Parents . Rate my Business Idea

dewsbury

Parents . Rate my Business Idea
Here is a business idea that I am toying with.

Many of us parents have camcorders. Most of us take lots of crap video footage, that is pretty poor to watch. Bad sound & camera quality.
We also rarely transfer the footage onto a better more permanent media.

Here is the idea.
I video your kids using a professional camera man and editing for 99 euros
I then give you this video footage on a DVD.
I also put this footage on my new web site (security protected etc).
You come back to me once a year (or so) for birthdays or special occasions.

You pay me 50 euros per annum to maintain a video album of your children.
The video is (obviously) available to anybody you want to see it.
Incidentally the idea also works for adults, grand parents etc.

Presumably we all think our kids are sooooo cute and merit endless watching over the internet.
Put it this way .... would you like if your parents could have invested in this service and you had your own childhood on record.

Rate this suggestion please.
Be harsh and tell me why it won't work.

forbairt

First thoughts would be 99€ while very attractive doesn't actually pay your bills ...

Get to their house = (30 minutes - an hour) ... spend 3 ? Hours hanging around at the party to get good shots and so on .... 30 minutes to get back ...

Up to 4 hours already ...

Edit videos ... assuming you're actually going to do something semi professional ... edits ... fades ... and nice shiny stuff ... 5+ hours ...

Now we're up to 9 hours ...

Upload video to website ... and fix up whatever other bits on their site ... another hour ...

We're on 10 hours ...

99 / 10 = 9.90€ and hour ... now you've to take into consideration bandwidth costs for the hosted videos ... if you're talking about 50 quid for other events ? ... then ... KER POW ...

How do you plan on making money with this idea ?

kazzer

My take would be that people like to do this type of stuff themselves because its personal. Dont know if many people would be comfortable with someone filming their children. I think its slightly different to photography, where alot of people are happy to hire pro photographers

Also you only charge €99 which is reasonable, but is that will not cover your costs. I like the concept though

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

thecola

I'll input for questionaire, as I'm a parent myself.

I would not like the idea of someone filming, and dealing with anything that involves my kids. I'm pretty paranoid about these things, and after I saw how Gardai treat some random bloke who was taking pictures in park full with kids, while he was there on his own, i know that it's not happening only on telli.

Second, I wouldnt like you to bring the material to yourself, and store it. I am not sure whom you employ, who would have access, how many copies you have and how safe in general stuff is. I dont think you could convince me or any caring parent that it's cool!

Third, that's Daddy's playground, and camera is his toy! So there would be pretty good resistance in this perspective.

Otherwise idea is not bad. I just would suggest you to go for less sensitive market. Like filming professionally corporate events, presentations, adult celebrations (like 25, 30 years).
Come up with some other material - like offer to give pro video presents from friends/family, where someone can order for say €100 something proffesionally aranged, partially filmed new and added from some old private footage, which afterwards is presented to the person. Should be pretty fun to watch in a party some retrospective of some time of your life prepared by others. Interviews, wishes, just random stuff.
Also is that sometimes you have like 10 vhs, 2 minidisks, 100 Avi files on comp and would like to have normal set of DVD's of all material. So you can work on arranging everything. Then 1 pre-presentation, and then final product. Say €50 for set of several DVD's where everything is arranged, timed, scened etc. Work for couple of hours max.

MB74

Like the idea but might need a bit more carrot?

Can you combine it with something else. You might need to attach yourself to some of these fun zones for kids or birthday clowns that come to your house.

keefg

thecola wrote: »

as a parent myself.

I would not like the idea of someone filming, and dealing with anything that involves my kids. I'm pretty paranoid about these things, and after I saw how Gardai treat some random bloke who was taking pictures in park full with kids, while he was there on his own, i know that it's not happening only on telli.

Second, I wouldnt like you to bring the material to yourself, and store it. I am not sure whom you employ, who would have access, how many copies you have and how safe in general stuff is. I dont think you could convince me or any caring parent that it's cool!

Third, that's Daddy's playground, and camera is his toy! So there would be pretty good resistance in this perspective.

I am not a parent but this is exactly what I thought when I read the opening post.

sorry dewsbury, but the whole idea seems a bit creepy to me and I think you will struggle to convince any parent to put video footage of their kids onto the net (no matter how secure you say your site is).

rufusnbuddy

Rather than go do the filming yourself you could provide a service where you copy and edit the endless hours of home footage onto a concise dvd of the highlights with chapters and background music (of the parents choosing of course)

narkymarky

Dewsbury,
Read a piece in the paper in the past few weeks about a Dutch woman now living in England who put a similar idea to market. Original thinking was to allow her folks back in Holland to have access to updated footage of her kids on a regular basis. For the life of me I can't remember when or what paper it was is in - the paper bin has since been emptied so I can't even go and dig it out. It was in either the Belfast Telegraph or the Daily Mail - and as far as I could gather the business was up and running.
As regards sensitive markets theres an undertaker/crematorium/chapel type affair in Belfast that webcasts services so people who can't make the funeral can log in and view it in real time. Obviously geared towards friends and family abroad who can't make the journey as opposed to nosey barstewards getting their kicks from funeral services.

best of luck

Darragh29

thecola wrote: »

I would not like the idea of someone filming, and dealing with anything that involves my kids. I'm pretty paranoid about these things, and after I saw how Gardai treat some random bloke who was taking pictures in park full with kids, while he was there on his own, i know that it's not happening only on telli.

I agree with the poster above, but you could engineer a way around this problem by maybe using a female to do the camera work. What I've done recently to gauge how receptive my customers might be to an idea I have, is I hired a conference room in a local hotel and invited 15 customers to a loose discussion (I called it a Feedback Forum), with some finger food and free drinks (the alcohol is very important, because then you really get to see what they think!). You would be literally amazed at what some people will come out with and what they come out with is often common sense and logical.

Darragh29

narkymarky wrote: »

Dewsbury,
Read a piece in the paper in the past few weeks about a Dutch woman now living in England who put a similar idea to market. Original thinking was to allow her folks back in Holland to have access to updated footage of her kids on a regular basis. For the life of me I can't remember when or what paper it was is in - the paper bin has since been emptied so I can't even go and dig it out. It was in either the Belfast Telegraph or the Daily Mail - and as far as I could gather the business was up and running.
As regards sensitive markets theres an undertaker/crematorium/chapel type affair in Belfast that webcasts services so people who can't make the funeral can log in and view it in real time. Obviously geared towards friends and family abroad who can't make the journey as opposed to nosey barstewards getting their kicks from funeral services.

best of luck

now there is an excellent idea!

dewsbury

As the OP ;

All feedback appreciated.

There seems to be a significant feeling that filming kids is a bit out of order even creepy and can be done by parents easily themselves anyway.
I would respond to this by saying that there are numerous photographic studios in Dublin where people will pay over €500 to have a few still photos of their children !!

Somebody suggested getting a female to do the filming which seems like a good idea (my wife is skilled in this area).

keefg

dewsbury wrote: »

As the OP ;

All feedback appreciated.

There seems to be a significant feeling that filming kids is a bit out of order even creepy and can be done by parents easily themselves anyway.
I would respond to this by saying that there are numerous photographic studios in Dublin where people will pay over €500 to have a few still photos of their children !!

Somebody suggested getting a female to do the filming which seems like a good idea (my wife is skilled in this area).

I think you are missing the point here and if you do decide to try your hand at this business then I hope you do well.........but......

There is a monumental difference between

a) Taking your child, all dressed up in their Sunday best, to a professional photographer to take and supply high quality framed/album photographs for you to hang on your wall and treasure forever and pass a copy onto Granny & Grandad.

and

b) Some stranger coming to your childs party with a video camera, filming your children and their friends and then posting the footage onto the internet. Even if you had permission to film the children of the parents who hired you, I doubt if you would get the same permission from the parents of all the other kids (and you will need a consent form for everyone in the video if you intend to publish the footage on the internet).

As another poster mentioned, you are trying to muscle in on "Daddy's" patch when it comes to cameras/videos and other gadgets.

Professional photos are worth the money because they look so much better than just a "snap" that most people would take. A home movie is just that.....a home made movie, and that's how it should look.

Also, in the pro-photo situation, a parent has complete control over the whole process from the way the child is dressed/looks to the amount of photo's taken.
This isn't the same case where a videographer is concerned. The video will most likely be edited with lovely titles etc and the parent will receive the finished product. But what about the edited footage? What's to stop an unscruplious cameraman filming one or two children for just a little bit too long? Or take some unsuitable close ups and keeping this footage for.....other uses?

I am not suggesting you are in anyway some sort of weirdo or sexcase and I know you are looking at this as a kosher business idea but you mention the words "children", "video" and "internet" to most parents and they will think the worst and run a mile (even with a female working the camera). It's unfortunate but that is a sign of the times we live in and the way people think.

I think you should research this a lot more before spending any time and money on this project. You mention in you opening post "most of us parents" which indicate you have children of your own, the first question I would ask is...."Would you let a stranger film your child and post it on the internet"?

Don't ask freinds and family what they think of your business idea as you will never get true feedback, ask people you don't know - maybe parents at your kids school, see what real feedback you get.


Sorry mate but you did ask us to be harsh

lanod2407

Great feedback throughout .......... my tuppence worth:

When you get to the stage where you're positioning a female to film the event because of concern about how people would react I think it's time to come up with your next idea.

On the upside - I'm in the middle of launching a new business and the initial naming convention was Project 417. When I was first asked why the name I had the audience pissing themselves laughing ............... "because I've had 416 ideas that did not take off - this is idea 417, and it just might"!!!

Musha

rufusnbuddy wrote: »

Rather than go do the filming yourself you could provide a service where you copy and edit the endless hours of home footage onto a concise dvd of the highlights with chapters and background music (of the parents choosing of course)

This would be a viable option, I would love someone to edit, clip and tidy up 3/4 hours of Hi8 video stuff spaning the last 4/5 year and put it on to DVD.

Kids, holidays, house build etc.

House Build! I am sure many self builders would love to have a time lapse DVD of their house build without having to do it them selves!
What do you think!