Member portal

1.

Why this structure exists

9Bit Studios is positioned at the intersection of spatial computing, creative intelligence, and game development. The market opportunity is real, but a solo founder — no matter how talented — faces structural barriers: limited credibility in enterprise contexts, ineligibility for team-required accelerator programs, and a ceiling on how many functions one person can perform simultaneously.

The trilateral executive structure solves this by assembling three founders with complementary, non-overlapping expertise: creative technology, strategic intelligence, and game design. Each founder retains full ownership of their personal IP while gaining access to shared infrastructure, collective credibility, and revenue streams they could not access independently.

2.

Legal structure: hub-and-spoke

The cleanest architecture is a hub entity (9Bit Studios LLC) with individual spoke entities for each founder's personal IP. The hub publishes, markets, and contracts. The spokes own.

3.

The Hub — 9Bit Studios LLC

9Bit Studios LLC is the joint venture, the publishing engine, and the go-to-market platform. It holds the shared brand equity, the Apple Developer Organization account, the published channels (9bitstudios.io, LinkedIn, Instagram), and serves as the contracting entity for client work and App Store publishing. All three founders are members of this LLC.

9Bit Studios is registered as its own LLC in Oregon — a standalone entity, separate from any founder's personal LLC. This creates a clean entity that can accept members, separates personal creative IP from the shared venture, and gives each founder a legal entity to join rather than becoming sub-members of someone else's personal LLC.

4.

The Spokes — member entities

Each founder retains their own LLC (or equivalent entity) for their proprietary IP:

5.

How IP flows through the hub

When a title is published through 9Bit Studios, the IP owner licenses their content to 9Bit Studios for publishing, marketing, and distribution. 9Bit Studios provides the platform services — Oksana integration, design system, App Store account, brand channels, go-to-market — and retains a platform services fee from net revenue.

The license is scoped to publishing rights only. It is terminable on reasonable notice and revertible: if the partnership ends, the IP returns to the spoke in full, including all derivative work, customer relationships, and brand assets tied to the title.

Oksana is the exception worth noting: the platform itself is owned by Pennylane Media LLC and exclusively licensed to 9Bit Studios. Members benefit from Oksana through their membership — they do not co-own it, and the license remains with Penny if she ever leaves the studio.

6.

Equity allocation

The 55 / 25 / 20 split reflects actual contribution to date plus expected forward contribution. Penny: 18 months of pre-formation sweat equity, the Oksana platform license, design system, technical architecture, Apple Developer account, and brand infrastructure. Arthur: game design direction and Jrotharke IP. Tim: strategic intelligence, enterprise stakeholder engagement, security and accessibility advisory at 10–15 hours/week.

Vesting protects everyone. Penny's shares are fully vested at formation (recognizing pre-formation work). Tim's and Arthur's shares vest over 24–36 months with a 6-month cliff. Departure before the cliff returns all unvested equity to the LLC for redistribution; departure after the cliff retains all vested shares.

7.

Revenue model

For each member product, net App Store revenue splits 75% to the IP owner, 25% to 9Bit Studios as a platform services fee. The platform fee then distributes to all three members per equity share (55 / 25 / 20).

Practical consequence: the IP owner of a given title receives roughly 80% of total net revenue on their own titles (75% IP share plus their equity slice of the 25% platform fee), and a 20% slice of the platform fee on every other member's titles.

8.

Governance & voting

Voting power follows equity. Most decisions require a simple majority (≥51%); supermajority decisions — amending the operating agreement, admitting new members, dissolution, sale of substantially all assets — require ≥75%.

The structure is designed so that no single member can make fundamental changes unilaterally. Penny holds simple majority but cannot pass supermajority items alone. Tim and Arthur together can block supermajority actions. This guarantees that meaningful structural changes require genuine alignment.

9.

Member products portfolio

The portfolio approach is what makes the structure resilient. Shared infrastructure (Oksana, design system, Apple Developer account, brand channels) powers a slate of titles rather than a single product. A hit funds the next four launches.

10.

Operating frameworks