Company description
True Vine Images is a holding of Digital Development Partners. It is a stock photography and custom photo products online marketplace targeted to the vast untapped Christian market with 2.1 worldwide adherents who spend a staggering $2.2 trillion a year on religious products in the U.S. alone.
Sample Image from truevineimages.com
As the first stock photo and photo products marketplace targeted to this rich market, we are positioning to "own" this space! Just consider:
- The stock photography industry has upwardly trending annual sales estimated at $2 billion. The advent of "microstocks", to include True Vine Images, has created explosive growth even during the recession with adoption of the digital downloads delivery platform bringing prices down as low as $1.00 or less per royalty-free image. Multiple microstock businesses have been acquired within 4-5 years of launch including iStock's acquistion by Getty Images for $50 million.
- Also proving to be recession-proof is the custom photo products industry (think Snapfish.com, CafePress.com, Zazzle.com and Shutterfly.com). Again, throughout the recession, the demand for products that a buyer can customize with photos, art and text has done nothing but increase and is forecast to reach $2.3 billion by 2014. Christian gift and merchandise buyers spend $4.63 billion annually.
True Vine Images was co-founded by James Steidl, owner and principal photographer at James Group Studios, Inc. James was recently ranked the 30th most downloaded photographer in the world. His stock photos have been used by Disney Studios, CNN, Monster.com, MetLife, The History Channel, New York Times, Hammond World Atlas (cover), 60 Minutes and Popular Science to name a few. The truevineimages.com website includes thousands of James' high quality images and will serve as a host for the stock images (photos, vector art, 3D models and video clips) of multiple content contributors, projected to number in the thousands, using the crowdsourcing model adopted by dreamstime.com, fotolia.com and other leading microstoocks.
True Vine Images offers content contributors and customers several advantages over most, or in some cases all, other microstocks:
1. It is the first and only known microstock to offer immediate payment at time of sale to the content contributor whose image(s) are the subject of the purchase. The distribution of proceeds between True Vine Images and the content contributor happens transparently and automatically during the customer's check-out process. With other microstocks, the content contributor is forced to wait 30 days or longer for their share of the proceeds from a sale. This gives True Vine Images a huge competitive edge as photographers and other content contributors want and need to get paid as soon as possible. This is a strong incentive to join and upload their images to True Vine Images. As there is historically a strong direct relationship between number of contributors, number of images and sales, this is very significant.
2. True Vine Images has adopted a directory tree style manner of displaying its image categories. This allows for logical ordering of images into the most relevant and narrowly defined nested subcategories. None of the leading microstocks offer a directory tree structure. Users are stuck with browsing through hundreds or thousands of pages of images in broad categories, often irrelevant, which almost certainly leads to click fatigue and lost sales. There is ample search engine research indicating that users typically abandon searches after the first three pages of results. Media Buyers and consumers alike will be grateful for the time saved on True Vine Images.
3. Likewise, our True Vine Images search engine will only return images that have the actual search terms embedded in their metadata (keywords, description, display name) to prevent hundreds or thousands of irrelevant search results from returning.
4. For the convenience of stock image customers, and particularly Media Buyers, True Vine Images includes a vast number of categories and subcategories that are "family-friendly" though not religious in nature. This way, most if not all of their stock image needs can be served right on truevineimages.com.
5. None of the leading microstocks offer an online marketplace for customized photo products although some offer the limited opportunity to purchase posters or fine art prints. Likewise, of the leading custom photo product vendors, only two are known to also offer stock images that can be applied on demand to the products and this is not a visible feature on either website.
The marriage of high-end stock images with on-demand, custom photo products creates numerous revenue channels for True Vine Images. Both industries have proven recession-proof with upward growth throughout the economic downturn. True Vine Images products fall into one of two categories:
- Digital Products (stock images and their application to screensavers, e-greeting cards and mobile phone wallpapers);
- Physical Products (posters, fine art prints and frames, giftware,
home accessories, apparel and accessories, office accessories including mobile phone cases and mouse pads, ornaments and traditional greeting cards--all capable of being customized using stock images from the truevineimages.com galleries).
This business requires no inventory or shipping since partner fulfillment companies will be processing the orders for physical products and drop-shipping to the customers. It can be run with a limited telecommuter workforce including low-cost, offshore labor and avoids issues such as backup withholding compliance for content contributors since our customers are transacting business directly with the content contributor through our unique payment-splitting at time of sale.
It should be noted the stock photo industry and on-demand custom photo products industry have proven recession-proof with both experiencing exponential growth during the economic downturn. For example:
Shutterfly, a custom photo products company, experienced its 40th quarter of year-over-year net revenue growth for 4th Q. 2010. Shutterfly now estimates that its fourth quarter 2011 net revenues will range from $259 million to $264 million EBITDA ranging from $84 million to $88 million. For fiscal 2011, Shutterfly expects net revenue to range between $480-485 million.
The net revenues of competitor Cafe Press doubled from $64.1 million in 2006 to $127.9 million in 2010. Meanwhile net income tripled from $1.02 million in 2006 to $33.3 million for 2010. Net revenues and income rose roughly 40% for the quarter ending March 31, 2011 compared with March, 2010. Café Press has filed to raise $80 million in an IPO and is believed to be on target to earn more than $141 million for the year.
The outlook for True Vine Images is very favorable given two revenue channels that have been trending upward for several years and have proven to be recession-proof; given that costs will be held down by using a lean telecommuter workforce (following the proven business model of competitor Fotolia) and because it has no manufacturing or inventory costs; given that it got to market first with its Christian marketplace positioning and is poised to dominant if not own that space; and given its strong recruiting edge with content contributors who are expected to be highly responsive to the opportunity to be paid in real-time at the conclusion of a customer’s purchase.
Our Elevator Pitch:
- Americans spend a staggering $2.2 Trillion annually on religious products.
- There are 2.1 billion Christian adherents worldwide and 224 million in the U.S.
- The Christian market segment spends $4.63 billion on gifts & accessories annually.
- On-demand photo products market is growing exponentially to reach $2.2 billion in annual sales in next 24 months.
- The market for Christian-themed on-demand custom photo products is untapped.
- The $2 billion stock photography market continues to trend upward.
- Christian photo product sales on True Vine Images will also organically drive sales of its Christian stock imagery providing two strong revenue channels.
- True Vine Images is the first and only online marketplace specifically positioned and targeted to this affinity-driven market. As the first, we have the opportunity to dominate or own the space!
True Vine Images is also replicable. We are already working on developing a generic, non-niche stock image website & marketplace, and have secured the valuable domain name, fotosandfootage.com! In addition, we are also already studying the feasibility of other improvements and additions to the True Vine Images website and to its business model that will continue to provide it with a competitive edge in the marketplace.
It is located online at www.truevineimages.com.
Team
True Vine Images was co-founded by James Steidl, own and principal photographer at James Group Studios, Inc. James was recently ranked the 30th most downloaded photographer in the world. His stock photos have been used by Disney Studios, CNN, Monster.com, MetLife, The History Channel, New York Times, Hammond World Atlas (cover), 60 Minutes and Popular Science to name a few.
The other co-founder, Tommi Pryor, is a 25+ year marketing veteran who has owner-managed two full-service marketing agencies, one in the nation's capital where it served a distinguished client list including three U.S. presidential campaigns, 65 U.S. congressional offices and scores of respected national charities, trade associations, universities and political organizations. She has also served as CMO of the direct marketing division of a public company with $450 million in annual sales and in senior management of a leading global marketing company with $1.8 billion in sales and 60 worldwide offices. She currently owner-manages American Information Marketing, LLC, a digital marketing and data company to be sold upon the funding of this venture when she will assume full-time duties for True Vine Images and its sister projects.
Business model
True Vine Images is a holding of Digital Development Partners, a joint venture of James Group Studios, Inc. and American Information Marketing, LLC. True Vine Images operates as an e-commerce website and plans to keep costs low by utilizing a telecommuter workforce which may include or be entirely comprised of offshore labor negating the need for bricks-and-mortar overhead and associated costs, long-term leases and similar encumbrances and the employer portion of payroll taxes and benefits as pertains to offshore contract labor. This model has been successfully utilized by a leading microstock company who achieved multiple millions of dollars in sales revenues maintaining a telecommuter workforce of under 20 persons for the last several years. Costs will also be held down as all inventory held directly is of a digital nature and all physical products will be drop-shipped by partner companies. Our business lines are high margin in proven, high-demand, recession-proof industries.
Competitive advantage
True Vine Images offers content contributors and customers several advantages over most, or in some cases all, other microstocks:
1. It is the first and only know microstock to offer immediate payment at time of sale to the content contributor whose image(s) are the subject of the purchase. The distribution of proceeds between true Vine Images and the content contributor happens transparently and automatically during the customer's check-out process. With other microstocks, the content contributor is forced to wait 30 days or longer for their share of the proceeds from a sale.
2. True Vine Images has adopted a directory tree style manner of displaying its image categories. This allows for logical ordering of images into the most relevant and narrowly defined nested subcategories. None of the leading microstocks offer a directory tree structure. Users are stuck with browsing through hundreds or thousands of pages of images in broad categories, often irrelevant, which most certainly leads to search abandonment and lost sales based on search engine users quitting searches after the first three pages of results. Media Buyers and consumers alike will be grateful for the time saved on True Vine Images.
3. Likewise, our True Vine Images search engine will only return images that have the actual search terms embedded in their metadata (keywords, description, display name) to prevent hundreds or thousands of irrelevant search results from returning.
4. For the convenience of stock image customers, and particularly Media Buyers, True Vine Images includes a vast number of categories and subcategories that are "family-friendly" though not relgious in nature. This way, most if not all of their stock image needs can be served right on truevineimages.com.
None of the leading microstocks offer an online marketplace for customized photo products although some offer the opportunity to purchase posters or fine art prints. Likewise, of the leading custom photo product vendors, only one is known to also offer stock images that can be applied on demand to the products, and this recent addition to their website is limited in photo inventory and quality and is not widely known of.
CONTACT:
Tommi Pryor, Managing Partner
Digital Development Partners d/b/a True Vine Images
Email: tpryor@ddpartners.us and/or tpryor@truevineimages.com
Phone: 480-544-1773
Tommi Pryor, Co-founder
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