4 ms·

The idea was a niche stock photography site floated somewhere between the current microstock business and the traditional rights managed business (quality and g

The idea was a niche stock photography site floated somewhere between the current microstock business and the traditional rights managed business (quality and great service, fair prices and a fair share of the proceeds going to the contributors). One of his arguments was that you can't bootstrap this kind of business because the photographers won't sign up unless you can guarantee sales and/or see that you are going to throw a lot of money at marketing. He thinks the only photographers I'm going to attract initially are the hobbyists and that the quality won't be there to attract the sales, which you need to attract the pros. Also from his position, he sees a lot of new startups in the industry every month, and most of them fail in no time, because they couldn't get enough photographers contributing to get off the ground and didn't have the budget to take on the big boys (iStock photo etc).

gyardley 16y ago
You've just been given a gift. If he's right, he's saving you a ton of time and effort - and perhaps will put you on track to finding a better business model for the space. Now you need to go out and find out if he's right - and for that, you should be talking to both the photographers (especially the pros) and the buyers of stock photography. Don't give up hope, just continue to learn more about your market.
gacba 16y ago
Speaking as a former pro photographer, your blogger's advice is unfortunately high-quality. However, with that said, there are other photographers (well known ones like George Lepp) who are making their own photo stock agencies because the margins paid by the big houses are incredibly bad. The terms are always dictated by the stock house and the little guy is left in the cold. If you want to pursue this, that's some validation for you right there. But the competition is fierce in this industry and you need to either fill some niche they can't, or execute 1000% better than they do.
patio11 16y ago
Have you talked to actual photographers about this business? Have you asked an actual photographer "What would it take to convince you to sign up for a new stock art site?" Has an actual photographer said "Well, there would have to be a baseline of sales, obviously" Does this sequence of events happen a lot? A good blogger (or any type of professional communicator) can make just about anything sound convincing. That is practically the definition of being a good communicator. Trust, but verify. Edit to elaborate: If you decide he is right that getting photographers on board is the stumbling block, then you can build the business in miniature around a way to get over just that one particular stumbling block. StackOverflow for photo geeks, I don't know. If you become confident that you can get over that stumbling block, you do so. If not, you might consider killing the project early, prior to spending a few years and lots of money trying to spend your way to solvency.
- ximeng 16y ago
  StackOverflow for photo geeks: http://photo.stackexchange.com/ http://photo.stackexchange.com/ Edit: here's a search for questions on stock photos, maybe of interest. http://photo.stackexchange.com/search?q=stock http://photo.stackexchange.com/search?q=stock
btilly 16y ago
He is right that you're going to find it easier to attract hobbyists than pros. But I don't give it the same weight that he does. What he didn't tell you is that photography is undergoing a sea change right now. For a start the widespread availability of high quality digital cameras has eliminated a lot of barriers to entry for hobbyists who want to go pro. (Many pros compensate with a lot of snobbery for the upstarts - which may be part of his story.) A second problem is that it is now easy for anyone who gets a digital version of an image to print acceptably good photographic products from it fairly cheaply. Which changes customer expectations about how much you can charge for those products. This has resulted in a lot of challenges to traditional ways of doing photography, and traditional business models. Because of this I wouldn't worry too much about his hobbyist versus pro issue, it is less important in the bigger scheme of things. Figure out how you hope to survive and thrive given the bigger picture of what is happening to everyone in that industry. Besides from your point of view hobbyists are great initial beta testers. They are more likely to be forgiving of issues, and are more likely to have spare time to spend on figuring out your offering and giving you feedback on it. Eventually you need to get into the pro market. But don't turn your nose up at the hobbyists! (Disclaimer: I've not tried to follow the photography business, but I did spend a couple of years doing reporting for a company that is in that space. Hence some stuff about it has rubbed off on me.)
- famousactress 16y ago
  I agree. I'm a photographer (but not in stock), and I've watched as the stock/microstock industry has threshed around. I think the future might consist of a few high-end boutique agencies/collections (probably all owned by Getty), and well-run microstock sites built on the backs of hobbyists. Maybe you ought to pursue the latter? Curating hobbyist work, 'assigning' by publishing needed themes and images. Make it a community. Something like JPG magazine, but with images for sale.
profquail 16y ago
Overall, the problem (as he sees it) is that you won't have a business because you won't have quality photos on the site (because you'll have "hobbyists" putting photos on there). Maybe just find some forums / blogs that cater towards "prosumer"-type photographers...the kind of people that buy high-end equipment, are really into the art, etc. -- but that might only be doing it for the fun (until they realize they have the opportunity to make a few bucks for doing nothing except submitting their best photos to your website). As an aside, maybe you can have some kind of rating system whereby photos can be rated by (and only by) other photographers who have submitted photos to the website; photographer-users would only be able to see their rating of a photo (not the aggregate rating), but the aggregate would determine it's place in "top {N} in {CATEGORY}" lists and the price that was charged for the photo. Anyway, to answer your question...if you believe you've acquired enough domain knowledge to build a successful business, then I think you should go for it...otherwise, you'll always be second-guessing yourself and wondering if you threw a fortune away because someone else told you not to go through with it.

gyardley 16y ago

You've just been given a gift. If he's right, he's saving you a ton of time and effort - and perhaps will put you on track to finding a better business model for the space. Now you need to go out and find out if he's right - and for that, you should be talking to both the photographers (especially the pros) and the buyers of stock photography. Don't give up hope, just continue to learn more about your market.

gacba 16y ago

Speaking as a former pro photographer, your blogger's advice is unfortunately high-quality. However, with that said, there are other photographers (well known ones like George Lepp) who are making their own photo stock agencies because the margins paid by the big houses are incredibly bad. The terms are always dictated by the stock house and the little guy is left in the cold. If you want to pursue this, that's some validation for you right there. But the competition is fierce in this industry and you need to either fill some niche they can't, or execute 1000% better than they do.

patio11 16y ago

Have you talked to actual photographers about this business? Have you asked an actual photographer "What would it take to convince you to sign up for a new stock art site?" Has an actual photographer said "Well, there would have to be a baseline of sales, obviously" Does this sequence of events happen a lot? A good blogger (or any type of professional communicator) can make just about anything sound convincing. That is practically the definition of being a good communicator. Trust, but verify. Edit to elaborate: If you decide he is right that getting photographers on board is the stumbling block, then you can build the business in miniature around a way to get over just that one particular stumbling block. StackOverflow for photo geeks, I don't know. If you become confident that you can get over that stumbling block, you do so. If not, you might consider killing the project early, prior to spending a few years and lots of money trying to spend your way to solvency.

ximeng 16y ago
StackOverflow for photo geeks: http://photo.stackexchange.com/ http://photo.stackexchange.com/ Edit: here's a search for questions on stock photos, maybe of interest. http://photo.stackexchange.com/search?q=stock http://photo.stackexchange.com/search?q=stock

btilly 16y ago

He is right that you're going to find it easier to attract hobbyists than pros. But I don't give it the same weight that he does. What he didn't tell you is that photography is undergoing a sea change right now. For a start the widespread availability of high quality digital cameras has eliminated a lot of barriers to entry for hobbyists who want to go pro. (Many pros compensate with a lot of snobbery for the upstarts - which may be part of his story.) A second problem is that it is now easy for anyone who gets a digital version of an image to print acceptably good photographic products from it fairly cheaply. Which changes customer expectations about how much you can charge for those products. This has resulted in a lot of challenges to traditional ways of doing photography, and traditional business models. Because of this I wouldn't worry too much about his hobbyist versus pro issue, it is less important in the bigger scheme of things. Figure out how you hope to survive and thrive given the bigger picture of what is happening to everyone in that industry. Besides from your point of view hobbyists are great initial beta testers. They are more likely to be forgiving of issues, and are more likely to have spare time to spend on figuring out your offering and giving you feedback on it. Eventually you need to get into the pro market. But don't turn your nose up at the hobbyists! (Disclaimer: I've not tried to follow the photography business, but I did spend a couple of years doing reporting for a company that is in that space. Hence some stuff about it has rubbed off on me.)

famousactress 16y ago
I agree. I'm a photographer (but not in stock), and I've watched as the stock/microstock industry has threshed around. I think the future might consist of a few high-end boutique agencies/collections (probably all owned by Getty), and well-run microstock sites built on the backs of hobbyists. Maybe you ought to pursue the latter? Curating hobbyist work, 'assigning' by publishing needed themes and images. Make it a community. Something like JPG magazine, but with images for sale.

profquail 16y ago

Overall, the problem (as he sees it) is that you won't have a business because you won't have quality photos on the site (because you'll have "hobbyists" putting photos on there). Maybe just find some forums / blogs that cater towards "prosumer"-type photographers...the kind of people that buy high-end equipment, are really into the art, etc. -- but that might only be doing it for the fun (until they realize they have the opportunity to make a few bucks for doing nothing except submitting their best photos to your website). As an aside, maybe you can have some kind of rating system whereby photos can be rated by (and only by) other photographers who have submitted photos to the website; photographer-users would only be able to see their rating of a photo (not the aggregate rating), but the aggregate would determine it's place in "top {N} in {CATEGORY}" lists and the price that was charged for the photo. Anyway, to answer your question...if you believe you've acquired enough domain knowledge to build a successful business, then I think you should go for it...otherwise, you'll always be second-guessing yourself and wondering if you threw a fortune away because someone else told you not to go through with it.