Entertainmint is Turning TV and Streaming
on its Head with the Power of Web3. Literally.
Sittercity.com founder aims to redesign storytelling and ticketing in web3.
Entertainmint is creating the future of streaming with NFTs and Frenchie Ballers has partnered with them to create an animated series. Here is one of their recent press releases.
Something happened in TV in the past three years, while we’ve been dealing with pandemics, climate change and a general apocalypse.
It got safe. And safe is boring.
The Entertainmint Story
When Netflix’s stock took a 35% hit this year, creators were not surprised. There’s only so many times you can tell and retell the same story and only so many versions of that story you can spin out across the same five networks with different actors. Alongside the seismic changes in Web3 and DeFi, there’s been a change in storytelling-a change that reflects that fact that we’re now bridging to a metaverse. Our days of watching static shows will soon be exchanged for days where we enter worlds as full citizens, spinning a story as a collective group. We don’t want to be handed a story anymore. We want to be IN it, AS it’s made, making decisions that affect it all the way THROUGH.
Introducing Entertainmint. Entertainmint.com is web3 one-stop-shop for creating and fostering community around indie content. Entertainmint is challenging the traditional streamer model with a community funding and world-building approach, powered by Web3, that allows creators to pair directly with fans on show creation, world-building, and more.
And it’s working. The platform’s first “show raise”–a multi-tiered mint raising 27k for NFT creators Grace Ng to take her NFT collection and make it an animated series–worked. Ng premiered the opening episode of her new series Crash Punks at Catalyst Film Festival on October 30 in Duluth, MN, and subsequently not only wowed the audience but also won Most Innovative Creator in the Catalyst Story Institute awards.
So how does it work?
“We often explain what we are doing as ‘moving the ticketing system forwards’ for creators so that fans can buy fan experiences within the making of their work” states Entertainmint CEO and co-founder Genevieve Thiers. “This allows creators to stand on their own, instead of having to bow to top-down streamers with gatekeepers and their own priorities to get a show made. With Entertainmint, if you have an audience and fans that want to see it happen, anything is possible.” In web3-speak, Entertainmint creators make money minting and selling multi-tiered fan and brand engagement utility NFTs—but on the front end, anyone can participate—if your grandmom wants to buy a ticket and support you using her credit card, she can! The site has integrated a process that creates an invisible “wallet” that follows web2 creators around and lets them buy NFTs without them even knowing they are in web3. “We also plan to add on segments for live event ticketing and distribution in 2023,” adds Thiers, “but we wanted to launch the beating heart of our site first…and that’s allowing content to go direct to fans and not rely on streamers purely for distribution.”
As for what creators are selling?
The answer is: everything! Fans can engage at a “base, medium or high level” of sponsorship into a show that’s in creation. At the bottom level, for example, a buyer might purchase a ticket to the show that comes with a fun NFT, but at the top of the show, they might be purchasing an Associate Producer title, their name in the credits and a selfie with the stars. But the most exciting ticket is the interactive ticket layer. This type of ticket allows fans to be in the show in some way…and it’s the most fun. From being the faces in haunted mansion set portraits to having wrestlers roast them live before heading into the ring to fight to being able to cast your kid as a speaking extra in a classroom scene, Entertainment is breaking down the walls between creator and fan and allowing for experiences never seen before. (Examples of this interactive ticket can be seen at www.entertainmint.com.)
At the heart of Entertainmint’s process is funding, but the company intends to move quickly into streaming and long-tail monetization and development. Creators don’t just have the option to raise patronage on the Entertainmint site; they can also do teaser NFT drops to test new show ideas, “world-building” drops of merch and digital art around an established concept-either one built on Entertainmint or one built on another streamer or network. The platform has already begun to distribute content to partners like Tubi and others and plans to blow this out more in 2023.
And the creator world is responding. “Even as audiences and their tastes have become more diverse, a lot of entertainment has grown ever more homogenized and formulaic. The opportunity to make new stuff in a new way is a creator’s dream!” states Caisse St. Onge, veteran showrunner, writer and producer for Busy Tonight, The Rosie O’Donnell Show and 30Rock and executive advisor to Entertainmint. The company has amassed an advisory board of 35 filled with famous showrunners, executives with connections to or experience working at Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Redbox, MoviePass, Opensea and more.
Entertainmint’s Advisory board includes rockstars from the tech and film worlds including Loni Mahanta, VP Tech/Policy for OpenSea, Karl Gadusek, Showrunner Stranger Things Season One, Caissie St. Onge, Showrunner 30 Rock, Dan Bettes, SVP Soundcloud, Sandy Climan (Scorcese The Aviator) and many more.
More about Entertainmint can be found online at www.entertainmint.com.
ABOUT THE CEO
Genevieve Thiers is a founder with proven exits and market expertise. Thiers founded Sittercity.com in 2001, and ran it 10 years as CEO, then did 10 years on the board. The company raised 56mm in VC, invented the online care space and served over 10mm users and thousands of companies before selling to Bright Horizons in 2020. She has since invested in 15+ women in tech companies and is on the board of 1871 Chicago. She is also the tech trainer on RUN the Series, now on Amazon Prime, a reality show helping win run and win political races. Her latest company, Entertainmint.live, is redesigning streaming and TV in web3-with a special focus on helping unheard voices shine. She has a crypto podcast on Spotify by women for women. See more at www.genevievethiers.com.
Entertainmint Explainer Video
