Author Topic: Microstock Agency- made by photographers (by you). Let`s start? (Read 35741 times)

Noedelhap · « **Reply #25 on:** July 14, 2016, 13:03 »

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21

What is wrong with the business concept of SS IS FT?

The leading agencies of today weren't late to the game, unlike you. If you don't offer something new, customers will stick to what they're familiar with

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21

Additional you would keep all earnings. Isn`t this you all complain about every day.

100% of zero is still zero.
And how are you going to keep the site going without income?

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21

Never said you need to spend any cent for marketing. Millions? Who is talking about millions of dollars? Welcome to 2016. So many ways starting with social media to attract customers. If we would have a contributor made agency this would be a nice way to attract many people.

It's not that easy. You can't rely on that marketing 'strategy' alone.

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21

Who is buying your images? Yes people working in marketing/ design. If you offer them the same content and let them know we are "fair trade for contributors" we made the first good point. The customers are mostly design related people too. Community based content is the most favorite one.

Fair trade is of no benefit to the customer. Maybe one or two altruistic designers may give your agency a shot, but most clients will look further for a cheap subscription deal.

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21

Asked for your wishes and ideas not for you money or time. So blabla. Iam bored already. I will come back with a ready-to-go solution maybe in a half year. Mabye more/ other people are ready to join then. Thank you and good night

My wish is that you come up with a decent business plan before I spent time helping you with free advice on how to start an agency. But if you're bored already, maybe this isn't the way to go for you.

hellou · « **Reply #26 on:** July 14, 2016, 13:14 »

Quote from: Noedelhap on July 14, 2016, 13:03

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21
What is wrong with the business concept of SS IS FT?

The leading agencies of today weren't late to the game, unlike you. If you don't offer something new, customers will stick to what they're familiar with

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21
Additional you would keep all earnings. Isn`t this you all complain about every day.

100% of zero is still zero.
And how are you going to keep the site going without income?

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21
Never said you need to spend any cent for marketing. Millions? Who is talking about millions of dollars? Welcome to 2016. So many ways starting with social media to attract customers. If we would have a contributor made agency this would be a nice way to attract many people.

It's not that easy. You can't rely on that marketing 'strategy' alone.

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21
Who is buying your images? Yes people working in marketing/ design. If you offer them the same content and let them know we are "fair trade for contributors" we made the first good point. The customers are mostly design related people too. Community based content is the most favorite one.

Fair trade is of no benefit to the customer. Maybe one or two altruistic designers may give your agency a shot, but most clients will look further for a cheap subscription deal.

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21
Asked for your wishes and ideas not for you money or time. So blabla. Iam bored already. I will come back with a ready-to-go solution maybe in a half year. Mabye more/ other people are ready to join then. Thank you and good night

My wish is that you come up with a decent business plan before I spent time helping you with free advice on how to start an agency. But if you're bored already, maybe this isn't the way to go for you.

deleted

Symbiostock Official · « **Reply #27 on:** July 14, 2016, 14:36 »

What you're suggesting is mostly already in place - visit Symzio via the link in my signature. Every image there is self-hosted by contributors just like you - they retain full control over whether it is active or not, set most of the pricing, and retain 70% or more of any income generated through sales.

Now that the infrastructure is there, and you see other peers pushing for it, jump on board and push for it's further success yourself.

It's in your hands.

hellou · « **Reply #28 on:** July 14, 2016, 14:44 »

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on July 14, 2016, 14:36

What you're suggesting is mostly already in place - visit Symzio via the link in my signature. Every image there is self-hosted by contributors just like you - they retain full control over whether it is active or not, set most of the pricing, and retain 70% or more of any income generated through sales.

Now that the infrastructure is there, and you see other peers pushing for it, jump on board and push for it's further success yourself.

It's in your hands.

the worst timing to place your advertising

..and no, clearly it would not be the same (i do not say symbio is not good).

Shelma1 · « **Reply #29 on:** July 14, 2016, 14:50 »

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21

What is wrong with the business concept of SS IS FT? Additional you would keep all earnings. Isn`t this you all complain about every day.
Never said you need to spend any cent for marketing. Millions? Who is talking about millions of dollars? Welcome to 2016. So many ways starting with social media to attract customers. If we would have a contributor made agency this would be a nice way to attract many people. Who is buying your images? Yes people working in marketing/ design. If you offer them the same content and let them know we are "fair trade for contributors" we made the first good point. The customers are mostly design related people too. Community based content is the most favorite one. Asked for your wishes and ideas not for you money or time. So blabla. Iam bored already. I will come back with a ready-to-go solution maybe in a half year. Mabye more/ other people are ready to join then. Thank you and good night

This has been tried by a group of more than 180 of us and failed. I'm not saying it couldn't or can't work, but one thing many of us feel led to its failure was a lack of coordinated marketing. You're competing with the likes of SS and iS and Getty and Adobe and must somehow reach and convince their buyers to switch to your site. It's a very difficult and expensive undertaking. Made even more difficult by the fact that many of us already tried it and are pretty gun shy.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #30 on:** July 14, 2016, 15:00 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on July 14, 2016, 14:50

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21
What is wrong with the business concept of SS IS FT? Additional you would keep all earnings. Isn`t this you all complain about every day.
Never said you need to spend any cent for marketing. Millions? Who is talking about millions of dollars? Welcome to 2016. So many ways starting with social media to attract customers. If we would have a contributor made agency this would be a nice way to attract many people. Who is buying your images? Yes people working in marketing/ design. If you offer them the same content and let them know we are "fair trade for contributors" we made the first good point. The customers are mostly design related people too. Community based content is the most favorite one. Asked for your wishes and ideas not for you money or time. So blabla. Iam bored already. I will come back with a ready-to-go solution maybe in a half year. Mabye more/ other people are ready to join then. Thank you and good night

This has been tried by a group of more than 180 of us and failed. I'm not saying it couldn't or can't work, but one thing many of us feel led to its failure was a lack of coordinated marketing. You're competing with the likes of SS and iS and Getty and Adobe and must somehow reach and convince their buyers to switch to your site. It's a very difficult and expensive undertaking. Made even more difficult by the fact that many of us already tried it and are pretty gun shy.

shelma is correct.
but aside from the marketing, it is also due to individual greed.
you start off trying to be a coop, and end up with a handful of self-interest elitists who think only of promoting themselves.
that alone is why agencies continue to treat us like sh*t;
they know the tribal mentality is still our weakness...
too many shamans too little followers.

all in all, we are just a bunch of f@gg*t that is easily separated, due to self interest,
as the agencies consistently break us one by one like spineless firewood

hellou · « **Reply #31 on:** July 14, 2016, 15:06 »

yes you tried it with symbio? I saw many of these sites. There`s no customer friendly interface. No eye-tracking or similar. Many more reasons. You are completely right.

Symbiostock Official · « **Reply #32 on:** July 14, 2016, 22:27 »

If you painstakingly create a thread, clearly driven by a desire to assist yourself and other contributors, by suggesting an independent platform upon which you will cease being gouged on a daily basis, and someone responds to you, I suggest you take more time to assess all responses.

You respond by mentioning Symbio - I did not mention Symbio.

You mention no customer friendly interface - I have no idea what you mean.

At least have the self-interest to take 30 seconds to explore the responses you receive in your thread. Did you even click on the Symzio link in my signature to explore what I was talking about? Or is your purpose, like some others here, to simply complain without actually solving something?

And why wouldn't we promote it? You're asking about an independent stock agency, and that is precisely what we have developed, what we are growing and marketing (as a joint group), and what a number of contributors are slowly getting trickling sales through.

Try to minimize using this forum as a means of just intellectualizing the problematic situation of the average professional contributor and actually actuate change.

Leo · « **Reply #33 on:** July 14, 2016, 22:38 »

I can say having tried this idea that it does seem good on paper, but unfortunately I have to conclude as many have that you must use an agency such as the big ones or go it alone.

Be careful when you throw your lot in with people you don't know. You might end up severely downgraded by association.

There is a joke I like, maybe you've heard it before.

A man walks into a bar and says "Lets start an agency run by contributors..."

I was that man, but sadly, I'm not a drinker.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #34 on:** July 15, 2016, 15:16 »

Quote from: Leo on July 14, 2016, 22:38

I can say having tried this idea that it does seem good on paper, but unfortunately I have to conclude as many have that you must use an agency such as the big ones or go it alone.

Be careful when you throw your lot in with people you don't know. You might end up severely downgraded by association.

There is a joke I like, maybe you've heard it before.

A man walks into a bar and says "Lets start an agency run by contributors..."

I was that man, but sadly, I'm not a drinker.

yes, ... red remark,
there is a similar that goes, :keep your friends nearby; your enemies even nearer:
because many of your "friends" are usually just the nemesis watching you.

Dragomir Nikolov · « **Reply #35 on:** July 16, 2016, 15:35 »

Your idea sounds good. However photographers have been lied by Leo and Symbiostock recently!!! You must give much more proves about your site.

r2d2 · « **Reply #36 on:** July 16, 2016, 16:39 »

sounds good. One website/agency for unity!
We can promote this site all together.

Microstock 4.0 or the big agency squeeze out!

Leo · « **Reply #37 on:** July 16, 2016, 23:34 »

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #38 on:** July 17, 2016, 01:43 »

I'm sorry you've had such a rough time Leo.

The new version of symbiostock is not an agency as such. Fine for what it is I'm sure but basically a hosting platform with some bells and whistles. Taking 30% for that is too much IMHO. Especially when there are agencies bringing in sales taking the same comission.

The only contributor owned model that works is one like stocksy, where contributors are the "shareholders" but it is run like a proper business (see also john lewis or the coop in the uk). It's like a parliamentary democracy as opposed to anarchy.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #39 on:** July 17, 2016, 01:46 »

What's needed is another bruce to start up a more inclusive version. I would still be very selective about who to let in though. Use micro as an Arrakis to separate the wheat from the chaf. Take the best 10% or so of contributors into the collective. Offer image exclusivity. Micro prices, bit more for exclusive images

sharpshot · « **Reply #41 on:** July 17, 2016, 04:19 »

I think the fatal flaw with Symbiostock or whatever its called now is that we were all paying for our own sites. There's a lot of money wasted on domain names, hosting and time wasted designing all those sites and keeping them updated and secure. I don't think the sites do well enough with google or are attractive enough to buyers. There will be some people that can make that work but not many.

Nobody has really tried a large scale one site co-op that's open to most contributors. I doubt it will never happen, as it would be a nightmare to run. Perhaps Stocksy will grow and open up more but until that happens, we are probably stuck with the other sites or having an independent site that's only really viable for a tiny minority of contributors.

Symbiostock Official · « **Reply #42 on:** July 17, 2016, 05:19 »

Most contributors can probably run an independent site for less than $20 a month all in, so it's quite nominal in cost. That's the first thing.

The second thing is that it isn't just about what sales you are getting right now - it is also about making a clear wedge in your reliance on third parties. Whether that turns out to be highly profitable or just break even, your effort is going towards something worthwhile.

And thirdly, it has to be done properly. There is this defeatist mentality that once you launch your site and don't get sales immediately, that the platform is flawed. That's completely wrong. If you were to launch a blog today on whatever topic, it would take months to get any visitors looking at it. And there is no standard approach to marketing individual sites, because that arena is, and always has been organic.

However, the implementation of Symzio, and a strong community mindset, with a realistic approach to marketing, can, will, and is creating positive changes in the total viewership our sites are getting, including Symzio.

Again, I'm not here to argue any of you guys that get off on complaining without doing anything about it. I'm here to explain the most probable method for pro-active and new contributors to nominally create their independent online presence.

Leo · « **Reply #43 on:** July 17, 2016, 05:23 »

Quote from: sharpshot on July 17, 2016, 04:19

I think the fatal flaw with ---- or whatever its called now is that we were all paying for our own sites. There's a lot of money wasted on domain names, hosting and time wasted designing all those sites and keeping them updated and secure. I don't think the sites do well enough with google or are attractive enough to buyers. There will be some people that can make that work but not many.

Yes, and those people succeed wherever they upload. Its actually true.

ShadySue · « **Reply #44 on:** July 17, 2016, 06:12 »

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on July 17, 2016, 05:19

The second thing is that it isn't just about what sales you are getting right now - it is also about making a clear wedge in your reliance on third parties. Whether that turns out to be highly profitable or just break even, your effort is going towards something worthwhile.

All that work to 'break even', just so you're sticking the fingers up at the Big G etc? I'd rather not bother!

ccbcc · « **Reply #45 on:** July 17, 2016, 06:59 »

Quote from: hellou on July 14, 2016, 10:21

What is wrong with the business concept of SS IS FT? Additional you would keep all earnings. Isn`t this you all complain about every day.

Yes.

Quote

Never said you need to spend any cent for marketing. Millions? Who is talking about millions of dollars? Welcome to 2016. So many ways starting with social media to attract customers.

You think you can do social media better than the big boys? And SEO as well?

Quote

If we would have a contributor made agency this would be a nice way to attract many people. Who is buying your images? Yes people working in marketing/ design. If you offer them the same content and let them know we are "fair trade for contributors" we made the first good point. The customers are mostly design related people too.

Who is providing the people working in marketing and design with monthly budgets and/or subscription? People who don't care about fairtrade, that's who.

Quote

Community based content is the most favorite one. Asked for your wishes and ideas not for you money or time. So blabla. Iam bored already. I will come back with a ready-to-go solution maybe in a half year. Mabye more/ other people are ready to join then. Thank you and good night

Well it seems that our ideas are not welcome. My points are valid and deserve thought, since you asked for them. Yes I wish things were better and I wish this could work. You seem to attack people for not wanting this enough, but just the wanting isn't going to make this happen. It needs to make sense from a business point of view.
I think there are better ways in which we can bundle our strengths. If many thousands of contributors unite, for sure we can force the big guys into giving us much better royalties. Or maybe we can convince Vimeo to start selling stock, they have a payment system in place already. There could be other ideas worth pursuing more than this half baked and unrealistic plan.

hellou · « **Reply #46 on:** July 17, 2016, 07:48 »

deleted

hellou · « **Reply #47 on:** July 17, 2016, 08:03 »

Quote from: Dragomir Nikolov on July 16, 2016, 15:35

Your idea sounds good. However photographers have been lied by Leo and Symbiostock recently!!! You must give much more proves about your site.

Not my site. Our site. But sadly i noticed there`s no way to start something like that at MSG.
So let`s wait for "another bruce". Maybe we just have to wait a few years.

ShadySue · « **Reply #48 on:** July 17, 2016, 08:25 »

Quote from: hellou on July 17, 2016, 07:48

You understand that more than 90% of all business are small business. All should close down because they can not spend millions for ads?

This really shows your naïveté.
Small businesses which can be successful on a small advertising budget are one of two things: local or extremely specialist.
I live in a small rural town. Extremely few of the local businesses even have a web presence. Why? In a small town, they only have to be good enough and not too expensive to stop people from going to a larger town. They make their reputation in the town and don't have rivals. Their business problems are specific to being a small business: they can't compete on range or price, they have to compete on service.

Extremely specialist companies don't have many competitors, they can spend little on advertising and hope to provide better service than any rivals, which they should have researched carefully to see how they can improve on what's already being offered.

Alternatively, a new company can take on the big boys if they can do something important better or cheaper. Even then, you need money for your advertising campaign to launch your company and to get it going in the first year or two, then you're hoping for word of mouth recommendations to supplement your advertising campaigns.

Stock is totally different. You need a global reach from the outset, and you're taking on well-established companies, selling products which are already easily available, often very cheaply.
You haven't made one suggestion as to what USP you would offer, or how you are going to raise the millions needed to launch and maintain your proposed site.

ShadySue · « **Reply #49 on:** July 17, 2016, 08:33 »

Quote from: hellou on July 17, 2016, 07:48

You understand that more than 90% of all business are small business. All should close down because they can not spend millions for ads?

You understand that half of small businesses in the UK fail in their first five years?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businessclub/11174584/Half-of-UK-start-ups-fail-within-five-years.html
and 20% fail in their first year, even despite start up loans/grants/etc.
http://www.businesszone.co.uk/community-voice/blogs/colin-willman/business-start-upswhy-do-so-many-fail
And here are the top five reasons:
1. No business need
2. Not enough cash
3. Not the right team
4. Ignoring the competition
5. Pricing/cost issues
http://www.intuit.co.uk/r/small-business-survival/5-reasons-startup-businesses-fail-and-what-to-do-about-it

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Author Topic: Microstock Agency- made by photographers (by you). Let`s start? (Read 35741 times)

Noedelhap

hellou

Symbiostock Official

hellou

Shelma1

etudiante_rapide

hellou

Symbiostock Official

Leo

etudiante_rapide

Dragomir Nikolov

r2d2

Leo

Justanotherphotographer

Justanotherphotographer

Symbiostock Official

sharpshot

Symbiostock Official

Leo

ShadySue

ccbcc

hellou

hellou

ShadySue

ShadySue

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