NamiFree · pulp
AI slop channels
278 all-AI channels among the world's top, 63bn views, ~$117M a year.[S18] Cheap and forgettable, and since July 2025 YouTube can demonetize "mass-produced" content.[S19]
NamiSeed deck · September 2026
Nami
The HBO
of the feed.
Prestige serialized drama for adults. Written by people, drawn by machines, free to watch on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
Pocket FM made $500M a year from serial fiction behind a paywall.
We put better stories where the audience already is.
"You found it. Which means someone will come looking for you."
The Proof · Ep 105:32 / 14:38
To watchFree
Episode8–20 min
LookIllustrated · Animated
HomeYouTube · TikTok · Instagram
StageEngine built · pilot live
01The proof point
Pocket FM proved people will binge a thousand episodes of pulp.
An Indian audio-serial app became a half-billion-dollar business by selling episodic romance and fantasy to American adults, one coin at a time. Its stories are written fast and voiced by AI. Its audience listens more than two hours a day.
Run rateRevenue$500MSep 2026
Up from $250M a year earlier. $415M paid by listeners, $85M ads.[S1]
GeographyUnited States70%of run rate
Growing ~70% a year. The money is American adults.[S1]
Retention12-month revenue76%Sep 2026
From 44% two years earlier. Serial habits compound.[S1]
HitsTitles over $10M1396 over $1M
Saving Nora: 1,884 episodes, $18M gross.[S1, S3]
SupplyAI-made catalogue93%99% of new content
Cost per hour of audio down from ~$1,000 to ~$50.[S1, S4]
ValuationRaising at~$2bn2026 · from $750M in 2024
Profitable, free-cash-flow positive since March 2026.[S1, S2, S5]
Pocket FM annualised run rate
US$ millions, company-reported [S1, S2, S3]
Dec 2023Mar 2025Mar 2026Sep 2026
What it proves
- Adults pay for serialized fiction in volume, and keep paying: 76% of revenue renews a year later.
- AI supply works when a human decides what the story is. 93% of the catalogue, profitable.
- The format is moving to pictures. Pocket FM closed its live-action microdrama app in mid-2026 on "retention challenges and unfavourable unit economics", then launched Pocket Saga: 100% AI-animated, US-only, ~$15M run rate in weeks.[S6]
What it doesn't
Pocket FM spends heavily to buy every listener into a closed app, then sells them coins. It never built stories people would share, or a brand anyone is proud to watch. That is the opening.
02The market
Serial fiction is a $10bn+ habit. It lives behind paywalls.
Microdrama, audio serials and webtoons all sell the same product to the same adults: a cliffhanger, then a charge. Almost none of it is good. Almost all of it is locked inside an app you have to be bought into.
Paid serial fiction · reported figures · marks belong to their owners
MicrodramaChina$9.4bn2025 · MPA
Bigger than China's box office. 830M viewers.[S7]
MicrodramaEx-China apps$2.8bn2025 IAP · +116%
Q1 2026 ~$750M from 850M downloads (+140%).[S8]
MicrodramaReelShort$1.05bn2026E · from $97M in 2023
First profit. Marketing 55% of revenue.[S9]
ComicsWebtoon$1.38bnFY2025
157M MAU, 7.5M paying (4.8%).[S10]
AudioPocket FM · Kuku FM$0.5bn+run rate · Kuku FY26 ₹1,400 Cr
Kuku filed to IPO at up to ~$1.8bn.[S1, S11]
Every one of them charges before the story earns it· coins· weekly passes· locked episodes· 55–80% of revenue back into ads
Where adults actually watch · reported figures
TV screenYouTube14.2%of all US TV time · Jul 2026
#1 distributor on American televisions, ahead of Disney (10%).[S12]
PayoutsYouTube to creators$100bn+2021–2025
55% of long-form ad revenue goes to the channel.[S13]
Short formYouTube Shorts200bnviews a day
Plus TikTok and Reels: the discovery layer is free.[S14]
BrandsUS creator ad spend$43.9bn2026E · +18%
48% of advertisers call creators a "must buy".[S15]
DemandAdult animation+152%demand vs +51% supply
US, 2020–2023. Audience 58% male, 39% Gen Z.[S16]
Every one of them is free at the point of watching· ad share· memberships· brand deals· no app to install
First audience
- US, 25 to 49, already pays for Pocket FM, ReelShort, Webtoon or a romantasy series; watches YouTube on the TV at night.
- Wants the hook of a serial and the craft of prestige TV, and is tired of being charged per episode for bad writing.
Second audience
- 18 to 34, male-skewed adult-animation fans: Invincible, Arcane, Hazbin Hotel, The Amazing Digital Circus.
- Already watches long animated episodes on YouTube, and already buys memberships and merch from the studios that make them.
We don't quote a single TAM: estimates for microdrama alone span $3bn to $14bn depending on who counts ads and China.[S17] The figures above are the money already spent on the product and in the places we distribute. Market tables in A2.
03The gap
Free and prestige is the empty box.
Paywalled ← → Free
Free · prestige
Nami
Writers' room quality, released free in the feed, paid for by ad share, memberships and brand partners. Episodes at under 1% of TV animation cost.
Paywalled · prestige
HBO · Prime · Netflix
Arcane: $250M for 18 episodes, ~$350K a minute.[S20] Invincible, Hazbin Hotel. A handful of shows a year, behind a subscription.
Paywalled · pulp
Pocket FM · ReelShort · DramaBox
Werewolf CEOs, secret billionaires, coins after episode five. Huge revenue, rented audience: 55%+ of revenue re-spent to buy the next viewer.[S9]
PrestigePulp
The only people who have made free prestige did it by hand
Glitch Productions put The Amazing Digital Circus on YouTube for free: 350M+ views on the pilot, ~1.2bn on the series, and a finale film that opened to $36.6M at the box office in June 2026. Murder Drones cost up to $300K an episode, paid for by YouTube revenue and merch.[S21, S22]
Vivienne Medrano built Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss on YouTube (11M subscribers, 1.9bn views) before Prime Video and A24 bought the show. It became Prime's biggest global debut for a new animated title.[S23] Both studios release a few episodes a year. Nami can release every week.
04What Nami is
A network, not a channel. Shows, not content.
Nami is a slate of serialized shows for adults, each a season of 8–20 minute episodes, released weekly under one brand. Every episode stands on its own; the season builds toward something. The public episodes are the whole show. Members get more of the world, not the missing ending.
01
A flagship epic
One pre-written ~30-episode story, written in full before a frame is drawn. The show people talk about, and the reason to subscribe to the network rather than one video.
02
Genre shows with serial hooks
Psychological thriller, dark romance and romantasy, crime, horror, adult sci-fi. The same genres Pocket FM and ReelShort monetise, written to a far higher standard.
03
A member companion series
A parallel storyline, another character's side, a separate case. Weekly, members-only, substantive: never deleted scenes or production diaries.
04
Clips for every feed
Each episode cut into 6–10 vertical scenes of 30 seconds to 3 minutes for TikTok, Reels and Shorts. The clip is the ad; the full episode is the product.
How a show gets on the slate
Every slot runs a screening funnel already built into the studio: a dozen directions per slot, a blinded in-row tournament, full pilots for the survivors, then a side-by-side comparison. Concepts are judged as mass-appeal serial entertainment against five editorial criteria, not by prestige taste.
Live today
The Proof — a mathematician, a proof that should not exist, and the student who found it. A 14:38 pilot live on nami.fm, painted in watercolour, cut from a book-length script. Seventeen looks verified on real scenes; every film picks one.
05The look
Two ways to draw a show. Both cost less than the writers.
Frames below are from The Proof, straight out of the pipeline. Each show picks a route: illustrated stills with a moving camera and selective motion, or full animation with lip-synced performance.
The Proof, sequence 1 · twelve beats, twelve usable, one spec correction · watercolour look.
Route A · Illustrated
Painted stills, moving camera
Plate-consistent stills, a directed camera push on every hold, selective motion on key beats. Reads like a graphic novel that breathes.
Machine cost ≈ $1.7–2.7 per finished minute, measured on a 12.6-minute episode.
Route B · Animated
Full performance, lip-synced
Cast plates and room memory drive a video model; each side of a dialogue gets its own coverage and the edit cuts between them. Our own voice lines drive the lip-sync.
Machine cost ≈ $10–16 per finished minute at mobile resolution, measured on a bench scene.
Cost per finished minute
US$, log scale. Third-party figures are reported or estimated budgets divided by runtime; Nami figures are provider-billed.[S20, S22, S24]
The machines are no longer the cost. The writers are, and that is where we spend.
06The moat
Anyone can generate a picture. Nobody can generate a reason to watch episode nine.
Where the money goes
~45% of every episode
A human showrunner and staff writers per show, paid properly. The engine drafts, covers and checks continuity; people decide what the story is.
How we judge
Blind, before we spend
Concepts and openings compete blind against each other, scored on five editorial criteria, promise against delivery. Nothing is discarded; everything is inventoried.
Why it's also compliance
Authored, not mass-produced
YouTube's July 2025 policy demonetizes "inauthentic", mass-produced content, AI or not.[S19] A named writers' room and a distinct IP are the difference between a network and a slop farm.
Pocket FM's CEO: "great IPs that last 100 years… need humans." We agree. We just don't make them pay for the pictures.[S1]
07Adult content
Adult means HBO. Not OnlyFans.
Nami makes stories for grown-ups: moral darkness, violence with weight, desire, betrayal, language. It does not make explicit sexual content. None of the three platforms allows it, and none of them would pay for it.
What we make
- Mature themes at the level of prestige cable drama: crime, obsession, grief, power, sex implied and consequential.
- Dark romance and romantasy, the fastest-growing fiction category in the US: 51M romance print units in a year, double four years earlier.[S25]
- Violence and horror that land because the characters matter.
What we don't
- Explicit sexual content, anywhere, including members-only posts. Platform rules apply behind the Join button too.
- Content cut to trigger age-restriction by default. An age-gated video loses most ads and most discovery.
- Anything a brand partner would have to explain.
The rule: tone yes, explicitness no· every episode rated before release· per-platform cut where rules differ· policy gates in A5
08Distribution
Three algorithms. One story. No app to install.
Nobody has to be bought into a closed app. The episode lives where adults already watch; the clips travel on the feeds that already recommend drama; checkout is the platform's own Join button.
ProduceOne episode
8–20 minutes, rated, finished once.
Cut6–10 clips
30 s to 3 min scenes, cliffhanger last.
DiscoverTikTok · Reels · Shorts
The feeds do the reach; bought views give every launch its first audience.
WatchFull episode
On YouTube, on the TV, in the evening.
PayJoin · $6.99
Members-only companion series, native checkout.
Main home
YouTube
Full free episodes, the members' companion series, TV-screen viewing. The only place adults routinely watch 10–30 minute fiction.
Discovery + paid test
TikTok
Scenes and cliffhangers that send people to the full episode. Later: TikTok-native subscriber episodes, which can pay better than YouTube.
CommunityInstagram
The strongest Reels, character and world content. Subscriber-only material only once a real fan base exists there.
Shares from YouTube, TikTok and Instagram policy pages.[S13, S26, S27, S28] The TikTok bonus requires 10K followers, 100K monthly views and three subscriber-only videos a month; the base case uses 70%.
The first experiment
Buy YouTube views against buying TikTok views. Same story, same offer, separate paid-member CAC.
TikTok may win: attention is cheaper there and checkout stays native. We measure incremental paying members per 1,000 billed views, never free subscribers. Full design in A4.
09How Nami makes money
Free to watch. Three ways to get paid for it.
Every line is paid out by a platform or a brand we already know how to invoice. No coins, no app-store 30%, no paid-unlock ending.
01
Platform ad share
YouTube pays channels 55% of long-form ad revenue; long episodes watched on a TV carry mid-rolls. Shorts, TikTok and Reels pay little, so we treat them as discovery and count them conservatively.
02
Channel memberships
$6.99 a month on YouTube leaves ~$4.80 after the 70% share and a 2% refund reserve. The offer is a weekly members-only companion series plus the back catalogue. Precedents: Dropout passed 1M subscribers at $6.99; the Try Guys' $4.99 membership reached 20% of revenue in three months.[S29, S30]
03
Brand & channel partnerships
Integrations priced per thousand views ($20–35 is standard on YouTube), and product placement drawn into the world, which is a line in the shot spec rather than a reshoot.[S31] On top, licensing and platform deals: Glitch signed non-exclusive deals with Netflix and Amazon; Vivziepop's show moved to Prime.[S21, S23]
One season, middle scenario: where the revenue comes from
Model · 10 episodes · lifetime long-form views · revenue
10The business case
A season costs , bought viewers included. It breaks even at organic views an episode.
The unit is a season: ten episodes of ~15 minutes, written by a paid room, voiced by actors, drawn by the engine, plus a paid-media budget that buys every launch its first viewers, some of whom subscribe. Pick a scenario; every figure on this page and in A3 comes from one assumptions object.
Revenue per season
Lifetime, 24 months
Cost per season
10 × all-in episode + launch
Contribution
revenue ÷ cost
Break-even
organic long-form views per episode
Bought viewers, per season · paid views on YouTube and TikTok
Media spend
billed views at
Episode views earned
follow-on views after the ad
Paying members bought
CAC incl. 10% creative
Paid return
revenue from bought viewers ÷ media
Spend follows the return: below 1× we cut media back to launch-only; at 2× and a CAC under ~$7 (the expansion case) paid views become the growth engine. Acquisition math in A4.
| Per season |
|---|
| Network | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|
What has to be true
The slate averages ~400K organic long-form views an episode over two years, misses included, and bought views pay back at least 1×. Independent adult animation on YouTube routinely does multiples of that; AI-made drama at this quality has no public benchmark yet.
What makes it big
Hits. Revenue per view doubles in the expansion case because members and sponsors pay more for a show people love. One Amazing Digital Circus pays for a hundred misses.
What stops the losses
Gates. In the conservative case we stop commissioning after the first four seasons. Year-one loss is capped near , inside the round.
Model claims are arithmetic on stated assumptions, not forecasts. No Nami audience, membership or sponsorship data exists yet. Full assumptions, editable inputs, sensitivity and the membership acquisition test in A3 and A4.
11Competition
Everyone else picked pulp or paywall.
| Who | Format | Where it lives | How it's paid for | Writing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pocket Saga (Pocket FM) | AI-animated serials | Own app, US | Coins, ~$15M run rate[S6] | Volume |
| ReelShort · DramaBox | Live-action vertical microdrama | Own app | Coins, weekly passes; 55% to ads[S9] | Tropes |
| TikTok PineDrama | Licensed microdrama | Standalone app | $82M paid to partners, H1 2026[S32] | Tropes |
| Toonstar | AI-assisted comedy animation | YouTube | Ads, brand, HarperCollins slate[S33] | Kids / comedy |
| Promise · Dashverse | AI studio · AI microdrama | Studios, own app | Venture, licensing, coins[S34] | Varies |
| Glitch · Vivziepop | Hand-made adult animation | YouTube → streamers | Ads, merch, streamer deals[S21, S23] | Prestige |
| Nami | Prestige serials, illustrated or animated | YouTube · TikTok · Instagram | Ad share, memberships, partnerships | Prestige |
Glitch and Vivziepop prove the audience and the business model. They release a few episodes a year at up to $300K each. Nami's bet is that it can release every week at under $10K an episode without losing what makes them watchable. That is a bet, not a finding.
12Team
Built by a streaming product founder.
Markus
Maier
Founder
Built the Nami engine himself: from book to cast bible, shot spec, stills, animation, voice and edit, with every call carrying its billed cost. Sold his last venture-backed consumer company.
- Streaming
- Amazon Prime Video, Senior Product ManagerStories to hundreds of millions of viewers
- Stories
- ChronicleAI-written, narrated novels; the text and audio stack Nami grew from
- Built & sold
- Nudge, sold 2026Backed by Balderton, Coinbase, Brevan Howard
- Operated
- Axel Springer SE, Chief of Staff
- Trained
- Harvard Business School · Bridgewater · HV Capital
First senior hires
A head of writing with prestige TV credits, then an animation director who has shipped an adult series. Month one, founding equity. Hiring plan in A6.
13The ask
$3.5M to launch Nami, prove a show can pay for itself in the feed, and build the slate.
$1.6M
Content. Writers' rooms, voice casts and production for ~14 seasons across the first 18 months.
$0.9M
Team. Head of writing, animation director, two engineers on the pipeline and clip exporter.
$0.7M
Distribution. Paid view tests on YouTube and TikTok, creative, community.
$0.3M
Legal, policy, G&A. Rights, platform classification, contingency.
Stage 1 · months 0–6
Launch the slate
Four seasons across three shows, weekly, with bought views on every launch. Reach YouTube Partner and membership eligibility.
Gate: one show averages ≥ 500K views an episode in its first 90 days.
Stage 2 · months 6–12
Prove the member
Companion series live. $3–5K staged paid-view tests on YouTube vs TikTok.
Gate: paid-member CAC ≤ $7 with two renewals observed.
Stage 3 · months 12–18
Build the network
Ten seasons a year, first brand partners, first licensing conversation.
Gate: a season pays back its cost inside 12 months.
The round funds the middle case to its deepest cash point () with room to spare. In the conservative case the Stage 1 gate stops commissioning, and most of the round is still in the bank.
Prestige.
Free.
Better stories than the paywalled apps, in the places adults already watch.
AAppendix
Diligence.
What exists, the market in full, the business case with every assumption editable, the membership acquisition test, platform gates, production costs, risks and 34 sources. Collapsed on purpose.
Open the diligence
A1 · What exists today
Verified 25 Sep 2026Built
- The Proof, a 14:38 pilot, live on nami.fm. Cut from a book-length script with its own voice stems, music and ambience.
- A book-to-film engine: cast bible, shot specs, plate-consistent stills, camera moves, selective animation, lip-sync, edit. Every paid call logged with its billed cost.
- Seventeen looks (ink, watercolour, painted anime, CG, film) verified on real scenes.
- A screening slate: per-slot directions, blinded in-row tournament, full pilots, comparison page.
- Measured costs: illustrated ≈ $1.7–2.7 per finished minute on a 12.6-minute episode; full animation ≈ $10–16 per minute on a bench scene (Seedance 2.5 at 480p, $0.10 a second, plus lip-sync at $0.014 a second).
- A 12-beat sequence produced on the shot-spec route: 12 of 12 usable, one spec correction, $2.87.
Not done
- No audience. No channel with meaningful subscribers, no YouTube Partner or membership eligibility, no revenue.
- No adult slate produced. The Proof is a drama pilot, not one of the genre shows this deck proposes.
- No writers' room. Scripts so far come from the founder's AI story stack; the head of writing is the first hire.
- Full animation is not in the default pipeline. It works on a bench scene; dialogue lip-sync was fixed this week and is not yet integrated.
- Pacing is not solved. At playback, twelve images did not carry a 289-second sequence; more images and retimes were needed.
- No proof anyone will watch episode two. That is the Stage 1 gate.
A2 · The market in full
Reported · third-partyPocket FM, by period
| Period | Revenue | What it shows | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY22 | ₹17.5 Cr | Loss before tax ₹171.6 Cr. Marketing ~7× revenue. | S2 |
| FY23 | ₹131 Cr | +647%. Marketing cut 45%, loss down to ₹75.7 Cr. | S2 |
| End 2023 | ~$150M ARR | US takes over. Insta Millionaire (1,440 eps) $15M gross; US listeners 135 min/day. | S3 |
| FY24 | ₹1,052 Cr | Net loss ~₹165 Cr. Series D $103M at ~$750M (Lightspeed, StepStone). | S5 |
| FY25 | ₹1,768 Cr | +68%. ~200 contract writers cut in 2024 as AI took over drafting. | S5 |
| Mar 2026 | $430M ARR | Free-cash-flow positive at ~5% EBITDA. | S5 |
| Sep 2026 | $500M run rate | US 70%; 76% 12-month revenue retention; 93% AI catalogue; raising $100–120M at ~$2bn. | S1 |
Paying-user share (6–8%), US ARPPU (~$12) and Tier-1 CAC (~$7) circulate widely but trace to secondary estimates, not filings; we do not rely on them. Pocket Toons (AI comics, Feb 2025, "$100M ARR by 2026" target) was folded into Pocket Saga and the target looks missed.[S4, S6]
Serial fiction and adult animation, reference class
| Company / market | Figure | Type | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microdrama, China | ¥50.5bn (2024, CTDPIA); $9.4bn 2025 (MPA), above box office; ~50K AI titles added to Douyin in one month | Analyst | S7 |
| Microdrama, ex-China | $2.8bn IAP 2025 (+116%); Q1 2026 ~$750M (+20%) on 850M downloads (+140%): revenue per user falling | Sensor Tower | S8 |
| Forecasts | MPA ex-China $3.6bn 2026 → $9.5bn 2031; US $1.5bn → $3.7bn. Deloitte $7.8bn 2026. Omdia ~$14bn global | Analyst · range ~3× | S17 |
| ReelShort | $97M (2023) → $400M → $785M → ~$1.05bn 2026E; $40M net profit; marketing 55%; NA 59% | Analyst / filing | S9 |
| DramaBox | $323M 2024, $10M net profit; ~50M MAU | Third party | S9 |
| Kuku FM | FY26 revenue >₹1,400 Cr, mostly Kuku TV microdrama; IPO filed at up to ~$1.8bn | Filing / press | S11 |
| Webtoon Entertainment | FY2025 $1.38bn, net loss $373M; Q2 2026 MAU 156.9M, 7.5M paying | Filing | S10 |
| Kakao (Tapas, Radish) | Paid ~$950M in 2021; shut Radish end-2025 and Tapas Sep 2026. Buying an app audience is not owning one | Press | S35 |
| Glitch Productions | TADC pilot 350M+ views; finale film $36.6M worldwide; Murder Drones up to $300K/episode | Press | S21, S22 |
| Vivziepop | 11.1M subscribers, 1.9bn views; Hazbin on Prime with A24, biggest global animated debut | Press | S23 |
| Dropout · Try Guys · Critical Role | Dropout 1M+ subs at $6.99, +31% 2024→25; 2nd Try 20% of revenue in 3 months; Beacon $5.99 | Press / company | S29, S30 |
| Audience | YouTube microdrama: women 35–44 are 20.8% of streams vs 11.5% baseline; adult animation 58% male | Third party | S16, S36 |
A3 · Business case in depth
Change any input; the season, network and sensitivity tables recompute, as do the figures in section 10. Inputs reset when you switch scenario.
Season P&L, all three scenarios
| Line | Cons. | Middle | Exp. |
|---|
Revenue mix per season
All-in cost of one 15-minute episode
| Line | Illustrated | Animated | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing: script, room allocation, revisions | $4,000 | $4,000 | Planning figure; paid room, not generated drafts |
| Voice cast, 4–6 actors, direction | $1,800 | $1,800 | Planning figure; AI voice is a cheaper fallback, not the default |
| Direction, edit, QC, retakes (labour) | $2,000 | $3,200 | Planning figure; animation needs more review |
| Music, sound design, mix | $800 | $800 | Planning figure |
| Machine: images, video, lip-sync, judges (×2.5 retries) | $100 | $600 | Measured $/finished minute × 15 × 2.5 |
| Clips, thumbnails, captions, delivery | $600 | $600 | Planning figure |
| Per episode | $9,300 | $11,000 | Model uses $9,500 (slate mostly illustrated) |
| Per finished minute | ~$620 | ~$730 | vs ~$11K TV anime, ~$45–90K US TV animation |
Sensitivity: season contribution by organic views per episode × cost per episode (current scenario's revenue per view and paid media)
Model structure
- Ads = lifetime long-form views × net RPM. Clips = views × clip multiple × blended clip RPM.
- Members = unique viewers (views ÷ views per viewer) × join rate × paid months × $4.80.
- Partnerships = first-90-day views × sell-through × integration CPM, plus flat licensing / platform deals.
- Paid = media ÷ CPV = billed views; × follow-on rate = episode views earning ads and sponsors; × paid conversion = members. Media cost carries +10% for creative.
- Network: each season books 60% of lifetime revenue in its release year, 40% in the next. Fixed team and overhead $0.9M, $1.5M, $2.2M.
Not credited anywhere
- Revenue beyond 24 months, merch, theatrical, books or games.
- Organic lift from a hit onto the rest of the slate.
- TikTok's 20% subscription bonus, or TikTok Series paywalls.
- Any sale of the IP. Glitch's film grossed $36.6M; the model counts none of that.
A4 · Buying members: the acquisition test
UnvalidatedThe model above assumes organic reach. Could paid views also buy paying members profitably? The answer depends on cold-view-to-paid conversion and renewals, not cheap views.
Net per paid month$4.80
$6.99 × 70% × 98%
Average paid months3
100% → 65% → 45% → … (assumed)
Value per member$14.39
12-month contribution, before content
CAC target≤ $7
for 2× value ÷ CAC
One $1,000 cohort at $0.05 per billed view (+10% overhead)
| Scenario | Conversion | Members | CAC | Cohort value | After acquisition | Value ÷ CAC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weak | 0.10% | 20 | $55.00 | $288 | −$812 | 0.26× |
| Central | 0.30% | 60 | $18.33 | $863 | −$237 | 0.78× |
| Higher | 0.60% | 120 | $9.17 | $1,726 | +$626 | 1.57× |
| Works-to-test ($0.03 views) | 0.50% | 167 | $6.60 | $2,398 | +$1,298 | 2.18× |
Break-even paid conversion (billed views → paying members), $6.99, incl. 10% overhead
| Average paid months | $0.03 / view | $0.05 / view | $0.08 / view |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 month | 0.69% | 1.15% | 1.84% |
| 2 months | 0.34% | 0.57% | 0.92% |
| 3 months | 0.23% | 0.38% | 0.61% |
| 6 months | 0.11% | 0.19% | 0.31% |
In practice: at three-cent views, acquire about five paying members per 1,000 billed views; at five-cent views, about eight. At $4.99 the break-even conversion rises by ~40%. CPV anchor is $0.05 average across $1.04M of 2023–24 YouTube spend, all B2B SaaS, not entertainment.[S37]
Staged test
| Stage | Budget | What we need to learn | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 · Eligibility | — | YPP and memberships approved, companion series ready. | Ad-bought watch hours and subscribers don't count toward eligibility.[S38] |
| 1 · Organic offer | Existing audience | 10–20 self-paid joins from one flagship and a real premium side story. | Warm demand is not cold CAC. |
| 2 · Screen hooks | $500 | Downstream viewing and any self-paid joins, one market. | Cheap CPV alone means nothing. |
| 3 · Best funnel | $1,500 | 50–100 incremental paying members; all-in CAC. | Attribution is directional; Google's "subscription" goal is a free subscribe. |
| 4 · Renewal & replication | $1,000–3,000 | Two renewals observed; replicate on a second story. Same test on TikTok. | Don't book the unobserved tail. |
Comparables prove people pay for entertainment memberships and that Dropout gets ~10% of subscribers from paid marketing.[S29] None publishes a cold-view → native paying member → renewal cohort for a new fiction channel. That is what the test produces.
A5 · Platform & content gates
No approvals held| Gate | Status | Implication |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube Partner Programme | Not yet eligible | 500 subscribers, 3 uploads in 90 days, 3,000 watch hours in 12 months (or 3M Shorts views in 90 days). Paid views don't count.[S38] |
| YouTube "inauthentic content" | Standing risk | Mass-produced or repetitive content can be demonetized. Mitigation: named writers, distinct shows, human direction; never templated uploads.[S19] |
| Mature themes on YouTube | To confirm per episode | Advertiser-friendly guidelines reduce ads for violence, sexual themes and strong language; age-restriction removes most ads and discovery. Every episode rated before upload. |
| Explicit sexual content | Excluded | Not permitted on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram, including subscriber-only posts. Out of the plan entirely. |
| TikTok subscriptions | Base case 70% | Bonus to 90% needs 10K followers, 100K monthly views, 3 subscriber-only videos a month. Rules outside US/CA are 50% + 20%.[S26] |
| App-store fees on memberships | Margin risk | Joins made in the iOS/Android apps can carry store fees that cut the effective share toward ~49%. Model uses 70%; sensitivity in A3.[S27] |
| AI disclosure & rights | Process | Synthetic-content labels where required; original characters only; actor consent and contracts for every voice. |
A6 · Hiring plan
Proposal| When | Role | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | Head of writing (showrunner, prestige TV credits) | Owns the slate, the room and the editorial bar. The moat is this person. |
| Month 2 | Animation director | Owns the look per show and the call between illustrated and animated. |
| Months 2–4 | Two engineers | Pipeline reliability, clip exporter, release tooling, analytics. |
| Months 3–6 | Staff writers (contract, per season) | Paid per episode; scale with the slate, not with headcount. |
| Month 6 | Partnerships lead | Brand integrations and licensing once view data exists. |
A7 · Risks & kill criteria
| Risk | What would show it | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Nobody watches episode two | Episode-to-episode retention below the channel's own average after 4 seasons | Stop commissioning; the Stage 1 gate. Keep the engine, change the slate. |
| AI look reads as cheap | Comment sentiment, blind panel scores, completion vs hand-made benchmarks | Shift budget to the animated route or fewer, stronger shows. |
| Mature themes cut monetization | Limited-ads rate by episode; RPM below $3 | Rate before upload, per-platform cuts, lean on memberships and sponsors. |
| Platform policy shift | Demonetization notices; changes to AI or mass-production rules | Three platforms, authored shows, a direct list of members over time. |
| Members don't renew | Second-bill rate below 50% | Rework the companion offer before any paid acquisition. |
| Incumbents move | Pocket Saga or ReelShort launch free YouTube slates | They are built on coins and volume; our edge is the writing and the brand. Move faster. |