A Discussion on Pro Account Revenues and Our Strategy
Prateek Dayal 
posted
Hey Everyone
Nithya and I wanted to write a post and talk to the community about Muziboo, Pro Accounts and related stuff. Here is what we have seen in the last six months or so
- Ads don’t pay us much. They are a small portion of our revenues and generally fall off over time. To make $x in ads every month, you need more traffic every coming month
- All techniques of ad placement that result in more clicks generally compromise on the user experience. This is one reason why we shutoff ads for pro users.
- A lot of people do use the pro features once they upgrade to pro. Things like reuploading, high bitrate streaming and to some extent even private sharing. Stats is still picking up and not a mainstream feature yet.
However we still sell a very few pro accounts every month and so far we have tried to compensate it with ads but its not really working out very well. We would rather focus on making the site more friendly for users and hope that they like it enough to convert to pros. For those who don’t know,
- Nithya and I have been working on Muziboo fulltime for last 1.5 years for no pay.
- We are self funded and have put in our savings into Muziboo. We have not raised any money for it (yet) and don’t plan to. For most investors a music community is not a business and our visions don’t align.
- The service has been pretty much covering its operational expenses (not our salary though) but the recent growth makes us concerned about our increasing storage and processing costs.
We are considering lowering the upload limit for new accounts (not existing) and having more features in the future for pro members so that people have more reasons for upgrading. I wanted to ask the community what features they think will make it more compelling for them to upgrade to pro. Here is a list we are currently working on
- Higher bitrate for pros (prob. 192 kbps streaming)
We are also planning to pull back some ads and clean up some pages to have a better user experience. I would also like to know if people have any doubts or reservations about pro, paying online or other stuff which is stopping them from upgrading. If you prefer to send your responses privately, please email me at prateek@muziboo.com. However we would appreciate a discussion here. We are willing to answer any other questions you have about Muziboo too.
Finally, thanks to all for being a part of Muziboo and helping us grow and make this a fun place.
Posted on February 09, 2009
Replies
Sushane Shankar said
Totally agree wid george…… Muziboo s a brilliant venture……. will b upgrading 2 Pro myself 2…….
Hats of to Prateek n Nithya 4 creating dis site….
Sushane
Rashmi Nair 
said
Hello
Muziboo is unique as it comprises of true music lovers.
Why Muziboo?
Here’s my personal experience….
– I had uploaded songs in other sites, and instead of getting feedback on the song, got bombarded with umpteen number of “nice voice, are you married”, “would like to know you better, whats your phone number” kind of mails. I somehow managed to get out of that mess.
– Never ever had a bad experience on Muziboo. In fact, I made a lot of good friends who genuinely give constructive feedback.
Muziboo Pro Account Saves Money!
– The feedback and appreciation I get from Muziboo inspires me to spend a couple of hours everyday listening, singing and giving feedback.
– If there was no Muziboo, I would have gone shopping (atleast $50 per visit) or to a restaurant (atleast $25 per visit)
– Imagine how much money I have saved by an annual Pro Account of just $20!!!
I really appreciate the excellent work done by Prateek and Nithya to manage such a forum.
And if all you ask from us is an upgrade to a Pro Account to keep up this high standard ……friends, what are we waiting for!
Regards
Rashmi
Mohit Gupta said
Hey Prateek and Nithya,
Really appreciate your efforts and can understand.As there were no takers when I also had a similar idea. I am glad you have put it together.
Unfortunately unless the cash flows happen, a venture doesnt happen.
I’ve been involved in professional music to a certain extent, and have worked my way through it,cause graduating from IIT Delhi makes it difficult for you to work full time in the field of music, take my word for it :p
This is my personal opinion for Muziboo so far:
- Users: Get An Audience – is the tag line, but I see only musicians and wannabe musicians around – meaning to say, what is it that will attract a more common audience here, is a big question to me.
Unless there’s an active audience, good musicians wont come on the site.
For e.g., I am from Delhi and know quite a lot of professional musicians, but none of them are here, even when I’ve told some about this site.
- Brand: To attract musicians and the audience, you need brand names – musicians from the film industry, pop industry, music labels, launch of albums on the website, which I understand is all together a different ball game away from the tech world.
- Segregation: Another thing I really find difficult is segregating good music from not so good on this website. Segregating that is the job of a music producer in the music industry, he is the one who can judge and put a benchmark to the good one. And I dont think any algorithm or a democratic view can do that, if democracy could, Himesh wouldnt have been both famous and hated together at the same time.
I really feel that you need that segregation, so that people aspire to come into that category. And that segregated music needs to be featured.
I think Muziboo will be successful the day, Muziboo is able to make someone’s carrier in music, or at least help them make it at a professional level.
*Payment – Currently to me Muziboo is a social community, where music lovers can share their music amongst people they know or they come to know over the website. And since, we have been so used to the free services over the web, thanks to google and the likes, we fail to understand that a venture needs money to run.
Also currently I dont see what is the value I am getting out of this community apart from views and opinions,
for e.g., I know about this service called animoto , which lets you make videos out of your photos, and they have a subscription and quality features etc; another good thing that they have is featuring song writers with songs which can be featured over those videos and the musician gets paid for it; u must check out.
or i know of xbhp – a community for bikers…which doesn’t charge.
Another thing is that musicians have no money unless they are sonu nigam or the likes; and it is universally true across the world, n we are talking about India here. so i dont know whether musicians would be able to pay.
Only meaning to say, that some alternative needs to be figured out for the revenues.
- Organize Music Sector: How about helping serious musicians to work with pro musicians to make their demos? This is what I wanted to do with my venture; bringing the musicians one step closer to the industry – and bringing the industry (studios,production houses) a step closer to the talent – currently the sector is really unorganised;mostly based on contacts. You can consider it, and drop me a word if I can be of any help.
Cheers!! And all the best!!
Regards
-Mohit
George Kuruvilla said
Mohit,
You raised some very good points. I think Muziboo attracts two types of crowd. Mostly it is geared towards enthusiasts who do it more as a hobby. For the enthusiasts, all they are looking to do is follow their passion, get some feedback through the community, make friends and have fun in the process. It provides a source of recreation. I think muziboo definitely adds value in this respect and I know of a lot of folks who are on muziboo who have told me as much. So just for this purpose, it is worth signing up for the Pro account.
Now as for professionals or those who aspire to be professionals… As of now, muziboo does not have a lot of professionals on board. There are some damn good amateurs. I feel that this will come with time. Once Muziboo gets more recognition and the user community grows, professionals will follow.
Muziboo is currently catering more towards amateurs. But it gives even budding musicians get a good sense of how fellow musicians perceive their music. And this will help them improve their overall product. I think with time, Muziboo will cater more towards professionals. However for this to happen, there has to be funding. It is the classic Chicken and Egg scenario.
-George
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Prateek Dayal said
@Sushane, @Rashmi: Thanks for your support.
@Subbu: Thanks for your suggestions.
@Mohit. Trying to reply inline to your reply. Thanks for replying :)
“Get An Audience – is the tag line, but I see only musicians and wannabe musicians around”
When we started Muziboo, we wanted people to get a quality audience (v/s youtube which is more quantity). We felt that most people only have their friends as audience and they cannot improve with them. Our focus so far has been to get a lot of budding (and semi professional) musicians and get a strong culture going. We have not focused on professional musicians so far because their needs are different and its tough to keep everyone happy (i mean pro and hobbyists). We still do have quite a few good people from the industry around here. As George says, its gonna grow over time. In fact it is the quality of criticism that makes record labels like Saregama put up some of their music online to build some buzz and collect some reviews about it.
“Muziboo is able to make someone’s carrier in music, or at least help them make it at a professional level.”
Again this is something that we can’t really do currently. Its a very different game and we would just end up talking and trying to get deals going instead of making a better service. I think somethings will take sometime.
“Also currently I dont see what is the value I am getting out of this community apart from views and opinions, "
The way we see it, the value besides the community is in the ease of use of the platform. However it depends on what your needs are and if you can do without what Muziboo offers. We feel features like stats, embeds, playlists etc help music bloggers and features such as private sharing help people collating a lot of private feedback. However as you right said, the value is either in community or the platform. If you are looking at it as an investment into something that can help you make a career in music and get work/deals, certainly its not going to work out (atleast not officially).
“How about helping serious musicians to work with pro musicians to make their demos?”
If you mean something like a workplace, we do have some ideas but will wait for a while before rolling them out.
Mohit Gupta said
hey Prateek,
thanks for the reply dear
for the last two points,
no i really dont think it can be viewed as an investment at all….so payment on this site and pro work is not what i was trying to relate… and i was trying to think more from the perspective of an avg user whose reluctant to spend money over the web….moreover in $……thats th state of ecommerce…cause knowing itasveer which offers customized photo products, i know how difficult it is to get a user pull out some money from his pocket and put into the web even for a hard product…and this is soft service…. and i really appreciate ur efforts my friend….didnt mean anything otherwise…if it sounded like that…
regarding demos i meant partnerships with studios…
and help at professional level i meant say launching/publicizing an upcoming bands album…
i mean u need to get into the music circuit…if we are dealing with music here…n i knw musicians would be happy as it is what they do
for e.g. i know this web service where they want to launch artists music online and promoting the musician by donations on the website…just forgeting the name at this time…
but ya i think i understand your current target segment after your clarification above…
again dont get me wrong brother…i would love to help muziboo grow in whtever small way i can…
regards
-Mohit
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George Kuruvilla
said
Prateek and Nithya,
It is very nice of you both to come out with a frank and objective account of how Muziboo runs. Many a times, we dont realise what goes into the sausage making process. We just want to eat the sausage. I for one spend at least 2 hrs on muziboo everyday and it has definitely improved my quality of life. So for 730 hrs a yr of fun, for all the wonderful friends I have made on muziboo and for all the opportunities it has brought me, I dont think $26 is much. Heck we would waste that on two movies normally and half the time those suck!
I think the three features you have suggested would definitely add the value of the pro account. I for one would love it if you could incorporate those.
Its sad to note that the ad revenues are not helping out and that you guys are not even breaking even. I appreciate all the efforts you guys have put in and I hope things pick up soon! At the very least you must feel proud of the community you both have built and the way you have changed peoples lives. You guys had a vision and unlike most others took the risk to follow your vision at such a young age. Truly inspirational to me.
I would urge folks to basically ask yourselves what Muziboo means to you and whether it is a part of your everyday life now. If so, I would strongly urge you to upgrade to a Pro and help support Muziboo.
-George
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