patreon lets fans directly fund their favorite creators, whether it be music, art, literature, etc., it can be done by recurring monthly payments or a single payment
he thought of this idea after nearly emptying his entire bank account on a music video (approx $10k) but only make $160 off of the video in the first month on youtube
- realized that it did not represent the amount of pleasure that his fans received, but through patreon it let the fan and creators gain a direct link
currently has weekly meetings with creators that utilize patreon in order to understand what he is doing well and what could be improved upon/what is missing since he doesn’t consider himself much of a creator anymore
Julian Gutman (new chief product @ patreon, ex-director produt ig) says that “craft is by nature, unreasonable” meaning that working super hard on something, whether that means refactoring everything or moving something 2px to the right, all of these changes show product, class, and highlight craft
jack also keeps an idea book in which he can write down any ideas he gets and he sometimes forces himself to think for hours straight and writes down anything that comes into his mind
idea books vs problem books
- idea books
- more for improving upon stuff
- helpful in getting ideas of what to add to existing product
- problem books
- more for searching for problems that could be improved upon
- helpful if searching for an idea for startup
if you ever feel like quiting from your startup, sit down and write about why you want to quit and that will help you see problems you can/should fix
believes that a startup will stop being a startup and become the next higher thing when no one person can have a major impact on the final product
reads unflattening by Nick Sousanis and recommends rules rules by Reed Hastings on company culture
takeaways
- trust yourself with what you want since others may have a different goal than yours
- try your best to stay true to your founding ideals for a startup
links