Writers, Artists, and the Network Effect

I met Ned Hoste in the spring of 2014. We met as presenters on a Goldman Sachs 10K Business Programme in the north of England.

Fast forward a few months. Well, maybe just a little over one month. We agreed to build a company together.

By March the following year, 9 months later, we — well, I — was staring down the barrel of a double failure; a kickstarter book project and a new business.

I was ecstatic. I think Ned was too. We had dodged a bullet.

10 days later we set up daCunha. It’s been quite an adventure so far.

daCunha is the curiosity engine supporting the following ventures led by some seriously talented people:

Made Up Words — a short fiction publication that helps you escape, engage, and marvel at our world.

Wait, what? — a publication for building the world we imagine.

Sobremesa — a conversational publication.

We are embarking on an experiment to change the landscape of creating and enjoying art.

Yeah, it sounds like a big hairy audacious goal — because, it is. But, this isn’t about building a unicorn by becoming the Netflix of art.

It’s about building something special for a specific group of people. People who are led by their curiosity. People who realise generosity, empathy, and positivity are more than categories at Hallmark Cards. People who want the companies they engage to have positive impact woven into their DNA.

Wait, what?

Yep. All that. We are integrating all of that into every detail of our ventures. Including, most importantly, the money detail.

If you want to know the true intention of a company, follow the money.

Introducing the daCunha revenue sharing model.

Worth a look if you are an artist with words, sounds, or sights.

Principles…

  1. Every person involved gets paid from the first dollar collected after the infrastructure costs are covered. No, that’s not a euphemism for CEO salary packages. Real infrastructure — hosting, accounting, software, security, etc.
  2. Every person’s pay is directly correlated to revenue growth. The publication grows, your take home pay grows.
  3. All art (written, spoken, visual) is paid a fee, related to revenue, and attracts residual payments for existing in the catalogue. That means monthly payments after you publish.
  4. You own the rights to your work. All we ask is you not republish the work for at least 30 days after we publish.
  5. The design of the distribution starts with 50% for artists, 50% for production team. That’s not a typo. We know the industry provides 10–20%, but we don’t think that’s sustainable — for artists.

If we build it and they come, artists will thrive. We don’t need millions of eyeballs to make this work, it’s excited at modest levels of subscribers.

This is the network effect.

Details — as soon as the team agrees, will be posted on our website. Until, then we hope you will take a closer look at Made Up Words, Wait, what?, Sobremesa and daCunha.

Join us and make your company as remarkable as your art.