Background
AC Dickson (Andrew Dickson) is an artist and filmmaker who has been a KmikeyM shareholder for years, and I have been a fan and a collaborator of his for about twenty. The piece that first hooked me was AC Dickson: eBay PowerSeller, a full-length show that sat somewhere between performance art, a PowerPoint sales seminar, and stand-up comedy. It premiered at Portland’s PICA TBA festival in 2004 and toured to New York, Los Angeles, and across Europe. People at Wieden+Kennedy saw it and hired him to build a character for Nike iD, which is how he got pulled into advertising.
This is not a cold hire. Andrew and I have been in each other’s creative orbit for two decades. As part of the Team Video collective I produced one of his lectures, 38 Things I’ve Learned in 38 Years, for Urban Honking, where he also kept his own blog for several years. He has taught that lecture material at WK12, the Wieden+Kennedy school, and to the Portland State graphic design group.
I have been the person behind the camera for his teaching. Now I want to pay him to put me in front of it.
What makes him the right coach is what the eBay show was about. AC treats self-presentation, and the gap between the real you and the performing you, as material to work with rather than something to be nervous about. He built an entire performance out of playing a heightened salesman, and he has spent close to two decades since making things and teaching people. Today he tours a show called AC Dickson: Life Coach.
I want to be better at documenting my own work, and on-camera presence is the single skill that moves that needle most in our modern media era. This is a rare chance to learn that from someone who understands filmmaking, performative characters, and KmikeyM.
Why Now
Three things line up… I am back in Portland, where Andrew lives. I have left my job where I was making videos, and I want to pivot that energy to my own channel. And the Shareholder Summit is coming up on July 11 in Portland where I will give a keynote address.
The Proposal
I pay Andrew 415 shares for four two-hour coaching sessions in Portland, run on weekends, with a mid-week review of video assignments between each one. The sessions cover craft fundamentals (physical presence, voice and delivery, emotional range, working from a script versus working loose, and full on-camera integration with my real setup), adapted to whatever AC thinks will help most. Between sessions I film assignments and he reviews them mid-week, so the weekend time goes to working rather than catching up.
What This Doesn’t Change
This is a bounded engagement, not a standing arrangement. It does not make AC a KmikeyM employee or contractor beyond these sessions. It does not change my own channel’s direction or content strategy. It is an investment in developing my performance skills, with one collaborator, over a short window.
What This Vote Is NOT About
This is not “should I take YouTube seriously.” That is mostly already happening because video is a great way to share whatever I’m working on. The question here is narrower: whether to spend on developing on-camera craft.
The Arguments
For (Yes)
- On-camera is the highest-leverage skill for the channel. Everything I publish runs through how I come across on camera. Coaching it directly beats learning it one upload at a time.
- AC gets both the craft and the context. He is a filmmaker, performer, and a teacher, and he is already inside the cap table, so there is no “what is KmikeyM” overhead to get past.
- The payment stays in the network, literally. I am not spending cash. I am paying a shareholder in shares, which deepens a stake AC already holds.
- AC is taking half his rate, in shares, because he is bullish. 415 shares at today’s price is roughly half what he would normally charge in cash for this work. He is willing to be paid in KmikeyM equity at a discount because he believes in KmikeyM. AC is a working commercial director with credits including Old Spice, Starbucks, Target, and a Beyoncé spot, so his time has a real market rate and he is betting a chunk of it on KmikeyM.
- The sessions are content. Across the four sessions will be four video deliverables which gives shareholders something to watch regardless of how my delivery improves.
Against (No)
- I could practice on my own. A high volume of reps on real uploads might get me most of the way there for free. (The Patrick Campbell Method™)
- Paying a friend and shareholder is a different kind of money conversation. It can complicate a relationship I value. What if I end up hating him?
- The return is hard to measure. Better on camera does not convert cleanly into subscribers, so part of this is an investment where the ROI is difficult to measure.
The Honest Tension
Andrew is a shareholder, which means he is voting on a decision that pays him, and the pay is shares, so it nudges his own stake and voting weight up slightly as a result of a vote he gets to cast. Against the whole cap table it is a small number, but this would move him into the upper echelon of shareholders.
How to Vote
- YES — I work with AC for the four sessions.
- NO — I hold off and keep building on-camera skills on my own.
This vote will end on Sunday, June 15, 2026.