

Ask HN: Does this idea exist and who wants it? - andrewljohnson

I've been in the middle of working on a start-up for the past 8 months or so, and during that time I've only had one idea that I thought to myself "That idea is worth a lot more money than the one you are working on right now, and it would be easier to engineer."<p>I wonder if this app already exists. If it doesn't, feel free to run with it if you see the same potential I did.<p>The app is this - a button to turn a Flickr account into an online store, where people can order prints or pay for the rights to use photos. Everything starts off at a dollar, but it's fully customizable.<p>Having tinkered with the Flickr API, I don't think this would be hard to engineer. And I think there is an easy revenue model (a cut of sales), a low barrier to entry for users, and a large long tail to make money off of.<p>So anyways, that's it. I know ideas are worthless, but if you want this one, it's yours.<p>EDIT: I'm working o n a website for hikers - www.trailbehind.com. Probably less money in it, but it's something I'm passionate about.
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webwright
[http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/19/imagekind-scores-
partne...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/19/imagekind-scores-partnership-
with-flickr/)

Sold to Cafe Press recently ($20m I believe).

~~~
andrewljohnson
This is interesting. I wonder if they do a one-click conversion of Flickr
account to online store. And do they sell stock photo rights?

Clearly, there is a lot of money to be made in the photo space. It's universal
- everyone has a camera and a hankering to be an artist - me included.

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gfodor
It's a bad idea. The reason it's a bad idea is because there is no sustainable
competitive advantage and you're putting yourself in a position where Flickr
could wake up one day and marginalize your entire business. (At which point it
would be a race to the bottom margin-wise, until you go under and they have a
monopoly on the service.)

It's funny how the people here on HN seem to equate "thing that would be fun
to build and use" with "good idea for a profitable business."

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andrewljohnson
If you have the easiest to use site, that makes people money off their Flickr
purchases, then that's sustainable.

It's not like there is any "sustainable advantage" to Google search - they
weren't first to market in the space, and they can be beat - but right now, no
one can beat them.

It may be true - this app or Google might not last in "the long run." But
what's the long run?

I'd say if you made this Flickr converter and made a few million bucks in a
year or two, you'd be happy, even if Yahoo smashed you later.

Throwing around business buzz words like "sustainable competitive advantage"
and "race to the bottom," and insulting the community to boot, is no way to
argue. Take it from a guy who can program and who has a prestigious business
degree - you are talking out of the wrong orifice.

~~~
gfodor
Uh, those aren't buzzwords. If you have to choose a project to work on for a
startup, one of the first things you should be asking yourself is "what can I
do to maintain a slight advantage over my competitors for some reasonable
period of time?" This should be one of the first questions you ask, it's a
pre-condition.

It might be an exclusive partnership, a difficult to replicate technology, a
patent, an incredibly novel or non-obvious idea, something you have domain
knowledge that's relatively exclusive, etc. This particular idea has none of
these, and would be marginalized overnight if it showed any indications of
being a profitable venture.

Also, when setting out on starting a project that's going to take more than a
few weeks, you want to pick a really good idea. You only get a few shots at
this, particularly if you're going to quit your day job. You'd best prune away
ideas that, best case scenario, you expect to "make a million bucks in a year
or two and get smashed." Instead, you want to focus on the few ideas you have
that you think could become the next Google. Of course, it generally doesn't
turn out this way, but you should at least feel that it's within the realm of
possibility.

I wasn't insulting the community beyond the posters here who are saying this
is a great idea without actually critiquing the business side of things. If I
see bad advice, I'll point it out. (Although I'll admit it was a bit snarky, I
was just a little taken back by all the "Great Idea!" posts.)

BTW, insulting the poster isn't the best way to argue, either.

~~~
ahoyhere
Dude above you is right: "If you have the easiest to use site, that makes
people money off their Flickr purchases, then that's sustainable."

Look at Moo. They are A) profitable, B) run off Flickr, C) in a replicable
space (e.g. not hard to copy), and D) still winning.

They win because they were first, and because they are cooler than the others.

~~~
gfodor
There's a difference between pointing out a company that doesn't have a clear
advantage and saying that given an idea, it's one worth investing months of
effort in despite the fact that it doesn't have one. You need to remember that
most ideas you execute on generally fail (and take time in the process of
failing,) so you need to be chooosy when it comes time to dedicate yourself to
one.

That said, being first is a small advantage, particularly in a new space, but
not a great one. The real benefit of being first is making it possible for you
to build a bigger one (like mindshare,) but there's a lot more luck involved
than if you had just started out on a project where you had an incredibly
larger advantage. You don't see the failed versions of Moo, now do you?

~~~
andrewljohnson
The point is, it wouldn't take months to launch.

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rjprins
Ideas are not worthless! Good ideas can have potential, but as long as they're
untested they're not worth money; they are worthy of pursuit.

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ryanmahoski
For prints, it would be especially nice if customers also got a frame. Without
a frame wall art looks cheap. It's no fun buying a beautiful poster and not
being able to display it. If someone knows how to economically ship a frame,
selling it together with the customer's choice of flickr art would be
interesting.

~~~
orib
As four bars wrapped in a poster, with pins (or glue) to put it together,
perhaps?

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ryanmahoski
That sounds good expense-wise. Maybe also include a rectangular sheet of
clear, flexible plastic to serve in place of the front glass. And one for the
matting.

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bigbang
Doesnt Flickr already have this? <http://www.flickr.com/do/more/>

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bootload
_"... Having tinkered with the Flickr API, I don't think this would be hard to
engineer. And I think there is an easy revenue model (a cut of sales), a low
barrier to entry for users, and a large long tail to make money off of. ..."_

Why just flickr? Why not all the available images sites?

~~~
andrewljohnson
Starting with the big one seems prudent.

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rs
I remember reading somewhere that Facebook has more pictures than Flickr,
though its mostly pictures of friends, but might be worth looking into that as
well

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SingAlong
So if you are going to make profit out of a site built on top of the Flickr
API, then you'll have to use the commercial API. So the factors to consider
would include the cost of the commercial API too. Besides, you'll also have to
use some merchant account/Paypl to process payments which again eats off a bit
of the money you get out of your commission you get out of letting people sell
the pics.

This idea would automatically turn a amateur photographer's or artist's flickr
account into something the person can make a profit by selling his best stuff.
That would atleast fund upgrading his cameras or buy new colors. You could
start by targeting amateur photographers and artists. But make sure you find
an extra stream of revenue apart from sales commission.

But idea is sweet.

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cschneid
I really like the idea, at least the stock rights part of it. The printing
part feels over saturated, but the stock photography part feels like it could
be done.

Email me, I'd like to talk more about this.

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lux
Good idea. I'd like to see something like this become more integral on Flickr.
I've been doing some searching for ideas for album artwork, and I found
something on Flickr I'd strongly consider using, but I'll still have to
contact and negotiate and it would be nice to have a bit of a framework for
doing so, so that the photographer isn't potentially put off or things the
email isn't legit. This sounds a lot like what youlicense.com does for music,
btw.

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gsiener
Sounds good until Yahoo! integrates it into their site...

~~~
jam
...by buying your company. ^_^

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brandnewlow
It's a great idea.

One reason why:

Blogs and news services are pulling more and more photos from Flickr. If you
can give the photogs on there an easy way to just let people come and get
their pictures, without having to track down permission from them, you'd make
life easier for the blog editors.

~~~
brk
_Blogs and news services are pulling more and more photos from Flickr._

Because they don't want to pay for them on sites like iStockphoto that already
exist to give photographers a way to market/sell their products?

~~~
brandnewlow
Nope.

Because istockphoto doesn't have anything resembling "news" photos. Whereas
Flickr's got lots of photos with real people in them.

I've used istockphoto extensively. it's all models, references, icons etc.

If I need a decent picture of the Mayor of Chicago at a recent festival, there
might be 10 on Flickr.

There won't be any on istockphoto.

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NonEUCitizen
Better if default price is a quarter rather than a dollar.

~~~
andrewljohnson
A good and easy thing to A/B test.

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espadagroup
It's a great idea, though I think ImageKind covers most of this.

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meep
You think to yourself in the third person?

~~~
randallsquared
I assume you meant "second" person. Surely everyone does this. "You don't
really want X." "Dammit, Randall, that was a stupid idea."

You don't do this?

~~~
abstractbill
I think to myself in the first person sometimes, in the second person at
others, and even as a _group_ occasionally.

For example my thoughts look like, _"I should work from home today"_ , or
_"Bill, you're a genius"_ , or sometimes like _"Why don't we just go see if
there's any ice cream left..."_

~~~
squeeziemoore
I have thoughts like that all the time. My usual first one of the day is :- "
You know Maggie, we really should get up now " :) xx

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rokhayakebe
This is a good idea. Last month I was creating a simple website and I needed a
stock photo. I went to Flickr and looked for a few minutes because I knew
something would be available there. Had I found one I would definitely pay for
it.

