Ok, this is kind of a loaded concept. But an incredibly important one. Let’s get after it.

In this post we examine what is required to become your own ‘Platform’ and what it means for emerging creators & companies in the Web3 space.

We are living in an incredibly transformative moment of time. The intersection of blockchain technology and creativity has introduced a paradigm shift - opening up entirely new business models and revenue opportunities for creators. This is the net impact of decentralized systems.

Up to now, it’s fair to say the internet has been a pretty terrible place for creators.

In Web2, the vast majority of creators - and their creations - ended up becoming the product of other platforms. The revenue opportunity was not realized by the creator.

From Friendster → MySpace → Facebook → Instagram → TikTok, the evolution of social media has revolved around which corporate platforms could entice users - and their communities - to give them their personal information, content, and attention.

These platforms have benefited from allowing creators to build their social graphs & communities within their ecosystem; ultimately reaping the benefits of the economic activity generated by the creators.

TLDR; For the entire history of the internet, creators have struggled to create their own end-to-end platforms, most often limited by technology and access.

This is all about to change. Like right now.

The invention of smart-contract blockchains has empowered creators to authenticate and sell their creations within a standardized ecosystem.

All the amazing work that was posted to Instagram - ultimately enriching Facebook - can now be reclaimed by the original artist and monetized through a mechanism that was never before possible.

This is the opportunity ahead of us.

What is a Platform?

For this post we wanted to take a step back and examine the concept of a Platform from the creator’s POV.

What does it mean for an individual creator to become their own Platform?

To truly become your own platform you need to own your experience end-to-end. This doesn’t necessarily mean building everything from scratch. I

We think it breaks down into a few key areas:

• Owned Website

• Owned End-End Product Creation

• Owned Marketplace

• Community

• Market

Owned Website = Creating your own website experience and having a presence outside the Web2 social media sites is a critical component in building a direct-to-consumer platform for your work. Squarespace is an example.

Owned End-End Product Creation = In the early stages of Web3, artists relied on Marketplaces to mint their work to the blockchain. This is no longer the case; with the release of Manifold Studio individual creators can launch their own smart contracts and mint their own tokens.

Owned Marketplace = For a creator to become their own platform they need to be selling direct to consumer. This hasn’t been a real option for artists (either in the Web2 space of Web3 space) as the technical knowledge required to code your own marketplace seems unapproachable. This was historically the biggest bottleneck for creators, but this is no longer the case. With the creation of the decentralized auction protocol Zora it’s now possible to create your own completely decentralized marketplace. To make this process easy enough for regular people like myself, the creation of Artiva is a gamechanger.

Community = Developing your own community for your work in the Web3 space is also possible through combining a few different tools, including Discord and traditional Web2 social media. Getting involved with Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse is also a great way to grow your presence in the ecosystem and start building your own community.

Market = To truly become your own platform you need to cultivate an audience of consumers who are interested in purchasing your work. Without building a live market for your work, it doesn’t matter if you have your own marketplace & website.

The big headliner here is that new tools have entered the ecosystem that allow creators to be less reliant on the existing Web3 marketplaces. Now it’s possible - and easy - to create your smart contracts, mint your work, and create your own decentralized marketplaces.

Manifold + Zora + Artiva is an incredibly powerful combination that out-of-the-box empowers creators in ways that were never before possible.

This completely changes the value proposition of the existing Web3 marketplaces.

The Value of Web3 Marketplaces