Time to start a fresh progress thread for something much more scalable than Raspberry Pi components.
I'll stick a blog entry up in a couple of days to detail what I've been up to this year. But for now, here's my v2.0 roadmap.
Vick's thread on selling his own artwork got me thinking. There's some significant profit margin for incredible artwork. If it's digital, then the artist has the added bonus of being able to easily replicate it, over and over again. The current pitfalls with going it alone and selling your own artwork however, include:
I'm no artist. I can't paint to save my life. My digital artwork resembles line-runner and my hand drawings are literally stick men. Schematics, no problem. Stuff that people would want to buy and put on their walls, not so much. So what can I do?
I can program.
Fastlane Roadmap Version 2.0
Aim(s):
Build a platform for digital artists to sell their artwork to people across the world. Link those sales to pre-qualified printers. Print, Pack & Post sold artwork straight to the buyer, using the printer geographically closest or with the lowest total PPP cost. Take a % in sales fees. Reinvest with advertising to bring on board more artists & more buyers.
Need - Admin takes time away from doing something useful. Finding a decent printer can take time if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Advertising can be VERY costly, especially for new players. Artists need to focus on making more awesome art, not worrying about how to sell it.
Entry - Immediate barrier to entry is the requirement to build up a relationship with the printers and artists on a global scale. Costs of verifying each one for quality and agreeing processes & requirements is likely to put off most other wantrepreneures. Third barrier is the effective use of advertising, getting great rates and building up a following of artists who enjoy the platform and shout about it to their friends will be hard to copy straight out of the box.
Control - I'll have total control over the platform, from approval of each piece of artwork (prevent legal disputes & dangerous / illegal images) through to being able to pick and choose which country's to supply, dependent on international legislation. I'll have limited control over pricing, but will have guides in place to encourage high value artwork & printing methods.
Scale - Start with one artist (Hey Vick, care to pilot it when it's ready?!), work out the kinks in the system, then open it up to the world and get a team in place to keep quality control in place. Add printing options & grow the base of printers.
Time - Estimated development time, 3 months to Beta. Potential to outsource some programming to bring development time down, but would prefer to cut my teeth on ASP.NET myself. I'd also run the risk of potentially losing some elements of control / quality with outsourcing. Dependent on results, Version 1 should be live by September.
To Date:
TODO (in no specific order):
Low volume import export was fun, but international business relationship building should be able to bring in more cash!
Looking forward to seeing how things pan out!
I give a big thank you to Vick for opening my eyes to remote printers and the opportunity it's now presented me!
Cheers!
Dezzamondo
I'll stick a blog entry up in a couple of days to detail what I've been up to this year. But for now, here's my v2.0 roadmap.
Vick's thread on selling his own artwork got me thinking. There's some significant profit margin for incredible artwork. If it's digital, then the artist has the added bonus of being able to easily replicate it, over and over again. The current pitfalls with going it alone and selling your own artwork however, include:
- Admin. You've got to place an order with the printers every time you make a sale.
- Printers. If they screw up, you look bad initially.
- Printers. If they only ship to a certain geographic location, you lose out on potential sales.
- Advertising. It can cost an absolute bomb to get the right advertising out there. There is a real risk of not making a return on investment.
I'm no artist. I can't paint to save my life. My digital artwork resembles line-runner and my hand drawings are literally stick men. Schematics, no problem. Stuff that people would want to buy and put on their walls, not so much. So what can I do?
I can program.
Fastlane Roadmap Version 2.0
Aim(s):
Build a platform for digital artists to sell their artwork to people across the world. Link those sales to pre-qualified printers. Print, Pack & Post sold artwork straight to the buyer, using the printer geographically closest or with the lowest total PPP cost. Take a % in sales fees. Reinvest with advertising to bring on board more artists & more buyers.
Need - Admin takes time away from doing something useful. Finding a decent printer can take time if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Advertising can be VERY costly, especially for new players. Artists need to focus on making more awesome art, not worrying about how to sell it.
Entry - Immediate barrier to entry is the requirement to build up a relationship with the printers and artists on a global scale. Costs of verifying each one for quality and agreeing processes & requirements is likely to put off most other wantrepreneures. Third barrier is the effective use of advertising, getting great rates and building up a following of artists who enjoy the platform and shout about it to their friends will be hard to copy straight out of the box.
Control - I'll have total control over the platform, from approval of each piece of artwork (prevent legal disputes & dangerous / illegal images) through to being able to pick and choose which country's to supply, dependent on international legislation. I'll have limited control over pricing, but will have guides in place to encourage high value artwork & printing methods.
Scale - Start with one artist (Hey Vick, care to pilot it when it's ready?!), work out the kinks in the system, then open it up to the world and get a team in place to keep quality control in place. Add printing options & grow the base of printers.
Time - Estimated development time, 3 months to Beta. Potential to outsource some programming to bring development time down, but would prefer to cut my teeth on ASP.NET myself. I'd also run the risk of potentially losing some elements of control / quality with outsourcing. Dependent on results, Version 1 should be live by September.
To Date:
- Initial bare-bones prototype working (upload images, display watermarked thumbnails & give no access to production artwork files other than the artist.[Single use printer access pending])
- Talking with artist friends around the UK for their opinions & concerns.
- Initial competitor search suggests low competition. Mostly from printers offering individual services and larger sites offering copies of more famous artwork.
- Windows ASP.NET MVC4 and Windows Azure picked as platform of choice due to production & testing speed. Ruby On Rails was a close second, but lacks a dedicated IDE. At least ASP.NET is largely backwards compatible.
TODO (in no specific order):
- Get Artist/Artwork/Printer/Buyer model working
- Lock it down
- Improve watermarking engine for uploads
- Find some form of server side compression to keep production artwork as small as possible on the server, without compromising quality.
- Enlist the help of a lawyer to draw up a generic T&Cs document for all parties.
- Visit three printers in the UK
- Find three artists to test and feedback on the platform
- Visit a proper art exhibition (Caviar optional)
- Test run printers & artists in closed BETA
- Refine upon feedback and relaunch as Open Beta if ready.
- Gain 100 artists & at least one printer in three continents && make 100 sales.
- Get team in place for admin, Customer service and hands free business.
- Launch site into production mode.
- Refine & update accordingly.
Low volume import export was fun, but international business relationship building should be able to bring in more cash!
Looking forward to seeing how things pan out!
I give a big thank you to Vick for opening my eyes to remote printers and the opportunity it's now presented me!
Cheers!
Dezzamondo
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