Substack has what they describe as a "fellowship" for emerging writers, which is an interesting tweak on the traditional publishing model qua capital provision.
on.substack.com/p/announcing-t…
on.substack.com/p/announcing-t…
Historically book publishers provide a bundle of goods, including distribution, logistics, access to service providers, and a ruinously expensive capital investment with "structure" which would shock the conscience of most software investors.
If you squint at this quite a bit, and consider just the strata of most successful authors (which eliminates some of the structural considerations), publishers get equity (a lot of it) in the book (and related IP rights) in return for the advance (investment) plus that bundle.
One interesting thing about software platforms is that you can *approximate* having equity in some section of a business if you can keep them on your platform.
And if you can do this, you can *approximate* making equity investments by just giving people money and waiting.
And if you can do this, you can *approximate* making equity investments by just giving people money and waiting.
This is perhaps a bit counterintuitive, and depends on you being able to durably capture the business of the most successful of your "invested" users (assuming there is a power law in their success) and assumes you retain pricing power vis them, but it's just cool to contemplate.
It is the shadow thesis behind a lot of community and marketing spending by platforms, which is one reason why developer evangelists have a reputation for throwing around account credits as if they were candy.
But isn't it cool that you could maybe do that with actual money?
But isn't it cool that you could maybe do that with actual money?
Like, if you have the dominant platform in X, and someone with a gleam in their eye says "I want to be an Xer when I grow up", to a certain degree that reduces to a math problem where you should be willing to say "Here's a check for $5,000. Please remember this moment fondly."
