Giving power to the content creators
There are over 50 million content creators worldwide. They produce 90% of all content consumed by Gen Z. Those numbers are astonishing, so it's interesting to learn content creators have little to no support within their industry. Most of them get their projects out there out of pure hard work and build their platform from scratch through trial and error. Since 2017, WeTheProject has set out to change that and provide creators internationally with a platform to guide and support them throughout the process of developing, producing, and distributing content.
WTP helps creators answer those burning questions that arise when turning your idea into content: How do I protect my idea? How do I validate it? What roles do I need to produce it? Where do I get funding? How do I sell and distribute my project?
WTP aimed to create a single, free sign-up platform where creators could access different services such as IP registration and fan discovery to get feedback/input, hire talent, and connect with industry professionals for networking and recommendations.
On the flip side, other industry professionals such as camera operators, editors, designers, among several others, could also register and join a project to work through escrow protected agreements guaranteed by WTP.
The Challenge
Our relationship with WTP began when they came to us with the early idea, and we helped them with the discovery, ideation, and concept development.
Because it was the design stage, we included, perhaps wrongly so, every single idea presented to us. After the client validated the project and got some people interested, it was time to start developing, but the scope was too broad.
From a design standpoint, the challenge was creating a broad but coherent platform in which users could identify their project's stage (for example, regarding IP registration), the status of their contract with talent (and their money), etc.
"They delve deeper into the problems and find solutions to them. Their team goes above and beyond."
Kiki Chansamone - CEO & Founder at WeTheProject
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The solution
We came up with a reduced MVP that prioritized functionality, and we adapted the original design to fit this new scope through a lean-approach. And, although we were only supposed to work on the backend (done in Rails), the good working dynamic when executing the product's development meant we started taking care of the frontend and the CMS (content management system) as well.
One of the monetization strategies was keeping between seven and ten percent of the payments carried out between creators and talent they hire on the platform. This meant finding good escrow software for the contracts. Initially, we looked into third-party providers until we realized how expensive it would be to buy those. That's when we decided to build a component ourselves. Building on Stripe, we were able to develop a robust component for escrow contracts in-house successfully.
The second monetization pillar was the IP registration process, for which WTP charged a fixed fee. Xmartlabs also developed this component on an efficient and scalable infrastructure that can support several thousand users.
The result was an integrated, coherent platform with top-level infrastructure and a top-notch, responsive design that allows for a smooth mobile experience. We are also keeping one foot in the future by having future versions in place, ready to iterate.
The entertainment and film production industry can be unfair, especially if you have no previous experience, connections, or economic/technical resources. This platform would put those people in a more advantageous position to complete and monetize their entertainment projects. Through original components, a robust infrastructure, and world-class design, we took our partnership with WTP to a fruitful result.
Key Features
1. Talent Profile: Industry professionals can create their profiles to showcase their portfolio, past work experience, and personal characteristics and abilities. Creators can then use filters to search for the right profile that fits their needs.
2. Project Profile: Creators can make profiles for their projects, displaying different attributes such as synopsis, description, and current team. Additionally, they can post open roles and updates, as well as answer posts from the open comments section available for each project.
3. Open Roles: Creators can post open roles for their projects, and Talent can look and apply to these positions according to their field of expertise, abilities, location, etc.
4. Negotiation & Signing: Creators and Talent can negotiate back and forth over different aspects of the agreement, such as feed, timeline, tasks to be performed, equity, etc. Once this is done, the agreement is generated and both parties can sign it digitally. Creators can then deposit money into WTP’s own escrow component so work can begin.
5. Wallet: Users can create a WTP wallet to safely send and receive funds on the platform. Funds can be transferred through ACH, Credit/Debit Cards, and internal WTP transactions.
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