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Why YouTube Ensemble — Yes Theory — Asked Fans to “Pay What’s Fair” For Their Last Documentary

Kate Ward
9 min readAug 24, 2019

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There comes a point in every artist’s life, if not many points, where he or she must turn a good opportunity down to bet on something different, something bigger.

It’s the record deal that comes too early with those outrageous, sign-your-life-away terms. It’s that production contract that leaves you with a feeling that your book or movie will be destroyed by the stakeholders involved. When the world is telling you that you’d be crazy not to take the deal, you follow your gut (and test your guts) instead.

Our team at Yes Theory is no stranger to making these kind of creative bets. The founders have walked away from numerous lucrative production and brand deals, even risking the solvency of their business at times.

Most recently, we decided to independently release a documentary called The Lost Pyramid on our site with no brand dollars behind it. It was the biggest, most expensive, and riskiest production Yes Theory has ever done. It was also our first time asking our audience to pay for content.

This article unpacks the handful of the reasons why we chose to run this distribution experiment and explore a more personalized business model. In it, you’ll find some distinct truths about the state of the “influencer…

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Kate Ward
Kate Ward

Written by Kate Ward

Thinking deeply about how to make myself and the world a little better. & writing about creators mostly | email: kate@onedayent.com

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