I built a company situated in the fandom of BTS’ ARMY, here’s why
For a year now I have been building an independent book publishing company called Revolutionaries. I started as the only team member, I called myself the Director. Then, slowly but surely, throughout the chaos of the pandemic, my vision came to life. As my team grew, as we published more books, my role changed to CEO and I was afforded more time and space to think about the broader vision for my company.
Sure, I started off with a vision and a set of ethics to operate by, but during 2020 I was forced to focus on what was right in front of me: we were all just surviving. Throughout the year I continued to add to my vision, or rather, I continued to organise my vision into neat little boxes so I could analyse it. I discovered early on that what I was trying to do didn’t fit in the current publishing (or business) landscape. I was building something new, or at least something unconventional.
When I first created the website for Revolutionaries I wrote that everyone in the company was an ARMY, a fan of BTS, and that all our contractors were also ARMY. This was the only way I knew how to explain my complex vision for Revolutionaries: a company built by ARMY but not just for ARMY. I wanted to show the revolutionary capacity of ARMY and BTS and channel it into a business structure that sought to stand in resistance…
