This company was on Sharktank this past Friday. It's a pretty awesome offering and gives you something to do with all your photos each month - and at $2.99 price point (shipped!).
My albums get so full and they eventually just get saved deep into the abyss that is my computer, similar to the end of "Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Arc"
I used to work at Penguin Digital (MoPho App - Acq by Shutterfly) and this was the biggest pitch to users... to do something meaningful with your photos. It was hard to get out of that checkout process without a price tag of nearly $30 though.
Ryan, @jackrmcdermott and I happened to watch this Shark Tank episode haha. They run a professional printing business and thus the cost of goods is a bit skewed for them. They also can ship with the most inexpensive method (can't recall) because of the patented groove which makes the book quite flexible. Think they said they had 20,000 subscribers and made 70 cents a piece.
@heydjeff@rrhoover@ryandawidjan Ryan's right. They said they were able to send bulk shipping via USPS b/c of the patented "notch" removed from the binding allowing the book to flex
They said something like 30K paying users is their break even since they're making so little/book.
I haven't signed up for a subscription service with so little mental resistance... probably ever.
Something still smells fishy with the cost structure. If I had to guess I would bet that founder labor isn't being reflected in their cost structure and/or the cost of the printing equipment isn't being accrued and included. Either of those will break the model at scale.
I wonder how they chose $2.99. $3.99 feels like it would still be a no brainer to me if it started there. Easy to drop the price later, pretty hard to raise it.
Still have to admire the aggressiveness. :) I'd love to see them prove me wrong. :)
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