Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Co:Create was first imagined as an API-first loyalty platform.

As part of a series of studio projects, the company launched Co:Create Ink in November 2023, a platform dedicated to elevating tattoo art, allowing members to access a range of exclusive collections from a curated roster of founding artists.

I joined the team in October 2023 as product marketing manager, tasked with planning and executing a launch strategy for the new platform focused on building and activating a waitlist, supported by an acquisition program across key social media channels, incorporating owned, earned and paid tactics.

Co:Create offers a unique perspective on tattoo art that distinguishes it from other marketplaces. The platform was designed to emulate the aesthetic of an art gallery, elevating the artists and their work, in contrast to the highly commoditised approach adopted by most others in the space.

The question was how to frame that value proposition for different audience segments in a way that inspired waitlist signups, and ultimately purchases.

We also had to find ways of coordinating our founding artists to maximum effect, leveraging both their creative output and social media presence. This was complicated at times by their markedly different communication styles (!)

Owned & Earned Social Media

With Instagram stars like Kat Tat, Cleo Kinnaman and Dillon Forte on the books, it was clear from the start that the founding artists were a huge asset. The early growth strategy for Co:Create Ink was premised on leveraging their work, and activating their fan bases to build an audience for launch.

I quickly set out building a comprehensive content strategy to support that initiative. Based on extensive research into the tattoo space on social media, especially the premium end of the market, we established a series of themes and creative formats that we thought would resonate with the kind of user the platform wanted to attract. Our founding artists’ back catalogue provided a wealth of quality material to work with. Using this as our foundation, we built out a distinctive brand identity and corresponding visual language through a series of workshops, and a program of creative iteration. I was regularly in touch with the founding artists for feedback, which proved to be an invaluable resource.

With this foundation in place, the team built out daily design briefs, leveraging existing content and working directly with photographers and videographers to generate new content for brand and artists channels. Using only owned and earned media, we were able to generate more than 3,000 waitlist signups for launch.

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As a result of my program, we were able to smash our launch targets, generating over $20K of revenue on day one (with one artist selling out entirely), then we shifted focus to quickly scale the membership to thousands of users. In addition, dozens of artists have now asked to join the platform.