Ep 478: Fans Pay $500K To Keep Favorite Shows, Will This Kill Netflix with CEO Ben Dobyns

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Nathan Latka

Ceo, Entrepreneurs, Founders, Software, Business, Entrepreneurship, Saas, Startups

4.6 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2016

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ben Dobyns, CEO and founder of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment. He’s started giving the company’s films away for free ever when he started the company—a tradition he’s proud to continue today.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Art of Game Design
What CEO do you follow? – Jamie Wilkinson

Favorite online tool? — Slack
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Take the time to pursue the dream. Shortcuts will disempower you and empower other people”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:33 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show
01:57 – Ben had a terrible experience with Hollywood distribution in 2008
- 02:10 – Ben didn’t get paid for the film they made
- 02:18 – The company owed Ben $ 30,000
03:23 – “Independent films will lose your money if you invest in them”
03:34 – Ben launched his new company in 2010 and paid their investors back after a year
03:47 – Zombie Orpheus Entertainment was launched in 2010
03:59 – “We’re going to give people free films and share them”
04:10 – Ben had a realization that each film will be a form of advertising
04:33 – At the end of every episode, there’s a message that will lead viewers to give Zombie Orpheus Entertainment money
05:08 – Journey Quest series on Youtube
- 05:45 – Ben will let the viewers choose if they want to continue watching or not
- 06:04 – Based purely on fan contribution, Ben and his team are able to continue the show
- 06:16 – They made $ 30,000 for season 1 and from Kickstarter is $ 112,000 which funded season 2
- 06:28 – Zombie Orpheus Entertainment is now out of the investment cycle
07:07 – Zombie Orpheus Entertainment built a fan base on Facebook and Youtube
07:36 – Zombie Orpheus Entertainment had 1,117 unique backers for Journey Quest
- 07:57 – On Kickstarter, average contribution is $ 97 per backer
08:33 – The fan base is big for Zombie Orpheus Entertainment
09:01 – Ben done 3 Kickstarters this year
- 09:18 – Attack in the Darkness – raised $ 25,000
- 09:28 – The Gamers – raised $ 174,000
09:49 – Raised $575,000 for the 3 seasons of Journey Quest
10:04 – Ben setup a pre-funding page with public metrics for journey Quest
- 10:14 – 4,200 people added their names in the email list
- 10:29 – They launched with 4,600 names in their list on day 1
- 10:45 – Kickstarter attracted more people
- 11:06 – RenewJourneyQuest.com is the pre-funding page
12:00 – Ben has one of the best Kickstarter planning sheet
- 12:20 – The sheet is not currently for public use
12:36 – With Journey quest, the needed budget was $ 325,000 for the production
- 12:55 – Ben didn’t aim for profit for this Kickstarter
13:10 – Season 3 of Journey Quest will be moved to BackerKit for pledge management
13:55 – Ben isn’t looking for an exit or an IPO
15:00 – What Ben is doing is similar to a SaaS business model
15:50 – Ben has been offered venture capital but he won’t accept it
16:55 – Ben is going to release their world bible and their intellectual property to allow their commercial derivatives
17:45 – Ben uses Kickstarter to have a merchandise fusion with a reward program
17:55 – Ben is really picky with merchandise quality
18:25 – Keep Zombie Orpheus Entertainment’s shows alive by dropping a dollar or $ 5 at Patreon
21:07 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Use bad experiences as education and motivation.
Venture capital is not always an option.
Take the time to pursue the dream. Shortcuts will disempower you and empower other people.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
Patreon – Ben’s pledge page
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base.
0:09.0	You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have.
0:16.0	I'm now at $20,000 per talk.
0:18.0	Five and six million.
0:19.0	He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000 unit sold mark Five and six million. He is hell bent on global domination.
0:21.2	We just broke our $100,000 unit sole mark.
0:23.9	And I'm your host, Nathan Latka.
0:27.6	Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner of the $100 is Zach Ferran.
0:33.0	He's a 22-year-old Apple employee, and he's listening to the show and loving it. For your chance to win
0:39.0	100 bucks every Monday, simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes now and then text the word
0:44.4	Nathan to 3344 to prove that you did it to enter. Guys, little CEO weapon for you. I hate going
0:53.1	back and forth via email to set up a meeting time.
0:56.1	You know, you got to send 12, 13 emails, go between your inbox and your calendar.
0:59.2	It's a pain in the butt.
1:00.4	I started using Nathanlaka.com forward slash assistant, totally free, which I loved.
1:05.6	I reached out to the founders and said, you should pay me $5,000.
1:08.5	I'll make you a sponsor on the podcast.
1:10.4	They did.
1:11.0	I'll tell you more about the tool
1:12.1	and how I negotiated the deal
1:13.3	later on in the episode.
1:14.8	But for now, check it out.
	...

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