@sarahbuhr @paulbudnitz @rrhoover one of the difficulties of focusing on a sub-community (creatives) is its hard to get to "venture scale" because the community itself has felt left out and becomes protectionist. There has to be a way to bridge creatives with people who like pretty things to be long-term successful. I really want a creative community to break out. Perhaps ello will be it.

@rrhoover your link to the TechCrunch story links to http://producthunt.com/posts/ello... missing a closing anchor tag?

@chrismessina whoops! Fixed. Thanks for flagging.

@sarahbuhr @paulbudnitz @rrhoover @micah I think this evolution of Ello is actually indicative of a larger trend that we're seeing: the shift of focus to "the creative/producer" as the target demographic, rather than with a split focus on the producer and consumer. For example, in the music landscape, what we're seeing with the new releases from the established music companies and a couple of the new ones which have poppped up recently is a desire to appeal more directly to the artist/performer and further away from the streaming listener. This is interesting and ultimately what I thought would happen because the producer demographic has long been second-place behind the consumerbase. What we're seeing now is a broadening of scope recognizing that the creative/producer demographic may be a lucrative demographic in and of itself; my gut tells me that ultimately, it will be much more lucrative than the consumer demographic, even if the growth is a little slower. I think we're at the top of a new cycle now where the next wave of creative-content companies will focus more acutely on business models aimed at producers, rather than subscription-only models for consumers (ad revenue aside). Ello seems to be experimenting with this new perspective; will be interesting to see how it evolves further. More new companies will undoubtedly jump on this train, though.

Hey @rrhoover, thanks for the post! As for how we narrowed in on this focus, it has been less a narrowing of focus and more a refinement of our communication & product. Before Ello, Todd Berger and I ran a design studio called Berger & Föhr. We've been working together for over 15 years now. Our founding intention for Ello was to build a place we'd like to share our work and to provide other creators with 3 things: visibility, influence, and opportunity - or to be seen, heard, and paid. Most recently we've been focused on that last part, getting artists paid. We see a huge opportunity right now for agencies and brands to bring projects to our community. We do this through Artist Invites (https://ello.co/artist-invites). So far artists have been printed in publications, featured in international exhibitions, gained artist representation, made a capsule collection, displayed work in museums, and more - all while getting paid. We're about to send two artists to Cambodia, where they will document and create work about Hannes Schmid's Smiling Gecko community. Our other main product focus at this time is the editorial experience you see on our homepage. We are hand-curating works from artists on Ello and also other creative happenings around the globe. Our hope is that the Ello homepage becomes the first place an artist visits when they get up in the morning. We have a bunch of other rad shit in the works as well. Happy to answer any other questions anyone has.

Thanks @chrismessina, our upcoming artist monograph + interview zine, Underscore, is headed to the printers in a week or so. We're also working on a collab publication with Dribbble right now to benefit disaster relief victims: https://ello.co/artist-invites/m....

@lucianfohr awesome! I'm curious — would you share how that business model is working? Both for yourself and for artists on your platform? With Kickstarter launching Drip and the success of Patreon, it's interesting to see so many new options for artists to make some kind of living, and I've love to hear more about how the actual economics are working out.

@drewmeyers I post things on @ello to get feedback and inspiration from, and join a community of, better artists than I. It's refreshingly different than dribbble, maybe because it feels more social.