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Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

paulstamatiou.com

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Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#31

Post by twidlit »

lyime wrote: post #30
jordanlev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... I'd like to try you, and don't have time to try a bunch of other people as well. Would you mind explaining in your own words what is better about the quality of your prints (or service in general) than the others?

@jordanlev So we have tried ordering prints from a few other big digital photo printing sites. First thing that you will notice is that everyone uses much thinner quality paper then we use. We use heavy Luster Fujifilm photo paper, much thicker than many others. Our photo process is lightjet chemical process, most other companies use either a digital or inject process which is not as good as chemical photographic pro…

Whats stopping competitors from using heavy Luster Fujifilm photo paper and a lightjet chemical process? Is using them both sustainable for business? There must be a reason why "others" dont use these...

Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#33

Post by rorrr »

lyime wrote: post #30
jordanlev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... I'd like to try you, and don't have time to try a bunch of other people as well. Would you mind explaining in your own words what is better about the quality of your prints (or service in general) than the others?

@jordanlev So we have tried ordering prints from a few other big digital photo printing sites. First thing that you will notice is that everyone uses much thinner quality paper then we use. We use heavy Luster Fujifilm photo paper, much thicker than many others. Our photo process is lightjet chemical process, most other companies use either a digital or inject process which is not as good as chemical photographic pro…

Our photo process is lightjet chemical process, most other companies use either a digital or inject process which is not as good as chemical photographic process.

I bet 99.9% of customers cannot tell the difference between prints made by a

1) lightjet

2) Fuji Frontier

3) Noritsu

4) $500 inkjet printer

According to your FAQ, you are using "Fuji Crystal Archive" paper, which many of your competitors use (Snapfish, for instance).

It looks like you are targeting yourself to a high end market, while your print sizes are 4x6", which is very strange.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want you to fail, I'm just surprised with your business model, it's really confusing.

Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#34

Post by blakeperdue »

natgordon wrote: post #26

I think this is a killer idea. I have a 6-month old and the only picture we have of him on the fridge is an ultrasound picture. I would recommend making this as easy to gift as possible. A subscription like this might be more popular as a shower gift than something new parents purchase themselves. (Citrus Lane does an excellent job at this.)

More market validation: I also have a 6-month old and am really tired of the crop, upload, select photos, select size, select paper, fill out shipping addresses, enter payment info process I have to do every few months to send photos to family. I will say most of my family wants digital copies and don't care as much about prints -- unless they are amazing photos.

But, I have several family members that don't have computers or are not savvy enough to save photos to their computer. And they love prints. I'm your target market and I have to say this sounds like the perfect service for me.

Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#35

Post by blakeperdue »

timdorr wrote: post #20
rstocker99 wrote: post #19

Picplum reminded me of picwing which I believe is another YC company. I had a chuckle when I noticed that they both have the exact same testimonial from Jessica Livingston, modulo the company name. I'm not quite sure how both can be true: "Picwing is the easiest way for me to get digital photos printed. I just email pictures to my account and never have to think about it again. With Picwing, I can be sure that my fam…

Picplum bought Picwing and is essentially a rebranding of the same service, along with improvements. The testimonial holds because it's the same thing, just with an updated name.

I'm confused. If Picwing was acquired, why is their site still active? Was something licensed?

UPDATE: from http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/22/a-woman-a-cupcake-a-bank-an...

PicPlum acquired the assets of a previous Y-Combinator company PicWing, and took over its printer relationship and initial user base. The company currently has $150,000 in funding offered by SV Angel and Yuri Miller to all Y-Combinator startups earlier this year. The founders say they are beginning their fundraising now, and will be looking to hire soon.

Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#36

Post by natgordon »

PStamatiou wrote: post #28
natgordon wrote: post #26

I think this is a killer idea. I have a 6-month old and the only picture we have of him on the fridge is an ultrasound picture. I would recommend making this as easy to gift as possible. A subscription like this might be more popular as a shower gift than something new parents purchase themselves. (Citrus Lane does an excellent job at this.)

"I would recommend making this as easy to gift as possible" That has been the most requested thing in the past week. I think we'll have to make a splash with some kind of gift card come Holiday 2011!

People want to give gifts, not gift cards. :) Make sure that it's a stand-alone product (eg. a 6-month subscription) that can then be extended or upgraded, not $50 towards a membership.

Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#37

Post by PStamatiou »

blakeperdue wrote: post #35
timdorr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Picplum bought Picwing and is essentially a rebranding of the same service, along with improvements. The testimonial holds because it's the same thing, just with an updated name.

I'm confused. If Picwing was acquired, why is their site still active? Was something licensed? UPDATE: from http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/22/a-woman-a-cupcake-a-bank-an... PicPlum acquired the assets of a previous Y-Combinator company PicWing, and took over its printer relationship and initial user base. The company currently has $150,000 in funding offered by SV Angel and Yuri Miller to all Y-Combinator startups ear…

We haven't migrated the users over yet so we're keeping picwing up in the interim. Picplum was created-from-scratch with no code from picwing but we find value in their current userbase.

Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#38

Post by PStamatiou »

rorrr wrote: post #33
lyime wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@jordanlev So we have tried ordering prints from a few other big digital photo printing sites. First thing that you will notice is that everyone uses much thinner quality paper then we use. We use heavy Luster Fujifilm photo paper, much thicker than many others. Our photo process is lightjet chemical process, most other companies use either a digital or inject process which is not as good as chemical photographic pro…

Our photo process is lightjet chemical process, most other companies use either a digital or inject process which is not as good as chemical photographic process. I bet 99.9% of customers cannot tell the difference between prints made by a 1) lightjet 2) Fuji Frontier 3) Noritsu 4) $500 inkjet printer According to your FAQ, you are using "Fuji Crystal Archive" paper, which many of your competitors use (Snapfish, for…

I need to update the FAQ but we have since switched to lustre paper which is not crystal archive (that is only glossy).

One customer told us: "Shutterfly was really disappointing: pixelated, poor colors, and just a cheap feel - we'll never use them again." I quoted him in my post. Feel free to reach out to him to confirm.

As I mentioned in the post, 4x6 is just the start. We've only been working on this for 2.5 months :)

Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#39

Post by blakeperdue »

blakeperdue wrote: post #35
timdorr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Picplum bought Picwing and is essentially a rebranding of the same service, along with improvements. The testimonial holds because it's the same thing, just with an updated name.

I'm confused. If Picwing was acquired, why is their site still active? Was something licensed? UPDATE: from http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/22/a-woman-a-cupcake-a-bank-an... PicPlum acquired the assets of a previous Y-Combinator company PicWing, and took over its printer relationship and initial user base. The company currently has $150,000 in funding offered by SV Angel and Yuri Miller to all Y-Combinator startups ear…

Wrong link (altho that cupcake is a good read): http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/12/yc-funded-picplum-beautiful...

Re: Thoughts on Picplum Automatic Photo Prints

#40

Post by blakeperdue »

PStamatiou wrote: post #37
blakeperdue wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. If Picwing was acquired, why is their site still active? Was something licensed? UPDATE: from http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/22/a-woman-a-cupcake-a-bank-an... PicPlum acquired the assets of a previous Y-Combinator company PicWing, and took over its printer relationship and initial user base. The company currently has $150,000 in funding offered by SV Angel and Yuri Miller to all Y-Combinator startups ear…

We haven't migrated the users over yet so we're keeping picwing up in the interim. Picplum was created-from-scratch with no code from picwing but we find value in their current userbase.

Nice use of qq.FileUploader. What are you using for those floating (top right) user notifications like when I delete a photo?
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