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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?

#41

Post by imjk »

I've made some suggestions for monetization below, but I also have a suggestion for improving user engagement and stickiness:

Have a ranking system page for the most popular artists. It can be based on both views or a more explicit voting system by other artist peers. One of the first things I looked for was a popular tab.

Also, by having such a ranking system you can identify who are the most influential users on the site, and do all sorts of other projects with them to further increase site engagement.

You even have the potential to either start your own record label or feed other record labels with up-and-coming artists. You'd have perhaps the best metrics-based system to find who the next great superstar musician will be; Even more so than Youtube as you'll be using a system of fellow musicians to determine talent/popularity.

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

#42

Post by spoiledtechie »

pud wrote: post #23
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. Bu…

You could sort of go the kick starter route... Raise money for bands, take a small percentage... Raise money for musicians to sign their own label? Raise money for something bands do like maybe equipment? Take small percentages. Do a craigslist for musicians. Sell things like Ebay.

Sorry for the sporatic, it was a brain dump...

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

#43

Post by pud »

zpk wrote: post #11

Coldfusion? You built this with ColdFusion? Damn PUD, you're advice back in the day was to use CF for version 0.1 And still using it, impressive! Maybe you can advertise the hell out of this, and make a threadless or kickstarter for musicians and take a haircut every month for some sort of product the consumer would pay for, downloadable mp4 at a certain quality? Or maybe add video ads like youtube, or maybe a radio…

For more about ColdFusion and my ridiculous stack, see: http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-back...

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

#44

Post by nickler »

Remember the old adage, if you're on a site and you can't figure out what the product is, the product is probably you.

I would start polling your users to find out what they find valuable about your site, what they would like to see, and what features they would be willing to pay for. Why ask the lot of us who don't have a stake in your success?

Your users will vote with their dollar, or their logins, and will have the most powerful opinions of what paid features will be most valuable to them.

Best of luck, musicians are a hard lot to monetize.

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

#45

Post by pud »

swaroop wrote: post #6

IIUC, Muziboo.com is a similar site and they do offer pro features : http://www.muziboo.com/tour/

Interesting thanks. I hadn't seen that site before. Do you happen to know what their pricing is? I don't see it on that page.

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

#46

Post by wdewind »

josscrowcroft wrote: post #35
pud wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is excellent - I'd love to buy instruments hand-made by people I can connect with.

Etsian here :D

http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_query=guitars&...

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

#47

Post by gonehome »

pud wrote: post #31
khangtoh wrote: post #29

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 i…

I love the idea of American Idol for guitarists/drummers/etc. I really could find the best musicians in the world. That would be fun. From a business perspective, if I wanted to make money doing that, I could imagine sponsors like guitar companies paying. Fender (maker of the famous Stratocaster guitar, for you non musicians) just filed IPO paperwork and had something like $700M in sales last year.

This idea is awesome and will make Fandalism something different than just another marketplace. It's also a nice time to show that not only do we not need the RIAA for distribution, we don't need them for promotion. Your site's design is also beautiful enough to do it.

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

#48

Post by mladenkovacevic »

pud wrote: post #23
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. Bu…

I have an idea that probably doesn't have much revenue generating potential but it could be a cool new feature (to me at least). I spent about 20 seconds on the website so sorry if you already have this, but I didn't notice it. The users could have the ability to do interactive jam sessions, even if they are miles apart. Maybe something like a high fidelity audio only version of Google Hangouts.Each participant would need some headphones and a resonable quality microphone. I guess if you were looking for a way to squeeze some money out of this, perhaps you could sell recorded copies of the jam sessions to the participans or anyone else willing to pay for them I guess. Sorta like a demo mixing service :P I bet a lot of bands could get their start this way. You'd be removing any limitations of proximity between musicians. Can you imagine if every member of the Beatles had been born in different parts of the world?

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

#50

Post by mattmaroon »

For now I'd focus 100% on improving the product. You're building a social network of sorts, which means the network effect is your big hurdle. You're in a land rush. Forget about anything other than winning that land rush right now. Build a network so populous and engaged that even if someone builds a better site (and if your growth keeps going, they will) it won't matter.

If the server bill gets too high, toss in the least amount of Adwords you can to pay for it. Or just ask your users to donate. Or come up with some premium features that are just compelling enough to keep the lights on. Or raise money from angels. Again, keep the lights on while you improve the product and grow your userbase.

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