Mammalz

UPDATE: Progress Reports from the Mammalz Team

Throughout the last few months, your investments have helped us make incredible progress at Mammalz. To summarize our achievements and illustrate our next steps, we've created a series of short "Progress Report" videos featuring each of our team's specialists.

UPDATE: Help Us Reach $250K - Trip Giveaway!

We're only a few days away from the end of our campaign, which means you have limited time to become a community owner in Mammalz! As an added incentive, we're going to be giving away a trip of a lifetime to one lucky investor if we can reach $250K by July 31st. Scroll down for more details.

UPDATE: Finding Strength in the Pandemic

While we gaze out our windows at the trees, the clouds, and the birds, many of us are realizing how much we’ve taken the natural world for granted. Staying connected to nature is a challenge in isolation, but even more dispiriting is our constant struggle to stay connected to each other. As it becomes ever more clear from scientists that a disregard for nature and lack of understanding about how humans fit into the mosaic of the natural world has landed us in the current pandemic crisis, our launch of Mammalz has become even more timely and poignant. The good news is that by simply joining the Mammalz community, we can immediately begin to discover inspiring nature stories, unleash our creativity to share our own perspectives about the natural world, and connect with a global community who loves nature as much as we do.

Our team at Mammalz is now prouder than ever to stand behind our mission: to promote a greater global understanding of nature and the environment while acting as a bridge between science, media makers, and the public. And with your support, our Wefunder investors, we are delighted to announce that Mammalz is available for free across the globe on the App Store and the web. We invite you all to join us in the new way to experience nature.

Welcome to Mammalz

Through our common love for all things nature, we're empowering the world.

It is 2020, the start of a new decade. Throughout the 2010s, the world woke up to the realities of climate change, extinction rates, and our disconnect from nature. The very technology that has connected and educated us for years (broadcast TV, streaming services, and social media) is now simultaneously disconnecting us and partitioning truth from reality, but it doesn't have to.

By utilizing revolutionary innovations in online socialization, media streaming, and data science and security, Mammalz is reconnecting the world to nature in the most fun way possible. We are reinventing the way the world connects with nature, the way scientists communicate, and the way content creators make a living telling their stories.

Through our online content-sharing platform, anyone anywhere now has an equal opportunity to share stories in any media format, effectively monetize their content, and engage in real-time with their heroes and fans.

How We Make Money

Monetizing digital content has been a grand experiment of the last decade, something the nature media industry has not even attempted to solve for nature content creators, let alone for scientists and organizations seeking project funding. We are taking inspiration from platforms like Twitch, a live-streaming platform for video gamers, and Patreon to integrate revenue models that will not only make us money but truly democratize the way content creators, scientists, and organizations make a living. We are replacing content platforms like YouTube that are too general, have too high barriers to entry, and have too little profit share for their content creators. With a total addressable market of 600 million nature-fans, we have the potential to create an entirely new content economy.

At Mammalz, we will rely on three primary revenue models:

1) Community Tipping: Our first revenue model, which will be introduced using the funds from this campaign, will give our community of users the power to directly support their heroes. Content creators, scientists, and organizations can apply to receive tips from their fans in the form of Seeds, our in-app digital currency. Each time this currency is purchased, Mammalz will receive a service fee.

2) Channel Subscriptions: For our most dedicated content creators, Mammalz will become an "agent" through our creator partnership program. In return for a minimum content upload frequency and semi-exclusivity commitment, we will offer creators all of the tools and opportunities they will need to make a living producing nature content. One of these tools is a monthly subscription option specific to their channel. Fans of partnered creators can pay a subscription fee in return for perks like ad-free viewing and exclusive rewards. Mammalz takes a percentage of this subscription fee.

3) Advertising: As the Mammalz community scales in both size and engagement, we plan to start selling advertising opportunities to advertisers, particularly those in the nature and outdoors space. Because the Mammalz community is a niche audience, we anticipate being able to provide a higher return-on-investment (ROI) to those advertisers compared to more generalist content platforms like YouTube. We will start selling advertising opportunities once we reach 500,000-1,000,000 users.

As shown above, advertising will likely become our most lucrative revenue model. However, our tipping and subscription models drive user engagement, which increases the value of our advertising opportunities. Between year 3-4, we project we'll become profitable.

Competitive Advantage

What gives us our competitive advantage is our combination of these revenue models, our content creator partnership services, and the niche, mission-driven nature of our platform. Content creators on YouTube have no access to personable "agents" or strategic services. In addition, the barrier to entry for content creators on YouTube is astronomical, and their share of revenue through advertising and tipping is minuscule compared to more niche platforms like Twitch. By providing monetization tools that have been proven to work in other community-based industries, personalized services from internal staff, and a platform with a niche audience and no creative restrictions, nature content creators will find no better place to make a living and achieve their personal missions than on Mammalz.

As for our users, Mammalz is providing an interactive experience dedicated to our passions for all things nature. We're not just talking wildlife - Mammalz is for outdoor recreation, exploration, travel, science, conservation, and more. On no other platform is it easier to browse nature content of any type. Nowhere else can a user have such a valuable, engaging experience with a global community of like-minded nature enthusiasts and have the ability to directly support their fellow community members. Best of all, Mammalz users can discover entertainment with a clean conscience knowing not only that their data privacy exceeds current standards, but also that Mammalz dedicates a percentage of all profits toward improving the health of our natural world.

A Growing Disconnect

When Mammalz Co-founder Rob Whitehair started producing wildlife documentaries in the 1990s, nature on broadcast TV was at its peak - so much so that Animal Planet beat Discovery Channel in viewership. Millions of millennials grew up inspired by the storytellers of Rob's generation, including his Co-founder Alexander Finden.

Twenty years later, when Alex entered the nature media industry with hopes of inspiring the next generation, the opportunity had fizzled. Why? Nobody was watching TV, and the nature media industry had not evolved to monetize digital content. Now, Alex and thousands of others like him have no effective way of making a living telling stories about the natural world - but that's the least of our worries.

We're living in a time when the youngest generations are more disconnected from nature than any generation prior. Meanwhile, the natural world is struggling with more human-inflicted chaos than ever before. Our world is burning due to the effects of climate change. Extinction rates are soaring and the clock is ticking. Fortunately, there are millions of scientists, storytellers, and nature fanatics who care, including us, but we haven't had an effective platform to communicate with...

...until now.

Revolutionizing the Way We Communicate About Nature

Back in 2017, Rob and Alex met while working together to create a science communication workshop in Montana. Rob approached Alex with the idea, "What if we created a new media streaming platform, dedicated to nature, that had a social element?" Alex responded, naturally, with, "You know that live-streaming platform where people watch other people play video games?"

One year later, after many Post-Its lost their lives, the idea of Mammalz - the "Twitch for Nature" - was too promising to ignore. Not only could we help thousands of nature storytellers make a living doing what they love but we could also reconnect younger generations with the natural world, all while bridging the gap between science, content creators, and the public. So, Rob and Alex traded their snow boots for flip-flops and moved to San Diego, California.

In January of 2019, Rob and Alex secured their first round of investment alongside their accelerator KiwiTech. With help from KiwiTech's development team, the first iteration of Mammalz was born: an app- and web-based media streaming and social platform dedicated to nature storytelling. Now, anyone, anywhere can create, share, and socialize about nature media of any type and any format. Phase One: Complete.

Growing a Community

Since launching on Earth Day (April 22nd) 2020, with help from our community growth and marketing experts (shout out to Pam, Sabrina, and Stephen), the Mammalz community is over 1,700 content creators and nature lovers strong. From sharing lucky animal encounters to live-streaming primitive fire-making techniques, the community is rallying around all features of the platform with a hunger for more.

Our primary growth strategy for scaling the Mammalz user base involves breaking our target market into supergroups - think birders, wolf lovers, rock climbers, scuba divers, wildlife photographers, etc. We determine where those supergroups are currently, who their leaders and storytellers are, and what types of content functionality they seek. Our community growth team then directly targets those leaders and storytellers, illustrates the advantages of Mammalz, and encourages them to bring their community members along as they transition.

One group this has worked very well for is herpers; people who love reptiles and amphibians. Herpers were frequenting YouTube for animal husbandry videos and Facebook for sharing herping events, outdoor techniques, conservation, and more. We acutely targeted their leaders and storytellers on both platforms during beta. Now, of our 340+ users who are active daily, over 50 are herpers, most of whom joined Mammalz organically under the lead of storytellers like Ben Zino (@TheWildReport) and Dillon Jones (@Contemporary_Conservationist).

In addition to the skills of our community growth team, we have an extensive advisory team beside us who are committed to helping us succeed. We teamed up with producers from National Geographic and BBC Nature, software development team managers, successful tech entrepreneurs, and both creators and their managers from platforms like Twitch and YouTube to lend us the expertise and wisdom that each of our growth strategies is built on.

With our community and team of advisors alongside us, our next steps are to continue innovating with interactive media formats like live-streaming, integrating the first of our monetization features, and scaling our community.

We need your help to get there.

Use of Funds

After our eight-month beta, we have now proven that 1) our target market will develop into a highly-engaged community using our platform, and 2) content creators in the nature niche see more value in Mammalz than in other, more general media streaming platforms.

Now that we’ve officially launched the Mammalz web and iOS applications, we’ll need to continue refining and improving the platform based on our community feedback. To do so, we'll be hiring additional technical team members. Mammalz is ready to scale, so our community growth and marketing team will need resources to attract new users and content creators through digital marketing, influencer marketing, PR, events, and more as well as resources to retain and engage our userbase through gamification and content creator services. Last, but certainly not least, we will develop and integrate the first of our revenue models: community tipping. At $250,000, we can achieve all of these goals and reach the benchmarks required to secure our next rounds of funding.

Once we reach $500,000, the real fun begins. Through a project we call "Adventure Streamers", we will truly reinvent the way you experience nature. Imagine climbing a thousand-foot cliff, scuba diving over a coral reef, or capturing rare animal behaviors alongside your favorite content creators, all in real-time, from your own viewing device. Using mobile bonded-modem technology, we'll be providing solutions for our most engaging and exciting content creators to live-stream their adventures every week. Adventure Streamers will not only provide a unique selling point for Mammalz but also drive user growth, engagement, and revenue.

At our maximum goal of $1,070,000, we'll be able to bring the Mammalz experience to every device around the world by building a native Android application. To go global, we'll be doubling our marketing initiatives and creator services and funneling more resources into projects like Adventure Streamers. By scaling quickly and widely, we open ourselves to early-stage sponsorship opportunities that could greatly reduce our time to advertising revenue.

But Wait, There's More... PERKS!

In addition to helping us reach our goals and becoming a valued investor of the Mammalz ecosystem, we want to immediately reward those who invest in our campaign with some nature-specific perks. All of our perks help conserve wildlife and natural resources.

Perhaps our most exciting perk is something nearly every investor will receive: a chance to win a trip of a lifetime for two. Each investment below $25,000 will earn you tickets in a drawing for a trip to experience tigers in India, African wildlife in Botswana, or the coral reefs of Indonesia. For every $250,000 we raise, we'll be giving away a trip for two of your choice to one lucky winner. Click here for the terms of the giveaway.

Disclaimer: Perks are NOT cumulative. As an investor, you can choose one perk at or below the dollar amount of your investment.

Going Beyond the Communication Gap

Once we've successfully centralized a global community of nature lovers, democratized nature content monetization, and revolutionized the way we communicate about nature, we have no intention of stopping.

Using the millions of photos, videos, comments, discussions, and other relevant data contributed to Mammalz, we will transform our community into citizen scientists. With innovations in data science, we will take bounding leaps toward more effectively conserving threatened species, craft educational, augmented experiences of the natural world, and even help put a stop to wildlife trafficking. The first step is creating an engaged community with a mission, and we're already on our way.

Fall in Love with Nature All Over Again

Become a champion of the natural world by joining the Mammalz community as an owner of the company. Together, we can reconnect the world to nature, because after all, we are Mammalz.