<aside> 💡 Below you’ll find the details of our creator program. Hope you like it!

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👋 Introduction

Hey there! Thanks for being here, and thanks for taking the time to read this proposal.

And congrats on your creator brand. We have a small handful of creators we like, who add value to the business and tech ecosystem, and you are one of them. As we get into this pitch you’ll see that I am bullish on creators and the space they will hold in the startup ecosystem. Through Athyna, we've created a unique program, designed to give awesome value on both sides of the equation.

🎪 How it started

The program we think you are a fit for is our Creator Equity Program. We’d like to give you part of our company, in exchange for being a co-owner and ambassador for Athyna. To take you through the thinking here—the original idea for this program was equity for ads. But being a creator myself, I know that ads are the lifeblood of a creator businesses. So, we wanted to be more creative than that.

The next iteration, was equity for impressions. The idea being that yes, we’d need ads in exchange for the equity but we could work with last minute inventory. If a sponsor falls out, you plug us in. This would be less impact on the bottom line of the creator. But the final iteration was simpler again. We will give you equity in Athyna, and you can get it back to us through revenue over time. This can be done through impressions, shared events, referrals and more. It’s a much simpler, lower lift from the creator. If we go into business together, there needs to be trust from both sides and if you think you can add value, we agree. What this would look like is this.

• First, we meet to discuss the program and brainstorm ideas on how we could add value.
• If there is a fit, next we need to decide on what that value might look like over a 12-24 months period.
• Once we are on the same page, we issue your stock and sign the paperwork.
• Then we have a kickoff call and a quarterly check in to strategise the next stage.

For creators with a 20k newsletter and 50k across their socials this might be $20k worth of equity. For a larger creator with a 500k newsletter and 500k across their socials this might be $200k. This is up to us to decide.

🚀 What is the opportunity and why will this work

If we back the right creators we'll get our return back in the first year or two, and have a long-term partner to grow with. We're offering the program to those who have upside, room to grow and will be thought leaders for years to come.

A case study

A great example of this idea in action is the minority ownership of Shaan Puri (and less so, Nick Huber) Shepherd, an outsourcing company from the US that focuses on lower-end talent out of the Philippines. Shaan, through his Twitter presence (~400k) and his podcast My First Million (100M downloads 2023) drives incredible value to Shepherd just by speaking about them, in a very authentic way, when the chance arises. The same goes for Nick. Although he’s not as popular as Shaan his Twitter presence (350k) is quite strong and he has a podcast of his own, Sweaty Startups, where he speaks about the value of Shepherd.

Shepherd tripled this year and 50% of the pipeline comes directly from myself and Nick - Shaan Puri in 2023.