The Library
Research, structures, and case studies for creative professionals navigating the restructuring of the creative economy. The library grows regularly. Membership is $12 per year.
Deal Structures
35 deal structures — business models and compensation mechanisms — for creative professionals shifting from time-based to outcome-based value capture. Each includes case studies, negotiation guidance, and decision checklists.
Positioning for higher fees through specialization and reputation. Value-based pricing vs. hourly.
STAGE 1Guaranteed monthly income with performance incentives. Combines security with upside potential.
STAGE 1Trading reduced fees for ownership in client companies. Building a portfolio of equity positions over time.
STAGE 2Charging premium rates for expertise and strategic judgment rather than hands-on execution.
STAGE 2Form a new legal entity with a partner, combining your creative assets with their operational resources for shared ownership and profit.
STAGE 3Co-develop products with established brands, earning revenue share or equity rather than flat licensing fees.
STAGE 3Worker-owned cooperatives where members collectively own the business, govern democratically, and share profits equitably.
STAGE 2Loosely organized collectives of independent creatives sharing resources, cross-referring work, and collaborating on larger projects.
STAGE 2Build a parent company owning 3–7 subsidiary businesses with distinct revenue models, creating enterprise value at 4–10x multiples.
STAGE 3Build 4–6 distinct revenue channels — each contributing 15–30% — to eliminate single-source dependency and create business resilience.
STAGE 2License your proven systems, methodology, and brand to others who operate independently — scaling through replication without direct operation.
STAGE 3Build infrastructure — tools, marketplaces, or platforms — that other creatives use, capturing value through fees, subscriptions, or transaction commissions.
STAGE 3Impose artificial budget, time, or scope constraints to force creative problem-solving while replacing guaranteed fees with profit participation.
STAGE 3Convert creative IP into institutional-grade financial instruments — selling bonds backed by future royalties to pension funds, endowments, and insurance companies.
STAGE 4Decentralize ownership and decision-making through token-based governance — community members vote on project direction and share revenue via smart contracts.
STAGE 3Build studios where AI handles execution while humans focus on strategy, curation, and taste — achieving 10x output at premium quality through technology leverage.
STAGE 3Everything you need
to use it.
$12 per year for the full library — every structure with the depth you need to actually negotiate, protect yourself, and capture value. New structures and case studies added regularly.
Case Studies
100+ case studies mapping how creative professionals structured deals, captured value, and built ownership — from independent musicians to billion-dollar holding companies. Each study documents the specific terms, the strategic reasoning, and the transferable lessons.
Tom Cruise made $2 million for the original Top Gun in 1986. Thirty-six years later, he earned over $100 million from Top Gun: Maverick — the same role, the same franchise, 50 times the compensation. The difference wasn't inflation or star power alone. It was deal structure. He is widely considered the last actor in Hollywood with consistent first-dollar gross participation.
Johnny Harris made 143 million views of content for Vox that he did not own. Then Borders was cancelled during COVID and he was on his own. Five years later: 6.6 million YouTube subscribers, 30+ employees, $100K/month overhead, millions in annual revenue from AdSense alone, an Emmy, and NewPress — a media company with four journalism channels and 10 million combined subscribers. He rebuilt the institution he outgrew, but this time he owns it.
Rejected for distribution by every studio in 2010, she founded the distribution company. Fifteen years later: a four-entity infrastructure (ARRAY) that distributes other people's films, hosts every major studio as a paying partner, and finances $38M features outside the studio system entirely.
An agency, a catalog, an eponymous holding company, and a non-profit atelier — run in parallel for forty years. The structural argument for separating asset classes into separate legal entities.
In November 2020, Scooter Braun sold Taylor Swift's first six albums — her entire catalog of master recordings — to Shamrock Holdings for approximately $405 million. Swift had no involvement in the sale and received none of the proceeds. Her response was not to sue, lobby, or accept it. She re-recorded all six albums from scratch. By 2024, the re-recordings had generated an estimated $500 million+ in revenue, the Eras Tour had grossed $2.08 billion (the highest-grossing concert tour in history), and Swift's net worth had reached $1.3 billion — making her the wealthiest musician alive. She did not just reclaim her catalog. She devalued the originals and built a competing asset worth more.
How two agency founders spent 15 years mastering one business, then built a six-agency holding company — without outside capital.
Real structures.
Real receipts.
100+ case studies — and growing. Each one documents the deal structures, the strategic reasoning behind them, and the outcomes that followed. Sourcing on every claim.
In Sequence
The creative economy is restructuring. This book maps the forces reshaping creative value, provides 35 deal structures for capturing it, and lays out a four-stage progression from execution to ownership.
“The structures library changed how I negotiate. I moved from hourly billing to a hybrid fee plus backend — and now I own a piece of what I build.”
“The Premium Service Model framework helped me restructure my pricing entirely. The negotiation scripts alone were worth the membership.”
“The case studies are what set this apart. Real deals, real structures. Reading how others negotiated product partnerships gave me the template to structure my own.”
“The most comprehensive resource I've found on creative deal structures. The holding company framework helped me rethink the architecture of my own business.”
