file the patreon thing under A Not Surprising Consequence of Buckets of VC Dollars and Barely Any Revenue
startups are walmartizing essential services: come in, underprice, become crucial, fail to profit, leave, devastate
patreon is painfully simple to disrupt because it doesn’t actually create anything, doesn’t even drive hungry/bored traffic like kickstarter
now they’re like “we were easy to kill before, but now we’re gonna slit our own throats!”
patreon doesn’t even educate its creators how to market themselves and raise their CRs; it doesn’t remarket for them or do anything, really
somehow they expect to make an exit at a $450m valuation for GETTING ARTISTS PAID? i mean… artists, famously broke and terrible at promotion?
artists not making you a fortune. QUELLE SURPRISE
patreon isn’t doing anything a multi-headed Wordpress membership plugin couldn’t do. what on earth were they smoking to take all that money
note: i’m not at all blaming patreon’s users who are, by definition, not savvy in this stuff, which is how patreon sucked them in
i mean really. they were easy to unseat before but now they made literally everyone hate them, they’re doomed.
when their creators flee the platform in droves, they’ll have some breakage - some patrons won’t follow. but < breakage than with this outrage
ok so advice for creators newly fucked over by patreon - THREAD WITHIN A THREAD OH MAN THREADPOCALYPSE
1. i hear kickstarter is doing a patreon competitor and they have their shit together way more, from what i hear
they also took a jazillion fewer VC dollars, which means YOU are more important to them
they also took a jazillion fewer VC dollars, which means YOU are more important to them
2. but better than that is OWNING YOUR OWN DAMN PLATFORM. it can be as easy as configuring a PayPal subscription button. yes paypal is also horrible, but more predictably horrible
3. yes if you own your own platform, you will be eating more CC fees BUT, you will have more control and more power, so it’s better in the long run. CC fees are the same as what patreon is now adding on top btw so if you’d volunteer to pay those, same same
4. you need to learn to up your marketing game. begging for goodwill pennies doesn’t actually help you, or your patrons, cuz if you fail out, they lose out.
5. 99/100 patron pitches i see are like “i hate to even mention this but please sir i like food.” NO. YOU GIVE AWAY SO MUCH FREE SHIT, ask for money with pride
6. you don’t have to hard sell and you don’t have to make broke fans feel bad. OFFER THEM A FREE WAY TO HELP - be your street team - & a special reward for that.
7. i hear a lot of “no! i can’t! because xyz!” that is a way of thinking that will keep you down forever. instead, ask, “ok is there a way i CAN do this WITHOUT xyz?”
like, i literally just came up with the broke patron -> street team idea right now — never having been a broke artist. i’ve seen brands do it. why not you??
8. make THINGS to actually SELL. that’s why kickstarter is so successful for people: many won’t shell out for “support” or “inside peeks” but will for “my zine featuring 15 hi-res printable pages”, a thing they can say “i bought THAT”
9. the secret of making THINGS is you do the same stuff you’re already doing, but package it better. you don’t need to give yourself a third job
10. read things about business. oh yes, if you’re taking people’s money, you’re a business. denial of that fact is how patreon managed to prey on you.
11. nearly all artists you hear about were also in business. they sold their art or did royal commissions or performed or published or reported or doctored or janitored. everyone needs money. shame about money keeps you down
