No Netflix Deal. No Trust Fund. How the F*ck Do I Fund a YouTube Show?

Jun 23, 2025

At 3Pas Studios, we’ve always made our living the old-fashioned way: pitching studios, selling shows, spending years getting something green lit.

That model still works — sometimes. But not enough. So we’re now financing our own shows directly for social platforms. Not an experiment. Not a hobby. This is the real plan: big talent with real online communities, clean digital formats, made cheap — but made. No waiting for permission. There’s a lot more to it. But that’s the headline.

We still love our legacy business. We’re still playing that game.

Open Gardens is my lab notebook for these new horizons.

Today’s entry is for every legacy producer, writer, or director who wants to make their first real YouTube show — and needs an honest roadmap for how to actually pay for it.

Are you thinking of someone who needs to see this? We thought so. Go ahead and pass it along (we made sharing easy).

The Producer’s Dilemma

Imagine this: you’ve produced network pilots, indie features, maybe a streaming hit. Now you want to break into YouTube for real — not just a sizzle, but a show. It should feel premium. It can’t take two years to make. It can’t cost your entire overhead budget. Probably can’t cost your catering budget on your last movie if we’re being real.

So: how do you get that first YouTube show made? And how do you make money — or at least not lose your shirt — doing it?

Your Trusted Playbook is Broken. Here’s Why You’re Losing Sleep Over It.

A quick reminder course here… You’re used to:

Enough buyers to sell and deliver a few shows or movies a year.
Maybe a first-look deal covering rent.
Funds that actually bet on legacy media.
Indie Feature Models that Some (Crazy) Investor would believe in
Profit downstream: syndication, licensing, second windows.

And the new reality is:

Legacy buyers want risk-free hits, not speculative slates.
Equity isn’t chasing movies and TV the way it did.
Audiences are on social, watching creators who deliver now.
If you could find the money its impossible to hit legacy costs and make that money back on YouTube alone.
One digital show won’t pay back legacy budgets.

Tough truths? Nobody wants to bankroll your YouTube series like a network used to bankroll your drama pilot. But that’s not the end of the story.

How Successful Creators Actually Do It

Creators don’t wait for permission. They build formats, test ideas cheaply, and create repeatable systems that keep the lights on.

Take Corridor Digital as one (very successful) example:They didn’t chase one sponsor for one viral short. They built two engines:

Corridor Digital: polished shorts designed for big splash moments.
Corridor Crew: consistent, lower-budget weekly content — behind-the-scenes, VFX react, audience talkback.

Revenue mix:

Brand integrations (~40%)
YouTube AdSense (~33%)
Memberships on their own site (~28%)
Throw in merch, licensing, occasional client gigs.

This pattern is everywhere: volume and cadence plus multiple revenue streams. Not every creator sells merch or memberships — but all of them spread risk across multiple income buckets. It’s not so different from a healthy legacy studio.

The takeaway: One YouTube show won’t build you a sustainable business. But you still need to get that first one made — and use it to build the rest.

The Good News: Investment Models Are Evolving Fast

You won’t get Netflix money to make a single YouTube series — but the smart money is coming back, just not the way it did before. The catch? Your show needs to plug into something bigger than itself.

Beyond everything I’m reading about this, here’s why I’m sensing the shift: three conversations I’ve had recently — vague on purpose, because, well I’m not a reporter and these were private conversations.

But the pattern is what matters.

One: A veteran film executive is quietly building a software platform for creators: take one piece of longform content, automatically spin out all the short versions for every platform, A/B test them in real time using AI, then re-edit for maximum reach. Call it picks and shovels for the next digital gold rush. But they need content to run through their platform so they are funding shows.

Two: A major creator company is gearing up to fund shows directly: fifty-fifty revenue split with creators (legacy and new media), shared IP once costs are recouped. But here’s the real twist: they’re programming to match actual audience behavior — studying what kinds of content people watch at different moments and designing shows to slot right into those habits. They have the data and they are programming for it.

Three: A savvy digital entrepreneur just raised capital to build a C3 play aimed at untapped commerce categories where creators haven’t yet flooded the zone. The model is simple but potent: pick the right category, build the product, partner with the creator who can reach that audience, make the content that sparks the community — and let that community drive the commerce. Not a brand-new blueprint, but some of the details make it unique and where he’s applying it makes it especially interesting.

Three different coffee chats — one unmistakable trend (besides the fact that they are in early stages still): new money is going to flow in, but it will flow through bigger, more integrated systems. Each of these bets is about scale, repeatability, and building whole business models — not funding lone passion projects.

And new systems and funds will emerge — but they chase digital studios with audience in place or creators with enormous communities.

Because there is no real way to build financial models based on revenue generated, a lot of this will probably including hedging with other revenue streams (like commerce) or pre-negotiation syndication on paid platforms. Or the Nebula formula where the investor owns the platform.

Legacy film and TV built their success by erecting walled gardens — clear revenue scaffolding that let everyone plug and play. Social media blew a hole in that wall. Now, the scaffolding is being rebuilt in real time, but it’s infinitely more dynamic — new platforms, new workflows, new layers of commerce glued onto attention.

The takeaway: money will come, but not to bankroll a show in isolation.

It’s there to build systems — and your show has to fit neatly into a system that looks like it might last. Most won’t. Some will catch fire. Bet wisely.

Colin and Samir on their podcast last week named content financing as one of the three trends coming out of Cannes Lions. They called it “deficit financing.” It’s an interesting use of a TV term — traditionally, deficit financing means the studio pays part of the show’s production cost up front (the “deficit”) because the network’s license fee doesn’t cover it, betting they’ll make a profit later through syndication and other rights.

I actually like how they’re applying it to digital: intentionally or not it captures the idea of taking outside investment for partial ownership, skipping fees, keeping costs lean, and betting on the back end. In this version, the deficit is the hard cost of the show, and the labor and talent costs are the creators’ “investment.”

Their point was that there’s more and more conversation about how to finance these premium shows. They also made a great point about how all this focus on YouTube is going to further transform what YouTube looks like and TV generally. Part of that transformation will be more and more legacy creators working their way into the space.

As YouTube pushes more premium viewing (we’ve all heard that stat— 45% of US YouTube watch time is on TV sets and how they want to increase production value of creators), more legacy talent wants in. But real premium takes time and budget. Even top creators know: scripted content can pull you away from your core and has no guaranteed upside (unless you’re Dhar Man and that’s what you do).

And the issue again is around modeling revenue.

Because there isn’t any one way to make money, there isn’t any scaffolding that guarantees specific returns. The creator economy was built on sweat equity and low costs. Now as we talk about ramping up in premium how do we get there?

Kinigra Deon, like so many successful creators, is a great counter-example: she tests with shorts, pilots what hits, then expands. Sometimes, she cuts a hit series into a feature-length movie later. Her edge? She owns the audience so she can test before she invests too much time. Legacy creators don’t often have that capability because they didn’t control their audience through social platforms.

Add to that: many legacy teams don’t know how to make a polished short for $2,000 or $10,000 or for that matter $100,000 an episode. Plus, union realities in the US. (We’ll unpack that in a future post.)

So: for legacy producers, the puzzle is this — you can’t pay your normal teams normal rates, you still need polish, and you have to bet on a small upside that might only pay off if you can do it again and again.

Don’t Piss Into the Ocean

A slick YouTube show no one watches is just digital landfill.

Step one: leverage other people’s distribution first. Drop the pilot on a creator’s channel, license it to a big Facebook page, cross-post on TikTok in snack-able chunks. This builds audience and validates the concept before you sink budget into growing your own hub.

Partner with a creator who has an audience. If you’re credible, you have currency. Dan Jinks won an Oscar; Nebula gave him a show on their platform to oversee because of that. If David Bernad (The White Lotus) wanted to make micro-dramas tomorrow, big creators would answer the call.

You’re not David Bernad?

Use IP smartly. Lifetime has built an empire reimagining tabloid stories for quick-turn TV movies. Allegedly a Luigi Mangioni microdrama is being made. Not advocating for sensationalism or exploitation, making the point that IP is everywhere and grabbing life rights could be a point of leverage to bring a legacy name creator and a new media creator together and get your first win with a huge package and something that marries the power, prestige and know-how of legacy creators with new creators. Or maybe even skip the legacy side… and just go right to the creators. Depends on what you want to make and who you know.

And speaking of IP, bring something big to socials. As I spoke about previously what would Miami Vice look like re-imagined for the digital area. Hook something big and make it social first (easier said than done, but when has our job been easy?)

Look for overlooked communities too: One Minute Documentaries posted a short about a kid obsessed with crocheting — 10 million views. Sometimes, one passionate OpenVerse (as I call uncontrolled communities) can outperform a mainstream pitch.

Also: legacy TV stars with huge online fandoms but who haven’t really leaned into the creator space yet — gold mine. Alyssa Milano, for instance, already has a podcast (Sorry Not Sorry), but many stars like her could reconnect with fans through fresh, smart digital shows beyond just audio. Think of Alyssa (4 million followers on Instagram) trying to survive a weekend using only 90s tech and rules in a playful unscripted series — it’s nostalgia you can feel, not just remember. And by the way — this is a terrible pitch; the real move is to find out what Alyssa actually wants to do. You get the point…

And always think beyond the show: How does one show build a flywheel that sustains a community, more shows, and eventually commerce?

Now you have your show idea, a partner in the creator space and hutzpah to go make it. How the fuck do you pay for it? Not six months from now when all these funds we mentioned above go online and are chasing content (inside their business models) but right now…

Show Me the Money: How to Actually Fund That First YouTube Show

Let’s break down the current ways investment flows into creator shows. Some of these will feel out of reach for a legacy producer flying solo. Others open up only if you partner with the right creator. None of them is a magic wand — but to beat a dead horse, getting anything made was never easy, even back when the scaffolding was solid.

Back-Catalog Licensing, Revenue Advances & Revenue-Based Financing

Spotter will license a creator’s older YouTube videos for a lump sum — think “Bowie Bonds” for digital (Bowie Bonds were a way for David Bowie to raise cash upfront by securitizing future royalties). The creator keeps ownership, Spotter takes ad revenue for a set term (usually five years). So far, Spotter has deployed close to $1B to channels like MrBeast and Dude Perfect. Typical deals run around $1.5M, but range from $15K to multi-million packages for top-tier talent.

Jellysmack runs a similar play, but with a twist: they repurpose old videos across Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and more, squeezing extra revenue from every platform. They’ve committed $500M so far to buy up back catalogs and grow them outward.

Creative Juice, backed by MrBeast amongst others, offers “Juice Funds” — advances from $10K to over $250K, repaid as a cut of the channel’s future revenue. No bank loans, no personal guarantees — performance pays it off.

Fundmates gives creators up to 14× their monthly AdSense upfront, with flexible repayments that adjust based on how well their channel performs. They even throw in mentoring on thumbnails, pacing, and titles to protect their investment.

Breeze does the simplest version: quick cash advances against expected AdSense, no ownership strings, no surprises.

These models rely on one thing: a real, monetizable back catalog or a strong, predictable revenue stream. You, the legacy producer, probably don’t have that on your own — but a creator might. And here’s the question you’re already asking: Why wouldn’t they do this alone? Why do they need me?

Turns out, some do want help. Here’s a real example straight from an Open Gardens reader: a seasoned legacy comedy producer tried to sell a show to a streamer starring a giant digital science-type creator. The creator knew his sketches killed on YouTube, but the producer knew how to craft TV-caliber comedy. They spotted a white space: repackage the creator’s science personality into a broader, scripted comedic format — a new lane for his 20 million followers. The legacy buyers said no — as the saying goes, all the pioneers were slaughtered… as this was a long time ago (like two years…)

Fast forward to now. That same producer can help sell the creator’s back catalog. The creator gets some upfront cash and puts part of it into funding a new show that legacy and digital build together. Many big creators hate dealing with the business side. They want a partner to handle deals, taxes, and production headaches. Be that partner and you have a seat at the table. Go find these creators. You’d be surprised how many work alone and crave guidance.

Fan Investment & Tokenization

There are heavyweight crowdfunding portals like Republic (which helped Robert Rodriguez raise $2 million for his Brass Knuckle action slate), WeFunder (which funded The Chosen), and StartEngine (backed by Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary). But these are best suited for big multi-project slates or company-level capital raises — they want the whole scaffolding, not just a one-off show.

If you’re a creator looking to raise true investor capital — not just tips, merch sales, or patron perks — for a single social-first series, you need platforms purpose-built for turning your fans into actual investors who share in your success.

This is not Patreon, Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee, Substack, OnlyFans, Fanhouse, Fansly, Locals, Liberapay, Tipeee, or the typical perks-and-access crowdfunds. This is regulated investment crowdfunding for creators, where the audience backs your work in exchange for real revenue sharing.

Here are some to know:

GigaStar Market: SEC-approved crowdfunding for YouTubers. Fans buy shares of your future AdSense earnings for a set term. Record raise: $1.3M in nine days.
Everbloom: Fans buy digital tokens tied to a share of your revenue, plus perks and possible resale value. Smart contracts handle payouts automatically.
FanVestor: Fans invest directly in a celebrity’s new venture — albums, tours, product lines — and earn a true financial stake, not just early access.
ClipStake: Fans stake money upfront for a planned video and get a slice of its AdSense after it launches.
OverSubscribe: The one to watch for legacy talent — a regulated “Creator Public Offering” where fans can invest as little as $50 for a share of your future income. Up to $5 million per raise.

I’ll break down why this could be a serious legacy bridge in a future Open Gardens deep dive — stay tuned. More at the end of this article about that.

Grants & Tax Credits

Creators can tap non-dilutive money from governments — and this is exactly where legacy producers should play offense, not defense.

In traditional film and TV, rebates and tax credits often mean the difference between a greenlit and dead project. We know how to structure budgets, chase local spend, and tick the paperwork boxes to secure that free money. The good news? Some of this could apply to digital-first content now — but most creator-led teams don’t know how to navigate it. That’s your edge.

International Incentives

Canada’s CMF and IPF: Longtime backers of web series and digital drama — six-figure grants are routine if you meet Canadian content rules. A savvy co-pro with a Canadian partner can unlock serious value.
UK: The Arts Council, BFI, and the Create Growth Programme often support online shorts, niche docs, and culturally focused digital series. Perfect for prestige mini-shows or local interest stories.
Europe: National film boards in France, Germany, the Nordics, and elsewhere have funded educational YouTube channels and cross-border web projects for years. Co-pro rules can be a maze — but legacy producers excel at co-pro paperwork.
Australia, Singapore, Korea: Big push in these markets to export digital-first cultural content. Grants often come with built-in marketing or festival support.

I didn’t find any state subsidies in the US. But I also didn’t dig that hard. You should. Maybe there’s opportunity stateside already (Readers: please hit us up with any info on this for US digital productions)

The real point: Most indie creators can’t juggle the forms, compliance checks, or co-production structures that come with these incentives. Legacy producers can. Use that skill set to stack rebates and international grants the same way you’d layer tax credits and soft money on an indie feature.

Another arbitrage — if you have experience producing off shore— in Latin America for example, you might be able to stretch US digital budgets into meaningful content spends. (And yes, we’ve done this at 3pas and are doing more).

The Bigger Truth: Make One Great Show — But Plan Beyond It

One show alone won’t replace your studio deal. It’s the bridge — the test case that proves you can work in this sandbox and keep your shirt on.

Think like Corridor Digital: they didn’t just drop one polished short and pray for virality. They piloted smartly, cheaply, but with enough craft to stand out. Then they built a repeatable format around it — a system that turns out videos consistently, hits multiple revenue lines, and owns the audience directly.

This is the real mind shift for legacy folks: you’re not here to make a hit.

You’re here to build the scaffolding around the hit — the format you can rinse and repeat, the sponsor-friendly segments, the behind-the-scenes spin-offs, the community Discord that keeps fans sticky, the newsletter that converts followers into paying members.

A single YouTube show is a proof of concept; the second proves it wasn’t a fluke, the third proves you can translate your skills from legacy to new media consistently and bob’s your uncle. You can build to scale.

The creators who last don’t chase viral one-offs — they build ecosystems.

You know how to develop franchises and spin IP into toys and remakes — same muscle, just new bones. So make that first show tight, make it native to the platform, make it cheap enough to fail gracefully — but design every frame to be the first brick in the next ten projects you’ll make once the system works.

Own your audience. Own your pipeline. Own your upside. That’s the bigger truth.

What’s Next: AI, Cheap Costs, and the Fight for Control

High-end scripted is still expensive, and unions still matter in the US. But the cost curve is bending: AI tools will compress budgets in ways we can barely see yet. Someone will make the next Game of Thrones for the price of an indie short — and it’s not far off. But it will take SOME resources and there will be investors to back them.

If you take investor money, remember: they might want control. Read the fine print. Protect your IP. And if you’re partnering with creators, protect their creativity too — it’s the heartbeat of the whole bet.

As I hinted above, I see some potential in one specific platform: OverSubscribe. They actually reached out to me about raising capital for Open Gardens itself. We’re still in early growth here, but it hit me — why not try it? Why not run a raise to accelerate where we were headed: podcasting, more social media, expanded output — and whether we hit the goal or not, share the whole process openly so everyone learns?

So next week, we’ll deep dive on OverSubscribe — and why I think it might be the bridge legacy and creator worlds have been waiting for.

Stay tuned.