Canvas: A space to create, manage and monetise your content

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the creator economy by leaps and bounds. From songwriters to stand-up comedians, musicians to podcasters, people cutting across the creative space are following their passion and monetising their talent at the same time.

While multiple digital platforms have created opportunities for the creators, getting traction for content, creating constant engagement with the audience and monetising the content still remains a great challenge for the creators. Here comes Canvas - a first-of-its-kind creator-centric ecosystem that aims to revolutionise the passion economy and help creators to create, manage and monetise their work smoothly.

Started by Vignesh Ramaswamy, an engineer turned media explorer along with artist Raghava KK and lyricist Madhan Karky, Canvas offers a comprehensive ecosystem that streamlines a content creator’s online presence across platforms and empowers them by protecting their interests and helping them with new ways to make an income.

“Everyone in the world is treating creators as a commodity. Instead, we thought we should use technology as an enablement or partner for the creators and look at creating a creator centric tool. That’s how Canvas as an idea was born in August 2020,” Ramaswamy, founder of Canvas, told BusinessLine .

“The funnel which most platforms use today is creation, discovery and monetisation so the creators run behind numbers instead of prioritising on the quality of content. We've redesigned the funnel to focus on creation, monetisation and distribution. It gives creators the freedom and control,” he added.

How does it work?

A creator, say for instance a YouTuber or a story writer using WordPress or has his own website can integrate all that under Canvas to create a single portfolio. The platform creates a safe space for creatives across genres and subcultures - including art, photography, podcasting, writing, music, filmmaking and more. It helps creators to focus on their work, by taking care of the logistics and management through their intuitive interface and technology.

The creators can put anything from a sentence to a word or even an audio/video file behind a paywall, opening up opportunities for monetisation. For example, an author may wish to provide almost all the chapters of their book for free to their audience, with only the final two chapters being paid content.

“Today, if a YouTuber with even a million followers wants to monetise from a particular niche content, he cannot do that. But creators can make such niche and nuanced interactions and monetise them using our tool,” Ramaswamy said.

Canvas is currently an exclusive tool and can be accessed only by invitation. While the platform will be formally launched in India and the US by the end of July, it will be rolled out in Singapore later this year.

The platform already has musician Rajhesh Vaidhya, art collective movement ‘The Fearless Collective’ and students from the National School of Journalism (NSOJ) using it to interact with their professor and explore independent journalism through paid media content.

“Tomorrow we will work with more J-schools or creative organisations to give the entire tool as a plug and play solution,” Ramaswamy said.

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