If you’ve been around for a while, you know this already:
SHKR Club didn’t happen overnight. We’ve been building this for over two years.
Quietly. Publicly. Messily. With pivots. And with a lot of learning. Like, a lot, a lot, a lot of learning.
This post isn’t just an update on upcoming products. It’s a transparent look at how we’re figuring out what SHKR Club actually is, in a way that works for you and is sustainable for us.
Because here’s the truth:
Creative products take time. And sustainability matters.
Most startups don’t fail because of bad design.
They fail because of misalignment with the market. According to CB Insights’ well-known startup post-mortem report, the number one reason startups fail is “no market need” - accounting for roughly 35-40% of failures. Not funding. Not competition. Not execution.
Market need. That statistic sits in the back of our minds constantly.
We’ve experimented with:
Some things worked. Some didn’t land the way we expected. Some were creatively exciting but not financially sustainable. That’s normal. But it forces clarity. We are slowly refining what makes sense - for you and for us. Because building something that burns us out helps no one.
Here’s what we’re actively working on right now:
If you’ve ever worked with film overlays or built presets from scratch, you know how time-intensive this is. Scanning film, color correcting, testing across different cameras, lighting conditions, and skin tones - it’s not a quick export-and-upload process.
And that’s intentional. We don’t want to release tools that feel rushed.
Here’s the bigger conversation.
We’re not just trying to “drop products.” We’re trying to create a profitable and enjoyable exchange.
That means:
Creative burnout is real. So is founder burnout.
Research from Startup Genome shows that premature scaling and unsustainable growth patterns significantly increase failure rates. Building too fast without validation can be just as dangerous as building too slowly. So instead of pushing out constant drops for the sake of activity, we’re asking something different:
What actually helps you?
Because focus is finite. If we put 100 hours into refining black & white presets, that’s 100 hours not spent building a course, a LUT pack, or a community workshop. Every decision has a tradeoff.
SHKR Club isn’t meant to be a one-way storefront.
If we’re building tools for creators, then your feedback matters.
What do you need right now?
Over the past two years, the biggest lesson has been this:
Community-led direction is stronger than assumption-led direction. We can guess what you want. Or we can ask you. And asking is smarter.
We are not trying to build a hype-based brand.
We’re trying to build a durable creative ecosystem.
Something that:
That means slower decisions sometimes.
More refinement. More iteration. More listening. If you’ve been rocking with us since the early days - thank you. And if you’re new here - this is the stage where things get sharper.
So tell us:
Where should the focus go? Because the best products aren’t just built.
They’re aligned.
