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 family back East receives photos of my new baby regularly. They couldn't be happier!"
"Picplum 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 Picplum, I can be sure that my family back East receives photos of my new baby regularly. They couldn't be happier!"
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.
My only caveat to you is that you're flat out wrong that film is dying. Compared to the now-exploded market for entry-level and above pro-sumer SLRs like the Canons, film is tiny. However, the actual market for film has stayed pretty steady, thanks to new players like Lomography introducing medium format cheaply to a new generation of artistic kids.
I'm actually sympathetic to your outlook because when I was your age I used to roll my eyes at the idea of film. I had my 5D tricked out with a 14L/35L/85 II L/200L kit in my bag. Eight years later I'm shooting almost exclusively on a Hasselblad, but my Mamiya 7 and Mamiya C330 and FujiFilm G617 are all well loved (and I still have fun with a Holga).
Here's my suggestion to you, one photography obsessed startup guy to another: set aside a weekend to bike around with a rented Hasselblad 503 or Mamiya 7. You'll need three rolls of film: Ilford FP4 Plus 125, Kodak Portra VC400 and FujiFilm Velvia 50.
The first thing you'll notice is that with 12 shots on a roll, you have to exercise constraint and make every shot count. You'll start remembering why you took a photo, how you were feeling. Suddenly the shots that you'd discard on a 5D II are some of the most charming of the lot. You learn to appreciate that turning your most interesting creative decisions to a mass-produced autofocus IC is kind of a drag. Happy accidents abound.
I'm warning you... it's a rabbit hole, and you might never come back out (but you'll be very happy there).
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.
Let me chime in and add to the argument of paper vs. digital. We sell personalized kids books. Now you'd think, who in the heck buys books still? I'll tell you who: grandparents, aunts & uncles. While our eBook sales have risen steadily and with our iPad app coming up, I'm sure eBooks will take on an ever larger share of sales, people of a certain generation with spending power still love to touch paper.
Noticed a comment about the Picwing acquisition stating that the printer relationship was one of the aspects of the deal. You can't imagine how valuable that relationship is. We went through 4 printers before finally getting one who had the quality we wanted, turnaround time we wanted and price we wanted. From our first printer to our current printer, our cost per book fell by over 400%.
Big fan of physical printed objects. Interested to know how you guys differ from what the guys at Sincerely are doing and if you plan on opening up an API for prints.
We're finding Olark really useful as well. It's easy to set up and ensures that every day we chat with users. People are willing to chat about a product with less friction than they would send an email to a feedback address.
I feel like selling printed photos is a lot like selling CDs. You know at some point nobody will ever use these anymore. You don't know when, exactly, and they'll probably outlast the CD, but I personally already get annoyed when someone gives me a non-digital version of a photo. If I like it enough I scan it and throw it out, if I don't I just trash it directly.
Every day a bunch of people who want printed photos die, and a bunch of people who will never want one are born. That's not a good spot to be in for the long term.
Prints are just our first venture into the space. We'll use this to create a place where people store their best photos. We think there's a good opp to be had if we're in that situation.
Printed photos and CDs differ in that printed photos are useful without a computer, whereas CDs hold no sentimental value and are used only as a transfer medium.
My parents would greatly disagree with you. They're fairly computer literate, but for them photos don't "count" unless they're on paper. I always feel guilty because they never get to see many of my good photos locked away in Aperture. I think that's exactly the market here.
You get annoyed when someone goes to the trouble of giving you a photo they considered important enough to print and share with you? I understand that living simply is a goal, but that sounds a little silly. Your comment makes me wonder if you stab these unlucky photos with a pencil and burn them before "trashing it directly" — presumably before the jerk can leave the room so that they understand the existential crisis they have narrowly averted. :)
It's safe to say that humans are a sentimental and even nostalgic bunch. We crave individuality and expression, and photos are the ultimate simple expression of our life and times. Getting prints back is a joy greater than Christmas (for those into that sort of thing) any day of the year. It's actually kind of addictive, and having physical copies of those moments trumps online sharing for all of the obvious tactile reasons.
As long as people have kids and crushes, books-in-progress and wallets there will be printed photos... and thank goodness for that.
This is one of the major strengths of YC. They can build a small, profitable company with customers that read HN and TC. This gives them time to build a good product. Once they have that down they can go out and raise some money to help them compete more aggressively. And with a solid product.
There are tons of competitors in every market. We are not competing on price. We are a premium product and we offer a much better experience and a higher quality product than most of our competitors.
[+] [-] rstocker99|14 years ago|reply
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 family back East receives photos of my new baby regularly. They couldn't be happier!"
"Picplum 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 Picplum, I can be sure that my family back East receives photos of my new baby regularly. They couldn't be happier!"
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3637134/quotes/jl_picplum_quote.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3637134/quotes/jl_picwing_quote.png
[+] [-] timdorr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteforde|14 years ago|reply
My only caveat to you is that you're flat out wrong that film is dying. Compared to the now-exploded market for entry-level and above pro-sumer SLRs like the Canons, film is tiny. However, the actual market for film has stayed pretty steady, thanks to new players like Lomography introducing medium format cheaply to a new generation of artistic kids.
I'm actually sympathetic to your outlook because when I was your age I used to roll my eyes at the idea of film. I had my 5D tricked out with a 14L/35L/85 II L/200L kit in my bag. Eight years later I'm shooting almost exclusively on a Hasselblad, but my Mamiya 7 and Mamiya C330 and FujiFilm G617 are all well loved (and I still have fun with a Holga).
Here's my suggestion to you, one photography obsessed startup guy to another: set aside a weekend to bike around with a rented Hasselblad 503 or Mamiya 7. You'll need three rolls of film: Ilford FP4 Plus 125, Kodak Portra VC400 and FujiFilm Velvia 50.
The first thing you'll notice is that with 12 shots on a roll, you have to exercise constraint and make every shot count. You'll start remembering why you took a photo, how you were feeling. Suddenly the shots that you'd discard on a 5D II are some of the most charming of the lot. You learn to appreciate that turning your most interesting creative decisions to a mass-produced autofocus IC is kind of a drag. Happy accidents abound.
I'm warning you... it's a rabbit hole, and you might never come back out (but you'll be very happy there).
[+] [-] natgordon|14 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] [-] blakeperdue|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] PStamatiou|14 years ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] waterside81|14 years ago|reply
Noticed a comment about the Picwing acquisition stating that the printer relationship was one of the aspects of the deal. You can't imagine how valuable that relationship is. We went through 4 printers before finally getting one who had the quality we wanted, turnaround time we wanted and price we wanted. From our first printer to our current printer, our cost per book fell by over 400%.
[+] [-] frankdenbow|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twidlit|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lacker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnsmurf|14 years ago|reply
Every day a bunch of people who want printed photos die, and a bunch of people who will never want one are born. That's not a good spot to be in for the long term.
[+] [-] PStamatiou|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spicyj|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cschmidt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyleslattery|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteforde|14 years ago|reply
It's safe to say that humans are a sentimental and even nostalgic bunch. We crave individuality and expression, and photos are the ultimate simple expression of our life and times. Getting prints back is a joy greater than Christmas (for those into that sort of thing) any day of the year. It's actually kind of addictive, and having physical copies of those moments trumps online sharing for all of the obvious tactile reasons.
As long as people have kids and crushes, books-in-progress and wallets there will be printed photos... and thank goodness for that.
[+] [-] chopsueyar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rorrr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dot|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lyime|14 years ago|reply