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It’s not easy to raise more than $2 million in a pre-seed circular without a minimally viable product, and that’s when the pitching team is still in their twenties. And we mentioned that they were founded in Bozeman, Montana?
“The company didn’t exist. We didn’t even have the name,” said Sam Lucas, co-founder and CEO of the 26-year-old Special Project. “It’s quite a conceptual investment.”
But the special assignment team had a forged tracking delight that they can simply take advantage of. Lucas and his co-founder, chief technology officer Paul Burton, had been running their first startup, Triple Tree Software, for 4 years, specializing in creating custom-designed SaaS products for domestic customers. Some of those clients included venture capitalists who met Triple Tree.
Taking advantage of Triple Tree’s good luck, the founders had a new concept to pursue: a platform for sharing videos with subscribers. “Content is a new e-commerce,” Lucas said, and the team had a plan for another way to deliver it and pay for content creators and independent studios.
And investors recovered from a $2.26 million pre-start led by Bozeman’s Next Frontier Capital. Other angel investors include: SpringTime Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, Service Provider Capital, 30West, Gary Rieschel of Quimin Venture Partners, documentary filmmaker and venture capitalist David Fialkow, and Stephan Burke of Comcast and NBCUniversal.
The special allocation introduced in February and March had increased its initial capital. The founders liquidated Triple Tree and the six workers moved to the new company. The launch is running with about two dozen video creators to get feedback on a beta edition of the platform, which will be officially introduced in October, still on a limited basis.
Its purpose is for 25 creators to get subscriptions of $1,000 a month until the end of the year. The larger edition will take up position in 2021.
Although other people may clearly create and percentage videos from YouTube and TikTok, Patreon is their main competitor, Lucas said, however, his platform will differ specifically:
Subscriptions are set through content creators and Special Project will get a 10% discount.
One of the wonderful demanding situations of the startup is to outline the platform’s terms of service and how they are applied. The site will have the apparent elements: illegal content, hate speech, cyberbullying and pornography. Adult-only content with limited viewing will be allowed.
But this ignores the chimney hose of incorrect information and misinformation that other social media platforms have fought with and have been unable to deal with, which has led to the spread of lies that have hindered the reaction to COVID-19 and deceived voters. Lucas puts Special in another category because other people pay for the content.
The company needs varied content and ideas, with the aim of creating “an impartial platform,” Lucas said.
And what about the change from Big Sky Country (the founders met as students at Montana State University) to a city full of content manufacturers like Los Angeles or New York? This seems imminent.
Its remoteness of fashion venues is helping Special Project stay independent as the creators it hopes to attract, Lucas said. And many other artistic and avant-garde people are in their domain and pass by.
“We are a dead-end state to the sea in a mountain village. We have a booming university,” Lucas said. “There are a lot of talented people and a lot of new faces coming from the coast.”
We met Lucas for this standout about startups. Save your answers to our questionnaire.
What are you doing? Special is a platform for video makers, filmmakers and independent studios to launch their own direct subscription streaming service to fans.
Inspiration struck us when: we created subscription video platforms for consumers of our past company and controlled to do so. The corporations in our network started ordering the same product, and that’s when we found out we had something. Creating such platforms will not be a traditional one-time operation and will not charge as much. Our consumers gave us the idea.
VC, Angel or Bootstrap: VC. Paul and I introduce Triple Tree Software, from our college basements to hiring a team and working with national clients for over 4 years. So we’d already done it in a very early way. This time we knew what to do and how much it would cost, so we opted for the VC. We also seek the leadership experience, mentoring and networks that accompany VCs.
Our “secret sauce” is: Our team. Some of us have been working together since the first year of college in 2015. We are very lucky to have inspiring teammates who make our culture and business great. We introduced five products in combination and learned a lot about how to start businesses and locate suitable products on the market.
The smartest resolution taken to date is to hire a visitor acquisition manager to master knowledge and guidance.
The biggest mistake we’ve made so far: we haven’t made a big mistake yet. The company is 3 months old. We made mistakes with Triple Tree. But I know we’re going to have mistakes around the corner.
Which business leader or executive would you like to paint in your area? We have some hard media angels in our limit chart and appreciate your leadership and participation. But if I’m allowed any, I’d like Andrew Chen from a16z because he’s very familiar with visitor acquisition, lifetime price (LTV) and viral engagement cycles for ad subscription models. I appreciate your blog. I would also appreciate an a16z investment in our A-series.
Our favorite team building activity is: We at Bozeman, so the construction opportunities of our equipment are replaced with the seasons. So far, my favorite has been a day of skiing in powder snow at The Bridger Bowl.
The most important thing we look for when hiring is: passion. Are you passionate about being as productive as possible and constantly improving and perfecting your work? If you put an organization of passionate, curious, hard-working Americans in a room, anything big will unfold.
What recommendation would you give to other marketing specialists who are just leaving? If you need to be an entrepreneur, you have to start working somewhere. I think the most productive position is painting for an entrepreneur you appreciate in the industry where you need to start a business. Learn both from your movements. Then you get started with a service business and you’ll get paid to learn. Once you know how to increase your revenue, manage profits and losses, rent a team and create products, start a product business and raise funds. You will build a network of paintings by mentors and advisors in both one and both steps along the way.
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