The premium short form vertical television platform for heartland America.
SteelShort is a uniquely positioned platform in the microdrama space, combining an innovative blend of artificial intelligence technology, emerging creative talent, and premium short form television aimed at an underserved audience.
Microdramas are a new $11B global format forecasted to exceed $25B by 2030.
Microdramas lack premium positioning, and no one is targeting heartland America's older men.
AI allows us to create a premium hour for ~$10K, a fraction of Netflix or ReelShort's production costs.
Microdramas are the most engaging scripted content, built on cliffhangers and binge loops.
Our shows capture an 80% stayed-to-watch rate across 5M+ early views, with an audience of almost entirely older men.
Short, vertical, scripted episodes engineered to keep you watching, one minute at a time.
Vertical, mobile-first episodes designed for fast paced, casual viewing.
Every episode ends on suspense, pulling viewers across platforms and past paywalls.
Easy-to-start episodes keep viewers watching 60 to 100-episode series, often paying hundreds in coins.
Watch free to the biggest cliffhanger, then watch an ad, use coins, or subscribe.
A large, fast-growing category with global TAM expected to exceed $25B by 2030.
Total worldwide microdrama market across every platform.
The domestic share SteelShort is positioned to address.
Realistically capturable within our first phases of growth.
Scaled from nothing to $1.2B in three years through aggressive paid user acquisition.
Strong revenue from coins, subscriptions, and ads, with global demand accelerating.
AI adoption is compressing production cost across the category and enabling profitability.
Women aged 35 to 55 make up the majority of watch time and revenue. No one is building for the heartland.
ReelShort~$1.2B · 2025
DramaBox~$323M · 2024Older men show high demand for short-form scripted content, but no dominant company provides it at scale.
The microdrama category lacks a specific brand identity and elevated positioning.
Nothing in the space targets older male audiences or mainstream heartland America.
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.
The Steelshort Studio's in-house pipeline produces premium TV at a fraction of traditional cost, with filmmakers in the loop instead of AI slop.
We hire hungry, upcoming writers and filmmakers to raise the storytelling bar.
Cinematic short-form shows made specifically for older men.
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.
A hard county sheriff finds his territory caught between the family he grew up with and a smuggling route reopening along the border his father died protecting. When loyalty and the law stop pointing the same way, every call draws a line someone has to cross.
Ultra-short episodic storytelling and a personalized content feed, engineered for engagement, retention, and recurring revenue.
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STEELSHORT
FOR YOU
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
Feel ignored and underserved by mainstream television.
Often retired, with plenty of disposable time and income.
Prefer straightforward, apolitical shows with strong, masculine heroes.
No aversion to high production value AI-made media.
AI compresses months of shooting into days of rendering. Complex action and period settings barely move the budget.
Production is no longer limited by location, schedule, and budget.
Any place or era. Period shows perform well with older audiences but are rarely made due to cost.
Action, period settings, and special effects, once costly, are now staples of our production.
Action, historical, crime, and military can now be produced cheaper and faster than contained romance.
Emerging writers add genuine emotional engagement, elevating microdramas to a premium category.
Emerging film and TV writers craft emotionally engaging scripts packed with hooks and cliffhangers.
Filmmakers use proprietary automated systems to batch-process hours of content with unrivaled continuity.
Editors rapidly stitch scenes into cohesive, fast-paced episodes optimized for short-form viewing.
Creative directors review cuts at every step for narrative consistency and visual quality.
Average completion on YouTube Shorts.
On our high-performing episodes.
Across Facebook Reels to date. 80% are 60+ men.
On Facebook, almost entirely 60+ men.
Four reinforcing ways to monetize the same engaged audience.
Recurring revenue, priced under ReelShort's $19.99 per week VIP and targeting a sticky, low-churn older audience.
Cliffhangers convert engaged viewers into impulse-based micro-purchases.
Free users are given the option to watch an ad to unlock the next episode.
Our existing social media reach lets us monetize even before the launch of the app.
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.