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Yes, I agree with this. A service that is open to everyone is probably too generic for 2010. If I were going to try again in this area, I'd want to go niche by

Yes, I agree with this. A service that is open to everyone is probably too generic for 2010. If I were going to try again in this area, I'd want to go niche by niche: yoga cooking travel political protests car races horse races fixing cars (how to) fixing up your house (how to) There is a huge range of niches. To try to do a generic service in 2010, I think you'd $10 million to spend on marketing. But if you take a niche approach, and you do a good job with the code and interface, then you can rely on word-of-mouth among enthusiasts to spread the word. If I was doing this again, I'd actually pursue something of a franchise model. The core team should mostly focus on the technical stuff: code, interface, servers. The marketing team should consist of 1 or 2 people from the niche that is being targeted. I said above that iHanuman had poor marketing. Really, its only marketing came from Tilak Pyle. It was crucial that he was part of our team. And it helped, very much, that he was also a yoga teacher with a video to sell: http://www.ihanuman.com/albums.php?id=48 http://www.ihanuman.com/albums.php?id=48 Since he is basically non-technical, he made a great beta-tester, telling us what would be non-intuitive to a non-technical audience. And since he himself was selling a video, he wanted to see the site succeed, so he went out and tried to spread the word. And because he was a yoga teacher, he brought instant credibility to the site. The site would have gone nowhere without him. What little success it had was largely due to the marketing he did (though note that my info about the site ended in early 2008). So, I would take a niche approach. And I would look for the equivalent of Tilak Pyle in each niche that I decided to go after.

chrischen 17y ago
I want to ask you a few questions about your suggested niche approach. If a cook wanted to sell his videos online, what advantages would a cooking themed video selling site have that a generic video selling site not provide? Why "target" any specific niche. The way I see it, you're selling videos in the end and you'll want to market them, but in the end any targeting is probably going to sum up to just changing the theme of the site. That being said my main focus right now is a niche: independent films and web series. Although theoretically any video content can be sold. As for people trying to find niche content, a themed website would certainly help, but that's assuming I'm trying to build a marketplace. And even then, categorizing videos should suffice. At this point I'm simply building the platform: the set of tools to enable people to sell, and the set of tools customized for indie films/web series. The way I see it, people who would discover the content sold on this platform will do it through traditional new web means. Word of mouth, facebook, twitter, Youtube. That's why I want to make it easy for these films to cross upload and maintain their social presence, so they can use the instantaneous communication speed of the internet to help word of mouth spread their films. I also think focusing on any of the niches you suggested would just narrow the potential customer base (considering content producers as customers), even though it may make stuff easier to find for end users. As for why I'm looking for a technical founder, just because someone's technical doesn't mean he/she's incapable of other things. But more importantly, having a technical founder frees me from those duties, and allows me to focus more on implementation. Additionally I know some indie filmmakers. I've worked on an indie film as a production assistant, and I've invested in an indie film. I've also wanted to be a filmmaker since I was 10ish. I didn't simply choose something to start a business with. Creating a service for indie films/web series was the most natural course of least resistance for me.
- lkrubner 17y ago
  You write: "If a cook wanted to sell his videos online, what advantages would a cooking themed video selling site have that a generic video selling site not provide?" This question only makes sense if you reject my thesis that this project will mostly be about marketing (not technology). If you accept that this project is going to be mostly about marketing, then the question answers itself - you take a niche approach because it makes the marketing easier. The statement "makes the marketing easier" rests on 2 assumptions: 1.) you will have on your team someone from the niche that you are targeting 2.) you are willing to share revenue so as to avoid the expense of marketing Again, if you have $10 million to spend on marketing, you could take a brute-force approach and try to do a generic site and just market the hell out of it. But if your marketing budget is $0, then lining up partners who are in the niche that you are targeting is a wise move. Above (in another comment) I listed 4 attributes I'd look for in the partner who is in the niche that I'm going after. The important thing is that they have some videos to sell, and the ambition to want to go out and make the site a monster hit. That way you can leave a lot of the marketing work to them. Again, my reference here is what Tilak Pyle was able to do for iHanuman. His video was the best selling thing on iHanuman, and its sales were an important part of what made that site seem legitimate to the other yoga teachers who eventually joined the site. You write: "just changing the theme of the site." I think that is an astonishing phrase. You are seriously discounting the importance of marketing. You are seriously discounting branding and the value of good graphic design. You wrote: "my main focus right now is a niche: independent films" If I were to try this again, I'd go after consumer niches, not producer niches. I mean, the niche should be defined by the consumer group, not the producer group. The niches I'm thinking of are the consumer niches: cooking, hunting, racing, gambling, yoga, health, stock market trading, etc. You wrote: "but that's assuming I'm trying to build a marketplace" Sorry, I must have misunderstood you. What are you building then? I can not imagine how you would bring distribution to indie film makers without building a marketplace. If you are not selling then what are you doing for them? You wrote: "And even then, categorizing videos should suffice." You may have better luck than what I've seen in the past. I certainly wish you luck. I can tell you, with great certainty, that the enthusiasm that the yoga teachers showed for iHanuman would not have been there had we simply had a generic sell-videos site that just happened to have a "yoga" category. The marketing strategy that worked for iHanuman was "We belong to your community. We are one of you." After all, doesn't Amazon have a digital video sales channel at this point? The yoga teachers could just use that if they wanted some soulless, generic service. You wrote: "I also think focusing on any of the niches you suggested would just narrow the potential customer base (considering content producers as customers), even though it may make stuff easier to find for end users." It seems to me that this is the essence of your business plan, and it is the crux of where you and I see things differently. What you describe is exactly what I think will fail. However, I certainly wish you luck. I've known a lot of good folks who tried to launch similar services and I know it is a tough market to crack. If you can make this work, then you'll have succeeded at a terrific challenge. I do not think it will work, but I wish you well.

chrischen 17y ago

I want to ask you a few questions about your suggested niche approach. If a cook wanted to sell his videos online, what advantages would a cooking themed video selling site have that a generic video selling site not provide? Why "target" any specific niche. The way I see it, you're selling videos in the end and you'll want to market them, but in the end any targeting is probably going to sum up to just changing the theme of the site. That being said my main focus right now is a niche: independent films and web series. Although theoretically any video content can be sold. As for people trying to find niche content, a themed website would certainly help, but that's assuming I'm trying to build a marketplace. And even then, categorizing videos should suffice. At this point I'm simply building the platform: the set of tools to enable people to sell, and the set of tools customized for indie films/web series. The way I see it, people who would discover the content sold on this platform will do it through traditional new web means. Word of mouth, facebook, twitter, Youtube. That's why I want to make it easy for these films to cross upload and maintain their social presence, so they can use the instantaneous communication speed of the internet to help word of mouth spread their films. I also think focusing on any of the niches you suggested would just narrow the potential customer base (considering content producers as customers), even though it may make stuff easier to find for end users. As for why I'm looking for a technical founder, just because someone's technical doesn't mean he/she's incapable of other things. But more importantly, having a technical founder frees me from those duties, and allows me to focus more on implementation. Additionally I know some indie filmmakers. I've worked on an indie film as a production assistant, and I've invested in an indie film. I've also wanted to be a filmmaker since I was 10ish. I didn't simply choose something to start a business with. Creating a service for indie films/web series was the most natural course of least resistance for me.

lkrubner 17y ago
You write: "If a cook wanted to sell his videos online, what advantages would a cooking themed video selling site have that a generic video selling site not provide?" This question only makes sense if you reject my thesis that this project will mostly be about marketing (not technology). If you accept that this project is going to be mostly about marketing, then the question answers itself - you take a niche approach because it makes the marketing easier. The statement "makes the marketing easier" rests on 2 assumptions: 1.) you will have on your team someone from the niche that you are targeting 2.) you are willing to share revenue so as to avoid the expense of marketing Again, if you have $10 million to spend on marketing, you could take a brute-force approach and try to do a generic site and just market the hell out of it. But if your marketing budget is $0, then lining up partners who are in the niche that you are targeting is a wise move. Above (in another comment) I listed 4 attributes I'd look for in the partner who is in the niche that I'm going after. The important thing is that they have some videos to sell, and the ambition to want to go out and make the site a monster hit. That way you can leave a lot of the marketing work to them. Again, my reference here is what Tilak Pyle was able to do for iHanuman. His video was the best selling thing on iHanuman, and its sales were an important part of what made that site seem legitimate to the other yoga teachers who eventually joined the site. You write: "just changing the theme of the site." I think that is an astonishing phrase. You are seriously discounting the importance of marketing. You are seriously discounting branding and the value of good graphic design. You wrote: "my main focus right now is a niche: independent films" If I were to try this again, I'd go after consumer niches, not producer niches. I mean, the niche should be defined by the consumer group, not the producer group. The niches I'm thinking of are the consumer niches: cooking, hunting, racing, gambling, yoga, health, stock market trading, etc. You wrote: "but that's assuming I'm trying to build a marketplace" Sorry, I must have misunderstood you. What are you building then? I can not imagine how you would bring distribution to indie film makers without building a marketplace. If you are not selling then what are you doing for them? You wrote: "And even then, categorizing videos should suffice." You may have better luck than what I've seen in the past. I certainly wish you luck. I can tell you, with great certainty, that the enthusiasm that the yoga teachers showed for iHanuman would not have been there had we simply had a generic sell-videos site that just happened to have a "yoga" category. The marketing strategy that worked for iHanuman was "We belong to your community. We are one of you." After all, doesn't Amazon have a digital video sales channel at this point? The yoga teachers could just use that if they wanted some soulless, generic service. You wrote: "I also think focusing on any of the niches you suggested would just narrow the potential customer base (considering content producers as customers), even though it may make stuff easier to find for end users." It seems to me that this is the essence of your business plan, and it is the crux of where you and I see things differently. What you describe is exactly what I think will fail. However, I certainly wish you luck. I've known a lot of good folks who tried to launch similar services and I know it is a tough market to crack. If you can make this work, then you'll have succeeded at a terrific challenge. I do not think it will work, but I wish you well.