Many entrepreneurial journeys begin as an idea to solve a problem, a solution looking for a problem to solve or a way to do something more efficiently. Our December speaker, John Adcox, spent many years writing and managing writers for a variety of media. He gained insight into the many inefficiencies of how stories were brought to multiple media formats. He had an idea and vision to disrupt the industry.
The “Story Incubator” Gramarye Media was born. To accomplish his vision, he needed resources of not only money but expertise. John and his vision were accepted into the very competitive Georgia Tech business accelerator program for startups called Flashpoint. Yes Tech has developed a way to engineer business startups. Only 10% of all startups succeed, while 80% of startups using a business accelerator do.
Flashpoint was a 6 month program that involved, as John put it, “weekly public floggings” and the privilege of Ga Tech owning 7% of the company. Along the way, he found out it was easier to fundraise for a $240 million startup than a $3 million one.
The goal of each Gramarye Media project is to find the unpublished manuscript with the potential of Harry Potter. They want to find the equivalent of JK Rowling writing on a napkin in a coffee shop. Pay her $50k plus 15% of the multimedia explosion they generate from the manuscript. They would produce and control the publication (paper and digital), movie rights, gaming rights, etc. The key is data obtained and analysed through the Flashpoint process for picking the winners.
Four projects will be delivered to the public in 2021 and 12 per year thereafter. They anticipate having their first revenue in the 2nd quarter of 2021.
Gramarye Media is in the process of occupying offices within the Atlanta Opportunity Zone. They are working towards building a studio on land that is EB-5 (foreign investor) and USDA loan eligible.This studio would include Smartstages which use surround LED and cameras. The Mandalorian series uses this technology which is superior to bluescreen methods and allows volumetric video capture.
John is having quite a ride on his journey and it looks like he is nearing the top of the highest (maybe second highest) hill of the roller coaster. I can’t wait to see how this ride finishes.
