Silly idea?

[bulb763]

Is it silly for me to think that I can create a successful online stock photo agency from scratch, and be able to attract enough contributors and customers to make it viable? Baring in mind the competition are the likes of Getty, Alamy, etc, who appear to share the vast majority of the market between themselves.
I think I've had a decent idea, and I'd love to make it work, but I am a bit overwhelmed by all the stuff that I need to know in order to run a business, never mind start one up. I've been employed in a large engineering company since I left full time education ~6 years ago so I don't get to see much of how a business is run.
The idea I have is succinctly described as a web2.0 version of what the online agencies currently do, so there is a USP in there (according to my research anyway!), which I guess is what I'd need to have a hope of succeeding. It wasn't conceived as deliberate web2.0 thing, but I've since discovered that that is what it sounds like. I've never created a website, never run a business and don't even know a whole lot about how the industry operates.
I'm trying to write a business plan, but again I'm struggling because of the above issues!

I think I'm probably rambling a bit but if anyone recognises the position I'm in or can offer some advice then I'd love to hear it!

Edited by bulb763 on Sunday 1st June 23:22

[Brown and Boris]

bulb763 said:

Is it silly for me to think that I can create a successful online stock photo agency from scratch, and be able to attract enough contributors and customers to make it viable? Baring in mind the competition are the likes of Getty, Alamy, etc, who appear to share the vast majority of the market between themselves.
I think I've had a decent idea, and I'd love to make it work, but I am a bit overwhelmed by all the stuff that I need to know in order to run a business, never mind start one up. I've been employed in a large engineering company since I left full time education ~6 years ago so I don't get to see much of how a business is run.
The idea I have is succinctly described as a web2.0 version of what the online agencies currently do, so there is a USP in there (according to my research anyway!), which I guess is what I'd need to have a hope of succeeding. It wasn't conceived as deliberate web2.0 thing, but I've since discovered that that is what it sounds like. I've never created a website, never run a business and don't even know a whole lot about how the industry operates.
I'm trying to write a business plan, but again I'm struggling because of the above issues!

I think I'm probably rambling a bit but if anyone recognises the position I'm in or can offer some advice then I'd love to hear it!

Edited by bulb763 on Sunday 1st June 23:22

Can't help on the business side too much although entering an area that is new to you and already populated will be a toughie. I am guessing adminstrating/paying the photographers/copy rights will be the hardest as I have been to sites where they solicit pics and where photographers can upload themselves.

My recent experience is that there may be a market for specialist types of pics (for example I wanted 10-15 pictures of different groups of kids hanging around shops/street corners in rough areas in the UK and 'working girls' and will probably have to have them taken anew).

I use a photo web site (Shutterstock). If it helps the things I do/don't like about it are;



Like:
the fact I can pay one fee (£149 a month) and then download up to 25 pics a day for that month and therefore get the most from the month and pick up/put down the membership when it suits what I am doing
the search facility, although their cross indexing stretches reality a bit and you end up with lots of irrelevant stuff
they offer vectors etc as well as pics
the key one for me is that each pics shows if they have a model release and this fact is in their search options
the restrictions on use are not too onerous and relate mainly to niot making the model look foolish, not chnaging the image and not using on more than a certain number of commercial items before taking out an enhanced licence
the 25 pics a day means that if I activate membership at a time in my working day I can get 50 pics a day (25 per 24 hours) and make best use of my time
the ease of their lightbox system
the fact that I can get large/high resolution images for the same price as small ones

Dislike:

Download is by single photo with an access code each time which can be laborious if I just want the 25 pics I have put in a lightbox
They put the price up from £109 one month to £149 the following month
They keep sending me letters
The people are too pretty. A shortage of ordinary looking people doing ordinary things, all a bit too posed and clean
Some pics require additional authorisaton which is annoying when you have spent time earching and then some photographers want a separate deal.

[dilbert]

Who knows what makes a successful business? Might be worth checking this out though;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2

.....and perhaps even;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0

Edited by dilbert on Monday 2nd June 08:08

[bulb763]

B&B, thanks very much for those +ve's and -ve's, that'll be very useful

dilbert, I read the web2.0 thing on wiki the other day and thought that my idea fitted in quite nicely with it. If that is where the web is supposed to be heading then I guess that's a positive in terms of a "web2.0" business (I only use that phrase because it fits - I don't really like using it since the idea was conceived without it). web3.0, eh - whatever next...

[jamesuk28]

Depends what end of the market you are aiming at, Getty are expensive but the likes of Fotolia and Istockphoto are cheap from £1 per photo on average.I would imagine it would be quite a job setting up a new provider.

[dilbert]

bulb763 said:

B&B, thanks very much for those +ve's and -ve's, that'll be very useful

dilbert, I read the web2.0 thing on wiki the other day and thought that my idea fitted in quite nicely with it. If that is where the web is supposed to be heading then I guess that's a positive in terms of a "web2.0" business (I only use that phrase because it fits - I don't really like using it since the idea was conceived without it). web3.0, eh - whatever next...

Well good luck with the business. Personally I'm going to put my money on Web 2000 (tm)!

[MitchT]

From the perspective of someone who has, through my work, been making occasional use of stock photos for the last 13 years I'd say you're trying to enter an already heavily-populated market where most, if not all, options have already been excercised by the existing competitors. I'm not saying don't do it or suggesting that you can't succeed... more that to make a go of this you'll need to think of a way of delivering your service that noone else has yet, and that the users of stock photos will really like, have enough money to tell the world about it, and then grow your business quickly enough not to be wiped-out by one of the biggies simply replicating your USP the minute your company hits the marketplace.

One of the main reasons I've not yet tried to take a really massive publishing idea that I have to market yet is that I know that there are existing companies with the resources to go global with something identical almost instantly and I'd be shot down by them the second I'd taken off... So I need to think carefully how I can turn my idea from nothing to massive literally the instant it goes live.

[bulb763]

MitchT said:

From the perspective of someone who has, through my work, been making occasional use of stock photos for the last 13 years I'd say you're trying to enter an already heavily-populated market where most, if not all, options have already been excercised by the existing competitors. I'm not saying don't do it or suggesting that you can't succeed... more that to make a go of this you'll need to think of a way of delivering your service that noone else has yet, and that the users of stock photos will really like

I think I've got the unique idea. Certainly from the contributors POV I think that it's attractive (being into photography myself), and hopefully the diversity that a large contributor community would create would attact the buyers.

MitchT said:

have enough money to tell the world about it, and then grow your business quickly enough not to be wiped-out by one of the biggies simply replicating your USP the minute your company hits the marketplace.

That's what worries me! There is certainly no way that I have enough cash to grow a business rapidly.

MitchT said:

One of the main reasons I've not yet tried to take a really massive publishing idea that I have to market yet is that I know that there are existing companies with the resources to go global with something identical almost instantly and I'd be shot down by them the second I'd taken off... So I need to think carefully how I can turn my idea from nothing to massive literally the instant it goes live.

+1 If I think of a solution I'll let you know

[M400 NBL]

Can I ask how this type of website works...

How much (if anything) do they pay contributirs for photos?

How can they be sure that they are from a reliable source, ie are in fact not royalty free?

What even makes a photo royalty free? Could my photos be used by such a website without my permission?

This might help people like myself that knows nothing about this to offer some advice/suggestions.

Best of luck. If it doesn't cost a fortune it may well be worth writing off a grand or so to see what happens.

[bulb763]

M400 NBL said:

Can I ask how this type of website works...

Sure, I'll do my best to answer but bare in mind what I said earlier - I'm still learning a lot of it myself!

M400 NBL said:

How much (if anything) do they pay contributirs for photos?...

Contributors are paid a commision whenever an image of theirs sells. For example I think that Alamy pays their contributors ~65% of the fee it charges their customers. There are a lot of different commision structures for different agencies, and even within agencies I think.

M400 NBL said:

How can they be sure that they are from a reliable source, ie are in fact not royalty free?

What even makes a photo royalty free? Could my photos be used by such a website without my permission?...

Not too sure what you mean here... If you are asking how the agency ensures that the cntributed images are free from any other usage agreements from other agencies, then I am not sure. I guess that in the contract the contributors agrees to when signing up there will be a clause that puts the onus onto the contributor. I need to look into this though.

I do know that the copyright of an image remains with the photographer at all times, unless they explicitly give it up. All the agencies effectively do is provide a means for the photographer to sell a licence for the use of an image, and take a fee for this service.

Licences can get very specific, but boil down to two basic types: Rights-managed and royalty-free. Royalty-free are simple licences where the customer pays a fee based on the size of the image, and generally there are no restrictions on its use. Rights-managed can get very specific. The customer agrees such things as the media it will be used in (i.e. web, print), the size it will be printed at and the number of prints that will be made. They can be exclusive and non-exclusive (i.e. you can prevent other people using the same image)

M400 NBL said:

This might help people like myself that knows nothing about this to offer some advice/suggestions.

Best of luck. If it doesn't cost a fortune it may well be worth writing off a grand or so to see what happens....

Thanks, I don't think the setup costs will be all that trivial though.. website, legal advice, advertising, etc. Probably all sorts of things that I have no idea about!

[M400 NBL]

Thanks. You assumed right about my question regarding who will be responsible should a photo turn out not to be royalty free.

Best of luck. If you have a decent enough domain name and a professional looking website, the photographers that contribute to other photo/picture sharing websites could take a picture from a slightly different angle to use on your website.Indeed, do they need to be unique/exclusive if the photographer has given you permission to use them? How you would initially attract paying customers with relatively few photos would be tricky.