Venture Insights #6: Mana
Earn a living by sharing what your passion are!
The Pitch 💡
Share what you love with 1:1 sessions and live classes. Inspire dedicated followers who fund your work. - Mana
Co-Founders 👥
James Lo: Prev. Investor @ Softbank, Strategic advisor @ UNICEF, Consultant @ Mckinsey.
Bobby Tang: Prev. Head of BD & Partnership @ Factmata (backed by Mark Cuban, Biz Stone, Mark Pincus & Ross Mason), Strategic growth markets @ Apple, Program manager @ Amazon Kindle.
The Sparks ✨
SaaS tools that enable professionals to run their own creative/skill-based works.
Earlier days of being a creator are mostly done through marketplace platforms like Twitch, Youtube and Instagram. These platforms are not entirely built with creators in mind. Why? these marketplaces tend to monetize through advertising in which is mostly a one-time transaction. They can have millions of people who loved their videos, but only hundreds of dollars were hitting their bank account. Besides, the number of hours they put in is also a prime factor that would determine how much they’d make.
Through SaaS-model, the value creation is no longer induced by the hours put and this helps them to focus on creating a variety of offerings that could distinct their proposition.
Nailing the execution and initial traction.
Still in private beta, however already managed to onboard the likes of Head of Strategy at Airbnb, MD at YouTube, PM at every FAANG company, bankers at every bulge-bracket bank, consultants at every MBB, to nano-influencers with 10K+ followers across verticals.
Strong growth momentum within the space and unknown value of TAM.
Last year alone we’ve seen numbers of creator space that raised a huge round, including Patreon, Superpeer (2x within 8 months), Karat, Circle and more. In fact, according to Li Jin (who coined the term “Passion Economy”) the TAM of Passion Economy is still unknown. While the new models are still redefining how it may look like by looking at the cost structure and value creation that can be built at scale, one thing for sure is that this space has a huge opportunity to return billion-dollar businesses in the next 5-10 years.
