Your working toolkit from the Digital Monetisation and Platform Strategy session. Fill it in as you go. Everything you type stays on this device.
Platforms do not pay you for being creative. They pay for one of three things, and only one of them is something you can actually own.
Paid through sponsorship, brand partnerships, paid community and ad share.
Who owns itThe platform owns the reach. You only own the relationship if you move people somewhere you control.
Paid through direct sales, pre-orders, drops and marketplaces.
Who owns itYou do, the moment someone can pay you without sending a message first.
Paid through licensing, royalties, adaptation and merchandise.
Who owns itYou do, until you sign it away. This is the highest margin layer and the easiest one to lose by accident.
A follower is a maybe. A contact is a relationship. Investors do not buy followers, they buy a channel you control.
Three questions. Answer them honestly and quickly. Whichever one you answer fastest is pointing at your archetype.
Most businesses have two or three of these available. That is not permission to build all of them. Pick the one nearest to something that already works.
Brand partnerships, sponsored work, paid community, ad share.
Looks likeTrevor Stuurman. The audience became the thing brands buy.
The trapIt needs real scale before it pays anything, and it is the most platform dependent of the four.
Direct sales, pre-orders and drops, wholesale leads, export enquiries.
Looks likeMaxhosa Africa went direct, then global. Bathu proved the drop model locally.
The trapUsing social as a catalogue with no way to transact. Every message asking how much is a failed checkout.
Licensing, royalties, adaptation and format deals, merchandise.
Looks likeTriggerfish turned its own animation IP into a feature for a global streamer. One idea, many payments.
The trapSigning rights away in the first contract because nobody taught you to price them.
Courses, cohorts, consulting, templates, memberships.
Looks likeChris Do built The Futur into a bigger business than the agency it came from.
The trapGiving it away one free answer at a time, to people who would happily have paid.
Find your archetype below and work the checklist. Each one is finishable in a day or less. Tick as you go.
The single highest value page most creative businesses never write. Fill it in, then keep it where you can send it in under a minute.
Who you are and what you make, in one sentence
What you own outright. Be specific. Names, titles, collections, characters, patterns.
What is available to license right now, and in what form
What is not available, and why. Saying this clearly makes the rest more valuable.
Territories and terms you would consider
Indicative commercial terms. A starting position, not a final price.
Proof. Where this work has already been seen, sold, screened or worn.
Who to contact and how fast you respond
| Do this | Not this |
|---|---|
| Pick one archetype and finish one step | Start four things and finish none |
| Move people onto a channel you own | Chase follower counts you cannot contact |
| Sell before you make, with a deadline | Build stock and hope it moves |
| Price your rights before anyone asks | Sign them away in the first contract |
| Send the link | Answer "how much" one message at a time |
The platform will change. It always does. The only thing that survives an algorithm update is something you own.