OBSESSED is a living memoir of my 17-year quest to build Artizen — from idea to escape velocity and beyond. New episodes every week until the story ends or the rocket explodes.
Here it is. The brutal truth of how I built Artizen into an “overnight success” after nearly two decades in the salt mines. We’ve awarded millions to creators and built something people want to be a part of.
Artizen might still explode. A thousand things could trigger a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” But for the first time, we’ve reached escape velocity—and I can see the stars.
Now is the time to tell our story. The story of grit—five failed startups, bankruptcy, and countless panic attacks. The story of rage at our broken institutions—stiffing the artists, scientists, and builders who make the world rich. And the story of love—friends who believed in me, family who sacrificed for me, and my wife, who stood by me as I set our life on fire.
But mostly this is the story of obsession—the kind that fuels you, haunts you, and keeps you tethered to the mast until the ship sinks or the storm break.
Because obsession beats talent.
Obsession beats discipline.
Obsession wins.
Spark of inspiration
It’s 2007. I’ve been awake for 49 hours, gripped by creative mania. My boss, Jen Grogono, and her co-founder, Kip McClanahan, stand frozen. An explosion of post-it notes and whiteboards fill my office. Diagrams, mind maps, flow charts—every inch covered in wild ideas, the fever dream of a mad scientist.
Jen and Kip hired me to help scale content at OnNetworks. This? This wasn’t in the job description. But after a soul-crushing decade in the entertainment industry, I finally cracked.
The way we fund art, music, movies, culture… it’s broken. The hoops we force creators to jump through, the impossible odds stacked against them. It’s a rigged game with dumb rules that reward conformity over creativity.
And then it hits me—the spark of inspiration. If it’s all just a game, why not flip the board? Invent a new game for creators to play. Open to everyone. With fair rules. Where fans and companies team up to fund the best projects. Where creators compete on merit, not insider connections. Where projects win by making a real impact.
I gather all the whiteboards in my small, windowless office. For two days straight, I scribble, erase, and redraw. Each mark feels like a revelation, a breakthrough. Finally, it’s done! Adrenaline surging, I march down the hall to summon Jen and Kip.
“It’s like a giant vacuum cleaner. But for money!” I point at some dotted arrows on the whiteboard. “You see, it sucks up all the cash. But instead of dumping the cash in the trash, we blast that vacuum in reverse and make it rain on creators!”
Jen and Kip stare at me like a crazy person.
Oh shit. I’m totally fired.
Five generations of poor artists
My mom is a jazz singer. My dad is a composer and author. My uncle Paul played sax with Leonard Cohen. And my uncle Eagle was an indie filmmaker whose debut feature, The Whole Shootin’ Match, inspired Robert Redford to create Sundance. Grandma Lolo was in the movies and played in my grandpa’s big band. And my great-grandpa was a vaudevillian acrobat who performed with all the greats like The Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, and Blackstone the Magician.
Growing up surrounded by creative people taught me the joy, beauty, and power of art. But it also laid bare a harsh truth: being an artist often meant living on the edge, a constant hustle to make ends meet. In my family, art was never about making money—it was a calling. And yet, the toll it took was real. Being an artist feels like a vow of poverty.
But I was happy to take the vow. My DNA demanded it.
Love,
René Pinnell
Founder of Artizen
The story continues next week in Episode 2 — Hollywood and Hurricanes.
