6 ms·

Pretend for a moment it's July 1, 2009, you're Lucas, and you must answer the following 3 questions correctly, else you might spend the next 3 years chasing you

Pretend for a moment it's July 1, 2009, you're Lucas, and you must answer the following 3 questions correctly, else you might spend the next 3 years chasing your vision for $0: 1. What pain does my idea solve? 2. Does it solve it for a large number of people? 3. Just how painful is it for not being solved? Do you know plenty of people who are in pain because they can't find a venue to watch an indie flick? Does not being able to find an indie flick at an appropriate venue eat at their thoughts 24/7? Are they going to go nuts finding a solution if you don't provide one? How much money would solving this problem be worth to them? Admittedly I know diddly about Altsie, and I'm not one for indie flicks, but let's compare Altsie to Airbnb. Airbnb solves a basic human need: that of housing. How painful is it when you don't have a house? Immensely. How much money are you willing to pay for a roof over your head? Thousands per year. How many people are searching for your solution. A shitload. Now replace housing with "Indie Flick", and objectively recalculate. After doing so, you might think three years is a long, loooong time investment, hugely out of proportion to the level of pain Altsie solves, not to mention the price of solving that pain.

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spindritf 14y ago
> Do you know plenty of people who are in pain because they can't find a venue to watch an indie flick? Yes, watching an indie flick in any venue is a problem. Distribution of indie flicks in general is a problem. Shows are usually organized by people from the production crew traveling from college campus to college campus by van. Many well-made movies are only shown in a couple of theaters because coordinating a proper release is beyond the capabilities of a small producer. Considering you can make a movie with great production value for a million dollars nowadays, the distribution problem is only going to get more severe.
- shredfvz 14y ago
  So there's plight. Is Altsie supposed to fix a perceived inbalance between Hollywood and low budget film makers then? This just doesn't sound like a painful enough problem for consumers, and it doesn't sound like one many people share.
- arbuge 14y ago
  The indie producers are probably the party in the most acute pain here. A movie is a couple hours entertainment to the viewers but a livelihood to the makers...
- wpietri 14y ago
  Does that really answer the question you quoted? Your reply is mainly about producer pain. Maybe my city's unusual, but I don't know many viewers who are clamoring for more options to seen indie film. We've been losing small theaters left and right. My dad's a good example; he used to go to a bunch of indie movies, but has mainly shifted his viewing online.
andyakb 14y ago
This isnt really a great comparison. I dont disagree that this wasnt solving a big problem, but neither was AirBnB. Housing is important, but finding "housing" isnt what they do. They arent finding people apartments to keep them out of the cold, they are finding them alternatives to hotels for when they travel. AirBnB essentially took the vacation home market and opened it up to everybody with a spare bedroom. This is huge, but that is them creating a new market/vastly expanding another. They solved a "problem" people didnt know they had, they didnt provide people with food and shelter.
- shredfvz 14y ago
  Have another comparison. I have severe, chronic back pain every single day of my life. I've had a bulging disc in my lower back, L5, for damn near a decade and on many days, it's just about all I can think of. I plan my days around my back pain. I make life choices around my back pain. I want it to go away, very very badly. So, on a scale of 1-10 in terms of "just how painful is it", where 10/10 = you just severed your femur, I'd rate my back pain a 6/10. I'd rate my inability to find a local venue for an indie flick a 1/10. In other words, my inability to see indie flicks at cool bars around town doesn't even register with my psyche. It turns out that lots of people have back pain. If I had to guess, probably more people have back pain than want to find a local venue to see indie flicks. I'd rate the back pain market size a 7/10. Not sure on the market size for finding local venues for indie flicks. Airbnb does more than vacation rentals.
prof_hobart 14y ago
I think you're thinking about the problem from the wrong angle. There's three parties involved here - the filmgoer, the film maker, and the venue owner. If you ask yourself "are there indie film makers absolutely desperate to find places willing to show their films", and "are there bar owners absolutely desperate to find ways of increasing their trade on a quiet Tuesday night", then I'm guessing the answer is "Absolutely". And I'm also guessing that if somebody can do both services effectively enough, the two parties would happily pay a fair amount for that service. I'm currently reading David Byrne's "How Music Works" and he's quite clearly talking about the need/opportunity for startups to plug the distribution gap for low volume indie musicians, and I don't see that the indie movie world is a great deal different to that.

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spindritf 14y ago

> Do you know plenty of people who are in pain because they can't find a venue to watch an indie flick? Yes, watching an indie flick in any venue is a problem. Distribution of indie flicks in general is a problem. Shows are usually organized by people from the production crew traveling from college campus to college campus by van. Many well-made movies are only shown in a couple of theaters because coordinating a proper release is beyond the capabilities of a small producer. Considering you can make a movie with great production value for a million dollars nowadays, the distribution problem is only going to get more severe.

shredfvz 14y ago
So there's plight. Is Altsie supposed to fix a perceived inbalance between Hollywood and low budget film makers then? This just doesn't sound like a painful enough problem for consumers, and it doesn't sound like one many people share.
arbuge 14y ago
The indie producers are probably the party in the most acute pain here. A movie is a couple hours entertainment to the viewers but a livelihood to the makers...
wpietri 14y ago
Does that really answer the question you quoted? Your reply is mainly about producer pain. Maybe my city's unusual, but I don't know many viewers who are clamoring for more options to seen indie film. We've been losing small theaters left and right. My dad's a good example; he used to go to a bunch of indie movies, but has mainly shifted his viewing online.

andyakb 14y ago

This isnt really a great comparison. I dont disagree that this wasnt solving a big problem, but neither was AirBnB. Housing is important, but finding "housing" isnt what they do. They arent finding people apartments to keep them out of the cold, they are finding them alternatives to hotels for when they travel. AirBnB essentially took the vacation home market and opened it up to everybody with a spare bedroom. This is huge, but that is them creating a new market/vastly expanding another. They solved a "problem" people didnt know they had, they didnt provide people with food and shelter.

shredfvz 14y ago
Have another comparison. I have severe, chronic back pain every single day of my life. I've had a bulging disc in my lower back, L5, for damn near a decade and on many days, it's just about all I can think of. I plan my days around my back pain. I make life choices around my back pain. I want it to go away, very very badly. So, on a scale of 1-10 in terms of "just how painful is it", where 10/10 = you just severed your femur, I'd rate my back pain a 6/10. I'd rate my inability to find a local venue for an indie flick a 1/10. In other words, my inability to see indie flicks at cool bars around town doesn't even register with my psyche. It turns out that lots of people have back pain. If I had to guess, probably more people have back pain than want to find a local venue to see indie flicks. I'd rate the back pain market size a 7/10. Not sure on the market size for finding local venues for indie flicks. Airbnb does more than vacation rentals.

prof_hobart 14y ago

I think you're thinking about the problem from the wrong angle. There's three parties involved here - the filmgoer, the film maker, and the venue owner. If you ask yourself "are there indie film makers absolutely desperate to find places willing to show their films", and "are there bar owners absolutely desperate to find ways of increasing their trade on a quiet Tuesday night", then I'm guessing the answer is "Absolutely". And I'm also guessing that if somebody can do both services effectively enough, the two parties would happily pay a fair amount for that service. I'm currently reading David Byrne's "How Music Works" and he's quite clearly talking about the need/opportunity for startups to plug the distribution gap for low volume indie musicians, and I don't see that the indie movie world is a great deal different to that.