Letterboxd is a social platform where 30 million members discover and discuss films. Now it's for sale.

Intrinsic has a Harvard-built model for community ownership that rewards investors, artists, and fans for working together.

The sale of community platforms rarely goes well for the community. Bandcamp, Goodreads, IMDB, MySpace, Twitter, and tumblr are just a handful of examples of beloved platforms that didn’t survive acquisition and corporatization.

Intrinsic’s community exit model rewrites that story. Our business model allows mission-driven institutions to write eight-figure checks alongside platform users and workers writing three-figure checks and then exit to the community.

It's time to fight back against media consolidation. We built an investor-friendly approach to community ownership with a viable governance structure that works for investors, artists, and workers.

That's why we're asking you to join us in investing in the future of Letterboxd, the future of film, and the future of community ownership.

Why here, why now, why us

Letterboxd has amassed an audience of tens of millions of people who want an authentic community space to engage with film, and we have a business model that works for both investors and audience.

Our model is the antidote to the enshittification cycle described by Cory Doctorow and the incessant mergers and acquisitions swallowing up everything independent in media.

Stewarded by the right owner, Letterboxd’s community can catalyze a rebirth of independent cinema; improve the economics of filmmaking; re-open distribution channels; and build bridges between filmmakers and fans.

We enable commerce and art to pull in the same direction, right alongside fans.

A community-owned Letterboxd can be the rising tide upon which many boats can rise, and gives us an opportunity to deliver the most powerful ecosystem improvement the industry has seen in a generation.

Why Letterboxd

For 15 years Letterboxd has amassed a global community of film lovers who create watchlists, write reviews, and promote their discoveries. It has reinvigorated classic films and created new generations of cinephiles, while simultaneously building a powerful organic discovery layer for independent film.

We are bidding because the next owner of Letterboxd will have a disproportionate impact on the future of film. The next iteration of Letterboxd could democratize film distribution or it could destroy the culture of authentic discovery. It could be used to reduce marketing costs for independent filmmakers, or to prop up the financial interests of a conglomerate or private equity company. We know which future we want to bring to life.

Our business model is designed to deliver double bottom-line returns on purpose and profit. It aligns incentives for coalitions of investors, filmmakers, and fans, and connects audiences with meaningful art.

We have the structure to steward Letterboxd as a cultural institution, while expanding revenue streams purposefully and sustainably.

Why community ownership

The value of Letterboxd rests upon the creative labor of its users.

We don’t think that should be mined for profit or turned into a funnel for paid subscriptions to boost another company’s earnings.

We think the people creating Letterboxd’s value should be its owners, not the product being sold.

Our model allows users to invest alongside filmmakers and mission-driven investors to democratically shape the future of Letterboxd.

Enshittification is Cory Doctorow's term for how platforms decay: first they are good to their users to attract them, then they abuse those users to favor their business customers, then they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves, and finally they die.

Intrinsic’s community exit model upends this process and allows the company to build for the community; for the community to participate in governance; and for investors to realize a return by partnering with the community — not exploiting it.

The marketing problems in independent film

Media ownership is being consolidated at the same time audiences are fragmenting and getting harder and more expensive to reach. The ease of launching a website or creating AI slop lowers the cost of production but increases marketing costs to actually engage an audience.

One of the reasons it is expensive to market independent films is because we lack a mechanism for converting the costs of customer acquisition (CAC) to the lifetime value (LTV) of that customer.

CAC = the total amount of money a business spends on marketing and advertising to win a single new customer.

LTV = the total amount of money a business expects to earn from a single customer from every purchase that customer ever makes.

This is why companies invest in building brand loyalty and subscription programs: when you create a repeat customer, you increase the lifetime value of a customer relative to customer acquisition costs.

It is also why Hollywood studios and streamers like franchises and IP-driven content: brand awareness created by the marketing spend on each film decreases CAC.

In contrast, independent films essentially pay full-freight CAC on every film without ever increasing LTV.

Independent films now spend 2-3x their production budget on marketing to break through the noise of the attention economy and reach fragmented audiences.

Neon spent $18 million marketing Anora on top of its $6 million production budget, a 3x multiple confirmed by Neon's own CEO. But Neon's $18 million on Anora buys ticket buyers once, and the acquired customers reset on the next release.

Increasing lifetime value of customers is the mechanism subscription and platform businesses build their entire model around. Subscribers generate three to five times the revenue of one-time buyers over the life of the relationship.

Owning Letterboxd gives the people who make and market films access to that same mechanism — audience acquisition priced competitively, with a place for that investment to compound.

If you are an investor who likes your returns to come with a side of social impact, we want to work with you.

If you are a filmmaker, creative, or involved in the business of independent film, this is an investment in the future of your career.

The asset

Letterboxd has surpassed 30 million members. It is profitable on existing revenue and still undermonetized.

Some potential buyers will view that undermonetization as an opportunity for extraction. They will focus on the same tired financial plays that regularly destroy authentic engagement.

We see an opportunity to pursue profit through purpose, and to build the infrastructure improvements the film industry needs in partnership with the people who love film.

We see enormous financial and social upside for a buyer who can unlock new revenue streams without eroding the community engagement that makes the asset value in the first place.

Community ownership of Letterboxd will expand the platform’s inherent value. It will enable the people who love cinema to collaboratively own the infrastructure that sustains it.

Why we are the right buyer

Intrinsic Public Benefit Partners (IPBP) is a joint venture Delaware Public Benefit Corporation spearheaded by Intrinsic Entertainment Collaborative (IEC) and our coalition partners. It utilizes Intrinsic’s proprietary model for community ownership, developed in partnership with Harvard Law School’s Transactional Law Clinic.

Our governance structure lets mission-aligned investors who contribute early capital exit to the community instead of to private equity or IPO. This aligns incentives between stakeholders and shareholders, and enables the business to build for the community instead of optimizing for acquisition and extraction.

The opportunity

We see the market for B2B insights, expanded Video Store distribution, online festival packages, sliding-scale precision advertising, live events for film lovers worldwide, and more.

We see revenue streams that make the platform more valuable to the community that created it, not less.

In Intrinsic’s model, purpose and profit are mutually reinforcing — not diverging paths from which we must choose.

The deep dive on how Intrinsic's community ownership model works

Intrinsic’s model enables impact investors to provide early capital to mission-driven startups and exit to the community instead of to private equity or IPO. Here's the what, why, and how.

What is a community exit?

A community exit is when a company uses funds from profits and the sale of new Community Shares to buy back shares from early investors as it grows.

Here are the steps:

1. Early investors provide capital to grow or acquire a business, knowing their opportunity for profit will come from a community exit rather than acquisition or IPO. They receive Founding Shares (Class A Common Stock). This allows the company to focus from day one on creating great products that serve the community.
2. As the company grows, it conducts annual equity crowdfunding campaigns on Wefunder. Crowd investors receive Community Shares (Class B Common Stock). This means the company’s community members become owners and get a say in the company’s governance and a share of the company’s profits.
3. The company uses funds from profits and the sale of Community Shares to buy back Founding Shares from early investors.
4. Both Founding and Community stockholders have the option of selling their shares back to the company as funding permits, or of retaining their shares and participating in the issuance of dividends.

Why?

Investors, whether motivated by financial gain, social mission, or both, need an exit strategy to realize a return on their investment.

Exits traditionally happen through acquisition by another company, a private equity firm, or by conducting an IPO. For mission-driven companies, the financial goals of the acquirer are often at odds with the original mission (see: Etsy, Everlane, Cadbury, Ben & Jerry’s…).

Intrinsic offers investors an alternative that's good for the community and good for business.

Frequently asked questions

1. What is the difference between Founding Shares (Class A Common Stock) and Community Shares (Class B Common Stock)?
2. Founding Shares come with board seats and voting rights proportional to the number of shares owned. Community Shares are managed through SPVs (special purpose vehicles – legal entities that allow individuals to make smaller investments in a company as an organized unit), and each SPV receives board seats proportional to the percentage of the company’s equity owned by that SPV (the number of shares the SPV owns relative to the total outstanding shares).
3. What is a community exit and why is it important?
4. A community exit is when early investors sell their shares back to the company for a profit instead of to an acquiring company or when the company goes public. The community mechanism allows mission-driven companies to remain committed to their values and purpose even as they grow and bring in new investors.
5. Are shareholders required to sell?
6. No! Shareholders may choose to hold their shares indefinitely and participate in profit sharing through the issuance of dividends.
7. How long will it take for the company to buy back all my shares?
8. This depends on multiple factors, including but not limited to:
9. How many shareholders decide to sell their shares versus participate in dividends
10. What percentage of their shares shareholders choose to sell versus hold
11. The amount of profit the company earns in a given year
12. Whether the SEC increases the limit on funds a company may raise in a given year from unaccredited investors (note: there is a petition now at the SEC to raise the limit from $5 million annually to $20 million annually that could greatly accelerate the rate at which companies can raise money from their communities each year).
13. What is the difference between Intrinsic’s Collaborative Ownership Model and a traditional cooperative?
14. Traditional cooperatives allocate one vote to each member. We believe this is a worthy aspiration, but we also recognize it creates significant roadblocks to accessing capital. While cooperative investors exist, it is often difficult to convince people to invest large amounts of capital and surrender the voting rights they would expect to get from traditional companies. Cooperative lenders exist, but do not typically lend at levels high enough to form new businesses that are capital intensive. This is why we developed the Collaborative Ownership Model: a way for investors to participate in pro-rata governance as a business grows and then exit to the community. Our model allows community investors to increase their proportion of ownership and governance rights as the business grows, while still rewarding early investors for their risk and capital.
15. Does a business need to be mission-driven to use the Collaborative Ownership Model?
16. No! We believe this model is good for all businesses because it aligns incentives between investors, workers, and customers. We think it is particularly important for mission-driven businesses because it provides an exit strategy that does not compromise mission.

The risks

1. We are raising this money to purchase a 60% majority stake in Letterboxd. The bidding process may be competitive, and acceptance of our bid is not guaranteed.
2. We are raising investment through multiple avenues; however, we may not raise enough capital for a viable bid.
3. The investment will finalize when the acquisition closes.
4. We have limited control over the timing of the bid, the length of due diligence, or the closing timing.
5. There will be no adjustments to the terms of this investment, regardless of the final bid or sale price.
6. If our bid is not accepted, your investment will be returned to you. We will not close the raise until we are closing a transaction to acquire the stake. If our bid is not successful, we will cancel the raise.
7. We are a public benefit corporation, meaning that we balance profit and pursuit of social mission. There may be times that methods of profit maximization would be at odds with our mission of supporting the independent film industry. This may lead to times we pursue more moderate profit as we simultaneous invest in a sustainble ecosystem for independent film.
8. We plan to offer two paths for investors to realize return on their investment. The first is through exiting to the community: this means that IPBP will run successive equity crowdraises on Wefunder and utilize the funds to buy back shares from early investors, offering them gradual, pro-rata exits. There is no guarantee of the timeline for exit. Variables such as the amount raised per year, the percentage of shares different shareholder wish to liquidate, and other factors will influence the rate of liquidation. Each year we will announce the share price for that year. We will then survey shareholders about the number of shares they would ideally sell at that price. Next we will conduct equity crowdfunding rounds. When the rounds close and we know the total amount raised, we will buy back shares pro-rata from shareholders looking to exit. We may not be able to buy back the full number of shares a shareholder desires to sell. Investors should view this investment as comparable to investing in any startup in which their capital is illiquid. The second path to profit realization is through remaining a shareholder throughout the evolution to community ownership and then participating in profit sharing through dividends.
9. All investments carry risks. This investment is in a public benefit corporation that balances social mission and profit, and is committed to community exits instead of exiting to private equity or IPO. This is an innovative, mission-driven model and the period of illiquidity is unknown.