Biz Dev
September 29th, 2005In my experiment of trying to make this blog have a business, I figure I could be all secretive and then launch something, but I want to perform a kind of due diligence and get feedback. The main reason for the openness is that we don’t have the liquidity for me to order up a bunch of stuff and carry stock and do a mega launch. I’m also trying to be very Web 2.0 and develop organically. Kind of like a shampoo.
I’ve had a few comments and emails about selling merchandise (t-shirts) and photos. These are two of the things that we’re working on at the blurbodoocery. And it was before I quit the day job that I wanted to pursue making some art and making some money. A sort of variation on:
- Make stuff.
- ??
- Make money!
Because the web will be the step 2, the question marks kind of go away. To this end, I did a t-shirt mockup and liked the results a couple of months ago, but felt my readership is so small, that it’s kind of pointless to do shirts. Look at these and tell me what you think:
The logo on the back would be much smaller (the vendor I used to build these comps only allows it to shrink to an inch tall, and I’d like the logo to be about a half-inch in height. Part of me wonders about the ringer, if that’s played already and I should go with a solid color. I have a soft spot for orange. My main question with this design is: do you get the front? Do you care if you don’t? Would you buy/wear this? I’m not necessarily looking for design critique, although if you don’t like something, you don’t like it and I can take that kind of feedback. I’m more interested in “Yeah, I’d buy it” or “Nah, not interested.”
The other, larger, more involved idea I’ve had is to sell prints of our photos. The photos wouldn’t just be the raw source, but I would do work to transform the photo into something larger, maybe have a theme and sell them as fine-ish art. Don’t know if people are into that idea, but I’d love it if that could generate some income.
I don’t know if I want to do the printing myself; buy a sweet printer and papers and inks then make the print myself, or outsource it to a high end shop that uses a photographic process to take a file and output it. I like the high end idea, as I wouldn’t sell everything, just a select group of photos for a limited time and even then, I’d probably only want to sell a limited run to increase value. If it got crazy, I’d sign some of the first ones as well. While I think there are excellent solutions for someone to print their own stuff, I don’t know if I have the patience or the bank account to fund the printer and supplies it would take to do what I want. Plus, no printer headaches. The only issue with using a higher end shop is that the fees are going to go up substantially and I’d have to charge a lot more per print. But that might be the best way to go to sell museum quality prints.
Your thoughts?
September 30th, 2005 at 7:55 am
will there be wingdings too? best of luck to you both…
September 30th, 2005 at 8:09 am
Beware encouragement from window shoppers! I love to look at cool stuff on the net (yours included), but rarely buy anything. For me, there’s a big leap between the “wow, that’s clever” reaction to buying the item. And there are many, many t-shirts out there to choose from. As there are photographs. I’ve been inspired by the work of really great amateur photographers to take better pictures myself, but wouldn’t want someone else’s vacation album on my wall.
Make the stuff you want, try to sell it and see how it goes. What else can you do?
September 30th, 2005 at 8:11 am
Not interested in the T-shirt, but I think the photo idea is hot. Both you and Heather take some kick-ass pics.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:12 am
I think the selling T-shirts online is super saturated and, like you said, I don’t think you’re going to have a large enough base to make a large profit.
Limited edition photo prints would be a great venture. You’d make a larger profit margin and you’ve got a lot of great photos. Here’s what I would do:
- Have the prints made at a high end shop because it will lower your initial costs and the prints need to be of highest quality.
- Make signed and numbered limited editions of 50-100 prints
- Dending on costs and sizes, I’d price $50-$200 for smaller prints (8×10) and $100-$300 for larger formats.
- I’m not sure how large you can enlarge pictures from the D70 before they show stretch marks, but larger format prints are nice.
- Do one edition at a time to reduce stocking costs. You’re going to get a majority of your sales when you post about a new print, so you should have a good idea of the demand.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:14 am
I would love to buy some nice prints. I had just been thinking that we need some “real art” rather than my DIY cheapie art. I need to start investing in quality stuff.
Sorry I don’t have any real business advice.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:17 am
Having had our shop next door to an art studio for a while, I became pretty good friends with the photography teachers they had there. Many did the same thing you are talking about with selling prints.
They started small, selling a select group of prints in a limited number type fashion. Take one print, offer it in a couple sizes, printing 10-20 of each size. Number, sign, sell.
At the same time, they went to one printing company and worked out a deal on getting quantity printing of the photos. They were able to negoiate a good price for even smaller runs. This was easier for them especially with dealing with a mom-and-pop type company.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:18 am
Jon,
Not to sound like a broken record, drop the ringer, and go girlie-t’s, and I will own one in a second! And, I’d totally be down with a coffee table book of your pics. Great idea whoever said that.
Isabelle,
You sent your long, warm, personal e-mails to a woman whose site gets approximately 1 MILLION unique hits every month. Heather says right on her ‘contact me’ page (and in numerous interviews I’ve read) how much her readers’ e-mail and comments mean to her, but that she simply cannot answer them all. I think she even addressed the issue of a form response in one of the interviews and said that she thought that was more insulting than no response at all…that *she* wouldn’t want to receive a form response.
Chill the fuck out and enjoy what the artist known as Dooce produces. It’s not about you. For you to have thought of her as your ‘pal Dooce’ at any point is a bit creepy anyway.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:20 am
Not that I’m saying anything new here, but I definitely second the quote idea, the ladies-cut idea, and (for boys) the baseball shirt idea, with the sleeves a different color from the body of the shirt. I don’t know a single boy who doesn’t look hot in a shirt like that.
Oh, and I’d be more likely to buy a shirt if it was black, because you can’t really go wrong.
I’m definitely thinking something more like Mrs. Kennedy’s tee, which I wear with pride…..
September 30th, 2005 at 8:20 am
If you make it to comment 102…I love dingbat, great joke. I would like a 3/4 sleeve baseball style shirt, I know they’re overdone but they flatter me. I would like it to be made for a pregnant person and say “Not Leta” with an arrow pointing down. Also, the back could say “it’s an Armstrong thing”. No? yeah well, just a thought from a different angle. Another thought - Onesies for babies and kids shirts with some of the best photo captions would be funny.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:27 am
Hi Jon,
I’m not business savvy, but I was wondering if another equation might be a possibility:
*Teach stuff.
*?? via the web
*Make money!
I don’t know if this interests you at all, and even if it does if in the end it would work, but I was thinking about a few things. One, in an article I read recently about jobs/career, etc. it mentioned different ways of looking at uses for your skills. It gave web design as an example, saying that a few years ago lots of people were looking for web designers, while today more and more people want to learn and do it themselves, so what they want it someone to teach them design, rather than do the design (so a web designer may find more work/profit in teaching web design rather than doing freelance web design).
And honestly, from what I can tell, you would have a great personality to be a teacher. I’ve e-mailed you three times over the last few months, once with a question about web design, once about choosing a digital camera, and once about Photoshop. I was always surprised when I got a response because you must get a ton of email, but also you were very kind and explained things in terms I could understand.
That said, these are things I would pay to take say a 6-week session with you off the top of my head: digital photography and Intro to Photoshop. Say you limit it to 6 or 12 people or whatever is feasible (off the top of my head, probably between $300-600 tuition depending on how many weeks, what’s covered, etc). You could create all the spaces for classes, like a site where the class could sign in and post. Maybe you would post one lecture a week on a certain day with an assignment and then work assignments based on that lesson would be due (posted) on a certain day, followed by critiques and comments from you and fellow classmates.
There would be a lot of prep work initially, but if it ended up being something you enjoyed and people kept signing up for sessions, you’d be able to eventually just start concentrating more on the students and their work and less on back end and planning classes etc.
Now I know there are lots of places you can take these seminars, workshops, etc, but you might be a niche for several reasons. 1. I’m in the Chicago area and photoshop is something I want to learn. A community college nearby has a course that’s reasonable but with my schedule right now, one night a week is hard to commit; also their student samples are less than impressive and I’m a little scared about the quality of the teacher. 2. A place in Chicago called Digital Boot Camp (http://www.digitalbootcamp.com/) that offers more of a range of class lengths. They have something called a basic training one-day course for a reasonable $275 but so far (since I’ve started checking) only on weekdays and it is very hard for me to take an extra day off of work right now. An online course from someone whose work stands for itself (even if you are not a “teacher”) is enough of an endorsement for me. I’ve seen your photos, how you interact, and I think you’re more than qualified to teach beginners (don’t know enough about advanced stuff to judge that).
To get back to my point from above, about teaching vs. doing–I love yours and Heather’s pictures and have looked at them many times. But more than wanting to buy one and hang it in my home, it has inspired me (as have other blogs, flickr, etc.) in general to want to improve my photography skills because I love seeing what people take and I would love to take some photos even half as good as the ones I’ve seen here and at other sites. A course on digital photography or photoshop where I can learn and get feedback is something I would love.
One last side note (sorry this is long), regarding Heather, while I imagine, especially if she is working on a book proposal, etc., this would not be possible right now, but in the future she could totally get a million people to sign up for a writing workshop on writing on the web or writing personal memoir or topics along those lines–internet courses, speaking engagements (which she’s already started doing, the gamut).
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you guys!
September 30th, 2005 at 8:28 am
Here you go Isabelle…from the Rebecca Blood interview “Bloggers on Blogging.” (August, 2005)
How much reader email do you get? Are you able to answer it all?
I get about 40-50 reader emails every weekday. If I were to answer even a third of it I would do nothing but answer email all day, so no, I don’t answer most of it. When I started to fall behind in answering my email I went through a pretty rough period where I beat myself up about it, the guilt was suffocating. But there was no way I could answer all my email while simultaneously being a wife and mother. So I re-wrote my contact page to say specifically that I most likely won’t answer email, and my readers have responded positively to that (most of them). I once thought of having an auto-reply go out to anyone who sent me an email but I realized that I wouldn’t want to receive an auto-reply and I stuck with my gut and didn’t go that route. I do read every single email I get, though, (except for a few of the hateful ones) and even that sometimes can take up a huge chunk of my free time.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:29 am
Go Jon Go. I have my credit card ready! I’ll buy whatever you decide to sell. (Well almost)
……Isabelle,
Why don’t you stay in the shadows until you can grow the fuck up and get over your pathetic self!
September 30th, 2005 at 8:29 am
I’d buy it. I like your picture drinking Evan Williams.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:30 am
Yes, I’d buy a shirt tied to either Web site, but in a lady’s cut.
I would also buy photographs from either of you. The notion of a book is a good one. You could easily sell a collection of Utah pics locally; I live in a neighboring state and see those books ALL the time.
Also (last thing), I’d read whatever you two wrote in any form. A long time ago, Heather mentioned pursuing a book deal. I take it nothing ever came of that? What about a column, perhaps on parenting? Syndicated or otherwise.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:30 am
Yes, I’d buy a shirt tied to either Web site, but in a lady’s cut. The idea above of baby gear is brilliant. I’m nowhere near chidren yet, but when my time comes, I would buy that in a SECOND.
I would also buy photographs from either of you. The notion of a book is a good one. You could easily sell a collection of Utah pics locally; I live in a neighboring state and see those books ALL the time.
Also (last thing), I’d read whatever you two wrote in any form. A long time ago, Heather mentioned pursuing a book deal. I take it nothing ever came of that? What about a column, perhaps on parenting? Syndicated or otherwise.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:37 am
Hey, I’d buy the t if it were also available as a womans baby-t.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:41 am
Hey John,
Very exciting times! I do get what you’re doing with the t-shirt but I think it’s a little played out? I do think you have some real value in your photos. Especially, the landscapes in BEAUTIFUL Utah (and back in SF & LA) and your treatments of them. Here’s what I would buy - some sort of bound compilation of your photos. I’m thinking coffee table book or the like - can be crafty, doesn’t necessarily need to be shiny and hardcover. I don’t know if a theme is necessary - I’d probably buy them b/c they’re yours and I’d be buying the brand - I read your site, you seem cool, I like the photos, etc. (Like JPG magazine.) Which brings me to my next point… I read your and Heather’s site daily, and now have added your friends (Beth, Carol, etc.) to the mix. I think there may be some sort of equity in leveraging the readership of your sites collectively. Maybe there’s a way to make them more cohesive? Include 3-hive? I’d make it about your life. Create a portal of your life in Utah. (I’ll admit - part of it is that after the last election, I’m v. interested in WHY we’re tolerating another 4 years of incompetency and I feel like you’re reporting from the ground in a sense. The politics issue couldn’t be overt b/c of the advertisers, but your perspective and observations say enough.) I think bundling the sites around a portal concept would really give advertisers something to grab onto. You’ve definitely got a captive audience - now to do something with us!
September 30th, 2005 at 8:41 am
Hi Jon - You mentioned printing your own prints, as opposed to using a service. I don’t do either one, but have two photographer friends who sell prints. Both use a service. If cruising their sites would help you with a decision . . .
and
And, yes, they (and we) are all Mac! ;-> In fact, I worked in the Infinite Loop for 8.5 years!
Judie Ashford
September 30th, 2005 at 8:52 am
De-lurking to say…love the shirt. Would buy as is or as suggested above. It’s the “dingbat” I like.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:54 am
Like the shirt design but wouldn’t buy it - the leap from “cool!” to “here’s my amex!” gets lost somewhere in the piles of t-shirts I already never wear.
If I did make that leap, it’d be because a photo grabbed me (some of yours certainly do), but the real question is whether or not that’s sustainable.
I might buy one print, but I don’t know if I’d buy more - there’s only so much free space on folks’ walls. If you want to do something long-term related to design / web / your interests, you’ll probably want to spend some serious time thinking about it, in which case you may be able to use the photo idea as a kind of bridge to something more comprehensive and long-term.
BEST of luck to you!
September 30th, 2005 at 9:04 am
i just read all 5000000 comments and would like to agree/disagree with some of them.
-i agree that i would rather buy a black tshirt (if it works well with the logo)
-cafepress may be a good idea to get some of the pictures out there (calendar was a great idea), coffee mugs, etc.
-i’d love to buy your photos, but it sounds too expensive for me. but if i find something i really like, i’m always willing to save up and buy it when i have the money.
also, about the photos - home printer v. outsourcing - obviously you’d buy a nice printer, but i think if it’s not a professional print, you’d probably have to have a disclaimer on your site saying that you do the printing yourself.
otherwise i’m picturing someone ordering a print, getting it home and opening it up, and thinking, “ugh, this isnt what i was hoping for”.
just my opinion. good luck!
September 30th, 2005 at 9:04 am
I totally get what Isabelle is saying–I’m a huge fan of both of yours, but I think once you get to a certain size/celebrity, the connection with the audience is much harder to maintain. That said, I think what you guys are trying to do is freaking awesome and inspiring.
I like the ideas of selling your photos as stock photos, freelancing your design skills, and the idea about the photos of kids/events rocked–Since you do such awesome nature/outdoor photos why not specialize in photos of snowboarding trips, utah hikes, and other outdoor events. Tons of bloggers are doing the Tee-shirt/Cafe Press route–think outside the box! Best of luck to both of you!
September 30th, 2005 at 9:07 am
Oh–one other thing–I’m sure you’ve already thought of this–but what about making $$ with 3hive–THAT seems like a potential cash cow right there and unique to boot!
September 30th, 2005 at 9:17 am
I would buy a t-shirt that didn’t have the color bands…and buy one from dooce.com too.
I wouldn’t buy photos–but that is just me. I believe your photos are GREAT and would sell.
September 30th, 2005 at 9:24 am
Dingbat… BRILLIANT. Lots of people would probably say “Huh?”, although it makes perfect sense to me, coming from a large techie community. I’d totally go for the wife-beater design, but that’s just me. I live in those shirts (tropical climate, 90 degrees & humid every day, you know..). Or any shirt for that matter. Even more tho, I have a feeling the coffeee-table book would be the greatest success, and a calander could go great places, as well as anything else you decided to do and put your mind to. You have what it takes, you could even rule the world, dammit! (Okay, no more drunk commenting….)