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 11:32 am
Didn’t read all 149 comments, but I really like the dingbat shirt (and I think I get it) and I’d REALLY like a “Dooce Groupie” t-shirt. Perhaps with the best of the best mastheads, maybe as a collage on the back of the shirt.
September 30th, 2005 at 11:37 am
I would definitely buy the T-shirt. Who cares if I get it or if anyone else gets it. I’d also buy some of the pictures too!
September 30th, 2005 at 12:06 pm
While I love the t-shirt idea, I’d more love to put a beautiful print on the wall of my living room. I say go ahead on the print idea for sure, your photos are wonderful and force us to look deeper at everyday subjects all around us.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
I’d buy the t-shirt just to support you guys but I’m not a huge fan of the design/color scheme.
You both are so well spoken (written?) and witty and funny - maybe you can try and come up with a slogan/emblem that better represents that?
Just my two cents, but yeah, I’d buy anything to help support you guys.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
Me again - I had a thought - I would definitely buy a blurbdoocery t-shirt or a dooce t-shirt, b/c it would be really cool to run into someone else who knew what the heck it meant. I was just at dooce.com and you could take almost all of her mastheads, slap them on a t-shirt and they would take off. People could buy several different kinds, since there are so many, and all are great.
I hope this doesn’t bruise your ego, to promote dooce products instead of blurbomat. But you’re a team, right?
September 30th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
Ok, Noah Grey did a book of his photography through a print-on-demand site (name escapes me at the moment) that would do books. In color. Gloss. Fantastic. And I know that you and Heather could easily take your themes, build a book and post it online for buying, and frankly, using humor and artistry to create these books, you could easily have some real winners - and no real out of pocket money. Just a thought.
Of course, taking the pics of the day that have great titles and/or hysterical captions and putting them into a calendar for the next year would be awesome as well. I’d definitely buy that, as I’m not one for going through the archives, or perhaps you could pick other pics and do themes for those, too. Just thinking…
September 30th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
The T-Shirt is cool, whether or not anyone else gets it. But I don’t know that it would be a “long-term” money maker. As you get new fans, you may sell, but I think it would become more a “trickle” purchase plan.
I love the calendar idea - your photos and definitely one for Chuck and maybe include his buddies. I LOVE the vicious ones where he’s “playing” with another dog - OH OH - and the CHUCKACABRA !!! (sp??)
Anyway, best of luck to you and yours.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
Like the T-shirts, like the banding, like the color. I s’pose short sleeves sell better than long sleeves, since not everyone lives in Boston like me.
I would be more likely to buy a print or two, if they were priced less than $30 a pop.
Best of luck.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
The retail for t-shirts is $9.99, not more than $12.99. Only stoopid Christian retailers try to sell “the message” at $14.99 or (oh please) $19.99. T-shirts are a commodity, even when you’re a True Believer.
How do I know? I buy close-outs from retailers who have no idea what the market price of commodities are. Those people go out of business and have to sell at 50% of cost (or worse).
Use that to gage your production process and sourcing. Don’t buy something for $10 that you can only sell for $9.99.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
I’d totally buy it, but not the ringer. over it. I’d also totally buy prints. You may also want to consider doing something like the rasterbator, too, that would be really awesome for many of your compositions.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
I’d love a calendar with just pictures of Chuck! Or of Heather’s mastheads or, better yet, a dayplanner with masterheads and/or Chuck and/or blurbomat-isms or dooce-isms. Pencils with dooce.com or blurbomat.com? Too tacky? Too commercial? Well, perhaps I’m getting carried away.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
If you want busty women to buy a t-shirt - for the lurve of gawd — consider.doing.a.V.neck!
Why does no one evah think of doing V-necks? No V neck? No sale from this busty gal who-simply-cannot-wear-crew-or-scoop-necked-tops.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
Also, keep this in mind: promises to buy are not the same as making sales. If you’re going into e-tail an you’re marketing a new product, pre-sell your first shipment to gage real consumer interest. If you can’t buy the QTY that gets your cost plus profit on the initial, DON’T BUY MORE THAN YOUR INITIAL.
I’m not trying to suck here: there is more than one guy with a garage full of boxes, and all the boxes are full of things people swore to him were a great idea — until they had to pay $19.99 for them, at which place Pottery Barn or WAL*MART or Target had one enough like it for $2 cheaper and thus the garage full of boxes.
Don’t be one of those guys.
September 30th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
I agree with Vneck. I look like a cow in a regular Tshirt. Otherwise the desing is great. I would definatly buy one.
September 30th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
I wouldn’t buy the shirt…oy vey @ orange.
However, should you in the undecided future decide to take custom orders, I’ll take a black V-neck Dingbat please…
Best of luck!
September 30th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Hi Blurb,
I SO would buy this shirt. In fact I’d by one for my entire family as this is a common ‘term of endearment’ in our family and has been for years.
Christmas is coming up so let me know as soon as they’re on sale
Alley
September 30th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
Probably wouldn’t buy the shirt, at least in the form it’s in now. Looks like you’re going for hipster but somehow it’s not quite there.
Didn’t get the dingbat.
You know what though, the awesomeandamazing fire hydrant picture? I’d get a shirt with that on the front
September 30th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
I immensely like the tee-shirt, I get the joke on the front (but most people won’t), and I think the size of the logo on the back is a fine size. Any smaller and someone would have to be standing on top of me to read it and I don’t like people standing on top of me. I have to kick people who stand on top of me.
Unfortunately, even though I like the design, I probably wouldn’t buy the tee-shirt, but that’s because I pretty much don’t ever buy any tee-shirt with a design on it. That’s just a me thing. I think I own about 17 tee-shirts with a design on them. About 14 of them came from my company which used to foist a new company tee on the staff each quarter, 2 have vodka logos on them and came from hot chicks trying to sell me strange brands of vodka at a bar (I’ll always take a tee shirt offered by a hot chick; preferably the one they’re wearing it at the time), and the last is a New York Yankees tee-shirt I bought for $4 at a tourist shop in 1999 because I’d gotten caught in a thundersorm and was soaked. I have to kick thunderstorms that get me soaked.
That said I seriously would consider buying prints of some of the photos. That’s the sort of thing I do buy. But if you’re going to sell prints, you’d better make sure they’re printed with fade-resistant ink on archival quality paper. I don’t want the print fading after hanging in my sunny apartment. You wouldn’t want that to happen, because I have to (…wait for it…) kick people who sell me prints that fade after hanging in my sunny apartment.
September 30th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
OK– totally sell your photos– I especially like your cross processed stuff. The colors are so Middle America Noir. And totally get them printed professionally. Reinventing the wheel is not nearly as profitable or as fun.
Dunno about the shirt– I kind of don’t get the front, of course I’m not hip, so maybe that is the problem.
M.
September 30th, 2005 at 1:42 pm
Just a thought, you could do the photos up into inspirational posters, and include inspirational quotes from both your site and Heather’s. Such as:
“Don’t blog about work”, etc.
September 30th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
As a designer: like the colors even though bright orange looks like ass on me, get the dingbat reference.
I would definitely buy your photos and have thought that before. BUT, I would be more inclined to buy them (and would pay more) if printed photographically. I understand trying to increase the profit margin, but there’s a world of difference between the two processes you’re considering, quality-wise.
September 30th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
I like that your approach differs from Kottke’s. People donated money to him to help him blog, but if people donated money to you, they would receive something tangible - a tshirt or photo print. Personally, I would be much more inclined to open my wallet for something tangible.
Another thought: If people wanted prints of Chuck frolicking, that might be cute. But if people wanted photos of Leta, would that be creepy? Would you want someone you don’t know having photos of your daughter on their walls? I don’t know about you, but that would skeeve me out.
September 30th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
I love the shirt! I’d buy it! And you HAVE to sell prints of that fire hydrant picture!! I’ll buy one of those for my wall, and 10 more for gifts… actually I think I’m going to be buying prints of a lot of your photos when given the chance! I can’t wait ’til you open the store!
September 30th, 2005 at 2:12 pm
The Haunted Beaufort photos are THE photos that when I saw them, I thought “Dang nabbit, how could I convince that man to sell me those prints!”.
DO IT! RUN! GO!
Your photos are really magnificent, and always very interesting. I am sure whatever you decide, it will be a hit! A HIT, I SAY!
September 30th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
Whoops, I forgot to mention, I like the idea of the more expensive but higher quality prints as opposed to the cheaper, printed-at-home prints. I think when people buy prints, they will want the quality to be as high as possible, even if it means spending a few dollars more per print. I don’t know if you’re going to be able to read this far down, but I thought I’d add my 2 cents about the print debate!