This Streaming Platform Pays Creators Instantly: No Follower Requirements And Built-In Niche Audiences

By Hernán Panessi via El Planteo. Adapted for Benzinga.

In over-saturated markets and times of extreme fragmentation, the importance of niche audiences grows ever stronger. Thus, identifying those segments with precision becomes crucial for success: nowadays, a well-nurtured niche can be a surefire path to triumph. After refining its strategy, Flixxo, a platform offering web series and short narratives from independent creators and filmmakers, has found its niche.

Adrián Garelik, the creator of Flixxo, comes from a background in tech, specifically in blockchain. After leaving Rootstock—a P2P platform built on Bitcoin that allows the execution of smart contracts—his thoughts began to swirl around concepts gaining traction at the time: crowdfunding, community-supported cinema and alternative financing models.

In 2016, those ideas would eventually become Flixxo. "I was thinking of new business models, like paying for a book by the page or for a movie by the minute. I wanted to change the paradigm and always imagined transparent payments for creators and community-driven concepts," Garelik told El Planteo.

Flixxo: A Decentralized Platform

In early 2017, Flixxo was launched with the aim of becoming a decentralized, censorship-free audiovisual platform based on BitTorrent's file-sharing protocol.

With the help of crowdfunding, the team raised nearly $5 million and assembled a core group to get things moving. "At first, it was an open platform, more like YouTube but decentralized," Garelik explained.

Early Challenges

Competing with YouTube, however, was a Herculean task—one that they hadn't initially set out to do. "It was a beautiful Frankenstein that you installed on your computer, but we didn't have a clear editorial line at first," said Garelik. Then, the team discovered web series, and everything changed.

Terms like "Bitcoin," "blockchain," and "BitTorrent" were still far from mainstream acceptance at the time. However, their efforts laid the groundwork for a platform tailored to creators' needs. As they developed a mobile version of Flixxo, they encountered some unexpected successes, such as the trailer for the last Rambo movie being uploaded by the film's creators. But the team also ran into a major obstacle when Apple rejected the app due to its use of BitTorrent, equating it with piracy.

That rejection forced the Flixxo team to pivot from relying on BitTorrent to hosting their content on traditional servers. But as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining.

Empowering Creators

This setback allowed Flixxo to refocus its efforts on empowering content creators, shifting attention from the "how" to the "why." "We wanted to build a sustainable model that gave power back to creators. We realized decentralization was a utopia at that point," said Garelik.

With a new, more intuitive app, Flixxo pivoted towards offering curated content—goodbye to randomness, hello to web series and short films. The platform empowered creators by connecting them directly with their audience.

In 2020, Flixxo reached a milestone, launching around 100 series from around the world, amassing 70,000 users and even bringing back Alejo y Valentina, an iconic piece of 1.0 Internet culture and a hallmark of psychedelic animation in Argentina.

Transparent Financing Model

So, how does Flixxo's financing model work? Users watch short ads and the revenue from those ads goes directly and instantly to the creators. "We brought transparency to the process, and many creators whose web series had stalled began receiving payments," said Sergio Sosa, content coordinator for the platform.

Today, Flixxo boasts 170,000 users, mostly young people between 15 and 25. It stands as a boutique project with a higher CPM (cost per thousand impressions) than YouTube, offering immediate payments without the need for a minimum number of followers or watched minutes (requirements YouTube enforces). Flixxo also allows geolocation-based content blocking, enabling creators to sell their content to specific regions.

Building a Community

Flixxo has also evolved into a producer of original content and a distributor, acting as a bridge for creators. The streaming service now hosts over 200 web series and about 60 short films. "It's kind of a Robin Hood model: the money comes from brands and goes to the creators," Sosa explained.

Over time, after supporting projects like ZEPfilms by Nicolás Amelio-Ortiz, Tito Bilbao by Jona Dibujos, La Frecuencia Kirlian (which had a successful run on Netflix) and Fichines (a series on the history of Argentine arcades), Flixxo is now embarking on nearly a dozen new productions.

Sosa emphasized, "We aim to give visibility to content that usually doesn't get much exposure, adding value with things like subtitles, great cover art, and well-edited trailers." Manu Ghitta, communications coordinator, added, "We work more for the creators than for the brands."

The Power of Niche Content

After years of ups and downs, restructuring and countless iterations, Flixxo has found its strength in niche content, a specific audience, and a gamified system for earning tokens (Flixx) to watch series. "We want to grow and give more exposure to this material. Nowadays, niches are a big deal," concluded Sosa.

This article is from an external unpaid contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.