Hi everyone, I'm hoping one or more of you can help me sanity check my current course. To help it hopefully make sense, I'm going to start with a bit of background but try to keep it brief.
I started my own business in 1997. First as a website designer and quickly evolving to include seo, programming, sales copy, consulting and related because of the heavy need at the time.
I took a break from that to help get a dot com through a massive growth stage, then went back to doing my own thing. At that point I focused primarily on consulting and management for affiliate programs. I also did freelance magazine writing, created business and marketing plans, wrote tech manuals, did direct response copywriting, etc. In the midst of things I launched and ran a few high traffic websites and dabbled with domain name investing.
I burned out on providing so many services and having no prospects for scale. So somewhere around 2004 I started working on creating automation. I built quite a few affiliate datafeed sites and earned money, but nothing fantastic. So I decided to sell some of the software I'd been making.
That puttered along ok but still wasn't great money-wise and involved way more customer support than I wanted. Around 2006 I started selling commercial stock photos through several online agencies and in 2008 I started making small Kindle books. I was looking for passive/residual income streams.
Sometime around 2008/9 my software was heavily pirated and I walked away in disgust. I spent a year traveling around the country and camping on federal land. In 2010 I bought my own land and about a year ago I decided it's time to stop screwing around and create a real fastlane.
Originally I thought I was going to tackle the Kindle book market. Reading TMF , the blog and these forums has led me to the decision of not. The barrier to entry is too low, there's little control and to be honest I have a sneaking suspicion there will be big changes in that market over the next year or two. And to be blunt, most of the publications I've put there over the years are pretty weak.
The idea that's really been knawing at me is the stock photography. I've already taken a few execution steps with this but feedback would be really welcome:
I have 700-1200 photos at a few agencies and 100+ on a few others. The photos sell steadily but the agencies pay as little as $0.20 per sale and that sucks. I have practically no control and scale is extremely difficult. So the idea is to start my own stock photo business.
The primary difference is that I will only license my own photos. I get much better margins while customers get better prices.
Aside from price, I can offer direct sales - no membership or credit packages required; an easier to use website; mobile friendly site; and exclusive images.
With a background in sales and marketing, I have no problem creating images that are useful for commercial purposes. I'm not the best there is but I am pretty damn good. I've partially specialized in food photography over the years and am thinking about focusing on that heavily, because not many photographers do and those photos are always in demand with buyers.
I'm a little hung up on the need part of things though. Businesses always need fresh stock photos but does the market need "yet another" source/site for them?
Am I falling into the trap of "do what you love" or is it an honest potential fastlane that fits well with my skills and abilities?
What else am I missing?
I started my own business in 1997. First as a website designer and quickly evolving to include seo, programming, sales copy, consulting and related because of the heavy need at the time.
I took a break from that to help get a dot com through a massive growth stage, then went back to doing my own thing. At that point I focused primarily on consulting and management for affiliate programs. I also did freelance magazine writing, created business and marketing plans, wrote tech manuals, did direct response copywriting, etc. In the midst of things I launched and ran a few high traffic websites and dabbled with domain name investing.
I burned out on providing so many services and having no prospects for scale. So somewhere around 2004 I started working on creating automation. I built quite a few affiliate datafeed sites and earned money, but nothing fantastic. So I decided to sell some of the software I'd been making.
That puttered along ok but still wasn't great money-wise and involved way more customer support than I wanted. Around 2006 I started selling commercial stock photos through several online agencies and in 2008 I started making small Kindle books. I was looking for passive/residual income streams.
Sometime around 2008/9 my software was heavily pirated and I walked away in disgust. I spent a year traveling around the country and camping on federal land. In 2010 I bought my own land and about a year ago I decided it's time to stop screwing around and create a real fastlane.
Originally I thought I was going to tackle the Kindle book market. Reading TMF , the blog and these forums has led me to the decision of not. The barrier to entry is too low, there's little control and to be honest I have a sneaking suspicion there will be big changes in that market over the next year or two. And to be blunt, most of the publications I've put there over the years are pretty weak.
The idea that's really been knawing at me is the stock photography. I've already taken a few execution steps with this but feedback would be really welcome:
I have 700-1200 photos at a few agencies and 100+ on a few others. The photos sell steadily but the agencies pay as little as $0.20 per sale and that sucks. I have practically no control and scale is extremely difficult. So the idea is to start my own stock photo business.
The primary difference is that I will only license my own photos. I get much better margins while customers get better prices.
Aside from price, I can offer direct sales - no membership or credit packages required; an easier to use website; mobile friendly site; and exclusive images.
With a background in sales and marketing, I have no problem creating images that are useful for commercial purposes. I'm not the best there is but I am pretty damn good. I've partially specialized in food photography over the years and am thinking about focusing on that heavily, because not many photographers do and those photos are always in demand with buyers.
I'm a little hung up on the need part of things though. Businesses always need fresh stock photos but does the market need "yet another" source/site for them?
Am I falling into the trap of "do what you love" or is it an honest potential fastlane that fits well with my skills and abilities?
What else am I missing?
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