Pitch And The Power To Choose

A new company is launching which groups people with a common desire to incentivize action. This company, Pitch is premised on the idea that almost any goal can be achieved by deploying a big enough cash incentive. Want Halsey to dye her hair blue again? Interested to have your favorite country western trio to reunite for one night in your hometown? Looking to get an artist who is just breaking through to play a show? These are all possibilities say the founders of Pitch. Although the original concept of Pitch was for fans to use money to motivate behavior by artists, the team has since recognized that Pitch can be equally useful to use the promise of funding as a motivator for almost any interaction such as getting art supplies to the local elementary school by creating a campaign to put the principal into a dunk tank.

Pitch has created a mechanism over the internet where anyone can come up with an idea they would like to turn into reality. Pitch allows someone to develop an ask: have the local football coach wear ballet flats to the next homecoming game. The ask is paired with an offer: if the coach will wear those flats, I’ll give $500 to the school’s fundraising campaign. Others can join by pledging money of their own to the same goal and benefit. Pitch is built on the idea that at some point there is so much money on offer that the ask will be accepted and the requested action will take place. If it turns out there is $15,000 available for the school’s fund provided the coach wears the ballet flats, chances are that will happen. Same with reuniting a band, or bringing an emerging artist to town. The price tag to move Halsey may be substantially higher, but at some point there may be blue hair in her future, if only for a night.

WelovepitchPitch | Official Site

The founders are Greg Spero, a musician with an entrepreneurial bent, Mat Devine and Nick Tillman. Spero explains Pitch is more than just a financial connection:

“We’re not just building a platform; we’re building a community that supports artists. Our mission is to empower creativity, and we’ve built full content capture studio in Inglewood CA where artists come in to do high-quality recording and content capture for use in executing their fans’ pitches. We’ve done full live streamed concerts with Aloe Blacc, Judith Hill, and Macy Gray, and engaged fans through Pitch every step of the way. “

The founders of Pitch see their path as being both inspirational and aspirational. If enough people band to together in offering money and enthusiasm for an action, it’s hard to reject both the people and the money. Often the money will be earmarked for charity, other times it goes to the artist to cover the expenses of the requested action, or there can simply be a cash grab in return for doing what the fans want – what we now call a performing a concert.

The software which the Pitch team built both gathers the requested action and facilitates double blind communication between the inceptor of the project and the party who they intend to motivate, it also holds the credit card information submitted by the various contributors being aggregated, charging their designated cards provided the Pitch is accepted or taking no action if the Pitch is rejected or fails to reach the funding goal.

Pitch is about enabling fans and advocates in their respective campaigns to change behavior or attract a specific action or performance. By using the grouping power of the internet to form a single class of people with a common purpose all of whom are willing the back the actions being requested by donations of money a community is formed with a specific intention. That intention is being prompted by the offer of money, no different than any other mechanism by which offers are extended. The main difference here is the amount of money which may be offered to receive the benefit of the action requested. One million people all rallying together to motivate one action can back their request with substantial funding.

Pitch’s founders envision the process as a conversation between fans and artists, or donors and recipients in which a negotiation ballet takes place. An idea is raised on Pitch along with an offer to provide money as the incentive to do the task. Others on the site can see the offer and add their own promise of payment. The designated recipient has the ability to agree to perform the requested action by specifying a payment goal, or by simply waiting until enough funds have been pledged before accepting the proposal. Those who receive a Pitch have the option to redistribute the Pitch to their own community, widening the sphere of possible contributors. Ultimately, a successful Pitch creates a double benefit: the immediate idea is realized and both the recipient of the Pitch and those who pledged are incentivized to continue on the site because they’ve both fulfilled their intentions.

Essentially, Pitch is a popularity contest in which ideas are aired, and those which receive both contributions and interest succeed, and those which do not slowly fade out. However, while the Pitch made is ultimately decided by the party requested to undertake an action, the reality is the incentive is crowd sourced, and the power of a crowd is undeniable. Almost any lawful interaction can be realized if the reward is sufficient.

I had a conversation with the founders of Pitch who explained the genesis of the company and how they saw the future of its development. I like these guys. Below is the podcast link:

Last month the Pitch founders and some of their early investors gathered in Los Angeles. It’s an interesting group of people who work or invest in technology and artists who create using the tools which technology provides. Also in attendance were some of the folks who provided early stage funding. The event was interesting in that the desire to empower creativity was equal to the desire to see economic success. Pitch is a company which at its core builds interactivity. Technology is fascinating, it provided access to tools which let anyone be a publisher of words or images using tools like Facebook or Instagram. YouTube made it possible for anyone to distribute video content worldwide for free. Pitch’s disruption is to allow anyone to be a promoter. The way it is now, someone thinks up an idea, produces a show and attempts to tempt you with an offer to sell tickets. Pitch flips that script. Now, anyone can come up with an idea, propose it and get responses from both the proposed performer and the intended fans. The Pitches which succeed will be those which best target the mutual needs of all. This, at scale will be transformative. It’s the equivalent of getting a restaurant to agree to make your favorite dish if you come in, instead of having to choose from what they have on their menu every day. In a world in which instantaneous communication is simply a way of life, Pitch enables choice. Ultimately, as choice becomes more prevalent, the world will wonder why it took so long to enable. In its own special way, Pitch provides the world their right to choose. It will be fun to watch how that evolves.