Not my first rodeo
Part of the Startup Diaries series
Curation Entertainment Partners, Inc. isn’t my first company. It’s actually my second startup. My first startup in 2015 was a streaming network that focused on kids content. It didn’t happen because I was alone and unable to find an angel investor who was willing to take a chance or believe in what I was doing. Since then, we saw the exponential dominance of kids brands such as Cocomelon, Baby Shark, and Bluey among many others. If I had risked signing the license deal with a Japanese licensor and taken the titles we negotiated, would I had succeeded? Not sure. I didn’t have funds raised which made me rethink signing the deal. The advisors I had didn’t exactly provide much guidance or helped me move the needle. It was good timing/bad partners.
June 2024 became a professional turning point. I was miserable at work and wanted to find a way to build something that actually made a difference. I felt disconnected from what I really wanted to do which was be more creative and impactful. I recognized a seismic shift in the way users/viewers were trying to get to their content. They didn’t care which app or platform or device they wanted to get the content. They only cared that the platform was able to give them access to the content. It was the responsibility - duty - of the platform to serve up access to the content easily. This, for whatever reason, is what multi-national media corporations are missing the point in viewer engagement… with YouTube being the exception.
The company origin story
There was a moment in 2022 after I was part of the RIF (reduction in force) at Verizon that I thought about starting up a new company. I wasn’t sure then what it would really do or represent but I had a good idea that the streaming media space was a good anchor to return to (Streaming platform 2.0!). What I learned from the last startup journey:
Discovery/Exploratory
Build a better founder team
Identify the main pain point in market
Plan how to solve the main pain point & identify gaps along the way
Test the theoretical solution in the wild by speaking directly with the users & customers impacted by the pain points
Take back the findings & share with your co-founders
Business & Product development —> launch
Build the alpha; show the concept to potential angel investors for pre-seed funding
Build the beta; show the working site to friends & family for brutal (Honest!) feedback
Business refinement & growth
Continuously receive feedback; iterate, improve, expand. Rinse & repeat
Obsess on refining the beta
So to put this in IRL terms, we identified the changes happening in the media & entertainment sector. Based on my personal experiences working at media corporations, they are not built to pivot quickly. And they are way too invested in clinging to obsolete business models. They were not ready to support the community-driven content or UGC (user-generated content) that is the foundation of the Creator Economy. This is what is upending those 50+ year old cable business models & plans that no longer make sense in today’s economy. What makes sense today are blockchain, tokens, cryptocurrency, and AI. Four things that are definitely not in any business model and cannot be without transformational leadership (which we know won’t happen).
With that in mind, we established four pillars: 1) Build/launch a creator platform, 2) Build/launch a streaming platform, 3) Develop, produce, & release 2 - 3 original IP, 4) Gaming.
Phase 1 - B!JuKu
During our discovery, exploratory phase we uncovered an interesting trend among creators in the webtoon space - they were frustrated by the lack of guidance, support, and marketing to break through & establish a community. And it wasn’t just webtoons, it was also happening in the digital manga, manwah, light novels, and illustration spaces.
I’ll stop right here since we are currently in the middle of discussions with strategic collaborators & partners. As soon as those are completed, I’ll share here what we were able to accomplish while in pre-revenue.
For now, check out the site in beta. We just made updates to it & can now allow creators & fans to play around in the Shonen Club, get things going. Creators - upload content after you create your Profile (for FREE!).
…to be continued