Premium Vertical Television · Pre-Seed

SteelShort

The premium short form vertical television platform for heartland America.

SteelShort is disrupting the entertainment industry with a unique blend of artificial intelligence technology, emerging creative talent, and premium short form television aimed at an underserved audience.

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Sheriff's Line
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Range War
Steelshort Originals Cinematic short-form shows made for older men.
Hollow Creek
The Note
Sheriff's Line
Fourth & Long
Range War
Border County
The Thesis
The most engaging scripted content × AI production efficiency × marketed to a receptive, underserved audience.
01

Growth Market

Microdramas are a new $11B global format forecasted to exceed $25B by 2030.

02

Untapped Segment

Microdramas lack premium positioning, and no one is targeting heartland America's older men.

03

AI Driven

AI allows us to create a premium hour for ~$10K, a fraction of Netflix or ReelShort's production costs.

04

Peak Engagement

Microdramas are the most addictive scripted content, built on cliffhangers and binge loops.

05

Early Traction

Our shows capture an 80% stayed-to-watch rate across 250k+ early views, with an audience of almost entirely older men.

The Format

Microdramas are the most addictive content on the internet.

Short, vertical, scripted episodes engineered to keep you watching, one minute at a time.

45–120s

Built for the phone

Vertical, mobile-first episodes designed for fast paced, casual viewing.

Hook

Cliffhangers

Every episode ends on suspense, pulling viewers across platforms and past paywalls.

Binge

Full seasons

Easy-to-start episodes keep viewers watching 60 to 100-episode series, often paying hundreds in coins.

Pay

Aggressive paywalls

Watch free to the biggest cliffhanger, then watch an ad, use coins, or subscribe.

Average daily minutes watched

Per user, leading platforms (Omdia data)
ReelShort35.7
Prime Video26.9
Netflix24.8
Disney+23.0
The Opportunity

A new format scaling past an $11B market

A large, fast-growing category with global TAM expected to exceed $25B by 2030.

$11B
Global TAM

Total worldwide microdrama market across every platform.

$1.3B
U.S. Serviceable

The domestic share SteelShort is positioned to address.

$30–60M
Near-term Obtainable

Realistically capturable within our first phases of growth.

ReelShort global consumer spend

$0 to $1.2B in three years (Sensor Tower & Media Partners Asia)
~$0
2022
$36M
2023
$400M
2024
$1.2B
2025

ReelShort alone went from $0 to $1.2B in three years.

01

Explosive Growth

Scaled from nothing to $1.2B in three years through aggressive paid user acquisition.

02

Proven Monetization

Strong revenue from coins, subscriptions, and ads, with global demand accelerating.

03

Falling Costs

AI adoption is compressing production cost across the category and enabling profitability.

The White Space
Competition is fierce. But only for female viewers.

Women aged 35 to 55 make up the majority of watch time and revenue. No one is building for the heartland.

~$1.2B · 2025
StrengthFirst mover in the US microdrama market, strong pay-per-episode and ad monetization.
WeaknessLow soap-opera production quality, repetitive romance, and unprofitable marketing spend.
~$323M · 2024
StrengthMassive global footprint, 1000+ series library, and a profitable, efficient operating model.
WeaknessMelodrama-heavy, romance-only formats with no premium brand positioning.

No male-skewing platform. No one making verticals for the heartland.

01

No Premium Supply

Older men show high demand for short-form scripted content, but no dominant company provides it at scale.

02

No Brand Leadership

The microdrama category lacks a specific brand identity and elevated positioning.

03

No Heartland Platform

Nothing in the space targets older male audiences or mainstream heartland America.

We Are Steelshort

Taylor Sheridan × TikTok

Heartland storytelling meets viral distribution.

The first premium microdrama studio built for the heartland: cinematic, masculine, apolitical stories, delivered in scrollable shorts through the platforms our viewers already live on.

01

AI Technology

Scalable production at a fraction of traditional cost. Filmmakers in the loop create premium TV instead of slop.

02

Emerging Talent

We hire hungry, upcoming writers and filmmakers to raise the storytelling bar.

03

Defined Brand

Cinematic short-form shows made specifically for older men.

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Mystery Thriller · Limited Series · Flagship

Hollow Creek

When an aging rancher's health starts to fail, his disgraced son returns to claim a birthright his loyal hand has spent a lifetime working for. With outside money circling the ranch, the two are pulled into a brutal contest for an empire the patriarch has no intention of letting go.

MysteryThrillerDrama
Episodes 1 to 11 streaming now
The Note
Episode 1 · Premiere
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War Drama · Limited Series

The Note

A teenage draftee, sent to die in a forgotten war, is saved by an enemy drone that drops a warning instead of a bomb. After being separated from his unit, he must follow it across an active warzone to find out who's protecting him, and why.

DramaWartimeThriller
Episodes 1 to 3 streaming now
The Product

A premium microdrama streaming platform

Ultra-short episodic storytelling and a personalized content feed, engineered for engagement, retention, and recurring revenue.

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9:41
Hollow Creek
Mystery Thriller · Limited Series
Hollow Creek
Play Ep. 1
1The ReturnPremiere1:12
2Blood & WaterNew1:04
3The DeedNew0:58
4Outside MoneyNew1:09
9:41
STEELSHORT
Hollow Creek
Featured
Hollow Creek
Westerns
Range War
Border County
Sheriff's Line
New Episodes
The Note
Fourth & Long
Hollow Creek
9:41
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Basic
Core catalog · daily drops
$7.99/mo
Most Popular
Standard
Full library · downloads
$14.99/mo
Unlimited
Everything · early access
$22.99/mo
Start Watching
Priced under ReelShort's $19.99 per week VIP.
FOR YOU
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Hollow Creek
Episode 4 · Swipe up for the next
Our Audience

Middle American men, 60+

The overlooked viewer: loyal, high lifetime value, and served by no one.

Leave politics out of TV.The quote we hear the most from our audience

Left Out

Feel ignored and underserved by mainstream television.

Time & Money

Often retired, with plenty of disposable time and income.

Straight Shooters

Prefer straightforward, apolitical shows with strong, masculine heroes.

AI-Friendly

No aversion to high production value AI-made media.

22M
U.S. Men Aged 60+
On Facebook, directly targetable through Reels and Meta Ads.
38M
U.S. Men Aged 50+
For adjacent audience expansion.
The Cost Advantage

Premium production at 800× less cost

AI compresses months of shooting into days of rendering. Complex action and period settings barely move the budget.

$8M
Netflix / Hour
Traditional premium television
$300K
Microdrama / Hour
Live-action incumbents
$10K
SteelShort AI / Hour
Roughly 1/800th of Netflix
Why Now

AI allows male-skewing shows on a micro budget

Production is no longer limited by location, schedule, and budget.

Anywhere, Anytime

Any place or era. Period shows perform well with older audiences but are rarely made due to cost.

Big Genres

Action, period settings, and special effects, once costly, are now staples of our production.

Male-Skewing

Action, historical, crime, and military can now be produced cheaper and faster than contained romance.

Real Talent

Emerging writers add genuine emotional engagement, elevating microdramas to a premium category.

The Pipeline
1

Script Writing

Emerging film and TV writers craft emotionally engaging scripts packed with hooks and cliffhangers.

2

AI Image & Video

Filmmakers use proprietary automated systems to batch-process hours of content with unrivaled continuity.

3

Editing & Assembly

Editors rapidly stitch scenes into cohesive, fast-paced episodes optimized for short-form viewing.

4

Quality Control

Creative directors review cuts at every step for narrative consistency and visual quality.

Traction

Our shows hold viewers to the end

80%
Stay-to-Watch

Average completion on YouTube Shorts.

70%+
Retention

On our high-performing episodes.

250K+
Reel Views

Across Facebook Reels to date. 80% are 60+ men.

1%+
Follow Rate

Directly from our target demo.

Business Model

Multiple revenue streams in a sticky market

Four reinforcing ways to monetize the same engaged audience.

01
Subscriptions

Recurring revenue, priced under ReelShort's $19.99 per week VIP and targeting a sticky, low-churn older audience.

02
Pay-Per-Episode

Cliffhangers convert engaged viewers into impulse-based micro-purchases.

03
Advertising

Free users are given the option to watch an ad to unlock the next episode.

04
Brand Partnerships

Our existing social media reach lets us monetize even before the launch of the app.

Basic
$7.99/mo
  • Stream the core catalog
  • New daily episode drops
  • Vertical, mobile-first viewing
Unlimited
$22.99/mo
  • Unlimited access to everything
  • Early access to new series
  • Priced under $19.99 per week rivals
Founder
Brooks Taylor

Brooks Taylor

Founder & CEO

Brooks Taylor is the founder and CEO of SteelShort. With a B.S. in Business of Cinematic Arts from the University of Southern California, he has experience in film and television development at NBCUniversal, Red Wagon Entertainment, and Mandalay Entertainment. Brooks was the lead TA for USC's cutting-edge Directing for AI graduate course in the School of Cinematic Arts, and he brings a unique skillset and network, blending AI automation, business management, and scripted storytelling. He is passionate about advancing the future of quality AI-enabled storytelling and empowering emerging film and television talent.

USC School of Cinematic Arts NBCUniversal Directing for AI
Get In Touch

Let's build the platform heartland America has been waiting for.

brooks@steelshort.com