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Thanks Isiebert. You raised some very valid points there. Universities / publishers is probably a better model for the future. But selling to them however is v
by gingerlime 14y ago
Thanks Isiebert. You raised some very valid points there.
Universities / publishers is probably a better model for the future. But selling to them however is very hard and long, and our content currently covers around 30-40% of the whole anatomy. So universities/publishers are reluctant to buy-into this right now. Also without some research to 'prove' that it works better it's even harder.
Parents/grandparents are a good angle too - but we're not exactly sure how to reach those. Reaching students, who might be actively searching for anatomy learning material, is hard enough... Reaching their families might be even harder. And how would those family members know that this is what their beloved actually need?? So it's a tough problem for us right now.
On the other hand, we have students who are willing to pay for this. Even when we had around 10% of the content, perhaps because it was good enough for them. And we see a pretty steady week-on-week growth in our active subscriptions of around 8% per week. Those students already pay for anatomy atlas and textbooks, so it's not unheard of for them to pay for the learning materials to help them study.
The numbers are still low, and that's why we're looking for some sort of a stop-gap funding via some freelance work. But we believe, and our data so far suggests, that within around 6 months we should hopefully be "ramen profitable"[1].
[1]http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html
- lsiebert 14y agoDon't assume parents need to buy this for kids who need it for their current classes. Plenty of parents want to encourage their kids to be doctors. Facebook might be able to target this, but I'm not a marketing guy, just spitballing. One niche might be immigrant communities and developing world middle class families in places like south asia. It might be relatively cheap to get an advertisement in an immigrant newspaper, even if you have to pay to have it translated. You could also see about bundling with other complimentary educational offerings, and combining advertising dollars. In any case, I think you have a good product that most people currently never hear about. That seems a shame, and free lance, funding, or whatever I hope you succeed. Please post again in 6 months with an update.