Finding free wireless is less of a struggle than I thought it might be. Fortunately, I can use my iPhone to stake out the airwaves at a cafe before cracking open my laptop. If enough unlocked networks exist, I take the plunge, buy a coffee, and dive into Scripped for the next two hours.
I’m in LA for another week to think hard about our business model. It’s difficult because so much of what we are doing is contingent on the work that other companies are doing. Scripped is about as far upstream in the video production value chain as it gets. We exist where ideas are generated, and we’re happy here because it’s really not that crowded. There’s ScriptShark, which no one has access to, and TriggerStreet, which too many people have access to. We’re unique because we have a writing app that helps new writers test the screenplay waters and see how it works.
But how do we make money? The three of us are basically broke. I’m over $100k in debt from Harvard and MIT tuition and living expenses, Sunil poured his life savings into UCLA and the rest into Scripped, and Zak is in similar dire straits. But such is the life of an entrepreneur, a perspective I had the good fortune to grasp firsthand in a tour of Silicon Valley startups with my MIT Sloan classmates. Every successful startup we spoke to had a rice, beans, and sleeping bag sob story. Surprisingly, the spartan lifestyle continued even after their first $6m funding round.
So we need to monetize our services, but as I said, the monetization of a script is contingent on the monetization of the downstream video product. How much money will a producer make on a million YouTube, Revver, or *.tv site video views? No one really knows, but the answer will help us understand how much the script that drove the video is worth. Once we get this far, it will be easier to determine what to charge and to whom. I suspect the Scripped Writer will always be free. We’ll eventually charge fees to promote scripts to producers, and likewise to allow producers or their agents to browse the catalog of scripts that Scripped members allow permissions to see.
Regardless, from the perspective of a young guy sitting outside of a coffeeshop at Sunset and Vermont, it’s a fun problem to think about. Maybe we’ll put up a donation button instead. I think Sunil needs some new underwear.
