Quote from: ICP on August 20, 2012, 18:01

I would appreciate any/all feedback from everyone with some time to do so. Good, bad and indifferent...it's all good...and you can't hurt my feelings.

You asked for feedback from everyone...  That's what you are getting.   

You're exactly right. I asked for it. And I appreciate it, all of it. While the "run away while you still can" posts have made themselves clear, I am not going to run away. It's much easier to simply say "no" and walk away instead of opening the mind some and working for a bit of reward.

I prefer to open up a little and find a way to make something work. I won't stop before it starts. For such a creative group of people I'm surprised to see such closed-minded language.

Smile a little. We have it good. Most of us are making a living off taking pictures and drawing.

Look... You're just "a guy" who nobody knows, with some software, promising money if you make some sales on your hobby site.  You can understand why people aren't really in the mood to help out.

Look...you're an exclusive member at iStock. You aren't even allowed to join my site. But you felt it was necessary to stab some negativity my way? I never "promised" anything, as a matter of fact, if you had read my replies you would understand exactly where I coming from.

Quote from: sharpshot on August 21, 2012, 14:01

But the real problem is trying something that's been done by at least 100 other sites.  You need to forget about this until you have a USP that gets us interested.  I wouldn't worry about what we want to start with.

I disagree completely. I don't think you need anything overly unique. You just need to do it well. Micro was started by a bunch of people that just wanted to sell a few files and make a little money. They did that and it worked. Then, it grew up and pros moved in. Unfortunately, the model didn't really change to accommodate those contributors. If you are a pro, then you should be getting paid like one. How many sites can really claim that they are paying their contributors like professionals? And how many people can say they are a pro when they don't make a decent wage doing it. My point is that if none of the micros are fulfilling the needs that professional contributors have, then how are there too many sites? I'd like to see more (good ones) and I wish new sites the best.

Exactly. Share the success (money) with the people that got you there. Doesn't matter if it's 10 employees or 100 contributors. Everyone thrives. This site is going to happen and it's success will come quickly or slowly, nobody knows. But it's not going away.

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 11:31

....Question: What would it take to convince contributors take the time to sign up with, and contribute to, a new stock site?
For example: What if it were set up so all you had to do was create an account on the site, FTP as many images (with IPTC data) as you like, and your images were set up on the site for you?

There have been lots of people that have put in long hours and tried everything to make a site work but they have had very little success and we have had hardly any earnings from them.  Being committed and driven isn't enough.  Starting yet another ktools site just turns me off completely.  Others have paid for their own code and at least have something that looks like their own, not something off the peg.

But the real problem is trying something that's been done by at least 100 other sites.  You need to forget about this until you have a USP that gets us interested.  I wouldn't worry about what we want to start with.  Contact lots of buyers and try and find something you could offer them that all the other sites are missing.  All we really want is to be able to make enough money to get regular payouts.  That seems easy but no new site has achieved it without spending a small fortune and then they have to pay back their investors.

The idea that we've discussed several times in this forum and in this thread is the best I've seen mentioned so far.  I'm surprised that nobody has worked on it but I suppose it's easier to ignore all the facts and just start up yet another ktools site doing the same thing that has failed for everyone else.

Ktools? Why is Ktools' Photostore so bad? Why does a site need hundreds of thousands in development to start off in order to be taken seriously? When you need a pair of shoes...do you make your own or go downtown and pay for a pair? When it's necessary the development will grow/alter/change completely...but for now it does the job and requires no overhead. I believe in this day and age success to the new guy comes only with low cost, persistence and loyalty...loyalty both ways.

Unique Selling Proposition? My first thoughts are "buy from us because we give more money to the artists". People I speak to like the idea of better supporting the artist. We have affordability and quality. Everyone likes affordability. Do you (or anyone) have any suggestions?

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 11:31

Question 1 (Assume fair success): Where would you as a contributor be happy with pricing of vectors and photos?

I like the $10 price point for vectors. And as a buyer, I like paying around $10 for a large photo. Obviously I don't want to pay a lot for a photo, but I'm comfortable around that $10 price point.

If you want to seem more competitive, go for $9 per vector or large photo and you'd still find most people are comfortable with that.

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 11:31

Question 2 (Assume fair success): Where would you be happy with commission rates?

50%. More is always better, but the bare minimum to attract any contributor interest these days is 50%.

Quote from: ICP on August 21, 2012, 11:31

Question: What would it take to convince contributors take the time to sign up with, and contribute to, a new stock site?
For example: What if it were set up so all you had to do was create an account on the site, FTP as many images (with IPTC data) as you like, and your images were set up on the site for you?

Commitment. You have to prove that you're in this to do it right and do what it takes to make it work. Pardon the comparison, but take a look at StockFresh. They did a lot of things right. They got the pricing right, the royalty rate (50%), and they even had some goodwill from the contributor community in that they were previously behind another successful stock site (stockxpert) which many of us made decent money on. But they did just a few things wrong and have since had a lot of trouble regaining the trust and confidence of the community. Applications took too long to approve. They've been very slow to market the site at all. Despite all of the good things they did, they've struggled because of just a few missteps.

I hate to say it, but in this day and age in the stock business, you have to do everything right and keep doing it right to gain the trust of the contributor community. It's very hard to do.

And just making it easy to get our images onto your site isn't going to be enough. Lots of sites offer that. Superhug offered that not too long ago and just last week they closed down. I made just a few bucks there before they closed up shop. It wasn't even with the time to FTP images to them.

You want this to work? You need to come out of the gates with something that we can all get behind. No one is looking to hep anyone build anything. I wish things were different, but that's reality here. You need to launch with a solid product, a solid brand, some sort of marketing plan, even if it doesn't launch right away, and a solid site. And frankly I'm not convinced that a ktools site can do everything you want to do. You're not just talking about taking on a handful of contributors. It sounds like you want to take on anyone who is willing. Can ktools handle that? Can your web hosting handle it? Are you prepared for the extremely high bandwidth costs you are likely to incur from moving large files?

I'd need to see more to want to get involved in this. It's good you're considering changing the name and logo. I'd start there, get the site design, branding, and infrastructure nailed down, get your contributor agreement written up so we can se all of the details of what's involved, come up with a realistic marketing plan for the near future, and then maybe we can talk.

Doing things right: I agree things must be done right from the beginning for the site and contributor. And it is my plan to listen and adjust as needed (and reasonable). I've been playing the contributor role for some time and really don't like the idea of taking a pittance so the stock agency can pay their investors off and get rich. Don't get me wrong, we all want to make money, but I think spreading it around is far better than what's being experienced out there now. If I were making 50% on IS, SS and BS right now I'd be doing quite alright.

Trust: Mistakes will be made no matter what. I think the kind of mistakes and how the company reacts to them is key. Trust is also key but, as with any relationship, but how can you build the trust if you don't partake in the relationship. Where did all the other stock agencies begin? Did they hit the ground running with a million images? Did they pay contributors money just to join? What did it cost? My thought here is to avoid costly overhead and have everyone make money, not just the agency. I'm asking contributors to help only by contributing, which is required for a stock agency to grow.

Time: This will take time and if the contributor is willing to wait for growth I think the money will come. So you spend 2 minutes signing up and 20 minutes FTPing some images and you don't do anything else but wait and see if the sight works and maybe spread the word a little.  I think it's better than spending hours a day jumping through hoops to upload your images, which may or may not sell, then at the end of the month you see payment of a quarter each for most images, or evan a couple bucks per image. But we all do it because these companies have marketing millions and traffic that gets our images seen. Well, we don't have marketing millions, but we do have time and a fairly good sense of how to get traffic to the site.

Ktools and hosting: Yes, Ktools can handle it. And when it can't I'm fairly confident we'll be in a position to hire developers to help make it work...which I plan to do long before anything breaks. Yes, the hosting can handle anything thrown at them. Yes, I can sustain this cost overhead indefinitely. So if you have the time (a few minutes really) and a little patience, it just may pay off. One thing that won't happen: I won't shut the site down because it's not making money fast enough, I just don't have the overhead to worry about that. Again, I have time.

You say "I'd need to see more to want to get involved in this.": I would expect that. I have a little time before I'm ready to set up contributors, not to mention the changes previously discussed and a few others.

Doing everything right: The site will not be perfect. Anyone telling you they are perfect is scamming you. We will do everything we can to make it as pleasurable an experience for everyone as possible, but we will fall short somewhere and, again, I think what matters most in this is how we respond.

One more note is that your search doesn't work. I did a search for palm tree and found many random images, including cracked asphalt and a brick wall. The few images I checked had neither palm nor tree as keywords

Actually, it's a matter of knowing the proper way to use a search engine. Search any site for Palm Tree and you'll get every image that has palm and tree in it. Do a search (with quotes) "Palm Tree" and you'll only get "palm tree" results.

Check out this site, http://www.exalead.com/search/web/search-syntax, and start utilizing search engines correctly...it'll save you lots of time wading through irrelevant results.

I think the name is a little unfortunate. For starters, it has the word "photos" in it, which completely ignores the vector side of things. Plenty of existing companies have stuck with names that included the word because they started before they were ever selling vectors, but being a new company you could do yourself a favor and kick it off with a more universal name. And who knows, down the road you might find yourself selling other assets beyond still images, and the name will become even less suitable.

I'd make the same comment about your logo. The camera icon really doesn't really suit the modern stock agency. Not to mention it's way overdone and dated looking.

If you have any plans to take this beyond a small one-man operation, I'd strongly consider renaming and rebranding the site.

Do you intend to take on any contributors? If so, what's your royalty rate plan?

Name: Yeah, I'm thinking it should change also. As you note, something less photo-focused.
logo: Agreed, the logo is a few years old and I've been toying around with something new.
contributors: Yes. I'm starting with 50%. The original contributors will retain 50% forever. Over time it will reduce for new contributors but my intention is to always keep it high. I'd like my contributors to be happy to add content. I've seen a lot of complaining about other stock agencies and I hope to be fair and responsive enough to keep everyone happy and keep the company on a steady growth path.

Do you have lots of money for marketing, like a couple million bucks?

No, not a couple million. Frankly, if I had a couple million I probably wouldn't be looking into starting another business venture.

I realize marketing is important and expensive. Do you have any thoughts on the marketing subject?

I'm new to microstockgroup.com. I've spent a few days looking through posts here and I think there's a huge resource in the members here, for the members.

So... I have a design firm, which is the bread and butter right now, and have been contributing (both photo and vector) to SS, IS and BS for several years. Because of my design company I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to this but I've been horsing around for years with the idea of starting  a RF stock site and have finally gotten to a point I think it's ready, at least for external review.

Here's the site www.incolorphotos.com. I would appreciate any/all feedback from everyone with some time to do so. Good, bad and indifferent...it's all good...and you can't hurt my feelings.

Thanks in advance.