NESTA suggestions:
"In Question 3.1 we asked about how you intend to commercialise your idea. Your answer to this question should follow on from that and explain to us what your exit strategy is. Do you have a clear exit strategy planned e.g. how do you intend to realise the capital value of your idea? We realise that in some cases your answer to this question might be the same as your answer to both Q3.1 and Q5.5 e.g. if you intend to license your idea then that covers how you intend to commercialise the idea, what your route to market is and also your exit strategy. However this is only one example so we expect under other circumstances to have very different answers to these 3 questions.
Other information that we require for this question includes whether you have sought any external advice in planning your exit strategy? We also realise that you might not have an exit strategy so if this is the case then say so.
We also want to know about how any outcomes from the project, which NESTA will be supporting will be disseminated? Award-holders will be expected to develop plans to promote their work where appropriate e.g. publications, ripple effect through teaching/ mentoring, performances, marketing. However we recognise that there maybe occasions where confidentiality and intellectual property constraints will limit dissemination opportunities."
The exit strategy for the project will be to liquidate as much of the intellectual capital generated from the development and production phases. In preparing this section I have sought advice from my accountant, Christine Coorey.
Although the project is designed to develop, at some cost, a mechanism for making assets widely available for non-commercial use, a simple strategy will be to sell as much of the technology, script and story-related artwork at a discount to competitors ahead of the product release.
The project's art assets can be packaged as a proprietary art library (similar to the music industry's "music library" agencies) and released via Turbo Squid or a similar online asset marketplace which return an average of 50% of the proceeds of each sale to the artist.
The script property on its own can be sold as part of a discounted package for "head bin", including the feature film script and previous branching narrative versions, through a script agent.
The SANCTUARY demo and web editor technology could be sold as a package to a game developer studio or an online technology vendor for incorporation into another product. The toolset approach could be sold back to the middleware vendor (e.g. Criterion) as a potential extension of the game toolkit.
Any brand development around the online community will assist in the sale of Internet domain names registered for the project (modfilms.com, modfilms.net, remixablefilms.com, remixablefilms.net) and any community infrastructure.
There may also be an opportunity to sell prototypes and in-house documentation to a competing studio that is looking to get a fast-track to development in this area. Consulting and other human capital related services can also be successfully marketed to benefit these third party projects.
The project has a mix of both human and intellectual capital which allows easy dissemination of the assets using both Internet publishing processes and public appearances. This point is adequately covered in the description of community and out-reach ("What's the Story?") activities elsewhere in the proposal.
Posted by .M. at October 17, 2003 02:11 PM