Discussion in several topics here on the forum has brought on an intense desire to discuss what it would take to start your own agency. Having done this unsuccessfully myself, I not only have experience, but a desire to learn from anyone who has successfully attacked the stock photography world as a whole, or managed to sliver off a niche (maybe a particular theme, etc).


So to begin: The Cost

When I first started looking at it, I figured I could add it to the same hosting account that holds this forum site. I did the math and with 10GB of space would only house 5000 pictures.

The only hope for this was kTool's Photostore which someday is supposed to release a version which allows the downloads to be kept on a home server (because they are rarely actually touched). You would keep thumbnails online.

Anyhow, no matter how you look at it, it is a high overhead website! It need many pictures, and a lot of bandwidth. I discovered that while most of my sites have people looking at 3-20 pages and using 200-300k, people would look at my microstock site and burn up 4-5MB and less than 2% even signed up.

2nd: The Design

What are you going to make that is new. I started with a PhotoStore, that is a great place to begin, but you would totally need to customize it because if I ever see the default template, I run the other way (as both a photographer and designer). Someone recently even thought to add all your images to Google Base (www.ktools.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2132)

Here are a few of the things you had better be able to do, if you intend to be serious:
1. Advanced Search algorithm (combining old with new / unsold "fresh images" with top sellers) a. Search stock illustrations versus stock photos
b. Search horizontal, vertical
c. Search by size (billboard designer don't even want to see a 1.2MP image)
d. Search by prominent color

2. Follow a going selling process - When a buyer loses their chosen image while signing up for an account, they get really angry

3. Add 200-300 images a week (minimum, more when getting started and more as your grow). In my opinion its not the mainstream images that make of break an agency but the fringe searched ("snow cone images", "purple shoes", etc. Everyone has "woman cellphone" covered

4. You MUST have a written standard of quality for consistency in image acceptance. You don't have to make this public, but you need it for you image screeners

I am sure there are more, but more of the people who submit sites here on Microstock Forum are missing ALL of these.

3rd: The Marketing

Marketing is everything. You may be able to trick photographers into listing images for 3-6 months, but I have cancel 80% of the accounts I have opened because it you have all my images and no sales, I start to worry that you are just peddling my wares somewhere else.

1. Search Engine -
Take a look at this image, these are the inbound links of the major players.



The last column is Google and probably the most useful to compete. While many of these are cross site links, to start a new stock image website and have it show up for "cheap image" without paying for it just plain isn't going to happen without considerable investment (please inform me if you have had success taking over any popular keyword and I'll go analyze you site :twisted: )

2. Conventions

Major players are selling themselves offline as well as online. Again, one of the reasons I believe in LuckyOliver is that they are buying up booths at these conventions. Magazine ads, internet campaigns and application integration will all be required to survive


Finally,

I am not really sure why I just wrote this. I guess mainly to get it on paper what I have thought for the last year and get responses to it. So.... fire away, and I right, wrong or somewhere in the middle. Have you considering keeping 100% commission by starting your own site and have you had success?

I think you forgot to mention : A HELL of a lot of time (x10)!

Excellent write up. I think you have finally talked me out of it I do think it is good to see something like this so we remember where the other 40-60% of income earned by our images goes. I have seen iStock at one conference I was at and I'm sure their booth wasn't cheap.

microstock is still in its infancy and much like when traditional stock was in its early days, there were many "mom & pop" agencies. As time went on and the traditional stock licensing model took hold and began to garner a larger portion of the dollars spent on visual content, some big money moved into the industry and mergers took place (and MANY smaller agencies fell by the wayside as a result).

I suspect that starting a microstock agency that is competitive in the future will require a substantial level of financial investment: you're going to be up against players in an industry that have marketing dollars in the millions, not thousands.

Excellent point! I think that we are already seeing this happen in some of the larger agencies. I don't have enough money to drop in 10 major magazine ads, have a booth at 5 trade shows and coat large image consumers with all sorts of other advertisements.

I think it is almost impossible to start photo market now. It is too late. Many sites are there, and they have mlions of customers. I don't even think of running my own photo store, not even in a dream!