1) Working with Elie Schoppik and the team at Rithm (a Slow portfolio company) we got the service together quickly, and continue to iterate on it. The tech isn't simple, but honestly it continues to amaze us having watched the internet for many years now just how easy it is to build sophisticated services quickly in 2020. Platforms like AWS, Stripe, etc. are really magical.
(2) The dynamic with creators is interesting. Everyone in theory wants to use a service like this and thinks it is a good idea, but there is still a lot to overcome getting people who charge for events in the real world to do it digitally. It feels a lot the way it used to feel talking to journalists and writers about paywalls. Creators like musicians, comedians, and influencers are hesitant that their content is good enough to charge for online -- or they worry about alienating their community -- or they are still struggling about how to use the internet for self promotion and growing their audience for free vs. monetizing. These stresses for creators are all very familiar to us, but we are also very convinced that the world will move to ticket sales online and away from just casual tipping, etc. (which we don't see as a great way to make money or a good relationship to have with your community long-term in almost all cases).
(3) There is a whole ecosystem of promoters and physical event coordinators that are chomping at the bit to figure out the ticketed digital event space. It is easy to forget the number of people that are engaged in managing physical venues, booking, managing talent in different forms, etc. This community is highly interested and incentivized to figure out how to move creative talent into a hybrid digital + physical world of ticket sales.
Try it As a Creator or Participant & See The Future
LiveStack is still a project and it isn't a company… but it is one we are excited about & thematically invested in. The technology is mostly in place and we have had some successful test events, so we are excited to get more people trying it and for feedback in general.
(1) If you are a creator or have creative friends…. Try it and try making some money for live content! Set up a live event and share a link with your community and feel the experience of charging. If you like the idea but aren't actually talented in any way, do what Sam does -- he keeps hosting 'dad joke lunch breaks' where he reads dad jokes for 30 min off the internet for $5 to feel the platform. They have been funny.
(2) If you just want to watch or try joining an event save the date for next Thurday at 4pm PST/ 7pm EST, when Iqram & The Immigrant Groove will be hosting a benefit show to support local businesses in NY. You can register for the event here!
(3) Send feedback and thoughts (or people we should reach out to!). Adam (adam@slow.co) is running the ground game and would love to hear from you!
In the meantime, we are going to keep working on refining the service, and hopefully some people can earn some money on it while they are stuck at home. Maybe this becomes a company, but even if it doesn't it is helping us see the near future, which - it is very clear to us - will include creators of all kinds charging for digital-only, and hybrid digital + physical events … not just the superstars.
Regards,
Sam, Will, Kevin & The Slow Team | | | Want moar? Check us out on:
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