Why WantBorn

The Shipyard moment

RevenueCat ran a one-off experiment called Shipyard: the Creator Contest — pair a handful of creators with builders to ship monetizable apps. It drew far more builders than it had creator slots. The demand on both sides was undeniable: builders desperate for distribution, creators sitting on audiences with no app to monetize them. And then the contest ended, and the ongoing partnership was explicitly walked away from.

That left an obvious, unfilled gap: the permanent, prize-free version. Not a contest with a $20k prize on the table, but a standing marketplace where any creator can post a brief and any vetted builder can apply — and where someone actually brokers the deal and keeps it accountable.

The thesis

• Creators have audience, no app. They can't (or don't want to) build, and hiring a dev shop is expensive and risky.
• Builders have apps, no distribution. Shipping is the easy part; getting users is the wall they hit.
• The match is the product. Put the right pair together on a revenue share and both win — the creator monetizes their audience, the builder gets distribution and long-term upside instead of a one-off fee.

Why now

The rails finally exist. Tools like RevenueCat make in-app revenue and settlement a solved problem. The missing piece isn't the plumbing — it's the curated supply of creators and the trust layer (matching, deal structuring, accountability) that sits on top of it. That's the part the contest proved demand for and then left on the table. That's the part we own.

What we believe

• Concierge before automation. We hand-match every pair while we prove the model. Quality first, scale second.
• Creators keep their audience and the majority share. We're the broker, not the principal.
• Builders deserve real distribution. Sharing upside beats begging for downloads.
• We make money only when a deal works. Creators are free; builders pay on a launched match.