Scripted is a writer smorgasbord for those in need of community outreach, gets $700K

As a small business, it’s hard to keep up excited web content due to time costs, commitment to a full time community manager, and more. Writer marketplace Scripted, however, has a cheaper option and a seed round of $700,000 to execute it.

Hiring someone internally can cost a lot of money and is a big commitment for many companies that may not have the resources. Because of that, many companies fall short, and lack in outreach to its community and potential customers. This is where Scripted comes in.

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Scripted originally began as a Wikipedia-esque way to crowdsource screen plays for the entertainment industry. The company soon amassed a database of over 80,000 ready and willing amateur writers and realized it could do more with its resources. Soon thereafter, jeans company Levis asked them to do a project outside of the entertainment business. It was so successful, c0-founders Sunil Rajaraman, Ryan Buckley, and Orion Richardson decided to shift the whole company toward connecting writers and small businesses in need of blog posts, social media posts, newsletters and more.

“Things like humanities type work are going to skew toward e-work rather than direct hire based,” said Rajaraman, co-founder and chief executive of Scripted, in an interview with VentureBeat. “There’s a huge demand for remote work.”

Scripted’s typical writer is a little over 30 years old, has a day job and just needs a little extra money on the side. The company is focused on amateur writers and is generally sought out by small businesses in need of someone to writer 2 or so blog posts a week. Companies are given writers based on level of skill and industry preference. For instance, if a sports company wants writers, Scripted can quickly pull together a range of sports writers fitting that company’s preference.

Rajamaran believes the US job market is no longer in favor of the humanities, but is instead turning toward engineering, which puts Scripted in a unique position to help writers connect and be discovered. Around 80 percent of his writers are US based. In fact, one writer even made over $30,000, which many call a year’s salary.

The company has served a number of recognizable customers including Levi’s, Viacom, Spike TV, and MailChimp. Scipted recently partnered with MailChimp and Constant Contact to offer e-mail newsletters to its customers.

Scripted was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. The company currently has five employees and will use the funding to expand that number. Crosslink Capital led this round with participation from Liveops founder Douglas Feirstein, and Shopzilla chief information officer Jody Mulkey.