How Independent Creators Can Own Their Content and Build Sustainable Income [ Zack James]

[00:00:00] The Independent Creator Community and Economy is Transforming the Way Americans Consume Media, Entertainment, News, and Digital Content. As Traditional Publishing, Entertainment, and Social Media Businesses Continue to Evolve, Independent Creators Are Searching for Ways For Greater Ownership.

[00:00:30] Financial Independence and Meaningful Connections with Their Audiences. Research Highlights The Greater Impact and Influence of Creator-Led Communities. According to my friends, at BizCall, 71% of consumers trust recommendations that they receive from creators they follow

[00:00:59] rather than traditional brands. Meanwhile, Morning Consult Research suggests that 26% of Americans that independent creator content affects and influences the way they vote.

[00:01:18] Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center reports that 50% of US social media users consider online platforms to be important to connect with like-minded people.

[00:01:35] These findings raise an interesting question if independent creators have the power to influence customer behavior, shape public conversations, and build thriving communities digitally.

[00:01:54] Why do so many independent creators struggle to generate sustainable income for their creative work? This week on Let's Have This Conversation, I'm joined by my friend Zach James.

[00:02:14] He's the CEO, founder, and chief developer of Starscript, a Los Angeles-based self-publishing platform and creative network which is designed to empower independent creators.

[00:02:32] Zach co-founding the company alongside his brother Matthew, Starscript, combines elements of Netflix-style streaming, LinkedIn-style networking, social media engagement, and IMDb-style ratings into one integrated ecosystem for creators,

[00:03:01] to own their content and join a community of like-minded people. The company was founded in 2023 and challenges the traditional entertainment-style industry model by giving creators the opportunity to publish, promote, monetize, and build communities.

[00:03:31] The company's around their work. And James joined me this week to tell me more. I'm Kevin McShann. Lets Have This Conversation

[00:04:13] Zach, if you're ready, my friend, I will take a moment to welcome you to the program. And I'm super excited to talk about Starscript today. It's great to see you, buddy. All right. All right. Yeah, sounds good. Cool. Yeah, ready to get started. Absolutely.

[00:04:29] So Zach, I wanted, just before we dived into Starscript, I wanted to ask you about the current landscape for independent content creators because more and more people are, you know, flocking to the genre not only to gain visibility but to make money as well.

[00:04:50] So I'm wondering if we can start our conversation by you telling me just your assessment or your forecast about the state of the industry, my friend. What are your thoughts? I think that, well, obviously we have emerging technologies with like AI. And so that's really changing the landscape of content creation. There's some pros and cons to that.

[00:05:14] And, however, one of the things sort of remains and that is the vast majority of creators have a hard time making a living, you know, creating content. So that's the, you know, even though the plat, a lot of the platforms out there, they offer some solution, but it really works only for a select few.

[00:05:39] And then for the rest of the people, I think they're working very hard and to try to make something that works for them. They're trying to use different technologies to make something that works to get their story out there to the people who will are interested in it and can receive value from it. But it continues to be a challenge. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:01] So you created Starscript, which is a network designed to empower independent creators, you know, Starscript. It combines elements of Netflix, LinkedIn, and IMDb ratings to really give content creators that authentic community, but also ownership experience. So tell me about Starscript, my friend, and how it works.

[00:06:31] Yeah, sure. So there's a couple of different layers to it. And in short, the what we're looking to build is a production and entertainment ecosystem. And so just to kind of break that down a little bit, the production side would be the creation side.

[00:06:50] So where it's you may be one person or more people meeting with one another collaborating on some type of project and working on it together, create it to create that finished product.

[00:07:01] And then on the entertainment side, when it's time to publish that platform, the platform offers a marketplace for them to publish and to be discovered by prospective patrons and also to connect with them on deeper levels than just like leaving a review or maybe a comment in a comment thread. So there's sort of two different sides of the creation side.

[00:07:25] And then there's the the actual publishing and the front end side where people are actually experiencing their product. And then there's a different sort of layers that make up Starscript. I would say with the first way we stood with the first sort of layer we started with was the social layer. We figured that communication is so important. You need to have communication.

[00:07:46] And yes, there's other social platforms out there, but the so but but the social is to communicate right in communication is very important. You can't really collaborate much on a project or connect with fans without communication. And so we wanted to build that piece first.

[00:08:05] So to kind of, you know, get the the connection going and then from there to build a product layer and a marketplace on top of it. And so that's where the self publishing comes into play, the marketplace, the revenue streams, and then everything that sort of comes after publishing where I, you know, I think there's, you know, a lot of us who are self published out there.

[00:08:32] We look to publishing is the goal, but then there's a lot that comes after publishing, you know, to really enable your story to get discovered and then to connect with the people that identify with it. Yeah, absolutely. And I know throughout the process of developing Starscript, I know that you gained a unique perspective on the intersection of technology, creativity and human connection as we've been talking about.

[00:09:00] So I'm curious, how do you define, you know, building an effective and inclusive and sustainable community, which more importantly, what does that look like to you, you know, in practice? And how can independent content creators go about building that sustainable community of support? My friend, what are your thoughts there?

[00:09:28] Yeah, so I think we have to look at the existing climate that exists with technologies. And like I said, there's lots of different social platforms out there, but the social, it kind of stops at communication. So these other platforms are there to just simply commute to allow communication, but communication for the sake of communication. There's nothing more to build off of besides a quick post here, a quick post there, or maybe a themed profile or something like that.

[00:09:57] So we wanted to take communication and to allow people to build a marketable product with it at the same place that they're communicating. So an inspiration for that came from really the real is really both my brother and I are writers. And so we thought about this when we were working on writing our own stories and thinking about how we were going to market it.

[00:10:22] And then coming to that realization that many independent creators come with that come to at some point in time. And that is that your, your book, your comic book, your movie, your podcast, your music album, your art is essentially a product. And if you want to get that freedom and that empowerment of being independent, then that means that you are now an entrepreneur.

[00:10:47] And I think a lot of people who take that self-publishing route don't fully realize that early on, that they're not just making a product and that's it. If you build it, they will come as they say, but you actually now are taking on that burden, that heavy burden of becoming an entrepreneur, which means you need to have a marketing department, a finance department, a legal department. You need to have all these pieces of a business working together to make that product sustainable.

[00:11:16] And there really was no platform really built to fully acknowledge that we had sort of isolated pieces of technology out there and people would have to sort of combine different pieces of technology that weren't meant to work together. But, and put them together in a stack in order to sort of try to make a system that was sustainable for them to make a sustainable business.

[00:11:41] So what we wanted to do with Starscript was make a platform that just simply acknowledged that this is a business and that you need a lot of different tools to make the business work. And that's sort of where the inspiration came from is we didn't see anything out in the market that really filled that need. Even as for ourselves, we were thinking for ourselves first, we weren't even thinking about anybody else. And then once we really felt that like, hey, if we use Amazon self-publishing, okay, that's where we published.

[00:12:11] But then we have to create some social media accounts to get a following. And then if we get a following, not even 100% of our followers are going to get notified on a lot of the major social platforms. We don't even know how many of our followers get notified. We do all this work to earn followers, but we can't really even communicate with them. We don't even own that audience.

[00:12:31] And so there was a lot of struggles even there, even though the publishing side and the social side were fragmented and separated. There was still problems just with the social side alone because you couldn't even communicate with the followers that you supposedly earned because of the algorithm that gets in the way that you don't know what it is. It's always changing.

[00:12:54] It's like this ghost that haunts you and it basically stands there as the gatekeeper between your audience and whatever message you're trying to deliver, whatever communication you're trying to have. So it came from need, our personal need, and then us realizing, hey, a lot of independent creators out there have this issue. Authors have this problem. Musicians have this problem. Filmmakers have this problem.

[00:13:21] This is a universal problem in content creation, and so that's where we thought we need a place. We need a place, right? And we thought of this place as an app where we can sort of acknowledge that these different needs that exist for both creators and the fans because the fans have just as much of a hard time finding the content they're looking for as the creators do trying to put it in a place where they can discover it.

[00:13:49] So the problem actually exists on both sides. And so that's sort of where the inspiration came from is just looking at the climate about eight or so years ago, actually, which it's even though there's a lot of evolution of technology, it's fairly similar today. And then coming up with a solution on our own. Yeah, absolutely. So, Zach, I want to talk to you about the realities of independent creation.

[00:14:14] As you were just discussing, you know, a lot of independent creators, they're expected now to be storytellers or marketers or entrepreneurs of their own messengers, as we were just discussing. And one of the more unique things about Starscript is that, you know, your members get to keep 95% of their revenue from their membership fees.

[00:14:43] So let's talk now about the realities of independent content creation and actually making revenue off your content. What are your thoughts there, my friend? Well, it's tough to begin with, right? And, you know, the vast majority of content creators out there really need a day job and they can't quit their day job.

[00:15:10] They would love to have a sustainable business for their content, but they just can't. And there's a lot of roadblocks sort of in the way. One of them that we just mentioned is discovery and that entrepreneurial problem that exists, right? Another one is that a lot of the platforms out there, they take a huge portion of your revenue, sometimes 30%, sometimes more than 30%.

[00:15:38] And I mean, that's like a huge part of you think of your whole business and all of your work. You finally get your work done and you get it out on a platform. And just for you to have your product on that platform, they say they want almost one third of all the money that you make on the platform. So that's really disheartening, you know, in a lot of ways that you, you know, it's hard enough to make that sale, right?

[00:16:06] To, to, to find somebody who's interested in the content that you have, they're willing to pay the money for it. And then you have sort of even like worse than a, you know, worse than a tax collector, right? Looking to take a huge person, a portion of your, of your money. And this is not counting by the way, this is not counting you paying for paid advertising for you paying for any other type of marketing. Maybe you're hiring people to help you market.

[00:16:33] So at the end of the day, you might, you might be paying 40% or 50% just for marketing and to have your, have your product out there. And it's just, that seems like it's really against the creator, you know, in a lot of ways. And so what we wanted to do is, you know, basically make sure that the creator gets the vast majority of the money that they create. And that's why we have this 95%, 5% model.

[00:17:04] And, you know, we also, because of technology, because of AI, we can be, and we are a startup, we can be very lightweight. We can have a small team and we can be very effective at getting a lot done. And so we don't have as much of an overhead as maybe a company would have to have five years ago where there was no AI. You'd have to hire a lot more people, right?

[00:17:31] And not just AI, but other technologies as well, where you'd have to hire like a lot more people. You'd have a lot more overhead. Maybe they need to have like physical locations and stuff like that, you know, at an earlier stage. And so you would need to take more money. But at the end of the day, this is sort of like a supply and demand thing. And is it really, is taking 30% of the creator's money or more really advantageous to that business itself?

[00:17:57] You know, because that means less people are going to be able, because you're squeezing them so tightly as the marketplace, less people are going to be able to be successful. And if they're not successful, you're just going to have a bunch of content on your platform that doesn't make any money. Because you already took, you want to take so much of their money. You're like, what's the, there's actually like a saying or a metaphor.

[00:18:23] It's like you're, the business is relying on the creators in order to make money. So it's like you're, what do they say? Something to the hand that feeds you. It's a common saying, right? Rob Peter to pay Paul, yeah. Oh, it's, it's bite the hand that feeds you. I think that it is. It's right. You don't want to bite. And so what they're essentially doing is biting the creator's hand, right? And saying, and trying to take so much from them.

[00:18:49] And now the creators are left where the vast majority of them simply just can't be sustainable. And so it just becomes like this, like hobby on the side that they have with a dream to become, to have that become sustainable and to have them eventually leave their day job. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:19:10] And that's actually a good jumping off point to my next question because I wanted your thoughts on this because morning consult in Fortune magazine earlier this year, they created or they combined on a study that found that 57% of Gen Z and millennial,

[00:19:32] millennials would actually become a content creator or an influencer if given the chance. So I'm curious, what do you make of that finding? And what advice would you have for Gen Z's or millennials before they dove into the realm of content creation? What are your thoughts there, my friend? Wow, that's an amazing statistic.

[00:20:00] And I think what it is, is that there's a part of human nature where we are creative beings. And that if given the opportunity, we would like to do something, we would like to create something. But the challenge that exists as we're acknowledging is that you can't make a, it's very difficult, let's say, to make a sustainable living off of that.

[00:20:25] And so one thing I would say is that one is to acknowledge early on that this is a business and that you're essentially making a product and that the product itself doesn't sell itself. Okay.

[00:20:49] And so you're emotional, because if you're emotional, because if you're emotional, creative side, because if you just go full creative and you don't take care of the logic side of things, you end up in that position where you're really focused on your product. You give all your care to your product. And then you finally get your product out there and it's like a ghost town. It's like there's nobody there to enjoy your product and to receive that value.

[00:21:14] And so you really need a business mindset when you're taking, when you decide to become an independent creator or someone who's, you know, collaborating with the team and to embrace, I would say, and this is the thing. Rather than thinking to yourself, this is a common attitude I've actually heard, which is I'm just supposed to be the writer. You know, well, it's like, oh, well, you chose that path of self-publishing. So you can't really say, oh, I'm just supposed to be the writer. I'm just supposed to be the musician.

[00:21:43] Other people are supposed to take care of this stuff. That attitude really is going to hurt you. And what it does, it makes it to where because now you know that you're independent, you have to do these other things. It becomes not fun. And there's a nice saying, which is if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right.

[00:22:02] So if you have an attitude where you're like, I just want to be the writer and all this other stuff is just stuff I have to do real quick so I can be successful with my amazing product, then you're not going to be successful likely. You're going to struggle because marketing takes a lot of education and work, advertising, promotions, taking care of the dealing with copyright, dealing with financial management. Right. So you need to embrace all of those things.

[00:22:30] And actually, what I would even say on a to really tap into your creativity, you should look to see that all of those skills are kind of a form of storytelling in a way. There's a financial story. Marketing is storytelling with like a marketing funnel and advertising is storytelling. So the storytelling or even music, let's just let's just get out of a book for a second and talk about music. What is one of the main things you need to have good music? You need rhythm, right?

[00:22:59] Well, with marketing, you also need rhythm. There is a beginning of that marketing campaign, a middle and an end of that marketing campaign. So if you can find those things, the thing that you love about your art, if you could just sort of find a way to apply that to these other parts of business, I think that will help you be more sustainable.

[00:23:20] And then, again, looking at something like Starscript that has an architecture that maybe gives you the tools and the technology to sort of make your job a little bit easier as an entrepreneur. So you could focus on what you love most, which is creating the product, maybe sharing it with your fans, connecting with your fans. Then that obviously is helpful as well, is to have the technology there, but also have the right attitude.

[00:23:47] Yeah, and I know that's Darshko's act that one of your main sort of goals or aspirations is building a sense of community. So I'm wondering if you can share a story or two about the community that you've built and the impact that you've made in terms of building that sense of human connection, belonging, and sort of giving independent creatives, you know,

[00:24:16] that meaning and purpose behind that work. What are your thoughts there, my friend? Yeah, so community is vital. And that's why I think it comes back to our social first create when we started developing. And as we know that before there was paid advertising and before there was all of the technology that exists in the digital space, there was still music. There was still stories.

[00:24:45] There was still theater, right? There was still interviews and things like that. But the main core pathway of spreading the value of that message that was in that product was through people. Was through people communicating about it and sharing about it. So yes, we really value community.

[00:25:06] And our goal or one of our goals is to cultivate a really healthy community on the platform that is diverse in many ways. It's diverse in a sense of creators coming from different cultures, from different, across different mediums, right? And not in having their own projects, but also being able to collaborate on other people's projects.

[00:25:34] So we create the features to have the ability for you to sort of be just somebody who creates a project on your own by yourself and publishes. Or you can find people on the platform to collaborate with and then publish together. Or maybe you bring your team on, like you already have a team outside of the platform and you bring them on.

[00:25:56] So we give a lot of ability for that sort of the creative community side, like they're on the creation side, to come together and communicate with one another. But then as we know, no art is complete without the people who are appreciating it.

[00:26:14] And that plays another role, right, in cultivating a community is after publication, we want to give those people the ability to communicate with each other and to communicate with the creators. And there really is no place for that on some platforms out there. Like, if I just go to a publishing platform and I leave a review, right? That's where, how can I connect with the creator in that arena, right?

[00:26:44] Or how can I connect with other people? I can reply to their review or I can like their review. Just having a feed or like a review feed or even a post for that matter isn't really the, it's a form of communication, but isn't really the ultimate form of communication. So our goal is to give, using different sort of social architecture is to give people the ability to connect with each other around a story and also to connect with the creators.

[00:27:12] And it's, it's a work in progress and we're seeing it grow. We're seeing our people connect, you know, which is really rewarding to actually see people just share their content, to see other people come on the platform and connect with them, you know, with respect to that content. And so I'm really excited for what we've already achieved, but we're really just at the beginning. Like we just launched the self-publishing side this year.

[00:27:38] Um, and so I'm really excited for the different collaborations that are kind of come up and the different projects that are being created on the platform. Yeah. You know, uh, the possibilities of potential are only limited by the scope of our imagination, right? That's the goal. And is to have the, is to have the imagination be your limitation.

[00:28:04] And I really do feel like with the emerging of AI, we're actually getting that to where you may not necessarily have certain skills, but you, if you're, you have the imagination, uh, you can actually do a lot, right? At least, you know, get, get your idea out there, uh, through supplemental tools like using AI, right?

[00:28:28] Even if it's just to get the idea out there to maybe get a team later on, that's actually going to help you build the real product. AI is actually good as a, as like a building block tool for you to storyboard and for you to get drafts of the idea out there to spread, you know, your art. Yeah, absolutely. And as I have a two part question for you, my next two questions are kind of interconnected. So I'm going to combine them. Sure.

[00:28:58] Our friends over at Forbes, Zach, they did a study last year, or this year rather, on the independent content creator community globally. And they say that the economic impact of that can range from anywhere from $387 to $180 billion compared to $250 billion just a year ago, you know, with the increase. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:28] With the increase on things like brand partnerships and direct fan monetization. So I'm curious, curious to get your thoughts on the growth of the industry. And the opportunities that, you know, are present for people to really dive in to this field. But the importance of having a strategic plan.

[00:29:56] Because it's really one thing to have a creative content creation concept. It's another thing to have a strategic plan. So I'm curious to get your answer there, my friend. So I think that the first step is to see if you can have traction with your idea.

[00:30:19] And if you do with your art, right, then yours, then as has happened for many other art projects in the past, whether it be music or a book or a comic book or art and other mediums, that that can evolve over time. And when it evolves, it can really impact culture.

[00:30:45] And it can also generate lots of revenue and lots of different opportunities. And I think we could look at the most some of the most famous stories out there. One of my favorites, Harry Potter, I would say, which just had such a significant impact on culture. Right. Where you had people setting up coffee shops, even that were unofficially styled in the world of Harry Potter. Right. And we know that that story is a tremendous success. There's a lot of things that came from that. Right. There's video games.

[00:31:14] There's theme parks. There's costumes. Right. There's cosplay. So there's all these sort of things that can emanate from the story where the story is sort of just the beginning. It's like the plan to bring about this this piece of imagination into the world. And when people can gravitate towards that, there is tremendous opportunity for many different types of revenue. I mean, there are sponsorships. Right.

[00:31:43] There's expanded universe where you can add on other writers. I mean, look what happened with Star Wars. Right. Where Star Wars became so successful and that there that we had the expanded universe of Star Wars, where you had many different writers writing it. And then, and, you know, as you talked about with the growth of the revenue, which is really significant. I mean, it's almost like a 50% growth, I think you said, over in, you know, in a fairly short amount of time.

[00:32:09] Um, that you have also the fan fiction, right? The fan creations that come and emanate off of this. So it's like, I said, it's like there's this, uh, the, that first piece of art is that archetype, or let's say it's a music album. Then you have the cover songs that come after that. And so I think there's a lot of ability to monetize those things. There's a lot of ability to drive revenue off of those things.

[00:32:35] And I think, um, I think we're going to see more and more of that as, uh, time goes by. And also we're going to, as because of AI and the, the, the ease of people being able to create sort of offshoots of different things. It, I think that one of the, the new things that actually I just saw that's sort of trending right now is there's like a female version of Malfoy from Harry Potter. And it's just started hitting like everywhere.

[00:33:01] I'm seeing it all over the place that it's like, what if, what if Malfoy was a female and how, and then there could have been some romantic tensions and how that have impacted the story. But the point is, is that this is sort of like a, how a star shines is actually a great, um, sort of metaphor. A star can shine in all directions. A star doesn't just shine, you know, North or South or East.

[00:33:28] It shines like a sphere in all directions. And that's what we're doing with the, with the, with some, some creative IP, right? Is that we're creating this star and we want it to shine and we want it to just give as much value as humanly possible so much that other stars can even sort of reflect, you know, the light off of it or something like that. Yeah.

[00:33:58] So many plans in store to really enable the stories to come to life in the best way possible and to evolve into different mediums. So something can start as a book, evolve into a comic book. It can have music that is added on top of it. And then you have audio book and then that can become maybe a short, a series of shorts, like one of those like romantic, you know, like a romantic, uh, what are they called?

[00:34:26] Uh, the shorts that are like romantic, uh, short stories or whatever. And then that can evolve into like a TV show with some episodes and that can evolve in a movie, which can evolve to video games, which could go and beyond that. So there's evolution, right? But of course the first thing needs to happen is that core piece of IP needs to have it's, it's people need to receive value off of it. Right. First and foremost.

[00:34:52] And then once you see that it's resonating with people, then you could put more effort into it growing. But sometimes, you know, you have some piece of content out there. That's really awesome piece of art, but the audience can be limited and that can happen as well. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:35:09] So I want to go back to something you said earlier about the, uh, the, uh, you know, struggle that some content creators face when, when, when they're dealing with things like visibility and dealing with the algorithms.

[00:35:25] Because, you know, other industry research from Forbes also found that only 4% of, uh, you know, serious content creators can make up to, uh, six figures more. Up to 56% struggle to make a median living wage of about $44,000 a year. And this is despite the tremendous growth that we just finished talking about.

[00:35:56] So I'm wondering your thoughts on where do you think the disconnect is between those numbers and the importance again of having a strategic plan before you go out into the content creation world? What do you think of those numbers and how important is it to have a strategic plan, my friend? I think it's actually, I think it's vital, uh, to have a plan.

[00:36:24] Um, and to look at it, like we were mentioning earlier as a business. Um, and I think that doesn't take away from the art. And I think that's a, sometimes people look at business and art as being like, like business is not art or something like that. And that, I think that attitude or that perspective can be a huge detriment, but the reality, as you say it, that is something that is really disheartening, I guess, to hear, because there's a lot of people that work very hard.

[00:36:53] It is a lot, a lot of people are very, even who are struggling to make that, that living off of their work. As you, you know, as you mentioned, um, and very few get to that point to where they're making six figures and beyond, as you say.

[00:37:36] Okay. I think there's some misconceptions that people have out there about their work. They think that one, the one thing they may think is, um, I'm just going to make something. And if people like it great, if they don't, that's fine too. Um, I, and they kind of don't acknowledge, they don't think about audio, their audience at all. Like they just are making something that maybe people they're not interested in, or they don't maybe take any feedback from it.

[00:38:05] I would just say it's okay to be open to feedback. You can, you can, um, still be the creator and have your world and still take constructive feedback on your work and not take things personally. And it's not for you to necessarily do what other, everything everybody says when they're giving you feedback. Um, but it's something for you to at least take into consideration. Right.

[00:38:31] And so, um, the next thing I would say would be that you really want to always question. You want to constantly be questioning what you're doing, what your strategy is, whether you're doing, working on the highest priority thing, whether you're missing anything and to have some type of action plan for releasing.

[00:38:52] And to, to, for your, for, to educate yourself, like I said, as an entrepreneur, which as if you're going self-published, that's what you are, is to really embrace those different skills in those different fields. But, and, and listen to actually these numbers, right. That you just mentioned the vast majority of people cannot currently make a living off of their work. Right. So we have to ask ourselves what that is. We have to identify what those issues are.

[00:39:20] There's some that could be content quality. You know, that's a reality that there can be poor content quality out there. And another issue can be the technologies that we're using. And, you know, sometimes you could just be one piece of technology away from success. And there's actually a metaphor I have because in my other business that I have, I'm a business developer. And so I help startups and I help small businesses, you know, in many different ways become more successful.

[00:39:49] And one of the things I, I, one of the metaphors I use is like a car. And let's say you're building a car. And you spend lots of time, you know, the car needs an engine to run and to work. And so you spend lots of time on building that engine for that car. You build all the pieces that that engine needs because you know it needs an engine. And the better the engine, hey, the better that car will run.

[00:40:13] But if that car is missing a wire to go to the battery, the whole car doesn't run. It doesn't matter how beautiful the engine is. The car still won't run. But yet that other car that someone else built next to it, that may not look very good. It may even be made off of borrowed parts from other cars. It may not have the best paint job, right? It may smell inside. It may, you know, have some different colored tires or different size tires.

[00:40:42] But that car runs and it can get you from A to B. And so take that metaphor and think about that for your business. There's some stories out there that you might look at people who are more successful than you in your book or your music or your film. You say, you know what? My film is so much better than that film. How can that film possibly be more successful financially, let's say, or maybe have more reach than mine? And I would use this car metaphor as an example.

[00:41:11] Maybe you're right. Your engine is a better engine. But at the end of the day, your car still doesn't run because it's missing a little piece of wire. And so every day when you wake up and you're working on your project, ask yourself, what is that wire? Like what are the pieces that are potentially missing? And this is why, like you have been iterating throughout the show, is it's very important to have a strategy.

[00:41:40] And it's also very important to have a plan. And there's a famous saying that I like to quote by Benjamin Franklin, who's on the $100 bill. And he said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And so it's very important to not just go day by day and really focus on making that really nice engine, but to really look at and say, hey, I'm building a car and I need the car to get me from A to B.

[00:42:10] And I can make a new paint job later. I can, you know, fix pieces of it later. Maybe it doesn't sound good. And maybe, you know, the, you know, the steering wheel sticks or it goes too much to the left or a little bit, but at least it gets me from A to B. So build something that gets you from A to B. And then you could work on improving it from that point forward. Yeah.

[00:42:33] And Zach, one of the things that I live by, so one of the things you may or may not know about me, buddy, is that I was born with a condition called spastic quadruplegia cerebropulsor. It simply means that I don't have enough oxygen to walk in my legs normally.

[00:42:51] And, you know, when I graduated college, one of the reasons I became a content creator independently was because I graduated college 10 consecutive times, buddy. When I went to be interviewed for a sports reporter position, they told me that I was qualified, but because of my disability, they viewed it as a liability.

[00:43:18] So one of the things that I live my life by is by the saying that inclusion is the gateway to independence. So I'm curious to ask you from your perspective, what sort of opportunities are opened up for people with disabilities?

[00:43:36] And what responsibility do you think of content creating platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and the rest of them have to make sure that people of all abilities have the ability to gain visibility? What are your thoughts there, my friend?

[00:43:57] Well, we have a saying in Starscript, and then we believe that, well, first thing is that everybody has a story to tell. There's a lot of stories, you know, every individual through their life, they've got at least one story to tell, maybe more. And on Starscript, we believe that every story can be a star.

[00:44:20] And so luckily with the emerging technologies that are happening, that definitely offers some solution for people with disabilities to create something that they never could before. And that, you know, and that is actually spreads across the spectrum, really. So that's one opportunity or one technology out there that really helps.

[00:44:46] And another thing is the ability to collaborate with others, because, you know, many people are not multi-skilled where they could just make an entire project on their own. It doesn't really, you know, it's just people have different skills and different abilities.

[00:45:01] And so if we can give people the ability to connect with one another, because they have a common interest, and collaborate with one another, and then market a product on that same place, we think that would remove a lot of friction with helping people to create. And, you know, a lot of stories are not being told out there, or the stories that want to get told that have a lot of value, they may not be able to be discovered.

[00:45:28] So I think discoverability is another big factor in there that can, you know, because think about just how much good content out there exists. It exists, but it is not, people don't know it exists, right? And that's where it's like being a star, as we would say in Hollywood, right? Being that star in the sky, everybody can see that star.

[00:45:57] So, yes, our goal is to give that opportunity, and it would be a huge achievement of Starscript to enable people to, for their stories to be heard. And it may be where they wouldn't otherwise be heard if Starscript didn't exist, right? And so that would be a lovely goal. And of course, as a startup, we are responsive to our demand. We're very responsive to the feedback we give.

[00:46:27] So anything, you know, I'm curious, actually, your thoughts, if you've checked out the platform, any feedback you or your audience would have, we'd love to hear it. Because we are trying to, we want to respond to the, not just the demand, but our, basically, our audience and enable and help enable people to get their story out there. Well, first and foremost, I'll tell you, that sounds like another angle for another podcast.

[00:46:56] But I will say that Starscript, one thing that I value looking at Starscript preparing for this interview is the sense of, you know, inclusive collaboration.

[00:47:12] Because, you know, a lot of times, you know, we've always heard the same saying that representation matters and that you could see yourself better in roles of leadership if you can see someone that looks like you.

[00:47:32] So one of the things that I respect about Starscript is the inclusive community aspect of it and the fact that revenue generation is actually one of the main pillars of your organization or your platform.

[00:47:51] And if you're open to it, I'd love for us to have a continuing discussion, not today, but the importance of inclusion in independent content creation. And we can share some ideas on how to do that on a future conversation if you're open to that, my friend. Yeah, sure. I'd love that. Absolutely.

[00:48:17] You know, Zach, I'm also curious to get your thoughts on how the intersection of, you know, creativity and originality have sort of evolved over the course of time for entrepreneurs and independent content creators. And how that also intersects with the intersection of, you know, discoverability and audience engagement.

[00:48:44] How do you think all of these concepts are interconnected? What are your thoughts there, my friend? Yeah, that's actually, that's interesting. There's, as we, I think there's one of the, one of the awarenesses that are building in our, in the entertainment community is that we are sort of seeing a, a recycling of IP.

[00:49:12] Uh, and to the point to where, uh, you know, we're, everybody's wondering why it seems like it's more than ever. Now we've always had old stories and we've told them in a new way, right? You know, we could even look at like, you know, Batman with Batman begins, for example, or even Batman, the, um, the first Batman that was movie that had Michael Keaton in it was also a reinvention of Batman. Right.

[00:49:39] And so we, we've seen the, the evolution of an IP over time and that that evolution can be very fresh. And, you know, I remember watching Batman begins and being like, wow, this is like more Batman than like any other Batman that came before it. Right. And that it, even though it's been around for decades, that character, uh, to see it in a fresh way is really amazing and rewarding.

[00:50:04] However, there's other IP out there that, um, you know, that there's a growing consensus, uh, that, uh, that it seems like they're just recycling IP for security purposes. Meaning the investors feel like if an, uh, there's an IP that was successful in the past, that if they just sort of do an offshoot of that IP in a different way, that it's a lower risk.

[00:50:32] Uh, and with that reduced risk, they feel like has a greater chance. Success and making a profit and stuff like that. But it turns out that that's not a really great formula on its own. It's not that it's not possible, but it doesn't mean that it's probable. And what we're seeing, I think what that idea people thought they were taking a decreased risk and doing stuff like that.

[00:50:56] And actually it turns out that that's actually an increased risk because not only are they, they may make some content that isn't as successful, may not even turn a profit, but also they're actually damaging the IP. There was a good IP that existed before that. Uh, and this has happened with some of the most famous content that is out there right now.

[00:51:16] I'm not going to name it or name the different content, but it's happened with some of the most famous, successful time tested and proven content that it seems like you can't just release anything under that brand and have it be successful. You can't do that, right? There has to be a story to tell. There has to be values.

[00:51:38] There has to be either certain aspects of storytelling that have to be there that an audience has to connect with in order for it to be successful. And, uh, so it's, it's kind of a two, like a double-edged sword or sort of a double-sided thing. IP is infinite. Can any IP can be infinitely expanded upon for to in, in infinite ways with infinite value.

[00:52:05] But at the same time, you can't just do that and expect anything that's connected to it to be successful. It has to have certain elements that are consistent with what makes a good story, with what makes good music or what makes a good movie. Um, so, um, but you know what? And like I mentioned earlier, I still think that there's a lot of older stories that do need to be retold that haven't been told. I think there's a lot of cultures out there.

[00:52:34] Many more cultures that they're the store. We're not sharing stories from those cultures that there are, that there are stories that we are sharing from cultures. And so, for example, we know that Walt Disney took the, some of the grim fairy tales and he sort of reinvented those or re-imagined those grim fairy tales to make the modern day, for lack of a better term, the modern day fairy tales that we all know.

[00:53:03] Like Cinderella and Snow White and stories like that, right? But there are stories, there are old stories like that from many other cultures that have not really, have not gotten their, their time to shine. And so there's a lot of opportunity out there for those, for those of you in your audience that are creators that maybe you're not wanting to make something on your own.

[00:53:33] I think there's plenty of history. There's a deep, rich history of many, many different cultures, even ancient cultures that we have yet to really pull from and, and riff off of. And so really there's more stories to tell than I think have been told, you know, so far. So it's very exciting that there's such a wealth of creativity that's out there, such an ocean of creativity that's there for us to draw from.

[00:54:03] So, but I think this does take courage to be innovative and either take something old and do a Batman Begins off of it, right? Or to make even something new. And for those mainstream IPs out there that have been struggling, I would say the, you know, the advice I would give is that, you know, you need to start taking risk.

[00:54:29] You think that you were doing things that were not, were low risk because you were just sort of, you know, recreating the same story, but changing it a little bit. You need to take more risk and you need to focus on being innovative and creating something new and just make sure you have those core elements of storytelling that are going to deliver a message that has value to people, that people resonate with. Yeah, absolutely. And Jack, I've got two questions left for you.

[00:54:59] And the first of those two questions is this. As you look at the future of the media industry as it relates to the industry itself and the online independent creator community, I'm wondering what is the industry will go within the next five to 10 years in terms of create a ownership or audience engagement or visibility and discoverability.

[00:55:29] What do you think the industry said within the next five to 10 years? Well, okay. So it's a really good question. First thing I think what's going to happen with AI is that there's going to be this explosion of content. I think it's already happening and it's going to happen on a whole nother level, an explosion of content. And that explosion is going to have some pros and cons.

[00:55:59] One of the pros is that we're probably going to get a lot of new fan fiction, a lot of stories based on characters we already know. However, with that fan fiction, there's going to be monetization challenges. And there's going to be the challenge of the artists that created that original IP to protect their copyrighted property, intellectual property.

[00:56:26] So there needs to be a way for that to coexist because I think it's not going to be really controllable. And to attempt to control it is like it would be very challenging. You'd have to find a way to regulate it, but not necessarily try to completely control it because I think that's going to prove to be unsuccessful.

[00:56:49] Another thing that I'm predicting is going to happen is there's going to be market saturation on a level that we right now we could even say that there is some market saturation. So even though I think there's infinite stories to tell and there's a lot of stories that have not been told, I also think at the same time there is a lot of stories that are being told over and over again and that there is a lot of saturation. And so we're going to face this point of market saturation of all these different mediums.

[00:57:19] And with that, it's going to be even more difficult to discover content. And in addition to that, the form of the content we know has been evolving and we can maybe it's subjective, but we kind of have moved a lot from some longer form content and the shorter form content has been really taking a foothold with these, you know, these shorts, right?

[00:57:47] Like the one minute content, these like very short stories. And some people say that there's negative aspects of that because it's not. It's for very short attention span. You can't really hold your attention. It's making us making our minds sort of adjust and like really lose focus and lose interest very easily. So we can't really maintain focus over, you know, for the length of a full book or something like that or a full movie. But I do see that there's going to be saturation.

[00:58:17] And with that saturation, it's going to be more challenging to earn a living even more so than it is now. But we can help that with architecture, I think, and technology. I think there is a way because I think a lot of art, I think there's a lot of money that can go into art that isn't going into art. And I'll give one small example of that just for some perspective.

[00:58:47] 30, 40, or 50 years ago, if you went into a bar, you'd pay 25 cents to play a song in a jukebox. 25 cents.

[00:59:00] However, today, if you took for a play on Spotify or maybe some other platforms out there, depending on who you are, maybe not if you're one of the bigger artists, but that one play may earn you half a penny or even less.

[00:59:17] So how did we go from 25 cents to play a song to half a penny, which is a 50 times reduction in value, right? Or not of cost, excuse me, not the value. The music value didn't change. In fact, the music value stayed the same. There was great music 100 years ago, 500 years ago, five days ago.

[00:59:43] Music has, there's been great quality music for hundreds and hundreds of years and maybe probably thousands of years. They're 25 cents to play a song and think nothing of it. And if your answer is, who cares? It's five cents. Well, if you say that, that's 10 times the amount of money that an artist currently gets on other platforms for playing their song. 10 times. A thousand, what is that? A thousand percent.

[01:00:14] More money. It's a big difference for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. So I was just going to conclude with that to say the product value hasn't changed. Okay. And, but however, the money that we're paying for it has changed and it's against the artists and it's pro consumer.

[01:00:35] But if that, if as a consumer, as a fan, if it makes your, the music that you like become unsustainable, they're going to stop creating music. I bet everybody here has, there's an artist, there's a musician that you were listening to that the band broke up because they weren't making enough money. And now you don't get music from that band anymore. You don't get new music because that band couldn't make enough money because of how the industry is structured.

[01:01:06] So there's got to be, there is solutions for that because if everybody said they'd happily pay five cents or 10 cents for a play, we could easily see that it's not that we're not willing to pay it as fans. It's that these platforms are not structured in a way to enable the creators to be successful. Many creators, I'll say. Yeah. And almost back to the whole concept of effective ecosystem, doesn't it?

[01:01:36] It does. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's my final question for you today, buddy. It has to do it with your own personal and professional legacy and how you want that to be defined, my friend. Yeah. For my own personal legacy with and without Starscript, one, with Starscript, I'd say I'd like,

[01:02:00] I would like to create something useful of value for to help people get their story out there in the world, whatever medium it may come in, and hopefully help them be more successful than they could be without that technology.

[01:02:20] And also to help people discover from the fan side, the content that they're looking for, and also to help better stories get created. If I can create with Starscript, create a place to help better stories get created, then that would be a huge, amazing piece of legacy that I could leave. For me, just personally, outside of Starscript, I'm a writer myself.

[01:02:47] I have stories to deliver to the world, and I am currently delivering some works in progress, but some parts of my stories are published and out on Starscript. I've got some, I want to deliver, that I hope that my story is told, and that through my imagination, because like the many creators out there, I've got a lot working in my imagination that I want to share with the world.

[01:03:14] And I just hope that it can reach the ears and the eyes of the people who can get value from it, and that I can accomplish that. And that would be a great achievement, I think. Yeah, which is probably common to many creators out there. They just want to tell their story to people who would get value from it. Well, as I always said, the assembly line of ideas never stops, right?

[01:03:44] It doesn't, right. So we've got to be organized. We've got to plan. We've got to have our strategy. Absolutely. Well, is that fun? Is that why your favorite one to get connected with you? You or contact Starscript. What's the best way they can do that? Yeah, sure. So you can go to starscript.com. You can create your account there if you're on desktop.

[01:04:09] You can also go to the mobile, the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store to create your account there. You could reach out, follow me on there, connect with me on the app to contact Starscript. It's contact at starscript.com. We also have a support chat where you can connect to.

[01:04:32] There's an AI part, but there's also a human part as well to help you through that creative journey to get your content on there or for your fan journey if you want to discover some awesome work by independent creators. So that's it. The keyword is Starscript, and that's the way that we can connect. And I really hope to see your audience on the platform. Absolutely.

[01:04:56] Well, Zach, I want to thank you for your obvious creative mind and providing a platform that allows other creators, writers, and independent thought leaders like yourself to really express their creativity, intelligence, and knowledge. My friend, I think the platform is off to a fast and impressive start.

[01:05:22] And I want to thank you for engaging in conversation with me today. It's most appreciated. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure being on, and maybe we'll do it again sometime.