On Creating THE DISCO BALL & Looking Ahead to the Next Phase of StoryCo

Today, we announced the official launch of THE DISCO BALL, the inaugural story universe on the StoryCo platform. It is now available on Story.co. Watch the trailer below:

But as we embark on the next phases of the StoryCo platform and THE DISCO BALL, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on our journey to date and give you a glimpse of where we’re headed.

Creating THE DISCO BALL

When we first envisioned the StoryCo platform, we had two core missions that acted as our north star. First, we wanted to test our belief that great content and art can come from anywhere across the globe. With the internet, free software, and continued innovation in future tech like AI, we wanted to manifest a world where anyone could have the opportunity to realize their untapped creative superpowers. Second, we wanted StoryCo to become a cloud-based hub for this worldwide innovation and creativity in the same way that Hollywood has been a location-based hub for this over the last 80 years.

Our goal was to build out a platform that could harness creative energy from around the world and channel it into creating compelling narratives. In order to build a platform capable of this, we knew we had to test our theories with a real story.

We partnered with creative powerhouses Kyle Killen, shelby and sandy, Stephanie Beatriz, Costa Ronin, Lionel Boyce, Baron Ryan, and Teddy Sears to build the backbone of our first story before inviting a global community to contribute key creative elements to the tale, showing the vast potential of networked creativity in creating premium entertainment. Already we have seen really promising signs that it’s working. For our first 5 Co/Creates, we received hundreds of submissions from voice actors, illustrators, designers, and writers from across the world and of varying levels of experience. The quality of the submissions have been incredible, adding value to the story in surprising and spectacular ways while also earning them underlying profit participation via our Profit Points system. The winners of these Co/Creates - people like Nigerian art student Okereafor Aanu, 80’s electronic rock band Fuzzel, Marvel illustrator Ron Ackins, and former English teacher Aaron Arm - have blown us away with their creative talents. Our growing community of creators has demonstrated that creative superpowers are indeed everywhere, and reinforced our belief that the StoryCo platform can become a hub of innovation for those who want to co-create premium content in a better, more frictionless way.

The Next Phase

As we launch THE DISCO BALL, the next chapter of our story and the platform is now upon us, and we have a few big goals for this next phase of our mission.

First, we want to demonstrate that people are interested in contributing to the creation of premium IP and consuming stories in the novel way the StoryCo platform uniquely offers. We will be continuing to release new chapters of THE DISCO BALL with new ways to bring our community closer to the creative process while continuing to tech-enable the production processes behind the scenes with new tools that we will eventually open to more creators building stories on the platform.

Second, we want to expand the creative possibilities of THE DISCO BALL by doubling down on initiatives for our community to expand the story world with their creative contributions. This is not only a part of our mission to create opportunities for people from all around the world to participate in the creation of premium IP, but to allow them to grow as creators in whatever artistic domain they so choose. Through opportunities to learn from top-tier creative talents in Co/Labs, to build a creative reputation and network via our Creator Profiles, the ability to connect and collaborate with other like minded creators and ones with complementary creative skill sets in our Discord, we want our community to be a place for you to realize your full creative potential.

Third, we want to expand our community’s participation in determining the story’s future direction. As we begin to open the opportunity for anyone to create within the story, we fundamentally believe that our core team should not be the sole arbiters of these creations, but that the most ardent creators and supporters of the story should dictate and shepherd how the story evolves and expands. As such, we are building tools that allow the community to have influence, help surface amazing creations, and earn underlying profit participation from their contributions in dictating the course of the narrative.

As we embark on this next phase, we will be listening to our community of fans and creators and attempting to build the platform to meet your needs while maintaining the highest levels of quality. We want to thank you for your fandom, for your creativity, and for your help getting us to this point. Together, we believe that we can build the StoryCo platform into a special place where we can more deeply entertain, delight, engage, and partner with our community to collectively build the greatest stories of our future.