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Kyle Webster: Artist and Innovator

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Kyle Webster is undoubtedly a talented artist with a thriving career in the advertising and editorial world. But in March of 2016 he found himself negotiating a deal with the help of artists’ representative, David Goldman that would be the largest of their respective careers.

Kyle created KYLEBRUSH in 2013. It quickly became a hugely successful brand of digital paintbrushes with an enthusiastic international subscription base. He had leapfrogged over all his competitors and caught the attention of Adobe. By March 2016, they were seeking to license 7 brushes to offer as a pack to their 7 million subscribers. Kyle enlisted David’s expertise to help protect his rights and of course, make the best deal possible. So in early April 2016, they put their heads together and came up with numbers for licensing the brushes on a per annum basis. Adobe countered requesting a non-exclusive arrangement in perpetuity. Kyle and David responded with their own counter offer and without hesitation Adobe agreed, and the deal was done.  But soon, David began considering other scenarios, and it wasn’t long before he convinced Kyle they should propose  Adobe acquire his entire KYLEBRUSH.COM brand.

Kyle had already casually proposed an acquisition to some of his contacts at the company, but the idea stalled. He had all of the analytics which showed a very successful 3.5 year ascent, proving beyond a doubt there is an increasingly strong market base for his hundreds of digital brushes. David proposed he would perform all  due diligence in order to put a valuation on his IP to ensure they had a strong proposal. Less than a month from the time David and Kyle were introduced, they sent the proposal and then waited. But it wasn’t long before they were on a call with their key contacts to discuss the proposal. After numerous revisions and countless phone calls with representatives from every layer of the company for nearly a year and a half, Kyle and David finally received the news they had been hoping for: of a letter of intent.

On Sept. 27, 2017, Kyle finalized the sale of his brand, along with entering into an employment commitment as Design Evangelist and as a key member of several teams of developers at Adobe Systems. Over 1,400 of his digital brushes are now exclusively available to subscribers of Adobe’s Creative Cloud. The media was quick to pick up on the acquisition: http://tcrn.ch/2xOJ5dnIt was the largest single deal for both David and Kyle, who each already achieved career success and solidified a great new friendship and business relationship.

The moral of the story? If something doesn’t exist in the world, we all have the the ability to create it. But it takes expertise, dedication, and hard work to realize an idea. What culminated in the deal with Adobe was the result of a lot of prior well-thought-out decisions, never taking anything for granted, and always open to new opportunities.  Never be afraid to invest in yourself, and enlist the help of experts who can help you take your career to the next level and beyond.