Patreon’s Jack Conte: ‘Phase Two’ of Creator Tools Will Help Them Build Companies

On Monday, we wrote about the rise of fan membership services. Many of them are following the model of Patreon, the platform for artists and other creators. CEO Jack Conte, who co-founded the startup eight years ago because he was frustrated with his band’s slim earnings from YouTube ads, has played a pioneering role in developing new ways for creators to earn money, such as charging fans a monthly fee for bonus material. 

What’s next? Tools that focus less on generating money from fans and more on how creators run their businesses, he told me this week from his home in Berkeley, Calif. 

“There is going to be a lot of work done in products that are not monetization products,” Conte said in an interview. “It’s going to be things like healthcare, retirement, savings, efforts to organize and collaborate and operations [such as] helping creators find people to help with their companies because they're building companies. People to help edit and produce. 

I call it the ‘Lego-izing’ of creative business infrastructure. I think that’s phase two.”