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I have 404,772 users. Now what?

pud.com

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Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#3
Musicians typically don't have a lot of money, so I wouldn't introduce premium features.

You do have a very niche market, so targeted advertising should work nicely.

That said, you know your market best. Your question is a bit like asking us what kind of pants you should buy. How the heck should we know? If you've got a fat butt, go with cargo pants. You know best.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#5
If was doing anything related to music, I would be doing everything I could to build a spotify with a transparent business model that made it easy as possible to get artists music in front of monetizable fans as much possible (both through direct sales and indirect revenue, concert tickets, merchandise etc)

I love spotify, but they have had to make severe concessions to labels and it doesnt look like it will be possible for them to build an app that completely disintermediates labels, I think its inevitable someone will though.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#7
Agreed that premium probably won't net you all that much. I would guesstimate that to make enough to cover your costs with ads, you'd end up putting more ads up than your aesthetic sense would prefer.

I have no experience going this route, but what about helping the artists to make money off of their music and taking a share along the way. Something akin to etsy perhaps. You'd go from 400k musicians to ~4M musician's friends who are interested in supporting them.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#8
Depending on how many impressions you have, and how active your users are - putting a FEW adsense banners will almost certainly cover your costs.

What about a way to get musicians to sell their music through you? You make a small % cut on sales?

Why not try a premium profile? Musicians don't have money, correct - but some will spend a bit if you provide value, right? You have 400k users, even if 1% converts a $xx/m that is still something.

What can you offer musicians that they need? Sales. Production. Marketing. How can you make all/some of that software dynamic?

You should try multiple things and see what works. What do you have to lose?

The first thing you need to do right now is put adsense on. Not cover your page, but in a few key places to stop your monthly burn. It will be like magic...watch.

Edit: I just googled and found these guys: http://www.hostbaby.com/

What about adding something like that on? Music distribution, websites, online promotion tools. That site/service doesn't look amazing - but I am sure you can make something a step up.

Sure some time investment and a bit of money. But you have 400k users man! Keep going and good job.

Re: I have 404,772 users. Now what?

#9
Some (random) thoughts / ideas. They might or might not hit what you're looking for but they're some types of connections that came to mind when surfing the site:

- On first sight, I get the impression that it's a profile site. The musician in me wants to find others like me, or that complement what I'm doing to connect, relate, share music with, maybe collaborate with..

- Events - Maybe music related events (learning, or looking for performers) could be something to provide. A place to find gigs?

- See if there's a way you can help musicians find and take their next step. This could have some sort of value, as nebulous as it sounds. Kind of like Mixergy.

- Group buy deals that you can target to your team. You get to keep a cut of the deals.

- Adding musician tools that would be valuable. I don't want to go all cdbaby, but maybe there's something there to help musicians learn about and manage the business side of their music. I'm not sure if that means courses, a subscription, etc.

- If you can replace existing services musicians pay for, they will probably be open to paying you instead. An example of this might be voicemail, or domain hosting (very basic and cookie cut with their own email address.

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