MicrostockGroup

Yuri and MonkeyBusiness run their businesses with a number of employees and have what appears to be, considerable expenses. They have more expenses than most microstock photographers and they also have more income.  They aren't alone though, there is a good number of people running their microstock business like this. Someone like Sean on the other hand has no employees and only sometimes hires an assistant for a shoot.

I think you should just come to the Microstock Expo and hear people like Monkey Business, AndresR, CandyBox etc..talk first hand on how they run their business.

I guess everyone has their opinions, but for me sjlocke has proven himself as a bully who likes to bait newbies on this forum. He also has a inferiority complex to Yuri that is plainfully obvious. To each his own own I guess.

Thank you leaf for the reply, although it doesn't answer the exclusivity question.  The fact is photographers with a team will not go exclusivity, right?  Do you know any successful exception?

A successful photographer with a number of employees and high revenue controls more resources than others don't, if they all eventually choose to be non-exclusive with low profit, I will guess there are other factors like safety or freedom under their consideration compare to more money?  No, it's too hard for me to understand   

The Expo is surely acctractive but I can't justfy the cost for going there.  I believe there will only be a few Chinese businessman from local stock agency in the Expo, none Chinese photographers at all.

Daniel Laflor has a very similar business strategy to Yuri and is exclusive (to name one example)..
http://blog.microstockgroup.com/earning-a-living-in-stock-photography/

It's so obvious, I'd be astonished if people haven't already moved that way. You'd need to draw up a cast iron contract.

Well, I've only seen sjlocke express negative things about Yuri, maybe you could point me to a posititve thing he has had to say. To me it just comes across as an inferiority complex or jealousy. I much prefer posters such as jsnover or lisafx, they seem to be helpful while not trying to call people out. sjlocke appears to be just out for himself, is helpful when it benefits or affects himself, or trying to pimp his blog. He was top in Google search for 'istockphoto pricing filter' you know....lol

Sorry, I don't post in here often but don't like what's being said about sjlocke. Just met Sean and he is not "clearly to keep it all to himself" or many of the other negative things being inferred by a couple people here. He was a pleasure to be around and a very likeable person. It's shallow to confine your perception of a person based on what they post on message boards, and then rag on them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... we know you do it all yourself, and Yuri needs "Yuri's company", right. Give some credit where credit is due, the guy is a genius with brilliant work.

So do I. To be honest I think Nruboc's accusation of 'envy' against Sean is mainly a reflection of Nruboc's own position!

IMHO the difference Sean/Yuri business model is a classic example of the old adage "Sales are vanity; profit is sanity". I get the impression Yuri wanted to be known as "#1 Microstocker" so desperately that he didn't care too much about the profit. Sean on the other hand is totally focused on microstock as a business and making that business as profitable as possible.

The truth is that microstock does not scale particularly well compared to most businesses. The proof of that is that there are so few 'image factories', maybe 3 or 4, out of thousands of individual contributors. The main advantages of microstock, as a means of earning a living, is working from home, hours to choose, vacations whenever, etc ... all of which is lost when you employ full-timers and open a 'factory'.

I'll wager that Sean's model will still be going strong long after the image factories have closed down. As microstock becomes ever more competitive the huge overhead of the factories and their employees will not be sustainable. I believe that five years from now all of them will have scaled back their operations, probably to become one-man businesses again with maybe the odd part-time assistant or partner.

My own position? LOL, my own position is no where near either and if I was so concerned with my own position I should probably be submitting more.

Results prove you wrong my friend, Yuri is blowing away everybody, even in sjlocke's own backyard, iStock, where he is severely disadvantaged. Five years from now that won't change.

I find these discussions about how people work or how people have set up their business quite interesting, however they also quickly turn into personal attacks on different peoples chosen business strategy.

So... as the original question isn't being discussed any more and the posts are getting more personal, this discussion will be closed before it 'takes off'