
I have 404,772 users. Now what? - pud
http://pud.com/post/21248770833/i-have-404-772-users-now-what
======
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. __

~~~
pud
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.

~~~
pm
I'm all for finding the "best musicians in the world", but what really shits
me about Idol and similar shows is that they find technically brilliant
singers, but they can't write a song if their life depended on it. The same
with many brilliant musicians I know - they have the technical chops, but have
no basic idea how to structure a song other than chorus-verse or maybe AABA.

There's got to be a market for musicians who know how to write.

~~~
phzbOx
Look, watch that: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_hHc7TZjyY>

That beauty transformed into this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY-
vXcmpZIw>

Please, don't blame the musicians.

~~~
dasil003
She wanted to be a pop star and she became one of the greatest of all
time—decades after the height of the pop star era when labels actually had the
capability to manufacture them.

Frank Zappa made a career of playing rock music instead of jazz or classical
which many people consider a greater art form. It never was really "pop" music
but still there are many that criticize him for it.

I'd be very careful to avoid derision on the basis of popularity. That fact
that you have distaste for Lady Gaga's genre doesn't mean she's not a valid
artist. There's a difference between relying on autotune because you're a
talentless hack and an artistic decision.

------
dools
A few months ago I did a post[1] where I promoted a page I made for my dad
Nick Dooley[2] which was basically to test whether a simple "online busking"
model has legs.

The results were that about 4000 people downloaded the 1st track, about half
that the second and roughly 350 each for the last two (I didn't do enough
analysis to know if those last 350 or so people were the same ones or not).

Out of those, about 20 people gaves some "bucks" and 9 people subscribed to
the mailing list.

I would say your best bet is to allow people to pay artists on the site via a
"virtual guitar case" and take a small percentage of each transaction.

If you have 404,772 users and promote one per day and drive 4000 people to
that page per day, and your average musician drives $40 worth of revenue per
day, you know. You make some money. Then you just increase the traffic and
away you go.

[1]
[http://www.workingsoftware.com.au/page/Thanks_Louis_now_here...](http://www.workingsoftware.com.au/page/Thanks_Louis_now_here_is_my_dad)

[2] <http://www.nickdooley.com/>

~~~
pud
Cool concept -- I remember your original post on HN. I definitely think a site
where musicians could ask for donations would be cool and I'd put my music
there.

I'm apprehensive to do this on Fandalism though. If I promise money to my
users I'd be setting them up for disappointment since the vast majority
wouldn't make any.

In other words I'd probably rather the message be "Use Fandalism because it's
fun and cool!" rather than "Use Fandalism to make money!"

~~~
iuguy
How about you let musicians sell either through you directly (a la itunes or
amazon) on their sites or post itunes links? You could take a cut for the
former (less than itunes) and get them to release unencumbered music.

~~~
tripzilch
It would take a crazy amount of work to beat bandcamp.com in terms of quality
and service. Start with making Fandalism's HTML less sluggish.

------
DanI-S
Pud - when I look at your site, I see a marketplace for video music lessons. A
tonne of people would pay $1.99 to learn a Radiohead song on piano, or get
that perfect 'wub wub' sound in Reason. There's similar stuff on YouTube, but
it's low quality and unreliable, and discovery is hard. Create a marketplace
and you'll attract the best of the best.

Prerecorded video would be perfect at first, but you could happily expand to
live, streaming lessons. I'm excited already. What do you think?

~~~
pud
That's a good idea. There are people on Fandalism who are unbelievably good
musicians, better than pros. I should ask them to do online lessons or
whatnot.

(of course, just because they're a good musician doesn't mean they're a good
teacher. but i could come up with guidelines to help them teach..)

~~~
te_chris
This could be very cool. I'm quite a good musician myself (varsity educated
and all that), but lately I've really been wanting to learn some more solo
production techniques (basically I want to make music that sounds like purity
ring: <http://soundcloud.com/purity-ring>) as, despite all my education and
experience, I don't really know squat about how to produce a good dance track.
I would be really interested in somewhere where I could post a lesson request
like "I want to make a beat that sounds like the one from Belispeak" and tag
it with say "Ableton, production, purity ring, EDM" and someone answer it.
Wouldn't even need to be paid - though perhaps you could do like a reward
system: if the person who responds is awesome, you could tip them?

Sorry, typing/thinking out loud here.

~~~
JonnieCache
OT but anyway... consider it a validation of the idea.

 _> "I want to make a beat that sounds like the one from Belispeak"_

The type of beat (and the melodic structure) they're using there is lifted
wholesale from a subgenre of southern hiphop called "trap music," which takes
its name from its preoccupation with methamphetamine retail.

Example: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K5hJIuo3_g>

The key is to take the classic 808 and 909 drum machines (ableton has
emulations built in or you can get samples from anywhere) and put the right
kind of rolls on the percussion sounds, you could try triggering them in some
more unusual ways, perhaps with an arpeggiator. The "pop" sound stems from the
layers of vocal processing. Tbh there's nothing terribly complicated going on
production wise in their tracks, unfortunately that sound comes from having
good musical ideas and the ability to execute them without fuss. That's not
something you can really get from tutorial videos, but I guess your formal
education will help.

BTW you will also enjoy the music of kuedo:

<http://www.factmag.com/2011/10/03/fact-mix-288-kuedo/>

And perhaps the more juke-oriented style of Sully:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th7ODqfXKWI>

------
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.

~~~
pud
This is probably the correct answer (focus 100% on improving the product).

The product is at a state where people like the _idea_ of it so they sign up
en masse -- but I'm not sure the site lives up to the expectation yet.

~~~
staunch
Focus on _engagement_. Sign ups are almost meaningless if the users bounce and
never return. The reason Facebook is so amazing is not just that they have a
billion users, it's that they have 80% of them checking the site 5x per week
(or whatever).

See how many users you can get into the habit of coming back to your site on a
regular basis. That's the number that ultimately will drive everything:
revenue, long term network effects, etc.

BTW, there's no reason in hell it should cost you $2500/mo already. Obviously
you can afford it to some extent but that's just a waste of money. You should
be able to run it for < $500/mo easily.

~~~
majani
'Engagement' is overrated. Some sites , e.g Google and Wikipedia probably have
super high bounce rates, because they solve your problem on the first page you
see. What if people start entering his site mainly from band pages, get all
the necessary info and leave? That wouldn't be a bad thing for users.

~~~
staunch
Engagement doesn't mean time on site. Millions of people check Reddit 10x per
day for <5 minutes per visit. _That's_ a great kind of engagement.

------
Dexec
Pud, as I said here (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3520013>) 80 days
ago, the way you keep putting out quality products is great. It's funny that
your post on getting users (<http://pud.com/post/5239917032/users>) isn't even
a year old (although you don't seem to be using a lot of those methods for
this project).

Do your project ideas (big and small) just come to you or do you have a
process?

And any thoughts on doing a small post on a day/week in the life of Pud? Like
how much time you spend on projects (planning, coding, designing), and
whatever else you do like jamming. You clearly know at least a little about
time management and/or avoiding procrastination.

------
wallawe
Disclaimer: this one's out there.

Think stock market for music meets Kickstarter. As you mentioned, most
musicians are strapped for cash. Most also have plans for bigger and better
things, need new equipment, and want to get the word out about their music.

Let each musician set a value on their musical worth (market cap). Let
friends, family, and fans contribute to the musician for a percentage stake in
that musician's future/company. You take a cut of the money contributed sort
of like a brokerage/transaction fee. They own a share of that musician. If I
own 10 percent of John Doe and John gets a record deal for 1M, then I earn
$100,000. Sure most people never make it, but it could be a fun way to spice
up interest in a musician and help out at the same time. Plus the added bonus
if that person really does make it big.

I have thought about this one for awhile but don't have the technical
expertise to put it together yet. I might end up kicking myself for putting it
out there, but if it worked, it could be really cool. Good luck.

~~~
raldi
Tweeted. It's a fantastic idea -- it turns listening to indie music into a
game. With rewards.

I hope that do you it, or if you don't, I hope someone steals your idea.

~~~
wallawe
I think that Mr. Pud is in a great position to do something like this. It
requires intricate, thorough exploration and thought and likely a lot of legal
help, but it's interesting how often I hear an indie musician and think, "God
if I could buy stock in that musician, because he/she's going to the top..."
and sometimes they do.

------
pbreit
Something a lot of us could learn from pud: ask for suggestions, actually read
them and respond thoughtfully.

Well done.

------
crusso
Great blog post. It was refreshingly honest in its approach to the HN
community. HN gets a lot of the "How do I get started fishing?" type posts. I
very much enjoyed reading this "Okay, I have my hook set on something big. How
do I pull it into the boat?"

I would recommend doing a lot of little things in different directions that
can be measured then focusing on the ideas that show the most promise.

Pick the low-hanging fruit first, like ad sense. Keep the ad box small and
unobtrusive. You could set it up in a day and see how it performs. You can
always remove it later.

A simple mobile app that you could give away for free shouldn't take long to
write. That will get you something installed on lots of devices that you could
then use as a foothold for upgrades and premium features down the road.

Finally, find ways to reach out to your users and really tap into what they
want from the site. Build ways into your site to get that reach and to take
metrics of everything they're doing. In real terms, I'm talking integrated
surveys, A/B testing of interfaces and features, and ways for you to increase
the channels of communication between you and your users. Your users will help
you figure out which way you could go with this thing.

Good luck!

------
pitchups
Going through all the comments, there are some great ideas. We are bulding a
community website for entrepreneurs/startups and could probably use some of
these ideas ourselves.

Here are a few more:

\- Allow musicians to offer "live" concerts to their fans or to a worldwide
audience, using the free Google+ hangouts or air feature. I think they just
released an API. The most popular ones can be sponsored or you could just run
ads on the Youtube videos and share revenues with the musicians.

\- Setup a buy/sell section on the site (or on a separate subdomain or
website) for used music instruments, accessories, books, sheet music etc. and
either charge a small fee for listing or a transaction fee. If you don't want
to run an ecommerce site, just let them list their stuff on Ebay or Amazon,
but allow links to it from their profiles. These could be affiliate links and
you could split the revenues with them (with full disclosure on the site).

\- Have targeted email newsletters, for different interest areas. Sell
advertising within the newsletters (it won't clutter your site).

~~~
eddmc
I totally agree with this last point. I help run a small sailing website. We
have no ads on our site, but we send out regular email newsletters that
contain ads. These ads more than pay for the site itself, and we can easily
switch advertisers between the newsletters. It's been a lot easier than I
thought to target advertisers, because we have a load of data on how many
people have subscribed and click-through rates etc. We typically sell the
adverts in blocks of 3 or 6 months, where we send out 2 newsletters per month.

The most clicked-on links in that email newsletter is a list of the recent
posts made to the classified section on our website. It's free to post an
advert up on the classified section of something you're trying to sell, but
you need to be a member of the site to do that. The newsletter acts as a
reminder - so people can regularly see what's been recently posted, as they
probably haven't visited that part of the website recently.

------
imjk
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 (and it's users as free promoters) to build
a large reputable production (a la Coachella, Bonnaroo, SXSW). Live like a
rock star.

~~~
pud
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.

~~~
imjk
Yeah, this way you don't have to worry about ruining the Fandalism brand or
the user experience.

You're in an awesome position Philip. More than anything, enjoy the
experience.

------
alexchamberlain
Pud, don't forget there are 2 sides to profit. Income and costs. Monetisation
is important and there have been loads of ideas here. However, can you drive
down costs? Have you investigated a dedicated server instead of EC2?

~~~
MichaelApproved
At $2,500/month in costs, even if he drives it down to $1/month, the site
still isnt generating any money. Generating money is the problem, not cutting
costs. At least that's the problem at hand, at the moment.

~~~
kennywinker
No, but 2.5k/month is a friggin' mortgage... if he brings the cost down he can
sustain it for longer while he tries out various ways of generating money.

~~~
MichaelApproved
The guy is loaded and said he could consider it a hobby. The cost of running
it isn't the concern. The question of it ever making real money is.

~~~
alexchamberlain
But you can only make real money, if your costs are realistic. His costs are
rediculous.

------
pheelicks
From what I gather, a lot of artists make the bulk of their income from
concert tickets and merchandise, as a large slice of the income from music
sales goes to a label.

Two suggestions:

\- Make it real easy for artists to sell merchandise through the site. E.g
they just upload a couple of logo's and you deal with printing T-shirts,
mailing them etc...

\- Organising concerts. You could take a cue from Kickstarter and have a
system where the fans of an artist commit to going to see them play. Once say,
50 people have committed, the gig goes ahead.

In both the above scenarios you handle all of payments, naturally taking your
cut.

~~~
colmmacc
As a touring (folk!) musician, here's what I'd love to add to the platforms
that BandCamp and CD baby already provide;

1\. A salesforce for managing fan and venue relationships; I'd love it to be
easier to build simple lists of invitations for events by location. Facebook
events on their own don't cut it.

It would also be great to have some simple reminders and calendaring with
mapping integration to manage booking. When did I last nag that venue? Who
from our band is available on that day? What other venues are within 300 km?

2\. Digital autographs! Autographs are kinda lame - but people still like
them, and it makes a connection. I'd love to be able to write something on a
piece of paper, snap a photo of it with my iphone, and have an app extract the
message and signature - then put it on top of a promo photo before sending it
to someone in a form they can use on their facebook page (ideally with links
back to our band page).

3\. An online platform for music lessons. Many musicians now make an income
from remote instrument lessons via skype - especially in niche music
categories. Skype and google chat and so on all optimise audio codecs for
speech - not music, so there's one thing that could be different. But how
useful would it also be to have a collabedit-like guitar, mandolin, violin,
piano .. etc? The teacher could share hints and notes with the student. The
teacher might also be able to select from some pre-saved sets of tunes or
songs, or chord charts and so on.

------
jyothi
most of the ideas posted by you are revenue models through advertising (where
the real value of the user base is not extracted) or with more cumbersome
product ecommerce tied with shipping which you don't want to do.

I bet you have these other ideas too - just wanted to point out that if it is
an expensive hobby why not keep it as close to heart while making money too:

1\. Sell amateur music and published albums of artists on the site.

2\. Get musicians collaborate to create a Virtual Learning Environment

3\. Let musicians get a private space to blog and evangelize their music to
the visitors of the site for a fee. Support reviews, rating etc

4\. Let musicians collaborate and organize music tours through the portal.

5\. Let fans connect to their favorite musicians - ask questions, get
autographs or learn music for a fee

Just some of the ideas to keep it close to music

~~~
waterlesscloud
The idea of crowdsourcing venue info for mini-tour assembly is an interesting
one.

------
rfriedman
Pud - First of all congratulations. 404, 772 users is serious business!

You already have a nice platform for musicians. How about connecting those
musicians to help them form bands? As a drummer, I'm constantly looking for
new people to jam with and would love to find a kick ass lead singer. It's
really hard to find people outside of your social circle, and that enjoy the
same music as you. Your site seems like it could really solve this pain point.

I'd love to be able to create a profile where I can tell people "Hey, I drum,
I like metal, I can jam these days, I live in this city, lets play some
music". Metallica was created when Lars / James put an ad in the newspaper,
the other answered, and the rest is history. Now imagine, this sort of
connection on Fandalism.

In terms of monetizing, I think you could use a sort of 'first look' approach
like American Idol. If a band forms via your site and continues to use your
platform, you could offer to sign them to your label, and give them more
exposure on your site.

Another platform that comes to mind, is online Karaoke. American Idol, in
essence, is a giant Karaoke fest. Nobody's singing their own songs. If you
could create a platform where singers choose a song, and have the lyrics
stream across the screen while they sing, you might be able to find some great
new talent.

------
alanwells
If you really like the site & community you have built and are in it for the
long term, here's an idea: build a stock market for buying a share of an
individual musician's or song's future revenue.

With crowdfunding legislation passed, you could wait the 9 months for the SEC
to determine the regulations for crowdfunding brokers and become one of the
first brokers, with a focus on building a marketplace for investing in
undiscovered musical talent. You could also, in the same platform, provide a
secondary marketplace for reselling those shares so there is liquidity for
early investors.

If musicians are better equipped than most to recognize the talent in other
musicians, your site provides the perfect community in which to build this
marketplace. The high school kid who can really jam on the guitar today might
be tomorrow's superstar, and perhaps a community of musicians could recognize
that, invest in him, and eventually earn a return on their investment. With
the crowdfunding model, the minimum investment could be quite small and within
reach for many on the site.

Your business model could be as a traditional broker - taking a fee for the
stock purchase, or as a flat monthly fee for active traders. Or you could have
your fee be in equity in every musician that sells their shares on the market,
but that seems like it could generate conflicts of interest.

If the $2500/month burn is an immediate issue or might force a shutdown, ask
your users to donate and try to get enough to cover 18 months of expenses
("personal appeal from jimmy wales"-inspired banner might work), giving the
the time needed to wait for the SEC and build the marketplace.

------
zpk
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 player for users to pay
for to queue up entire albums/genres/suggestions streaming.

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

~~~
snowwrestler
Site is not loading, which seems apt given the topic. :-)

~~~
pud
Heh. Though the link goes to a Tumblr page. Fandalism is running fine. ;-D

------
kephra
Some ideas:

Advertising is an idea, but the problem is, that you likely don't want random
ads, selling phone sex, or other products a musician does not want.

I bit to late. I would have said "Come to Germany", one to three month ago,
"join me at Frankfurt Music Fair, and we hustle around to hunt targeted
advertisements, by shaking hand with the right people".

The other idea is to expand the business into a premium membership for live
acts. I know that people are willing to pay for listening live to shoutcast
streams. Managing shoutcast severs for musicians is one of the many small
parts of my income. A good musician can earn about $50 in average per hour, by
sitting in underpants in front of his computer, because people love paying
tip!

All you need is a premium membership (accept pp and cc from listeners, payout
with paypal), an own geoip shoutcast relay network, and charge some percent.

Last is your cost structure. You hobby costs $2,500/month. Thats a lot of
money for the cloud trap. Own hosting or even co locating could be much
cheaper in the long run. But you need some more admin work.

You can contact me in IRC (freenode #startups) or at my website
<http://kephra.de/>

------
j45
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 (learning, or looking for performers)
could be something to provide. A place to find gigs?

\- See if there's a way you can help musicians find and take their next step.
This could have some sort of value, as nebulous as it sounds. Kind of like
Mixergy.

\- Group buy deals that you can target to your team. You get to keep a cut of
the deals.

\- Adding musician tools that would be valuable. I don't want to go all
cdbaby, but maybe there's something there to help musicians learn about and
manage the business side of their music. I'm not sure if that means courses, a
subscription, etc.

\- If you can replace existing services musicians pay for, they will probably
be open to paying you instead. An example of this might be voicemail, or
domain hosting (very basic and cookie cut with their own email address.

~~~
pud
I like all these ideas and want to do all of them in one form or another. Most
of them I'd want to make free (like the learning stuff). But.. _events_...
that could be a fun one. Specifically, I envision a huge trade show like CES
but for musicians. There's currently one called "NAMM" but it's not open to
the public. It would be a lot of hard work but I think would be fun. Ideally
it would be free or cheap for musicians, and money would be made via sponsors
and selling booth/demo space.

~~~
j45
You potentially have the ultimate meetup for musicians... Music is as much
about creating as connecting.

Some more ideas from the music consumer perspective:

1) I've been listening to music on the site for an hour and I've been struck
with how much soulful music there is here... Any thought in helping them
publish to iTunes and taking a small cut?

2) If love to be able to make a playlist by genre and share it.

3) Maybe there's a way I can give micro payments for all the stuff I like?
Another angle for consumers to maybe sign up for a membership to vote with
their wallet to the artists you listen to in a month..and my 10/mo is split
among the number of listeners I liked in a month?

4) Could there be sponsors for learning materials?

5) What about a digital music streaming service for businesses? Good music,
all original, businesses routinely pay $20-40/month and up for this kind. Put
the music into genres, let the community rate it and let it self-rank into
playlists.

6) Spawn an online radio station exclusively for the music on the site.

I've been around online music and radio for a while..had lots of potential
ideas, just didn't have the content. if you want to bounce ideas if love to.

Forgive any typos or grammar, writing from my phone. :)

------
mtjl79
Depending on how many impressions you have, and how active your users are -
putting a FEW adsense banners will almost certainly cover your costs.

What about a way to get musicians to sell their music through you? You make a
small % cut on sales?

Why not try a premium profile? Musicians don't have money, correct - but some
will spend a bit if you provide value, right? You have 400k users, even if 1%
converts a $xx/m that is still something.

What can you offer musicians that they need? Sales. Production. Marketing. How
can you make all/some of that software dynamic?

You should try multiple things and see what works. What do you have to lose?

The first thing you need to do right now is put adsense on. Not cover your
page, but in a few key places to stop your monthly burn. It will be like
magic...watch.

Edit: I just googled and found these guys: <http://www.hostbaby.com/>

What about adding something like that on? Music distribution, websites, online
promotion tools. That site/service doesn't look amazing - but I am sure you
can make something a step up.

Sure some time investment and a bit of money. But you have 400k users man!
Keep going and good job.

~~~
pud
You mentioned music distribution tools. Currently it's a huge pain in ass
getting your music on iTunes or Amazon. There are services that help with this
but it's still a pain in the ass (you need to register for an RIAA permit, get
a barcode for your music.. srsly it's ridiculous).

It would be fun if I just made a simple "Get your music on iTunes for $20 per
song."

Hmm.

------
rufugee
I'm sorry, but $2,500 a month to run this site just seems high...I'm not sure
what technology pud used to create the site, but it'd be interesting to know.
I'd love to see my own sites get this much traffic, but damned if I could
really afford to carry the success for too many months. This is where I really
think the whole Rails (not saying he used rails...just using it as an example)
argument of cheaper development costs but higher server costs breaks down. For
the single entrepreneur, and app implemented in Rails versus one in a much
faster/resource-friendy (PHP? Java?) framework/language could mean real,
significant, insurmountable costs.

Of course, I could be wrong, and I'm sure someone will throw out the rails-is-
not-the-bottleneck-the-database-is argument, but I recall reading an article
about the gentleman who wrote plentyoffish.com in an unorthodox fashion with
C#, and was able to run it for some time successfully on his home machine,
then on _one_ physical server. I think this would likely be impossible with
rails.

And I say this as a rails fan/developer...

~~~
masonhensley
He wrote a post about his backend in August, I think it relates to this
project. (He uses ColdFusion)

[http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-
back...](http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-back-end)

~~~
rufugee
Missed that. Thanks!

------
AznHisoka
You have 400,000 people who actively use your product? I imagine a bunch
signed up thru TC, and the initial press, but how many people use it day to
day?

~~~
pud
Around 40,000 uniques per day. So 10% log in daily? That seems reasonable for
a site like this. I guess Facebook is at 50% but that's super insane rare.

Otoh Fandalism is kind of like LinkedIn in that I'm not overly concerned with
user engagement -- it's more about building the database of users and content
(so they can meet likeminded musicians, and one day I can launch new services
that take advantage of the large database).

Or at least that's what I've been telling myself.

------
bryanh
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!

~~~
pud
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.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
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?

~~~
replax
While the idea sounds good/okay, it wouldn't be ready for prime time yet. That
is, because

a) HQ microphones are not a very usual thing to have and they are not cheap
and

b) because lag will probably kill the experience, even with a very good
connection, a delay of, say, 150ms will be noticeable when playing music
relying on reacting to each other.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I think any musician that's serious about playing music has at least one
decent microphone and some sort of recording setup (M-audio stuff is a low-
cost way to get into recording). Hearing yourself play is also invaluable
towards learning.

The second issue is real and since I know nothing about how to solve it
perhaps the idea is dead in the water for now. But anthonyb's suggestion of
recording all the tracks separately and allowing the musicians to mix them in
post might be one way of going around this.

------
ForrestN
What about sponsored content? Pay a per-day fee to get promoted in the
listings and therefor be a more visible part of the network?

~~~
pud
That's an interesting idea. Kind of like how you can pay Ebay to give your
posting a yellow background, making it more noticeable.

There's something slightly icky about charging my users for visibility though.
Who I consider "starving artists" (even though plenty are probably doing
fine...). There's something nice about Fandalism currently being a level
playing field for everyone.

By the way, Fandalism uses a version of the Hacker News algorithm to determine
which posts get featured.

~~~
ForrestN
That all makes sense. It may not work in this case, but in general I like
businesses where the customer is clear. I tend to think there's always a
tension when the user, the musicians, aren't also the customer, guitar
companies for example. Obviously a hurdle that has been overcome countless
times before.

------
sparknlaunch12
Wow - great site!

You have built up a large userbase that is current free for users? I think
that charging a fee for these users and for the app would not be a smart move.

However what about adding some paid features - like fee for promoting a
profile to the front page, premium profile page (blog, sell tickets to gigs).

What is often overlooked is deals with corporates. Is there anyway to tie into
promotional deals with companies? eg Fandalism members get discounts to gigs
promoted by x event organiser? Corporate pays you a fee.

What do your current members say? How would they want the site to make money
to keep it going?

Good luck - great result.

------
daleharvey
If was doing anything related to music, I would be doing everything I could to
build a spotify with a transparent business model that made it easy as
possible to get artists music in front of monetizable fans as much possible
(both through direct sales and indirect revenue, concert tickets, merchandise
etc)

I love spotify, but they have had to make severe concessions to labels and it
doesnt look like it will be possible for them to build an app that completely
disintermediates labels, I think its inevitable someone will though.

------
prawn
If you have advertising, perhaps try not to compromise the site visually and
limit it to below the fold, and keep it relevant.

You could develop a section which creates/collates guides that might interest
amateur musicians. Have some basic ones for free, small fee for others. Things
that might appeal to amateurs: finding band-mates, splitting meagre proceeds,
sticking together, battling stage nerves, inspiration for writing new
material. Even up to and beyond getting your first sales online.

Crowdsource content by asking your more experienced users to answer questions.
What's worked for them? What challenges have they overcome? What do they wish
they could've told themselves 10 years ago? Maybe some content goes into a
Guides section, while another goes into Fandalism Stories.

Allow people to flag themselves with badges like: only listening, learner,
just jamming, gigging, touring, etc. Maybe charge for badges related to online
sales (links to their stores), commissioned music (contact form), etc.

I know you're reluctant to suck amateurs dry, but you could give everyone a
random chance at being featured so people don't _have_ to pay, but charge for
others to jump the queue and be featured in a different way. e.g., top row of
results are promoted. Have a paid option to enhance/theme their page.

You could trade some level of careful promotion on your site with a another in
exchange for opportunities to offer your users - that won't make you anything,
but it will strengthen your site.

------
giberson
Here's an idea that I'd like you to try first. Pay what you want
subscriptions. Offer a subscription service that is completely voluntary. Do
not label it a donation system. It is simply a subscription service. People
will pay an amount of their own choosing to support the site. Offer monthly
and yearly subscription packages. See what happens. I bet you will get a
significant conversion rate to paid members, all whom enjoy and want to
continue using your service.

------
esonderegger
I was about to suggest the "Bands in Town" API, linking to upcoming concerts
based on the "influences" section on each page, but it looks like they're
about to discontinue it.

In that vein though, maybe let users link to recordings they have available on
Amazon? use your affiliate ID and then pass on half of the revenue to each
user if they reach a certain threshold?

Sadly, I think getting acquired (perhaps Guitar Center?) may get you more
money than years of counting the pennies ever will.

------
gregable
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 friends who
are interested in supporting them.

~~~
pud
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.

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

~~~
wdewind
Etsian here :D

[http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_query=guitars&...](http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_query=guitars&search_submit=&search_type=category&category=music.instrument)

------
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.

------
satyajit
Very interesting post. First of all, congrats on making Fandalism such a
success. I am a musician too, and 10+yrs back, I used to browse Harmony
Central for all kinds of gears. Read reviews, read NAMM report, check out used
gears classifieds.

One idea would be, just like you have artists and people give thembs up to
artist, you could create profiles for gears. Then connect artists to those
gears, as in artists recommending, endorsing those gears. If Fandalism is all
about fans, if I am big fan of Pud the drummer, would love to know what sticks
he uses and what kit he endorses.

Again, extending the fan aspect, sell used gears by the artists themselves to
their fans. Fans will be happy to pay a premium for the used gears of the
artists they follow.

Artist profile can be paid too. Basic profile is free to create. You can add,
maybe upto 10 tracks. And to reduce your server bandwidth, stream those at
lowres (low BPM encoded) for the free users. Subscribed users get hires
versions. No artist wants to sound bad. That'll push many guys to be paid
subscribers.

------
molsongolden
Would it be too cheesy or abusive to have showdowns? Puppyshowdown.com came up
yesterday or the day before and had a good interface. What if you had
musicians pick one or two of their songs to be used in head to head, this or
that, contests. You could have a showdown each month then release a
compilation album using the winning tracks. Revenue from the album would be
shared with the musicians, you could get a small cut, and it would be a cool
way for people to discover new music that has been filtered by their peers.
This won't make a ton of money but it could be one little piece of the puzzle
down the road.

There was a piece on NPR a few weeks ago about a classical music company that
is doing very well releasing targeted albums on iTunes. They find out what
people are searching for then compile their albums and choose relevant
keyworded album titles. You could use your giant musician base to pump out
indie albums to iTunes and other digital music catalogs. The albums could also
be crowdsorted. You research and pick an album topic and title then set up a
contest, the users crowdsort relevant tracks, you compile and release the
digital album.

I don't know how you want to interact with other platforms but you could push
updates to FB and the like "I just voted for X to be included on the upcoming
album Y via Fandalism"

You could also make an app out of this functionality and people could listen
to tracks and vote head to head or even just thumbs up or thumbs down pandora
style. Everyone who was listening and voting would be sorting music for you.

I like to find new music but it takes a ton of effort to sort through totally
unknown artists. Make it social and fun and empower sorters to contribute to a
project (the albums).

"Help build the next great indie album @Fandalism"

Sorry for rambling but you just went from a music sharing site to an
independent music label in 5 minutes.

------
jwblackwell
I would try and use a couple of methods. Firstly highly targeted ads are
pretty much a no brainer. Look at ultimate-guitar.com - they are constantly
pushing video lessons etc.

Use the data you have and display the most relevant ads possible a la
Facebook.

Secondly, I would consider a low cost premium model. Most musicians are
desperate to promote themselves so a few dollars a month to get in front of
nearly half a million viewers is good value.

You might find many people are looking for band mates as well, a premium model
could make this process easier for them and I think would be well worth a few
dollars. With half a million users you don't need to get many premium
subscribers to earn a decent living from this.

Finally, I would try and contact some advertisers and maybe even record labels
or something directly and see if they have any suggestions. They likely have
more experience and will probably bite at your ankles to get some exposure on
such a targeted network.

Bottom line, try multiple revenue streams and test, test test!

Good luck!

------
ArekDymalski
A lot of nice, practical suggestions here. Let me add one on more abstract
level. But first congratulations on achieving hard thing - building two-sided
market (<http://cdixon.org/2010/10/16/the-ladies-night-strategy/>). I think
that in that situation you need to check which side benefits more from your
site - and that's the one to get charged. And that's something what can be
(and should be) tested - for example by this one-question technique "How would
you feel if Fandalism was shut down tommorrow?" (can't find the proper link
right now). The other thing to identify/verify is what actual problem does
your site solve for the people and what additional value related to this
problem they would appreciate (and pay for). You have quite big userbase so
you don't need your own ideas anymore. Just ask people (as some people already
stated here).

------
newsstand
Musicians typically don't have a lot of money, so I wouldn't introduce premium
features.

You do have a very niche market, so targeted advertising should work nicely.

That said, you know your market best. Your question is a bit like asking us
what kind of pants you should buy. How the heck should we know? If you've got
a fat butt, go with cargo pants. You know best.

~~~
teyc
on the contrary, musicians spend an aweful lot of money.

------
willvarfar
Imagine an internet radio station where all the songs are user-recorded tracks
and the listening is based on collaborative filtering and you pressing
like/dislike next to the currently-playing song...

400K users is a big base. If 1K or more were listening to the 'radio' at the
same time, the collaborative filtering kicking in could be great!

------
uptown
You could follow the Dribbble model, and offer "Pro" accounts where artists
could list themselves as available for hire. For bands that don't want to be
hired, but just want to let their fans know where they'll be performing, give
them access to MailChimp-like features to send email-blasts to their fans.

------
alexhektor
Figure out the music industry and find your place in it. There should be more
than a handful of possible buyers.

Don't forget the value of the data you sit on / will be sitting on. It might
feed up to managers/labels etc. Especially talk to the guys from BigChampagne
about that.

Go talk to Ian Rogers from Topspin (although I'm not sure if he has a
competing product), Eric Garland from LiveNation/BigChampagne, Matt Sandler
from Chromatik .. find someone that can navigate you through the industry.

Who's on your platform more? Fans or Bands? Both groups can be catered to.
Figure out which one holds more value.

Make it easy for artists to sell music. And try to find people who have enough
from mainstream music and want to support local/smaller bands/artists. Take
transaction fees?

Hooking up smaller venues with talent?

Let me know if you need an intro to someone.. Music tech should be fun :)
Enjoy!

------
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.

------
HerraBRE
It strikes me that musicians are like computer geeks, in that they often have
a fair bit of expensive kit lying around and there is a fair bit of tech
involved in making and recording good music.

So if in addition to showcasing the music, you also let the musicians talk
about _how they make it_ , you would both foster interesting conversations
about the technicalities of the music and the tools used. That in turn is a
perfect place for a marketplace for musicians to connect and buy/sell second-
hand items - and a very valuable spot for companies to advertise gear to
interested buyers or an opportunity to charge the site's members themselves
for posting ads.

Also, finding session musicians who can stand in or help with a recording
session may be another reason members might want to advertise to each other.

------
yoshamano
I'm not a musician, but I have some friends who dabble with music. I've seen
them hunt for guitar tabs online to learn new songs, and it always looks like
a sad night of romance with Notepad. Is there a better system for sharing tabs
than a basic text file?

Either way, how about a more elegant system of recording tabs that can also be
sync'd to streaming tracks (like SoundCloud, except with scrolling tabs
instead of the spectrum graph) or sync'd to YouTube videos.

All this talk of monetizing and better user connections is great, but what
about better technical tools that make the actual creation of music easier?
Build a garage of well-loved tools and they'll finish the rest of the house
for you.

------
vineet
Firstly, Congrats. Around half a million users in three months is a great
achievement.

But as for 'now what?': I noticed that there is nothing in your list that I
would state as being a direct win/win. Almost every item on your list seems
like a distraction (yes, a distraction that will get you the really important
money).

The exception is your suggestion of 'premium features'. But, if not done
correctly, you start competing with yourself - and your free users might start
to resent you. Instead, what if you focused on one or more features that are:

(a) free but bring you revenue - like helping users sell albums (and taking a
small cut).

(b) require payment because of some limitations - like showcasing a users
profile for a day.

~~~
kephra
I think (b) is the right way. You must generate a win/win for the musicians
(sell mp3s and live acts), the listeners (buy music legally and directly), and
yourself (some percent)

------
SeoxyS
What about a voluntary small-fee subscription, something like $3/mo to remove
ads and support the community. Works for Instapaper, and even for writers
(eg., shawnblanc.net).

Often, asking users you've treated well to chip in works fantastically.

~~~
neilk
I think this is the best idea so far. It's clear that the ethos of the site is
about musicians supporting and learning from each other. At this scale,
voluntary contributions would easily make the thing self-sustaining, and it
would help keep the focus on the community.

------
perlgeek
If I were in that position, I'd try to participate in advertising scheme for
concert tickets for the very same artists whose pages you visit. That's
something that could even add value for the visitors.

------
squarecat
What say the musicians? What are their pain points? And really focus on
disruptive, as that is where the ripest of opportunities remain.

Just don't try to be the ______ (Craigslist/Facebook/Pinterest/HotOrNot) for
musicians because _____ is probably sufficient, if not better for the simple
reason that it's already being utilized and substitution is unlikely to be the
droid that you are looking for.

Though I'm not a musician myself, you've really piqued my interest and I'm
going to go poll my surprisingly large collection of musician friends and
acquaintances...

------
chaddyar
@khangtoh - American Idol online - Isn't that just Ourstage? won't fandalism
already capture this with the "props" feature that already exists on the site?

@mladenkovacevic- Re: A Discovery engine for Musicians to find one another and
"jam" over the internet - +1 Others have pitched this, but not with @pud 's
vibrant user base. As far as monetization worries, a cool tool of this kind is
just as much a sound business model as any site fueled by display ads. Here's
why in my opinion...at this stage in the development of the consumer web every
product's success is a function of its ability to capture the waking hours of
the consumers' disposable leisure time (this isn't the 90s when every web site
was supposed to have the same business model as the new york times). Consider
this assumption. Musicians spend a lot of time playing music alone and with
each other, possibly more than instagramers spend taking pictures. Ultimately,
especially if the bull market for venture backed companies continues, someone
will create a way to capture these disposable leisure hours from the wide user
base of musicians. but @pud it would be a lot easier with half a million
users...

@replax Mic Quality Problem a) A fair point, but its worth considering the
fact that most musicians would cede a high quality mic for the ability to
interact with one another. Also, lets not forget that the barriers to entry
for a powerful microphone have come down considerably in the last ten years.
Today, a Blue Snowball (<$100 used maybe new) will compete with microphones
that were well above its price range ten years ago.

Also check out the iRig. The possibilities are endless and could tie back into
the mobile platform @cruso (building a quick mobile app) and the online
@mladenkovacevic jam session idea.

P.s. its interesting that crusso's was the only post that mentioned mobile

@replax again Bandwidth Problem b) key problem that every video chat service
has been able to overcome, and if we can't solve it now we will be able to
solve it shortly as bandwidth improves...

Thanks for the opening up the dialogue pud. This is an exciting space. Excited
to see where people take this, but you have a one up with your years of
experience and rock solid user base (don't leave them hanging!) :)

P.S. ur servers were down temporarily last night ;)

------
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.

------
ChrisLeeOnHN
I would recommend checking the NextBigSound to make the best of your site.
<http://nextbigsound.com/premier/beta>

------
drumdance
Could you facilitate IRL meetings like Meetup? I.e a Jam-up? Sometimes I just
want to hook up with someone in my area, but I'm too lazy to make it happen. A
few local ambassadors could probably do a lot to get that going.

This is an example of something similar facilitated by a pro:
[http://www.gratefulweb.com/articles/first-otis-taylor-
trance...](http://www.gratefulweb.com/articles/first-otis-taylor-trance-blues-
jam-festival-success)

------
Johnnyboyy
I was talking to a musician friend of mine about a website I plan on building
and he mentioned a hip-hop centered site that made a mix-tape track everyday.
The artists on the site paid for a slot on the mix-tape and it was available
for anyone to download for free. I think it would be cool to have a few mix-
tapes, separated by different genres, maybe once a week. I'd probably even pay
to get a mix of all new artists every week.

------
rmason
FYI here's a presentation of Pud's that I was listening to just by coincidence
earlier this evening: [http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2011/08/big-omaha-
video-se...](http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2011/08/big-omaha-video-series-
philip-kaplan)

Also heard Pud speak at the Open CF Summit <http://opencfsummit.org/> in
February but I don't think that talk is online yet.

------
covercash
A while back someone posted a "digital busking" project he made for his
father, a musician. Maybe give fans a way to throw a few coins into their
favorite artist's digital guitar case? You sell the coins, artists can then
use them to buy promoted listings and such on your site.

(if anyone can find a link to the Show HN post I'm referring to, I'd
appreciate it... something about mp3busking I think)

------
dataminer
To cover the cost of running the site, partner with Amazon or Ebay as an
affiliate and get a cut of any sales which are generated by the site.

------
ErrantX
One possibility which I think is overlooked is simply to ask for money from
your users.

Add a "badges" feature (i.e. "X Followers", "Y Plays") and then ask for
contributions in return for a "Fandalism Supporter" badge.

It won't serve long term - but it may tide you over in costs for a couple of
months, allowing you to focus on the site & users. In which time a proper
business model may emerge.

------
OzzyB
How about: "The Fandalism Bundle"

Just like all those "indie game and app bundle" sites, but you source the
goodies from your musical userbase. It could be anything, but enough to be of
"value" for say 10 bucks, or $25, or $50 or whatever, i.e. 10 mp3s, 2 cds, 1
t-shirt, 25 stickers -- whatever, just start small and built it up in future
bundle "events".

edit: and of course, you take a cut.

------
toyg
Just add features incrementally, you don't have to go for broke straight away.
I'd start with small ones that can give you an easy return (marketplace etc),
then see how it goes.

You're lucky: at the moment the market for "social network for musicians" is
wide open, thanks to the demise of MySpace and the fact that Facebook doesn't
seem to mind that space.

------
teyc
I'd love to learn how you grew so quickly.

Affiliate income on tabs, sheet music, musical equipment, recording equipment.

Subscriptions - just like DeviantArt or Flickr.

Use Earbits's business model - pay money to promote bands. People who play
music listen to music. After all, you are building out an audience.

Sell tutorials - hire the best guitarists to teach techniques, etc. Just like
on the iMac.

------
mtjl79
Or what about...

Making a Pandora like music player to discover new music from profiles on your
site? You can throw ads all over that, and maybe charge a couple of bucks?
Plus have musician eCommerce so people can buy stuff they like.

So I say I like "Nirvana" and your player matches me to undiscovered artists
that are similar? I LOVE discovering new music.

~~~
jimbobob
I like this idea. People probably have never heard of the artists on your
site, but I'm sure there is some incredible talent there already. If you could
create a service for listeners, I think you could attract a lot of music fans.
And hipsters.

People expect to hear ads in radio streams, as they have been conditioned by
Pandora, Spotify, etc.

------
aorshan
You could follow soundcloud's business model and offer premium services like
more uploads and things of that nature.

------
artmeme
thanks for posting this - i actually had a similar start with my start up,
artmeme. after hearing "expensive hobby" to "business hobby" i can relate.
took me over 2 years to find out what the art community needed. this all
through the on and off line community i built. get a newsletter going if you
dont have one already. i'd love to hear how i can improve and generate some
cash flow. i think you got the concept there - just continuing to build the
community - you'll figure out what's needed after surveying musicians to see
what's lacking in their community. this might be a good udemy for musicians
down the road...i also praise you for reaching out and getting feedback. not
many people can put their pride down for a second. would love to hear where
you end up going with it. good luck!

------
fromhet
You could become a music publisher! Allow the artists to sell their songs for
~.5 usd and you take 10% of that. I know everyone of them would be very glad
if someone paid anything for their music, and it would help pay for the site
(and make you a millionaire, who knows!)

------
dyeje
A music selling platform sounds like a pretty good idea for this I'd say. It
could be a one stop shop for searching for music, interacting with artists,
and buying music. Might be interesting. Take some notes from Myspace Music,
Bandcamp, and Ultimate-Guitar.

------
swong8
Check out <http://headliner.fm>. Marketplace for musicians to promote each
other and grow their respective fan bases through social media. Seems like a
win-win for both of you and you'll gain a revenue model.

------
bizodo
I would also apply to a start up hosting program. Many hosting companies offer
big discounts or even free hosting in exchange for a "powered by" on the
bottom of site. Not going to solve your problem but at least reduce monthly
cost.

------
ForrestN
Another idea: marketplace for independent musicians? Seems like with a little
tweaking it could be a great way to find studio musicians, wedding bands or
even teachers. AirBnB for musician rentals?

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

~~~
pud
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.

~~~
prateekdayal
It is $49.95 per year or $9.95 per month. You can see more details at
<http://www.muziboo.com/pro>

------
richieb
I like the idea of meetups. It would be nice to have a feature that allows a
group of musicians to arrange a get together, jam session, to play music.

------
adrianwaj
Drop me a line.. your users could come in handy.

------
sil3ntmac
If they want, let them provide links to their songs on the itunes/<mp3 store>,
add your affiliate code to the links. $$$

------
nsmartt
My first thought: Make the free app- with ads. Then provide an ad-free version
for $0.99. Nothing brilliant here, at the moment.

------
heifetz
I'm curious, if you do you something like adsense, what kind of revenue can
you expect?

~~~
rjd
Starting at 10c CPM, if every user viewed one ad... $405, most sites have 3
ads per page so $1200 if every user logged in during one day.

Better targeting and click through can get that CPM up, most places I know of
managed a consistent 40c through automation, through sales teams $20 is
achievable (big diff between google and agencies huh).

Now the real trick is how many pages does each user view per visit, and the
daily visitor rate. Going off a user visit per month and 3 page visit.
(((((400,000 users) * 3 ads)* 3 pages)/1000 cpm) * 40c) = $1440 from basic
impressions without including click throughs and targeted spends...

Not much for a month unless you are in an area where the bidding is high like
travel, I've seen travel ads going through at $20CPM, at $20CPM the above
calculation is $72k.

So a huge range in profits, I would assume music sales would be a highly bid
on thing, so maybe $30-50k a month ?

------
AwesomeTogether
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

~~~
mtjl79
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.

~~~
AwesomeTogether
it was a joke

------
jaequery
so how did he go from 0 to half a million users in three months? or is this
just another rockstar founder effect?

------
cjstewart88
I'm honored, you're asking us... ?

------
its_so_on
404,772 problems, but a paying customer ain't one.

------
ktizo
Command them to start building the giant death ray immediately, then to wait
patiently for further instructions.

------
chadhietala
Billion dollar valuation. Thats how heard it works I heard.

------
xiaomei
You could sell the site on <http://flippa.com>

~~~
aymeric
Imagine:

You have a growing successful website and you wonder what to do with it, would
your answer be: I should sell it on flippa?

I think this is a poor advice, especially in an entrepreneur community.

~~~
xiaomei
It may be poor advice but it is an option nevertheless. pud asked for what to
do next and selling the site is a potential road to take. I'm disappointed
that some people have down voted this to death. I am following the rules of
the site. I feel bullied after expressing an opinion.

~~~
aymeric
You are right. You were not off-topic and the fact it is poor advice is only a
judgement, not the absolute truth.

Maybe I have misused downvoting here. Can't downvoting be used to express
disagreement instead of just reporting a misbehaviour?

~~~
xiaomei
I believe downvoting is only available to users with high karma. This makes me
believe that downvoting is meant to fight misbehavior. Unfortunately there is
no way to report misbehavior of downvoting. If you already have high karma you
have a conflict of interest in reporting downvoting misbehavior.

~~~
aymeric
Actually, it seems that downvoting for disagreement is a ok behaviour:

pg: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171>

