Before Ray Du became a full-time creator, he had a fairly ordinary ambition. He wanted to make good English-teaching videos and pay his bills. Dennis Lin, the co-founder of PressPlay, remembered the request years later. It was modest enough to be revealing. An audience could demonstrate that the work mattered. It could not, by itself, tell him how to keep doing it.
- Academy turns expertise into subscriptions and courses.
- Next helps creators build advertising, commerce and consumer businesses.
- The useful trick: sell something that fits the relationship you already have.
PressPlay entered that gap. The Taipei company combined a paid-content platform with people who could negotiate, produce and develop businesses. Ray Du became an early partner. Today, its two main businesses, PressPlay Academy and PressPlay Next, span learning, creator management and products you can put in a kitchen cupboard. The distance between an English lesson and a packet of noodles turns out to be shorter than it looks.
01 A promise with a factory attached
The company’s predecessor, HereO, worked in crowdfunding. There was something appealingly immediate about the arrangement: present an idea, invite people to support it, and watch demand become visible. But hardware added a complication. A successful campaign still needed a successful manufacturing process. Enthusiasm could arrive much faster than a reliable product.
In a 2017 interview, Lin described the poor quality and failed production appearing across the crowdfunding market. The team decided in September 2015 to move away from hardware design toward creator projects. Rob Kuo joined the effort; PressPlay launched in 2016. Patreon offered a reference for subscriptions, while the team added consulting and management.
The problem had changed. Creators needed income that arrived regularly enough to support regular work. Advertisers could pay, but campaigns were intermittent and could constrain the content. A subscriber offered another relationship: payment tied to something the viewer wanted to keep receiving.
“I want to make excellent content and still support myself.”
Ray Du, recalled by Dennis Lin in 2020
Translated from Chinese
02 One audience, more than one checkout
Academy now gives learners several ways in. There are video courses bought with a single payment, recurring creator subscriptions, text, audio and book-related storytelling. The subjects include fitness, finance, baking, languages, design and workplace skills. A learner can choose a practical problem, find a teacher and work through the material on a computer or mobile device.
The format matters. A cooking demonstration benefits from video; a continuing commentary can justify a subscription. Putting both on the same platform lets a creator sell more than one kind of knowledge. PressPlay also helps with course production and brand development, making it a commercial partner as well as a place to upload lessons.
One relationship. Several ways to deliver value.
A course shopper can also look at Hahow or SAT.Knowledge. A creator seeking subscriptions has alternatives such as Patreon. PressPlay’s distinctive position comes from combining these activities with an agency and consumer-brand operation. It can help the same person teach, negotiate an advertising project and develop a product.
That combination demands expertise beyond software. Production, audience research, account management and retail distribution all enter the picture. The Content Fleet alliance, launched in 2022, extends course-making through partner teams, with platform tools, consulting and production know-how. PressPlay can expand its catalog by helping other businesses do the making.
03 The cookie has to taste good
Consider WawaKu, a creator known for food and convenience-store discoveries. Her collaboration with PressPlay produced WA!COOKIES. Crown Du, known to viewers as a bubble-tea enthusiast, co-created Nap Tea. Chien-Chien’s food identity found a commercial expression in Suiooh. These pairings have an intelligible logic: the product grows out of what the audience already associates with the person.
A 2023 account described the incubator as a central kitchen. PressPlay assembled an independent team, then spent six to twelve months identifying the theme and developing the goods. When annual brand revenue exceeded NT$30 million, the creator could move into a separate company, with PressPlay holding equity and continuing to connect resources.
The operational work is easy to miss beside the familiar face. Six months of development does not fit into a launch post. Yet it is where the promise becomes a product. The lesson for other founders is to start with a credible connection between person and purchase, then supply the skills that the audience cannot see.
There are limits. The first sale might come from affection; the next needs a reason of its own. A disappointing cookie or an unhelpful lesson spends trust rather than replenishing it. This is an inference from the model, but a practical one: reach helps a launch, while repeat value has to sustain the business.
04 What the next payment buys
Subscriptions create their own trade-offs. PressPlay’s official PPA Plus FAQ, checked in October 2026, lists an annual price of NT$2,988. The offer includes 52 Saturday-only flash courses and 24 exclusive courses per year, alongside selected licensed material. It does not include every Academy course, and a missed flash lesson cannot be replayed later.
52 Saturday flash lessons
24 exclusive lessons
Selected access. Different viewing windows.
For a curious learner, that provides a lower-cost route into selected content than buying several full courses. For someone who needs a particular complete course on an unpredictable schedule, the access rules matter. Choosing the right payment model requires choosing the right learning habit.
05 A bigger stage, a familiar test
PressPlay’s ambitions have required capital. Its corporate history records roughly US$2.5 million in Pre-A funding in 2018 and US$3 million in Series A funding in 2020. A 2022 Series B raised several hundred million Taiwan dollars. Academy launched in Japan in November 2024, bringing the business into another language and another set of audience expectations.
In October 2025, PressPlay and KKCompany announced strategic integration. KKCompany brought multimedia and AI capabilities, subscription experience and an established Japanese presence. Its August 2026 emerging-stock listing announcement named Academy and Next among the integrated businesses. The plan connects content production, recommendations and membership operations across a larger group.
Technology may make a lesson easier to translate or discover. The commercial question remains wonderfully specific: does this person want what this creator is offering? PressPlay’s history keeps returning to that question. A workable answer can support a teaching studio, a tea shop or a food brand. It has to be earned again at the next checkout.