PicPlum (YC S11): Beautiful Prints, Automatically Mailed for You

I disagree with your assumption. You're saying that because people order fewer prints from professional photographers, that people don't prefer tangible prints.

I think this points more to the fact that consumers don't value a photographers copyrights. Consumers know that it doesn't cost $50 for a 5x7 print and thus they'd rather buy the digital copy to have more control over what they can do with their own photos. Photos are meant to be shared and it's hard to share photos that cost $50 each.

From the vantage point of the consumer with a smartphone, PicPlum offers a very attractive value proposition to share tangible prints with family members. I don't believe that the desire to have printed photos will go away anytime soon.

People are ordering fewer prints, but which percentage of the prints they are ordering are pictures of kids for grandparents? A significant proportion, I bet.

Anybody who has walked into a relative's house and seen their gorgeous DSLR emailed baby picture printed on some crappy paper by some crappy printer proudly displayed has died a little inside.

The reservation I have about PicPlum (and, I suspect, why I never got around to signing up for its previous incarnation, even though I was interested in principle) is the fact that you still have to do the curation - a step that in practice I would forget. I would be interested to know from somebody who has signed up whether the service can be configured to remind you to send it some pictures).

[edit: grandparents might be online, but they seem to have a perverse need to stick pictures of their gene pool on the fridge anyway. Hell, mine have an Internet updatable LCD frame which sucks new pictures over all the time and still they print out for the fridge, handbag etc. ]

The first product launched by a company is sometimes intended mostly a way to gain initial traction and a loyal group of users to learn from, before launching the "real" product(s). That may be the idea here (if it's not, I would agree at least in my case - my mum doesn't want prints of her granddaughter, she wants the files).

I don't disagree with the macro trend, however there will be some market for printed photos for at least a generation. For those of us that grew up with printed photos, we will always appreciate a printed photo a touch more than an electronic one, especially in small doses. This is doubly so for my parents, and grandparents. The digital generation may also appreciate it as a novelty.

So, even though the macro demand will continue to shrink, there is still a market for printed images. I would be curious to know from the founders if they have any real numbers as to the market size. That'd be the first question I'd ask them to see if there is any real play here. I would guess there are around 50m printed images still made every year in the US alone.

At a profit of 25c / image it might be possible to get revenues of several million dollars per year. Sure, it's no Twitter but it's a an easy business to build and test. With around $50k or so they can find out within 6-12 months if there is a path to significant returns.

That's a decent business risk IMO.

This is not directly correlated to PicPlum, which sounds like a really cool idea by the way, but from my perspective and what I'm seeing in terms of internet privacy--It wouldn't surprise me if people started taking a step back in terms of what they share on the internet and that includes photos. If that does happen I could see print copies coming back and speaking as a person who really doesn't have any prints of my own, there's something truly amazing about sitting around a home and passing around old pictures--you don't get that with facebook.

Seems like there are a lot of directions these guys could go if the original direction doesn't take off. Might try downloadable-auto updated scrape books. Also know of a few companies making a living off of renting and selling copies of photos/artwork to businesses, could go in that direction.

Did mainframes die when PCs arrived?

Did stone tablets die after the invention of paper?

Did coins die after the invention of paper currency?

Did propeller planes die after the invention of the jet engine?

Did rowboats die after motorboats were created?

An entire technology tree doesn't die out just because a new one starts to sprout. The branches themselves may get pruned from time to time, but knowledge and knowhow tend to be valuable and sooner or later a new application is found. The tree just gets pruned, and spouts branches every now and then, as the new one takes root.

So, no photo printing itself won't die out. I have no doubt that the current paradigms we use this technology under will fade away, but I'm also certain that a new one will take its place.

Totally right, prints are just as obsolete as desktops from other today's front page thread. Especially now when you have iPads and other tablets with outstanding picture quality.

>> Everyone simply ask "Can I have the files on a disc?"

Unless you work for a big consumer printing service, how do you know "everyone" is not printing the files out themselves to bypass the "professional" printing cost?

We are trying to separate the culling process from the uploading process. Doing some of the culling bit by bit instead of having this one big overwhelming "ugh I need to connect the camera, import 200 photos, go through them and find which ones to print" task. We've got a few ideas we're going to be testing in the coming months.

I was about to jump the gun and comment that YC backed a direct competitor to an older YC backed startup. This is the second startup to provide this service, how will it be different than the first? Maybe the approach to tackling this market is a bit off base...

I completely agree. Most of the web 2.0 picture world involves pictures sent digitally to all of the social networks and smart devices. I think this leaves out an important market or two in the photo sharing industry. Most notably, the technologically unfamiliar (grandma and grandpa), and the photo purists (people who want physical prints for display, but can't be bothered to print out inferior quality shots on inferior printers). Many popular photo sharing services degrade image quality for transmission and storage. (See: Facebook and iPhone)

Curation is still a chore (we are looking into ways where we can fix that). Where we come in is the automation when you send us the photos. Each month we will group these photos you send us and send it to your recipients (grand parents or other family) in a nice package. It is not a fun experience to upload your photos and get them printed through most other services.

Yes we do! We want to make it super easy to get your photos into Picplum. Stay tuned.

Shutterfly and 20 other photo printing companies, and much much cheaper too.

PicPlum charges $7/month for 15 4x6" photos (that's 46c per photo).

PePhoto or PhotoCheap charge 6c per photo, which makes PicPlum 7.7 times more expensive.

Seriously, what kind of idiots are willing to pay that much?

Would not invest a dime into this.

At this point you can use the pay as you go option to send prints with flexibility. We are going to add a slick one-off printing and sharing interface over the next month. We are looking to experiment with ideas around the holiday season.

You just need to select "Print Only" and then no email is requested.