Twine, the U.K. startup formerly known as Clowdy, originally launched with something akin to a “LinkedIn for creatives” combined with an IMDb-esque crediting system that enables musicians, filmmakers and other types of creatives to showcase not only their own productions but also contributions they’ve made to other people’s work. The Seedcamp-backed startup also provides a way for creatives to connect and find new people to collaborate with.
However, having made headway in building out its creative community, Twine recently flicked the monetization switch by adding a marketplace to its wares. This lets businesses post creative briefs and the type of specialism they are looking for, from which Twine’s community can pitch for the advertised work.
“Basically we saw two trends,” explains Twine co-founder and CEO Stuart Logan. “First SMEs are spending 32 percent of their marketing budget on content marketing, £400 billion in U.S. and Europe! Second, freelancing in the creative industry is booming.”
That boom, Logan explained during a call, is seeing Twine’s marketplace already being used by games developers who are using the site to post jobs for graphic designers, animators and other creatives. “Because they tend to be small companies so they make a lot of use of freelancers,” he says.
Fashion brands are another early adopter of the site. That’s because, says Logan, they require lots of audio-visual content to help reach customers, either through social channels or via more traditional marketing materials.
And, of course, there are tech startups who are “always willing to try new products.” Here Twine is being used to find creatives who can help with logo design, pitch decks, UX design and marketing creative.
“Content is really essential to the success of companies. They need audio-visual content to engage and delight their customers and ultimately grow,” adds Logan.
“On the other side creative freelancers struggle to build a network and find paid work. But more than this, being a creative solopreneur can be lonely. So we’ve added marketplace functionality so companies can be connected to our huge network for 175,000 plus creatives in design, music and film.”
The end result is described by Twine’s CEO as a “market network” where he hopes that by building a community for creatives first it positions the startup differently to existing marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr.