Wanted to put some thoughts and clarifications out there!
First off, I think healthy skepticism is a good thing. You absolutely SHOULD be questioning things, examining the economics of any business in this space, and properly weighing all types of services out there.
• Level One is a service for people who are interested in making this go from hobby to career. This means it's for people with enough streaming revenue to afford it, or people who work a comfortable day job while pursuing streaming, like I did. If you're just starting out, then Level One (or any management service) is probably not for you. Just use the free info that's out there and see how things go first! Staff is regularly advising folks in support tickets that this isn't for them and to wait a bit before considering paid management/guidance.
• The manager hours for scheduled 1 on 1 meetings are what's limited, but there is a manager sitting in vc for open office hours often. Members can also access them via chat rather than hopping into VC any time.
• Sponsorship deal flow isn't part of this company because I already have a separate, successfully running company to handle sponsorships. For the record, that one's already paid out over half a million to creators (and it doesn't charge any fee to creators). As soon as the platform version of that is ready, Level One members will get early access to it.
• We are not an agency, we are management. I talk about this on stream all the time, please look into what each of those is and does. They aren't the same!
• The price is set to an amount that allows me to pay my managers/staff a fair wage. Many of the people I have on staff would easily cost thousands per month if hired for individual consulting. I want creators who could never afford consultant rates to be able to access that quality somehow, and this is a path toward that. I'll make either very little or nothing from this project in particular, because any extra is going into hiring more staff and increasing the service quality wherever we can.
• If my main goal was to make money for myself, I would just do a couple extra sponsorships and make more than I foresee this project ever being able to make me.
Most of my companies are just me experimenting with different business models to see what options can exist in this space. I just want this service to exist, it doesn't have to be me running it! If anyone else wants to take a swing at offering services to creators in a different way, I wholeheartedly support you doing so.
I’M ANNOUNCING MY NEXT PROJECT
I know I said I’d never start a Talent company, buuuuut I’m starting a Talent company.
Introducing: Level One Talent
A company with a different business model than your traditional Talent management company.
The goal is to give you all the essentials I would have wanted when I was starting out streaming, but instead of taking a % of your income, it will just be a flat monthly fee. Here’s some of what it offers:
• Guides for every aspect of streaming
• Community game servers for all talent to join
• Weekly Guest Speakers that are well versed in relevant topics for content creators
• Business and service reviews from other creators
• Regular support and meetings with Talent Managers
• Access to our network of vetted artists/makers
• Over the next few days, I’ll go into detail about the remaining offerings and how many of the systems in here will interact.
I made this a simple monthly subscription so as soon as you feel like you’re no longer getting value from it, you can move on. I don’t intend for streamers to stay in Level One forever. As the name implies, it’s meant to be the first level of your streaming career, and a place that you get all the resources I feel are necessary to take streaming seriously.
It’ll take a few more days to ramp up and work out the kinks, so if you join now, please bear with us as we tune things during this Alpha Launch week. To make up for inevitable launch scuff, subscriptions will be 50% off for anyone that signs up early.
I hope you’ll give it a shot!
https://t.co/Yly56R8gmd
The main way that most of us find games nowadays is by watching streamers play them, but there are so many amazing games out there that we’ll never get to see because marketing is often the last thing on indie devs’ minds.
I’ve tried to help where I can by hosting Indie Game Gauntlets and other events for indie games, and I think it's important to keep scaling where I can by using my network to give opportunities to the indie devs who need it the most, so I’m announcing:
The Little Guy Program - Test Launch
• Must be a 1-2 person team. That means a maximum of 1-2 equity holders and 1-2 on salary. It’s okay if you’ve hired outside contractors, but I want to work with the little guys who truly love to make games but can’t quite afford industry-standard marketing rates.
• You must have 1 fully launched game on Steam with more on the way.
• If accepted, you provision 10+ game keys, and I find you creators (of all sizes) that would be genuinely interested in trying your game and potentially streaming it.
• You get free marketing, they get a free key, and I get to test my systems!
Disclaimer: You won’t have to sign anything for this test launch, but I hope you’re honest about the size of your studio and don’t try to ruin a good thing for others.
https://t.co/9EtGcYhIYF
^ Apply here if interested, or tag your dev friends if you think I may be able to help them!
We have THREE Casper plushies needing to go to a good, loving home... so it's time for a giveaway!
To win:
💀 Follow us & @Makeship
💀 Retweet this post
We'll be drawing the winners on September 12!
I've committed a VTuber crime.
I've made the decision to debut two outfits on the same day. Sorry.
Hear me attempt to rationalize this decision on
Monday, September 7th, at 2pm ET.