#StartupStory: Playbook

Creatives of any kind – photographers, graphic designers, makeup artists, solo performers, bands, dancers, you name it – can showcase their portfolio and socialised offerings, and potential clients can contact them or their agents.

Playbook Hub launches Playbook

OLC Through The Line Communications  2 Aug 2017

Some well-known South African personalities already on the platform include house DJ Euphonik, comedian Trevor Gumbi, local electronic band Goodluck and actress Kriya Gangiah. “This is only the start,” says founder Rudi Pienaar, “and the results have shown that the intensive two years we spent researching and perfecting the product is really paying off.”

I asked Pienaar what the uptake has been since launching in August, and it turns out they have plans to scale just a few months in…

When and why did you decide to launch Playbook?

The decision to launch Playbook came about in 2015. After trying to put an event together and struggling in trying to contact and book artists, I wanted to create a simpler and quicker way for people, both private individuals and particularly those in the eventing industry to communicate with and book artists.

What is Playbook’s competitive advantage?

Any agent or third party who currently provides an offering to book their artists is competition to Playbook, but we are coming into the industry with a completely different approach and offering. Playbook offers complete transparency between the artist and the client as to fees, commissions and offering, and this is something which is lacking in the industry as a whole, not only in South Africa. Playbook’s competitive advantage lies in our ability to make it simpler, faster and cheaper to source artists and creatives than any other current channel.

How does it work?

Playbook is a web-based platform. Artists and agents sign up, for free, and they then have access to the features of the platform. A company is able to upload tenders/work offers for their events which artists are able to provide an offer on. A business can also choose to contact an artist directly with our three-click system. From login to booking request you can book an artist if you know who you want. Our booking manager gives both parties all the information with regards to the booking in one place. No checking of email trails, phone calls and messages. This provides clarity and the ability for both parties to deliver. The result is happy clients and artists.

What’s in it for a) you/the Playbook Hub, b) the creative and c) the client?

Playbook is a business and as such no business model would work if it did not make money. Playbook takes a percentage commission on each booking. This is a fixed percentage and it is lower than any current offering by an agent or third party. We have done this because we feel artists need to know what they are being charged and by taking a much smaller percentage than our competitors we enable artists to grow as they are the actual talent.

Our offering to artists goes much further than a reduced percentage of commission. We provide payment guarantee to our artists which means that if they perform for a booking which has been made through the platform, we will pay them if the client fails to do so. In addition, we do all the necessary paperwork, invoicing, statements, etc. for both parties to the booking so that the artist can focus on their performance, and the client has all the details required to keep their paperwork in-line.

For the client, our biggest offering is that of time-saving. We have spent an incredible amount of time building the platform to make it as simple and time-effective as possible to source, communicate with and book any type of artist.

For people who work in events, event companies or even private individuals, the time we are able to save our users is incomparable to any other method of booking.

Comment on the uptake since its launch.

Playbook has seen a tremendous uptake since its launch on 27 July 2017. We currently have over 1,200 different artists as well as over 200 business and private booking clients.

So what’s next?

In order to be a global company and provide our artists and clients with the best offering, we will be launching in several countries this year. Playbook launches in North America on 4 April 2018. Our native app for both iOS and Android will be launched at the end of May 2018, making it even simpler and more time efficient for our users to book and interact with artists. We are also preparing the next two offerings or tiers for launch. This will occur prior to the end of the year.

For more info, visit the PlaybookHub.com.