Our Pathway to Building Futureative
I wanted a place to share some of our values that we’ve been working on behind the scenes. This shows our thinking on topics that influence how we are thinking about building our business, and that will guide our decision making.
This will be updated regularly to give insights into how we’re working towards a vision of a more creative future for everyone.
What we believe
Representation matters. We’re committed to actively pursuing diversity across our summits and content. That means gender, cultural background, creative discipline, career stage, and geography. We don’t have firm quotas on all of these yet, but we’re thinking about each of them and we’ll hold ourselves accountable as we grow.
Australian voices have a seat at the table. Futureative is based in Melbourne and we’re proud of the creative community here. We’re committing to a meaningful percentage of Australian speakers at every summit we produce, with a long-term goal of growing that over time. We also want to connect Australian creatives with voices from around the world, so our events will always be a mix.
Paid doesn’t mean locked away. Most of what we create will be freely available. Our paid products exist because we believe a better experience comes from a more focused, committed group. Paid passes fund smaller workshops, live interaction, and deeper content that wouldn’t be possible in a free-for-all model. We’re not putting knowledge behind a paywall; we’re investing in experiences that are worth paying for, and using that revenue to keep as much as possible free for everyone else.
Credit the humans. In an industry where creative work is increasingly scraped, recycled, and fed into AI models without permission, we think attribution matters more than ever. We will always credit our sources, name the people whose ideas we reference, and link back to the original work. We expect the same in return.
Our commitments
Before the numbers, here’s what we’ve committed to:
We will keep what we publish advertising-free. No display ads, no sponsored content disguised as editorial, no paid placements in our newsletter or on our Substack. When we work with sponsors for our summits, they’ll be clearly identified and separate from the content.
We will not use paid advertising to grow. We’re going to rely on word of mouth and hopefully a little algorithm magic to get there. If people share what we make, we grow. If they don’t, we need to make better stuff.
We will publish as much as we can for free. Most of what we create on Front Row will be freely available. The intention is to keep our summit ticket prices as low as possible and to make resources accessible for every creative, regardless of their financial situation.
We are 100% independently funded. No venture capital, no investors with opinions about our content. Your support goes directly to our independent creative team who make these events happen.
How the money works
Futureative has five revenue streams. Here’s how each one works and where the money goes.
1. Front Row subscriptions (Substack)
Front Row is going to be a key part of how we keep our events affordable and accessible for every creative.
Free subscribers get essays, conversation recaps, behind-the-scenes, and early access to summit announcements. This costs us time and energy, but that’s the point.
Paid subscribers get everything above, plus extra content, summit discounts, discussions, replays, and workbooks. This directly funds content production and our creative team.
Season Pass members get everything above, plus automatic VIP ticket upgrades to any Futureative summit while their membership is active. This directly funds summit production and helps subsidise free access.
2. Summit tickets
Our online summits are the core of what Futureative does. Every summit is free to attend live. Upgraded passes give you replays, workbooks, and bonus content using our industry-friendly sliding-scale model.
Free Pass. 48-hour access to every session during the summit, plus speaker freebies and live discussions. No cost, no catch.
VIP Pass (Core). This is closer to the true cost of the ticket and helps us cover our production costs.
VIP Pass (Patron). Your extra contribution helps us keep access open to everyone, regardless of income.
We’re still working out the final shape of our pricing model. We may offer individual add-ons instead of or alongside the sliding scale. We’ll publish specific pricing as each summit approaches and be transparent about any changes. The goal remains the same: keep access genuinely affordable while giving people who can pay more the option to do so.
3. Sponsorship (summits only)
We’ll work with sponsors to offset summit production costs. Sponsorship will be:
Clearly identified and separate from editorial content
Limited to brands and organisations that align with our mission
Never allowed to influence our content, speaker selection, or editorial direction
Sponsorship revenue goes directly into reducing ticket prices and funding free resources.
4. Affiliate program (speakers)
Our speakers have the option to opt into an affiliate program where they may receive a commission if they refer people to us who later purchase a paid ticket.
If you see a speaker promoting our summits, we want to encourage you to purchase through the link of the person who referred you. Only one speaker can be attributed to a paid pass upgrade. Our affiliate percentages may vary from time to time, however we intend them to be above the industry average of 40% per sale.
Commissions are calculated on the gross ticket price, which is the full amount the customer pays. Futureative absorbs all taxes, payment processing fees, and platform fees from our side. The speaker’s commission is a clean percentage of the ticket price, no deductions.
We want our speakers to benefit from helping us grow. This is one of the ways we can make that happen before we’re in a position to pay guaranteed fees.
5. Grants (future)
Grant funding is something we are assessing, however we are currently focusing our efforts on sponsorships as a higher-leverage activity. Grants are on our agenda and will hopefully be something that can help us over time.
How we work with speakers
This is important to us and we want to be upfront about it.
Our speakers provide their time and insight to make our summits what they are. We value their contribution and know that free appearances come at a cost.
Here’s how we currently work with them:
Content ownership. We take no ownership of any IP created by our speakers. We provide them with professionally produced content from their sessions that they are free to use however they like. Over time, we intend to look for ways to actively promote our speakers and help them grow as they help us.
Affiliate commissions. Speakers can opt into our affiliate program and earn commission on ticket sales they refer. Commissions are calculated on the gross ticket price; we absorb all taxes and fees on our side. We intend these rates to be above the industry average of 40% per sale.
Where we’re heading. Our first step is to produce our first series of conferences and work towards a sustainable funding model. If it becomes viable to produce our events and pay all speakers a minimum base fee guarantee, alongside commissions over and above a set minimum fee, we will do this. That’s the goal. We’re not there yet, and we’re honest about that.
How we pay our team
We are on a mission to provide opportunities to team members entering the industry or looking to take the next leap in their creative career. Our intention is to be something that a creative person can do from anywhere they may be in the world, and to fit this work around their creative ambitions.
Current pay. We currently pay award rates to Australian team members. As we get a clearer picture of ticket sales, Substack memberships, and sponsorships, we will look to identify ways to grow our team, improve the regularity of hours, and later shift away from award rates to negotiated salaries.
Hiring approach. We will always endeavour to hire creative people. We are aiming to hire employees where possible over independent contractors. In a world that is increasingly favouring contractors to perform the role of employees, and favouring AI to take over entry-level jobs, our vision is to have a team of employed fractionals.
Internships. We may from time to time take on interns. Our internships are unpaid positions but will only be taken on if they are completing a component of an Australian-based undergraduate degree qualification. We intend for our interns to get real-world experience and for the experience to be aligned to their interests, therefore being genuinely educational.
How we use AI
AI is something we already use extensively in the business, however we see there being a clear line that needs to be drawn. Here’s where we stand:
AI is part of our workflows. We use AI in all areas of the business and we are experimenting with it daily. It’s a natural part of the workflow of a team member, not a standalone agent replacing work a human could do.
AI does not produce our creative work. We must be clear: we do not produce creative work directly with AI and we intend to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future. Our ideas are our own and our content is our own, human-generated, and we intend to keep it this way.
Where AI is genuinely helpful. AI is becoming useful as part of some of our creative workflows, particularly helping us to create templates, provide structure, insights, and assistance with editing and research.
Where we draw the line. We are mindful of keeping AI out of the development of creative work as much as possible. We are also mindful of looking for ways to look for opportunities to hire creative people where possible, not rely on AI to replace them.
Data protection. We are careful to not let AI models be trained on any material we use, especially material provided to us by speakers.
Yes, we use AI. Yes, we are careful with it. Yes, it’s part of all of our workflows. But no, it does not produce our creative work.
Where we are right now
We’re at the very beginning. Here’s an honest snapshot of where each part of Futureative stands.
Front Row (Substack). We’re building our initial content library and growing our free subscriber base. Paid memberships and Season Passes aren’t live yet. Right now the focus is on publishing consistently and giving people a reason to stick around.
Summit 1. In planning. We’re confirming speakers, building out the format, and working through production logistics. We’ll announce details here as soon as we’re ready.
Sponsorship. We’re in early conversations but nothing is confirmed yet. We’ll only work with sponsors who align with what we’re doing.
Affiliate program. The structure is in place and ready to go once our first summit is announced and speakers are confirmed.
Grants. On the agenda but not actively being pursued yet. Sponsorship is the priority.
What we’re spending money on right now: Content production, platform costs, and summit development. Futureative is currently funded through other revenue streams within the business.
Next milestone: Launch paid memberships, announce Summit 1, and secure our first 5 sponsorship partners.
This section will be updated regularly as things progress.
What happens when we’re fully funded?
This is the part I’m most excited about.
When Futureative reaches a point where our operating costs are covered and we’re generating surplus revenue, we won’t be pocketing it and calling it a day. We want to over time change the way some of the industry operates, and I doubt we’ll get it right to begin with. But the intention is clear:
Surplus funds will be reinvested into:
More free resources for creative people (guides, tools, templates, recordings)
Maintaining affordable ticket prices across all summit tiers, we want our events to be affordable to anyone
New initiatives that support creative careers in ways we haven’t built yet (we are excited by the idea of a funded incubator program or income support grants, but open to ideas)
Paying speakers and contributors fairly for their time and insight, we would love to go and change the industry-standard approach
Growing our team with fairly compensated employed positions
The long-term vision is that sponsors subsidise access for emerging creatives. Not the other way around. We want to build something where the business model itself reflects the mission: supporting creative people, not extracting value from them.
Why publish this?
Because this type of business model isn’t going to be easy. We will actively be leaving money on the table, in order to operate based on values. This comes with some risk. At the same time, we don’t think it’s fair that so much of the industry survives on underpaying people that contribute to the organisation only to line the pockets of the business over time.
That’s not our intention and we hope to keep ourselves and the business accountable to you by regularly updating our progress here.
I don’t want Futureative to be another one of those. I want to be honest about what it costs to build something like this, where the money comes from, and where it goes. If we’re asking creative people to trust us with their time and their support, the least we can do is show how we’re doing.
Steve
Founder @ Futureative