Create on Your Phrases with Your Neighborhood

I’ve been an expert creator for 12+ years, making music and movies with my bands Pomplamoose and Scary Pockets. In 2019 alone, we revealed over a 100 movies! Earlier than Patreon, regardless of thousands and thousands of video views, my month-to-month earnings paled compared to the attain and affect of our work. It looks like yesterday that I maxed out bank cards and obliterated my financial savings account whereas constructing a reproduction of the Millennium Falcon for a music video. Ingrained in my mind is the second I opened my earnings dashboard, and the graphs earlier than me revealed 1M+ views and… what!? That may’t be proper. Advert income earnings of $166.10.

Do the maths and also you’re $.0002 per view. Lengthy nights, exhausting labor, and love produced a chunk of content material of us celebrated and in flip, I took dwelling pennies. The system was clearly damaged. It valued advertisers, not artists, and creators have been getting screwed.

There needed to be a greater method.

In 2013, Patreon was born. I’m so proud to say after a mere seven years, there are actually greater than 200,000 creators on the platform which have collectively earned $2 billion {dollars} up to now straight from their followers! No advertisers. No gatekeepers. No black field. Much more thrilling, it took six years for creators to earn $1 billion via Patreon and simply 15 months to earn their second. Transferring ahead, creators from all around the world can be incomes at the very least $1 billion a yr on Patreon. $1 billion!

Through the years, I’ve had the respect of listening to hundreds of tales. These are now not the tales of creators getting screwed by a damaged system. These are the tales of thriving inventive companies. They’ve advanced from kitchen desk recordings to high-end studios. From espresso homes to giant live performance halls. From flying solo to using giant groups. By constructing your content material and group on Patreon YOU proved the ability of inventive independence.

Collectively, we’re altering the inventive economic system.

We’ll proceed to drive this crucial motion ahead, and I’m excited to tell you that we have now raised one other $90 million in funding to assist us accomplish that. Due to so many conversations with so a lot of you, we all know one of the simplest ways to proceed to fund the inventive class is to construct a worldwide community, on creator-friendly phrases, the place unique content material and group can develop and develop. As such, we’re going to give attention to three key areas:

Worldwide, enhancing the patron expertise, and serving to you increase your viewers with discovery instruments.

With nearly all of creators and patrons residing outdoors of the U.S., we have now taken a number of steps to assist the inventive class worldwide. In February, we opened workplaces in Berlin and Dublin together with including Euros and Kilos as currencies. The platform is now obtainable in German with localized French, Spanish and Italian variations coming quickly! The affect up to now has been unbelievable. When followers pays of their native forex, their chance of changing into a patron is 30% to 60% increased. We’ll proceed so as to add extra currencies this yr to make it even simpler for followers all around the world to assist the creators they love.

Almost half of all patrons have instructed us they’re in search of higher connection and group with creators and each other. Relationships have fashioned and friendships are being constructed based mostly on related pursuits, hobbies, and appreciation. We can be enhancing that have – from updating messaging options, to patrons having the ability to have interaction with one another, together with offering extra alternatives to bodily present assist for a creator within the type of extra merchandise. We presently ship to 231 areas and we’ll be including extra customized merchandise and currencies by yr’s finish. Don’t elevate a finger as we’ll do all of the work in delivering hoodies, mugs, stickers, and the prefer to your patrons!

Additionally, all of that is taking place with a give attention to enhancing our content material consumption and cellular experiences, as a result of creators and patrons ought to be capable of have interaction with one another nonetheless, at any time when and wherever they’re.

We’ve additionally heard from creators that they need our assist with viewers growth on Patreon to enhance their off-platform acquisition efforts. In response, we can be making it a lot simpler for the 6 million patrons on Patreon to find creators. By investing in search and discovery, we can be serving to you to accumulate extra patrons! Search outcomes can be based mostly on components such because the Patreon communities that patrons are already part of, what kind of content material they assist, or the place they’re positioned.

This second is a giant deal as a result of it proves that the world is altering. Being an expert artist is now not a dream however a actuality for extra individuals than ever earlier than. The second renaissance has arrived and the inventive class is crushing it.

I want to welcome the next traders to the Patreon household and thank them for serving to us drive this inventive economic system ahead: New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Wellington Administration and Lone Pine. A particular because of our present traders who additionally participated on this spherical, which embody Glade Brook Capital, Thrive Capital, DFJ Progress, and Index Ventures.