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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?

#21

Post by mtjl79 »

ccoggins wrote: post #19
j45 wrote: post #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 (learnin…

Going along with the idea of helping musicians find gigs, make the venues pay a membership fee to get connected with musicians. I would think venues more likely to be able to pay for a service over an aspiring musician. Also, I enjoy seeing such an honest response from someone in charge of a business :)

A really great idea. If you can help people make money, you can easily make money.

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

#22

Post by evanjacobs »

The expectation for entrepreneurs is that they always have this very clear vision of how they are going to change the world when in fact many of them simply get hooked on an idea that then goes on to change the world. Uncertainty is viewed by many as a sign of weakness but if you're being honest then you need to expect that there will be times when you don't know what to do next.

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

#23

Post by pud »

bryanh wrote: post #16

Why not go the CDBaby, Bandcamp.com or Threaded route? You have musicians, they have music, why not create a marketplace around their persona and talent? Feature them, give them exposure. Get them sales . Just take your modest cut. 400k users is an awesome sandbox, don't waste it!

Three thoughts about selling music on Fandalism:

1) The site is setup for individual musicians, not bands or acts. I'm really targeting the high school kid who sits on his bed and plays lightening-fast guitar solos. He doesn't have anything to sell.

2) If I promised that kid he'd make significant (to him) $$ selling his music, I'd probably be lying.

3) Most musicians aren't going to make money selling their music. But they get a high out of having lots of people listen to it. So I'd rather just let people give it away for free and optimize for generating lots of plays, which would make them happy. Vs helping them sell it only to be disappointed.

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

#25

Post by kefs »

bryanh wrote: post #16

Why not go the CDBaby, Bandcamp.com or Threaded route? You have musicians, they have music, why not create a marketplace around their persona and talent? Feature them, give them exposure. Get them sales . Just take your modest cut. 400k users is an awesome sandbox, don't waste it!

Maybe try and get in contact with Derek Sivers, creator of CDBaby.. He may have a few helpful tips, and may even mentor you to success, like Kimo did for him.

https://sivers.org/kimo

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

#27

Post by pud »

imjk wrote: post #20

Build another site aimed at musicians with an clear revenue stream from the start (i.e. the Zappos of Music or the Groupon of Music) and use Fandalism site as a free traffic source/advertising platform. Continue to grow Fandalism as a social network which in effect will grow your revenue site. Another Idea: - Use your platform among musicians to build a music festival and again use Fandalism as a free traffic source…

This is an interesting idea. On one hand, I think my users like the Fandalism brand so I'd want to launch new stuff on Fandalism.com. On the other hand, you have a good point. Maybe I should keep Fandalism.com (the site) pure and launch experimental businesses on different domains.

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

#28

Post by mtjl79 »

AwesomeTogether wrote: post #24

it's time to start betraying your users by making subtle but significant changes to the terms of service in preparation for exploiting their personal info for financial gain

How is he betraying his users? You mean the free software he built and the $2,500 in expenses he is dishing out every month?

The man has worked hard and built something amazing. Why can't he make money? What is wrong with that.

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

#29

Post by khangtoh »

All of the suggestions or what Philip had been thinking of are pretty "generic" solutions to the "problem". I spent 5 mins on the site, clicking around and my first impression of the Fandalism is the community and Fandalism's tag line is "Use Fandalism to show your work and meet other musicians".

The community is most likely a mix of musicians AND music lovers. So even Fandalism's original goal of serving musicians is what it is, I'm sure there are music lovers who are enjoying the community's work as well.

All of the monetization solutions suggested thus far does not cover both ends of the users.

I'm more of a coder / developer guy but occasionally I like to play the product guy. So here is my suggestion so let me know what you think especially you, Philip, if you are reading:

KickStarter for Musicians. Be the online version of American Idol or British's Got Talent. You have musicians and also they have their audiences on Fandalism.

First mission is to scout or fund the first internet musician superstar. Get the winner into a professional studio, get a few singles out. Backers get singles free, the rest gets to buy the singles fr a price. Fandalism gets a cut of the sales. The rest should be history.

Up vote if you think this will work or comment if you have more to add.

@pud What do you think? If you really want to venture out this way, I'm available for a ride. ;) That would be fun.

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

#30

Post by pud »

gregable wrote: post #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…

You mentioned Etsy. I don't think selling music would work (for reasons I've outlined in another HN comment here) but oddly there are several people on Fandalism who make their own instruments and have contacted me about helping them sell them. Custom guitars and so on. I wonder if there are enough of them to warrant building an Etsy-like platform for them.
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