Startup - Patreon

Submitted to: Prof. Schulman

Md Sabeel Ansari

/16

MGT 9967: Tech and

Innovation

Assignment 7

Patreon is a startup founded in 2013 and with over $47 Million in startup
fundraising efforts from Alexis Ohanian or Sam Altman, Patreon is a platform
that allows content creators such as artists, YouTubers, photographers,
musicians, authors, writers, and so forth to set up pages for their work and
get support from their fans. The community is currently comprised of over
2,000 creators. Based in the Bay Area, the company currently employs over
40 people.
Model:
Artists set up a page on the Patreon website, where patrons can pledge to
donate a given amount of money to an artist every time they create a piece
of art, optionally setting a monthly maximum. Alternatively, a fixed monthly
amount can be pledged. This is different from other crowd-funding platforms
like Kickstarter, where artists obtain a single sum after a successful
campaign and typically have to start over for every new piece. Similar to
other platforms however, artists will often provide rewards for their
patrons. Patreon takes a 5% commission on pledges.
The main advantage is this model is timing of payment. In other
crowdfunding startups the payment is paid once. So, if you need to have
another requirement, you need to start over again. However, in Patreon the
fan makes a fixed payment each time you generate new content. Also,
Patreon helps in generating regular income that freelancing cant for an
artist.
On the downside, Patreon is for smaller subset of people rather than
mainstream audience. An artist can cater to the need of specific people.
Also, there is a limit at which the audience want the same content. Hence,
they may move to a different platform.