Ask HN: How to get the chickens without the eggs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to get the chickens without the eggs?

This may be a stupid question, but I'm starting a startup in the stock photography sector, however the problem is I need photographers before I can start selling images (obviously). However, from my initial enquiries it seems photographers have no interest in joining new libraries and will only submit to established sites that already have lots of images for sale.

So my question is: how can I attract photographers to submit their work to a new site? I was thinking of contacting a few prospects and offering them 100% of the profit from sales for the first year, prizes for the first person to hit 100 sales, 1000 sales and things like that.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

Thanks!

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Tap into the amateur photographer with cameras on their mobile phones. Convince her that she can simply point her phone at things around the world, snap a shot that's auto-uploaded to your service, and she can make cash.

You and your team handle the categorization and tagging. And/or, the photographer can come back later on her PC and categorize/tag her photos resulting in a higher profit share for anyone licensing that photo.

On most smartphones, sharing/uploading photos via e-mail and applications is intrinsic to the mobile device. Handle uploads via your own mobile application or simply e-mail uploads.

This. People will jump on anything with the promise of "free" cash.

Except potentially all those photos will be crap and then you'll end up with a really mediocre photo selling website and business will scarred for life.

But you can validate and curate the uploads. In fact, that can be part of your community/crowd-source model, too. If someone else within your community comes along and rates/tags/categorizes the photograph, he can make a little slice of the pie.

Hell, get everyone involved in the process.

Solve chicken and egg problem first. Then maybe you can start thinking about cage-free organic eggs, second. ;)

I had considered this option, but it doesn't really fit with my current plan which is to focus on a specific niche which requires a certain level of quality.

I will be targeting flickr users though as there are some great guys on there, publishing awesome work just for the fun of it.

you know... I'm quite interested in this idea. Are you ok with me running with it?

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