Building a New Kind of Studio | Be Protagonist! Ep. 4

Show Notes: Most platforms take a large cut and call it a distribution fee. The creators, contributors, and workers who make the thing possible get what's left. This episode asks whether it has to be that way.Robyn Pacetti (Founder and CEO of Protagonists!) and Guillaume Gayot (finance advisor, novelist, and former Amazon colleague of Robyn's) join Sean to pull apart how Protagonists! is trying to build something different: a platform that records and rewards contribution fairly, resists the VC pressure to optimize for exit over audience, and treats creators as partners in the ecosystem rather than inventory on a shelf.Along the way: the chaos of early-stage game development, what 50 meetings at Gamescom 2019 taught them, why healthy friction in a team is a feature not a bug, and the difference between rigidity and rigor.Topics covered:Why founders lose perspective on their own best skillsThe "power of and" in a multi-background teamLetter of the law vs. spirit of the law (and when gray areas are your friend)The food delivery problem: who gets rewarded and whyGuillaume's "collective of professionals" frameworkWhy VC money has strings and what alternatives existDisagreeing with ideas, not people