Is there a market?

[Bicem]

Originally Posted by Yankeefan51

Do you believe that this could be a $5M or more business, if properly structured?

My numbers show closer to $6.5M.

[barrysloate]

I see Jeff spent the last ten minutes really crunching the numbers.

Bruce- don't many of the auction houses, such as REA and Legendary, already have their past auctions archived? I refer to them often and am able to get good images along the way. How would your business model differ?

[pgellis]

Whenever I see annual Membership Fees, I usually don't bite. Unless it's directly related to my business, I don't see paying an annual fee for something that I might use a couple of times per year. Then you throw on a "per download" fee in addition to it? I would say you would have to pick one or the other. Either an annual membership fee w/ unlimited downloads, or a free access to the site with a "per download" fee, but not both.

I also think that your customer base would be very limited and when you ask people to pay for your content, it becomes even more limited.

[barrysloate]

Good point. The way the internet has evolved, people expect their information to be free. Once they see a charge, unless it is something they must have, they walk away.

[sgbernard]

I don't use cardpricer or VCP or one of the similar services, but isn't this basically it? At least as far as research is concerned, it seems that role is filled by such already existing services.

And I doubt the profit from licensing of photos for cards from Media outlets will bring much of anything. The only card that ever gets shown in media outlets with mild consistency is the T206 Wagner, and why pay when you can buy and photo a repro for like $5. I don't see this as a big hit.

Basically, I'm denying your application for a start-up loan.