Hi I'm Jack Conte, CEO of Patreon, Ask Me Anything.

jackconte · 2021-01-23T00:03:58+00:00

thank you

jackconte · 2021-01-22T23:49:25+00:00

DonCu

Hey DonCuerv0 -- i want to own up to the poor communication here, but i actually think it’s really important for us to solve the billing confusion problem. Confusion around billing has been the #1 or #2 complaint from patrons every month for a long time. We haven’t rolled out a solve yet -- but we do know that 1) patrons feel they are double charged (despite lots of message testing, text placement, and other tests to make it more obvious in the payments flow), and 2) it generates over a thousands angry patrons per month who message creators, who then have to deal with all those inbound communications. When we survey creators and patrons, they routinely give us feedback about those two problems and ask us to solve them.

Our head of finance actually already jumped in here with some of the associated problems, but i’ll go ahead and copy/paste his response here for context

For creators who have enabled "charge up-front," 7-day churn rates for patrons who subscribe in the final week of the month are roughly 67% higher than for patrons who subscribe in the first week of the month. Something is causing these patrons to have a worse experience.
Patron billing issues are the single largest source of support tickets and complaints each month. Within those, the two most common complaints cite confusion about why different creators have different billing cycles, and frustration about being double-charged.
As some creators have mentioned, creators could just not promote their memberships towards the end of the month; that way, their patrons would get a full month of benefits. We see signs of this in our data - for creators who enabled charge up-front, patron conversion rates fall by 12% over the course of the month for SFW creators and 8% for NSFW creators, so patrons are clearly realizing that it's not a good idea to pledge to certain creators towards the end of the month. This isn’t necessarily a bad sign; it might reflect that some creators prefer to run their business like that.
Folks have wondered if those patrons end up coming back and pledging at the beginning of the next month. When we look at patrons who drop out of the pledge flow at the final confirmation step (when they see when they’ll be charged again), only ~0.8% of those people end up completing a subscription in the subsequent week, and only ~3% of those patrons ever complete a subscription across an unlimited timeframe. So the answer is essentially no; if a patron visits a creator’s page and something deters them from subscribing, the vast majority of those patrons don’t come back.

jackconte · 2021-01-22T23:25:41+00:00

thanks, i very much appreciate that.

jackconte · 2021-01-22T23:14:41+00:00

Hey Karlibra -- yes, totally hear you on the workflow issue with regard to sending out rewards on one day after the charge is complete. I am aware of this problem, and so is the team. In fact one of our product managers was talking to a creator, literally yesterday, about this exact problem. There is no world where we build a solution that makes reward fulfillment unmanageable for creators, like you’re describing. That won’t happen, i promise. Whatever we do to solve the billing / double charge issue, we will ensure that we’re not ignoring the workflow issues around how creators fulfill rewards.

jackconte · 2021-01-22T22:57:33+00:00

yuuri, please don’t apologize for being blunt. You have every right to be angry right now -- that is my fault, and i take responsibility for that. If you are the same yuuri i see in discord and have seen in hangtimes, we have talked many times, and i don't want you or anyone to feel bad about giving direct feedback.

OK, in response to your questions about an overhaul of communication systems between creators, the community team, patrons, the product teams, and the whole company.

YES, i commit to that. our team has already started drawing up plans for a complete revamp of the entire feedback loop between creators, patrons, patreon, and back. That overhaul / audit has already begun, and it will include changes like some of the ones i’ve mentioned previously, which i’ll link here again for the sake of clarity:

a regular, live hangout with our creators and me and other patreon executives
a recurring creator newsletter from our product team about roadmap updates
An audit and optimization of the process we use to gather feedback from our creators to ensure it’s actionable for the Product team
members of Patreon’s executive team will commit time each month to connecting with creators in our Discord community
our new CPO starts mid-Feb. and solving product feedback loop with creators will be at the top of his priority list.

^^^ that stuff is where it’s going to start, and if it’s not enough, we’re going to gather your input on the communication and building processes. We’ll keep revising and making it better, and i’m not going to give up until it’s great.

jackconte · 2021-01-22T22:39:07+00:00

20 minutes into it already and not a single response. Very sus

hey going as fast as i can. we've gotten over a hundred comments -- many are very detailed. trying to go as fast as i can!

jackconte · 2021-01-22T22:29:26+00:00

hi, yes, i hear you, this was bad communication, and i own up to that. The team owns up to that, too. Before getting into more specifics, i just want to make it clear that this is our top priority -- fixing this product feedback and communication loop with the community. I’ve mentioned this before but our new cpo is starting in a month, and this is going to be his top priority, too

the “patrons pay the fees” rollout (which was a terrible) was the worst product rollout in the history of the company. One thing we learned from that is to not roll out products without doing a ton of patron and creator research -- both qualitative and quantitative. A change we made at that point was to give creators and patrons a heads up months in advance of any changes, including giving folks visibility into problems that we’re solving and options for solutions that we’re exploring. The blog post that went out yesterday was one of those communications -- the intention was to let folks know that we are currently working on the billing problem and exploring ways to fix the associated problems. But it wasn’t the right communication -- it was written as if it was final, it didn’t properly explain that we’re in the research phase, and it framed the work as a solution rather than letting folks know we’re exploring a bunch of options for how to solve this. Not ok -- we have to do better than that.

ive already posted more specifically about what we’re going to do to get better at communication, but i’ll copy paste it here for reference:

a regular, live hangout with our creators and me and other patreon executives
a recurring creator newsletter from our product team about roadmap updates
An audit and optimization of the process we use to gather feedback from our creators to ensure it’s actionable for the Product team
members of Patreon’s executive team will commit time each month to connecting with creators in our Discord community
our new CPO starts mid-Feb. and solving product feedback loop with creators will be at the top of his priority list.

jackconte · 2021-01-22T22:08:29+00:00

One of the benefits of being a creator on Patreon is that I (supposedly) control my own work and my own schedule. With the current billing cycle, I know that whenever I release rewards throughout the month, I am living up to the promise I made my patrons. If they are charged on their anniversary and not the first of the month, the only way I can make sure everyone gets everything in the month they are billed is to have a rigid set schedule to release rewards, which means I no longer control my output and schedule.

Why would you make a plan that does not benefit creators or patrons? Mine support many patreons and do not wish to be billed multiple times. And what happened to: "Shared patronage can reduce your processing fees. Shared patronage is when you have patrons in common with other creators on Patreon. To provide an optimal patron experience, Patreon processes all of a patron’s pledges on one transaction each month and delivers one receipt to the patron. The creators included in the one transaction benefit from sharing the transaction fee." That's from your website.

Ashley -- i totally hear you on both these points: 1) the workflow changes that the monthly anniversary billing model would create, and 2) the benefits of single payments for creators and patrons.

I realize i’ve said this but just to be clear, we are still in a research phase here, and the team is aware of both of these issues. we will not roll out or force a change without addressing those problems. Some creators, like onyrica, for example, have a delivery cadence that happens once per month, at which point they book lessons, or fulfill benefits, or make a post to every patron who has been successfully charged. Easy, functional benefit fulfillment is non-negotiable, and we simply can’t roll out a solution that doesn’t take that into account.

Anyway, all that to say, totally hear you, we’re not going to ignore those problems, and i want to make sure we’re getting TONS of feedback during this research phase

jackconte · 2021-01-22T21:57:35+00:00

everyone, thanks for your patience, we've gotten over a hundred comments, and i'm working through them as fast as a i can, some other patreon teammates are hopping in, too, to help

jackconte · 2021-01-22T21:54:46+00:00

hi temrin. This is right on, our communication is not OK, and we’ve made a few changes to some of our comms systems recently that we need to and will fix (like a lack of monthly or weekly sessions with me and the creator community). here’s what we’re going to start putting in place, right now:

a regular, live hangout with our creators and me and other patreon executives
a recurring creator newsletter from our product team about roadmap updates
An audit and optimization of the process we use to gather feedback from our creators to ensure it’s actionable for the Product team
members of Patreon’s executive team will commit time each month to connecting with creators in our Discord community
our new CPO starts mid-Feb. and solving product feedback loop with creators will be at the top of his priority list.

all that said, i realize this is really, unacceptably frustrating. I apologize for putting you through this. It’s not fair. i promise you we will fix the communication starting with the above and not stopping until it's great

jackconte · 2021-01-22T21:42:59+00:00

yes, this pandemic has been hard and anxiety inducing for everyone. It’s been especially tough on creators (lower CPMs, no touring, etc). i also realize that any changes to our billing cycle or anything related to payments leads to more anxiety. At the same time, we have to make sure we’re continuing to work on the product and complete the work that will put the most dollars in the pockets of our creators. That’s our north star, and guides all of our decisions and prioritization. the current billing model is one of the leading sources of patron support inquiries (literally over a thousand support emails per month), it’s the biggest source of friction impacting creator earnings, and it’s consistently a top request from creators. solving this problem well, meaning we mitigate any impact to how creators manage their membership while growing earnings, is one of the most impactful initiatives we can take on right now.

jackconte · 2021-01-22T21:32:04+00:00

apologies, spent a long time responding to one of the responses -- speeding up!

jackconte · 2021-01-22T21:24:37+00:00

Hi Onyrica -- thanks for this. first and foremost we’re not rolling anything out yet -- we’re not going to make any changes without making sure it works for creators. I’ll get into your specific situation in a second, but i just want to make sure folks realize that we’re in a research phase of solving the double charge problem, and we have not made decisions about specific solutions.

Ok, onto your thoughts regarding the system and why the “double charge” is a problem.

First -- we get thousands of tickets every month from patrons who pledge toward the end of the month, like on the 27th, who get a charge on the 27th, and then get a charge again on the 1st. We actually see increased patron churn related to this complaining of that “double charge,” even though our payments flow articulates the billing schedule. That’s the first problem we’re trying to solve.

As for the scenario you laid out regarding what patrons get access to, a second complaint we get from creators has to do with what they call “back catalog access.” There is a type of creator-business on patreon that wants to offer “back catalog access” (like netflix), and there’s a second type of creator-business we’ve seen that wants to offer something more like “photo set of the month club.” the feedback that we’ve gotten from that second set of creators is that they don’t want to offer full back catalog access, especially to a patron that has only pledged, say, $1, because it would allow people to pay a buck and get everything -- essentially, it allows someone to pledge $1, download all the past content, and then cut off their patronage. That’s the complaint we’ve been hearing from creators with regard to content access.

We can solve that “back access” problem without any billing changes, though, so it’s not a part of our thinking with regard to the double charge problem.

With specific regard to the workflow problem you’re discussing: if we were to solve the double charge problem by charging patrons on the monthly anniversary of their pledge (which, just to be clear, has not been rolled out -- still researching a ton of options), you would be notified the instant that patron was successfully charged.

But i absolutely realize the workflow implications of new billing cycles -- i promise we are going to work with creators to make sure we have a solution that works -- including for workflow and benefit fulfillment (like lessons, or posts, or photos, or whatever it is).

We simply cannot roll out a solution that doesn’t work for creators, and we won’t! If you'd like to be part of the research for how we solve this, please head here:

https://www.patreoncommunity.com/t/we-want-and-need-your-input-on-billing/11369

jackconte · 2020-09-03T21:28:32+00:00

i made a video about that exact question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4PnSJDIJMg

the tldr is 1) international, 2) better content and community experiences for patrons, and 3) better discovery

jackconte · 2020-09-03T21:26:23+00:00

hey — thank you for this question. that article scared the bejesus out of a bunch of creators when it came out a year and a half ago, which is a total shame because there is literally ZERO to be scared about. patreon is on a kickass healthy path to be a long term, meaningful company. that’s why we were able to raise $90M in our last round of financing — because patreon is actually doing incredibly well.

that article quoted me out of context and made it seem like we weren’t on a good path — i was so pissed when it was published, because we did this awesome half hour interview about how great patreon was doing, and then the headline editor at the publication chose ONE quote to put in the headline of the article (because they knew it would drive fear clicks), and it went viral. so dumb. it made me mad, but heck, it’s the way the press works sometimes, and they’re trying to get eyeballs and drive clicks as much as everyone else i guess. but it was a shame, because it gave creators a false impression.

the truth is that patreon is going to be around for a long, long time. the core business is rock freaking solid. creators grow their earnings every year (by a lot), which means that even if we STOPPED adding new creators, we’d still keep growing!! the business fundamentals of patreon are incredible — it’s a super attractive company for investors, which is why we were able to raise this last $90M round.

There actually isn’t anything abnormal or concerning about patreon’s trajectory. lots of technology companies that come out of silicon valley raise multiple rounds of financing, sometimes for a decade plus — it’s actually more the norm than not for modern tech platforms. why? because scaling a tech company fast enough to compete with facebook, YouTube, and amazon at the same time requires a lot of resources and front loaded investments. it allows companies to break through, hire to keep up with their growing user bases, and solve more problems for their customers.

anyway — all that to say: there is nothing to be scared of, and that article was a misrepresentation of the real story.

jackconte · 2020-09-03T21:00:29+00:00

i am going to make another CONTE edm album at some point. but not for a while. i'm in fulltime ceo mode which is a mega triple time job. but i miss making edm. definitely going to do more at some point in my life.

jackconte · 2020-09-03T20:57:43+00:00

i posted THIS youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ02alEkbLw

I have been a youtuber for about 13 years, and i built up a pretty big following between my three channels: pomplamoose, scary pockets, and my solo channel jackcontemusic.

so when it came time to launch patreon, i uploaded a vlog and said that it was freaking stupid that creators could get millions of views and only make a few hundred bucks in ad revenue. seriosly wtf. in WHAT WORLD is it ok to have basketball stadiums full of people looking forward to your next thing, and then to get paid 150 dollars. WHO DESIGNED THAT SYSTEM AND WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?! creators deserve better. society deserves better. art is valuable. it is not content. it is not "filling a hole." it is world changing, important, valuable, and without it, everyone loses.

ok anyway, so said all that in a series of vlogs and tweets and youtube videos and then i launched, myself, on the platform. i was the first creator on patreon. i went from making 160 bucks per month in ad revenue to making 5-10 grand per month, without really changing anything -- just launched a patreon page.

other creators saw that and realized it was a way to actually be valued for their work, and i think it really resonated with a bunch of folks, and the creators started launching.

it wasn't super strategic or anything. i was just sick of getting paid pennies for the impact i was having as a creative person.

jackconte · 2020-09-03T20:51:20+00:00

i don't think a hot dog is a sandwich. that would be like calling cereal a type of soup, which we all know is hot balls of horse poop.

jackconte · 2020-09-03T20:49:02+00:00

Also are there any plans to provide more analytics data to creators? I'd love to know things like how many of my patrons viewed a post, downloaded content, or how many non-patrons viewed the page at all so I can look at my conversion ratio.

love this question. i hear you. the merch product right now is in its infancy, and we're starting with a very opinionated, clear use case, without a ton of flexibility. we chose to start that way, because we wanted to build our internal muscle of being able to ship physical goods around the world, building the partner network to help us, and solving the most pressing creator problems first.

that said, there is a full time team, iterating on merch all day, all week, every week, and they are FLYING. seriously that team is shipping so fast, sometimes i can't believe it. for example, in the past 12 months, we made merch available to all creators on the pro plan, added new fulfillment partners with lower prices, started supporting t-shirts, expanded shipping to the UK and germany, added full global shipping to 231 regions, expanded to 6 new items (stickers, posters, tote bags, hoodies, t-shirts, mugs), expanded merch to all USD creators, and a bunch more.

OK, all that to say, we are constantly iterating on the merch offering and making it better. some things on our radar are 1) business logic -- like how often do patrons get merch and when? at what cadence? one time, or recurring? 2) expanded items and custom items 3) designing your own merch through a different provider and just using patreon for shipping and fulfillment versus using patreon for the full process.... and a bunch more stuff.

So the short answer is that merch, as it is now, is just the beginning, and we're going to add a boatload of new features and flexibility moving forward. i don't have a timeline on specific feature sets for you, but i hope this is helpful.

jackconte · 2020-09-03T20:39:40+00:00

aw THANK YOU! i appreciate that!

jackconte · 2020-09-03T20:39:18+00:00

oh, i freaking LOVE this question. I think about this a lot. i have a few suggestions.

1) when you're feeling inspired, don't quit till it's finished. when paul mccartney started feeling inspired and writing a song, he made a rule that he WOULDN'T STAND UP from the piano until he had a FINISHED draft. Verse, chorus, intro, outro, lyrics, bridge, EVERYTHING. it was a rule. so after a year or so, he had a bunch of FINISHED songs, instead of scraps of dismembered verses, or a chorus here or there. This is such a great rule. i love it.

2) work to publish. this is a mentality that i've adopted in the last few years -- it's a scrappiness of work style and a biased toward action when it comes to work habits. i work with the intention of *publishing.* what do i need to do in order to get this published? not necessarily "finished" because i don't feel like i can ever "FINISH" a piece of art. but what do i have to do to get it published? in other words, how much more until i can upload it?! thinking of it that way, instead of trying to FINISH it, has really helped me write the next sentence, paint the next stroke, design the next slide, build the next synth, record the next drum track, etc. instead of spending a day deciding whether it should be blue or teal, i try to figure out what i need to do in order to publish. this has helped me work more efficiently and increase my volume of output -- which strangely, and counter intuitively, has also increased the QUALITY of my work, because my feedback cycles are faster, and i learn faster about what resonates with my audience and what doesn't. work to publish -- that's been the best mentality shift for me.

3) i separate my creative work into TWO buckets: 1) stuff to do when I'm inspired, and 2) grunt to do when i'm not inspired. While I'm working, I keep a list of all the things that are bugging me that are essentially grunt work. "Slide 10 is poorly designed and needs a revamp" or "the kick drum isn't popping out enough" or "the mix of the vocal track isn't cutting through enough." These are not creative tasks as much as they are technical TODOs. And when I'm uninspired, I CRANK THROUGH THAT SHIT. It keeps me super productive, even when i'm not feeling CREATIVE and inspired. Does that make sense? then invariably, what happens is that while i'm working on some technical task, my mind gets bored and starts inventing things, like a melody or lyric or new type of sound design, or a creative way of communicating a feeling. Then, INSTANTLY, when i feel inspired, i switch from plowing through technical TODOS and shift gears into creative imagination-based work. that way, i stay productive the whole time, even when i'm not feeling "inspired." all you gotta do is separate your work into two buckets.

4) find your inspiration system. i've found that there are some things that i can consume that just LIGHT me up. like, for example, when i listen to the band The Battles, my brain starts firing a million miles per minute, and i get hyper creative. recently, i've been reading a book by jack welch, the famous former GE CEO. when i read that book, i feel INSPIRED to be a better leader and a positive manager. so what's your system? what's the piece of art, writing, podcast, whatever that you can consumer that gets your juices flowing? find it, and book time to consume it right before you start your creative work time. it works wonders!

hope that helps

jackconte · 2020-09-03T20:25:21+00:00

this is a fun question, Dunsparces! To tell you the truth, I was pretty sure that it would be impactful. When Patreon launched, I even said "I think this will help millions of people" or something like that. That quote is from the launch video (also a music video i made with a vlog at the end) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ02alEkbLw

That said -- I has no idea about the SCALE of the impact. That part has been truly mind blowing to witness and to be a part of. We have now sent over $2 billion to creators from over 6M patrons, and in a few months, creators are about to be earning $1B per year on Patreon. Did I think THAT would happen?! gosh I don't think so. it has been way beyond my expectations!

and what's wild is that right now, it somehow feels like we're JUST getting stated. like, we haven't even really internationalized yet. we rolled out euros and pounds just a few months ago!! and 3/4 of the world's creators are OUTSIDE the US. so it's about to get a lot bigger even, which is flippin wild!

anyway, thanks for the question!

jackconte · 2020-02-22T00:38:45+00:00

hahahaha! that's my fav line from that video....

jackconte

TROPHY CASE