By Jay Webb
Previously: IndieStreet Post #6: Not Louder Mouths, Just More Ears
Facts of the Storytelling Street:
– Creating a new, unchartered path will never come without risk or potholes.
– Brilliant (even just good) storytellers innately take risks.
– Potholes usually create an even better story about your drive once you make it home.
– Learning more about getting your story out there (distribution) in order to ensure continual story telling through life will not add any potholes (or risk) to your path. It can only make your street wider and stories more easily heard.
After discussing Indieconomies of scale and the benefits of adopting a cooperative group approach, we thought it might be a good time to switch the charge and talk a bit more about the challenges (potholes) that we have come across to date. If a pothole doesn’t swallow you, it makes your vehicle stronger.
From our slightly biased IndieStreet POV, there should be no reason for any story teller to be scared of exploring self-distribution, and more specifically, some type of cooperative distribution. The following potholes have busted a tire or two during our journey, but in no way have they strayed us from our mission. Starting a business is not for the faint of heart…A simple rule of thumb: If you want to succeed as much as you want to breath, then it won’t be hard at all.
1. A Pothole we could see from a mile away: Technology
Tech projects tend to take a little longer than expected. Period. Self-distribution means you have to learn at least a little bit about technology, which means you have to learn what comes with it. Sometimes tech changes cannot be fixed like a story, by simply introducing a new character or plot twist. IndieStreet is now in the testing phase, and there have been uncountable changes throughout the process. It took us some time, but we have finally stopped adding engaging functionality that undoubtedly adds months to the project.
2. The “Damn we Should have Seen that coming” Pothole:
Nothing worse than a flat tire from running over a pothole that you clearly saw, but some strange universal force just told you to drive right over it. Maybe you thought your tire was stronger or that the pothole didn’t seem that big and you would skip right over it. But here you are on the side of the road fumbling around with your spare.
Creative individuals hate reading long documents
Yes, this seems obvious. I am only a creative half-blood and I hate almost all legal documents with a passion. But the IndieStreet team, lead by my own crippling positivity, had hoped that filmmakers would put in the time to go through some documents if they were becoming a part of a company and had profit to gain from doing so. Well, this does not seem to be the resounding response after some decent sampling.
We had to simplify our profit participation for the time being in a manner that is more enticing for our initial filmmakers, and in turn they will get preferred shares over filmmakers who come in after the first round. The way we handled this is slightly confidential, but the simplification of the profit share was able to remove a large percentage of pages to read from our licensing process (which will attract at least a couple additional filmmakers who want to avoid legal mumbo jumbo at all cost.)
We knew that the capitalistic tendency toward the “I”, “me”, and “my film” mentality was a possibility, but we did not think it was so prevalent in the artist community. We have had a mixed bag of concerns coming from different filmmakers we have approached. Our bottom line is that all of the films in our library will be better off from being a part of a cooperative brand where each group member is promoting the platform to their own distinct communities.
3. The “Sneaky” potholes.
These potholes are just off the path of your tires, maybe even on both sides…They are filled with rain water, and the sun is hitting the water in just a way where it looks like they will be sure tire flatteners. These sneaky potholes can drive you off the straight path, even though keeping your wheel straight would have been the best decision.
Keeping your wheel straight is the most important things you can do while creating a startup, and/or telling a story. Your story’s theme or company mission should not be compromised. When you are confident that your story is important to the world, solves a problem, and you are proud of it, then DO NOT stray from your mission or story-no matter what mammoth unforeseen craters lie in the street ahead.
The main “sneaky” pothole on Indie Street arose from the street being a little empty. What is a street without traffic? All of our great intentions were paving a road to a loyal fanbase of thousands that had no reason to frequent or re-visit our site outside of watching our niche films.
When we saw this sneaky pothole, and looked back at our mission statement, we found our answer. Our mission included “quality over quantity” and being one destination for the “most creative content” on the internet. This re-inspection inspired our own creative bridge overtop of any pothole we may face in the future.
As each of the IndieStreet partners had been researching and enjoying the discovery process of finding worthy Independent films, we all found that the amount of creative content on the Internet is overwhelming. Even within a specific industry like Indie film, there is still too much for your typical person to want to sort through. Why can’t there be one single destination where an average Joe that is interested in creative Independent artists (more Joes than you would think) can find the best creative content on the web. Well, there can be one destination. And that is what we decided to launch prior to our film site.
Indie Street, even before it establishes itself as film distributor, plans to be known as a brand that does not post creative content just because they need to post content…We will be a brand that will bring our clients only the most innovative and intriguing content we can find after scouring the entire web. Our content curators for our blog are also rewarded profit participation in the overall company like our filmmakers, as the co-op and group philosophy is another element of the mission we will not ever compromise.
IndieStreet will love every second of finding the best creative content on the web to bring to you, and we are hopeful that we have turned a potential sneaky pothole for the company into a fun community growth strategy.
Hope you enjoy our curated selection of all sorts of awesome storytelling and innovation and that it can inspire further creation.
Jay Webb – Jay Webb is an independent film producer/writer and small business entrepreneur who has discovered through trial by fire that it is literally impossible for him to choose personal capitalism over passion. Always balancing a life on both sides of the tracks, he has discovered that helping good people succeed (success=happiness) is the core of what drives him. The IndieStreet direct & “group distribution” film initiative is his personal Autobahn.
Web: IndieStreet.com
Twitter: @indiest_films
