back in 2023, my best friend and i went to spain to figure out what to build next. somewhere between the spanish culture and hanging out at our friends’ place, we came up with creatormate.
most of our friends worked as freelance filmmakers, photographers, and editors under agents and agencies. the more we learned about what they did for our friends, the less we understood why they took so much for so little work.
we set out on a mission to build tech that funds the creative class. we wanted to do this by building tools for them.
there's no real need to add this pic of mark zuckerberg. i just like it because it reminds me that nothing matters but the product you make haha. love the sandals...
so we raised €200k from angel investors, hired our friends, and suddenly we had a team.
working with friends was honestly the most fun thing i'd ever done in my life. sometimes a bit too fun.
we decided to go on a retreat. get everyone into this house and only come out once we'd found all the ideas we could work on.
we had this session where we sketched low fidelity product screens so we could pitch them to each other and make a final selection of products to build.
we honestly worked everywhere. mostly remotely, since we didn't have an office, but we tried to see each other irl at least once a week.
one of our first ideas was a way for users to explain to the ai who they are and what they do. then we'd help them find others they could collaborate with on personal or brand work.
we got an office so we could work together, make videos, and have one place we could really make our own. was also nice for all-nighters haha.
then we tried to build this canvas where ai would understand what the user was trying to come up with, based on the references they added and their past work. to help them optimise their script, shot list, etc.
at this stage, we were eight months further along, had generated 0 revenue with our products, and had little money left in our bank account.
i remember sleeping at the office most nights with some guys from the team, just trying to make this work. but the moment we could no longer afford to work with our friends, we parted ways.
at this stage, i felt really lonely, and like i had failed. i was almost ready to give up on my dream.
after posting these videos, we got a message from a really successful dutch founder. he said he'd seen our videos, liked our mentality, and maybe could help us.
that meeting changed the direction of the company. after four hours with him at our office, we decided we should try to replace agencies for all the media b2b companies need to market themselves.
it started with a whatsapp group where we published work like “polarsteps needs a filmmaker in france on 12 november”.
the whatsapp group got a bit too big, so we decided to build a mobile app. creatives could apply, we'd vet their work, and once approved, they could build their profile and apply for gigs.
this got pretty big. we had most of the dutch unicorns as customers, grew our creative talent network into probably the largest vetted network in the netherlands, and slowly but steadily made our mission a reality.
we started getting more recognition from the dutch tech and creative industry.
we decided to help companies not just outsource work they already had an idea for, but also put creatives in the lead to reimagine how they could market themselves. this led us to work with the quentin tarantino of the internet.
i'm so proud of what we've built, and so happy we got to build it with these people. we had some really harsh moments and some beautiful ones, but most importantly, we're funding the creative class!
back to work ↗