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Thinking Big but Starting Small to Earn first $1

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Dami-B

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Jan 25, 2015
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I'm launching a crowdsourcing agency to link animators, videographers and content producers with brands and companies that need their service.

It's a connection service where I intend to pool in about 1000 independent creators to start with and at the same time pitch agencies and brands who need extra hands and services to work with them

We connect talent with opportunity and get a cut from the deal. Companies are meant to pay a quarterly sub fee to use our service and consultancy but for now, it's still all free until i figure out the best business model.

A little background about me, I've worked in a digital marketing agency for the past three years in Nigeria, and I can see a huge gap between skill, Idea and Execution where I believe this company can provide value.

Brands in Africa need a solid output to outsource their creative work, they need jobs to be executed quickly and fast and they need access to the right talent.

I can provide all of these things and more.

In terms of execution, here's where I'm at:

I've setup up the webpages needed to onboard both clients and creators, everything is still done manually, with landing page, email subscription and autoresponders.

If we can earn our first dollar and get a client to sign-up, then we would iterate and build a strong platform around this idea.

Because of the gap that exists in the market, I see a huge opportunity, my goal is to help my creators earn $3million dollars within the next five years through the platform.

We also have a subscription package for companies looking to signup for building contests and working directly with a contractor, this helps us to streamline the business model so they know what they are paying for.

The businesses also have a minimum payout.

I've been running ads to the landing page since last two nights at a very low budget spend, so far we have:

  • 12 creators signed up (this includes top notch animators, videographers, audio visuals and screen writers)...very exciting
  • 1 Business signed up (they need content to be done next week) - might just earn my first dollar(naira)

I'll try to update this thread weekly and hope to build something big here.

Cheers.
 
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NMdad

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Cool!

Not sure if this might be useful as a resource or partner, but here in the United States', the film industry is mainly project-driven, where the animators & VFX people get hired on contract for a movie. The movie/studio might a single person, small teams, large teams, etc. The teams often need to scale up fast, and the independent contractors & teams might not always have the VFX tools & software--which are expensive--to work on projects. A startup is providing that kind of infrastructure-in-a-cloud to VFX professionals & teams: www.metapipe.com. (I don't have any connection to them; I just know about them since they're a startup in my city).
 

Dami-B

Bronze Contributor
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Jan 25, 2015
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Lagos, Nigeria
Cool!

Not sure if this might be useful as a resource or partner, but here in the United States', the film industry is mainly project-driven, where the animators & VFX people get hired on contract for a movie. The movie/studio might a single person, small teams, large teams, etc. The teams often need to scale up fast, and the independent contractors & teams might not always have the VFX tools & software--which are expensive--to work on projects. A startup is providing that kind of infrastructure-in-a-cloud to VFX professionals & teams: www.metapipe.com. (I don't have any connection to them; I just know about them since they're a startup in my city).

Thank you @NMdad I'll check them out and contact them to see possible opportunities for collaboration.

There's still a lot to figure out on all this, I may have to start out with small projects working with different kinds of agencies before we can scale things up to where teams can collaborate on the platform to work on a big time project.

It's definitely one day at a time, right now I'm still trying to figure out the best business model to adopt and trying to make it as simple and reasonable for a brand to pay for.

99designs.com have a very amazing model which I'm studying to adopt as quickly for our unique markets.

Thank you for your insights.
 

Dami-B

Bronze Contributor
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Jan 25, 2015
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Lagos, Nigeria
A little update
So far so good, we have:
  • 20 creators signed up
  • 3 Businesses registered.
One of the businesses is a taxi haulage company that runs a similar business model to uber and taxify over here.

We would be launching our first contest with them on Wednesday, next week.

This would be our first dollar commitment from a client for this project, I'm very excited.

We are running ads on Facebook and Instagram, it seems to be converting relatively well. I tried Good display, LinkedIn mails, and cold emailing, none which have worked in the past for me.

We would focus on facebook and instagram as our main traffic source for this product.

There's also a Business Fair coming up, which i intend to maximize the opportunities
 
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Dami-B

Bronze Contributor
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Jan 25, 2015
179
449
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Lagos, Nigeria
Hello Fastlaners,

Hope you are having an amazing Friday evening.

It's taking me a bit of time to get my first contract on this venture but it's looking very promising.

The number one hold up on this concept is the fact that we are new and the brands I've spoken with want to see some past examples of our work.

Once we have about 5 case strong case studies, we would be very good to go to penetrate the market quickly and our community would explode.

So far I've had 5 one on one presentations/meetings, all very promising, the biggest client on the list wants to sign up by April 24th, but they've asked for past examples of our work for previous clients.

(Edit - I forgot to Add)

They also want to sign up for 3 months, wherein we handle their total content production needs, animation, graphics, content writing etc. presenting them with marketing ideas and concepts crowdsourced from our community.

I just need to get over this hurdle and I believe we would be okay.

But these companies love the idea, they love my passion and are excited to work with our community, we just need to get started with one and grow it from there.

Minus Facebook Ads, I'm also utilizing 10 LinkedIn direct messages and Cold emailing.

For now, LinkedIn seems to be working the best to get me meetings.

Hopefully, by next week, I would have an update with a few contracts signed already, I'm 85% there to the first $1000.

Have a great Friday evening.
 

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