PATREON UPDATE!

Dear Patrons, 

It’s been about five months since we undertook this endeavor and it has been, by any measure we can come up with, an absolute success. Going In Raw has grown astronomically since we’ve made wrestling content our focus, and the primary reason for that has been the incredible and generous support of our Patrons. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you. 

This has been our maiden voyage on the good ship Patreon and we’ve learned a lot these past few months about what works and what doesn’t, and based on the knowledge we’ve gained, we’re going to make a few course corrections in hopes of providing everyone the best experience possible. 

1) SPONSORSHIPS

This is the big one. From the outset, we decided that we NEVER wanted to shoehorn sponsorships into the show strictly for the sake of making an easy buck. Our philosophy has always been that if the sponsorship didn’t fit the content, we weren’t going to do it. Since launching our Patreon, we’ve had numerous opportunities to include sponsors in the show, and we’ve repeatedly declined for that reason. Lately, however, we’ve been approached by a few companies with sponsorship opportunities for products and services that are of interest to us and may be of interest to our audience. 

The original language in our Patreon description stated that our aim at launch was to reach a point where we could keep our content sponsorship-free. Obviously, if the funding from the Patreon didn't match any potential sponsorship opportunities which may have been required to keep the show alive, it wouldn't have made sense to replace one with the other. Internally, we envisioned a time, generally after most of the goals were met, where we WOULD have been able to keep GIR sponsor-free. However, we neglected to state this language in any of our goals, nor did we indicate at which point it would make sense financially to rely exclusively on Patron donations and eschew sponsors entirely—an issue we will rectify shortly. Instead, we included a quick passage in our description stating that your donations would “help us fulfill our vision and ensure that we can create content that will remain FREE for everyone and FREE of sponsorships.” If any of you are sponsoring us via the Patreon under the assumption that you would be getting this content fully sponsor-free, we wouldn't hold it against you in any way if you decided to hop off the Going In Raw Patreon train before that changed. 

The bottom line is, sponsorships that we feel may be of interest to the friendos are on the horizon, so if that's not cool with you, feel free to pull out of the Patreon and we'll still honor whatever rewards are due to you in full and extend our eternal gratitude. Also, if any of you have any questions about our new stance on sponsorships, please post them on our Patreon wall and we will answer them as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. We want to be absolutely transparent throughout this entire process. 

2) GOALS

These largely went out the window early on- most of our goals were programming-based. In other words, the more money we got, the more shows we planned on producing. BUT, when we realized that producing more shows led to an increase in audience engagement (more subs, viewers, Patreon contributions, etc), it made sense to toss the goals and just make MORE MORE MORE. So we’re going to readjust our goals in the coming weeks to more accurately reflect the current status of Going In Raw. The most noticeable change will be a shift in one of our initial goals: the launch of a dedicated Going In Raw channel. Yes, originally, the entire idea of the Patreon was a SEPARATE Going in Raw channel. BUT with the explosion in audience growth we’ve experienced since going ALL-IN on pro wrestling on the Steve and Larson channel in coordination with launching the Patreon, the Steve and Larson channel has BECOME the Going In Raw Channel, for all intents and purposes. 

It would be counterproductive at this point to move all our wrestling programming over to a new channel. Even if we moved to a new channel, our old channel would just collect dust, because everything we produce now is under the general banner of GOING IN RAW. We don't do that gaming/pop culture stuff anymore, nor do we have plans to go back to it. So congrats, the Going In Raw channel is alive, it was with us the whole time. BUT we still need GOALS to strive for, so we MAY consider making them event-based goals, like celebratory livestreams, or maybe JUST MAYBE, if we reach some form of grand ultimate goal, LARSON MAY #2SWEET STEVE. (Not likely. -Larson) 

3) REWARDS

We’re busy guys these days, but that’s no excuse for not being more on top of getting everyone’s rewards out in a timely fashion. Now that the insanity of SummerSlam is behind us, we can focus more of our attention on getting everyone’s goods out to them as soon as possible. There’s literally a box of t-shirts for our $50 Patrons sitting in Steve’s office; we just need to package them up and get them in the mail. We've made it a major priority to ensure everyone has their rewards by the end of summer.