Twenty20

@kirillzubovsky I clicked around figured out that you can bypass the forced sign up here: https://www.twenty20.com/discover

@secondfret @kirillzubovsky Thanks for posting that link to the discover page, Josh. Krill, primarily what makes us different is the authentic nature of our content and how relatable it is in today's age. 500px, a close competitor is servicing more let's say "professional" photographers shooting beautiful landscapes and such. We're a much more grassroots, community driving photo marketplace.

@secondfret @kirillzubovsky Thanks! Forced sign up is obnoxious.

@secondfret Thanks for the scouting Josh!

@kevinfremon thanks, makes sense. I see that you used to send visitors directly to the discover page, and then decided to send them off to the new force-signup page. Is the conversion working better for you? It might ... In any case, I am one of those guys who considers "forced sign up to be obnoxious", but I also hear that it works better sometimes. Perhaps consider a medium where you tell me everything that you tell me on the new landing page (which makes a lot of sense), but also let me actually browse right away. If I find something worth getting, I would give you my email/facebook/phone # in a blink, but ... it would be really nice to first discover something useful. My 2c. Good luck!

Thanks so much @erictwillis for posting! Really appreciate it. We've tried hard to rethink "stock photography" and build a marketplace that we, as creators, actually want to use. We are building Twenty20 so that you have awesome visual content for our websites, social media, and mobile apps, and to help today's emergent photographers get their amazing work out in the world. Unlike Shutterstock and Getty, our photos are fresh and authentic. Instead of sourcing from professional photographers doing staged photo shoots, we source from hundreds of thousands of photographers capturing real life (primarily on mobile.) We believe the result is content that's a lot more relatable and useful. We've also seen our content drive much better performance on social media and digital ads, as detailed in the case studies on our site. We would love to hear your feedback and ideas!

@caseymac We've taken the approach of building a very open, very global photographer community. Would encourage you to sign up and give it a spin, and also let the app store reviews from photographers provide you some more color. You'll find: 1) A fun, supportive community 2) Total transparency on when your work is used 3) Straightforward earnings $2 per photo sold 4) Lots of buyers on the system - so you'll be selling a lot of content Would love your feedback if you decide to give it a try!

@mattmuns I appreciate you taking the time to respond, Matt. All of that sounds great except for one huge red flag: $2 per photo sold?! Straightforward, I suppose, but hugely offensive to the photographers who put forth the entire effort to create this content. We invest in camera equipment, plane tickets, computers, hard drives, and Creative Cloud memberships in order to take photos, and for some, to make a living. This all costs money. I'm sure you've heard this hundreds of times before, but the best photographs aren't simply snapped and moved on. They're created, molded and crafted into a work or art that has value - at least if quality is an important consideration in the content accepted onto Twenty20. On 500px, for example, photographers earn 60% commission (still low) per photograph with prices that start at $49. Stocksy earns 50% with prices that start at $30. I understand stock photography isn't what it was in the early 2000s, but do you think $2 is really showing value to the artists who are providing all of the content to your site?

@caseymac It's an interesting question, and one we wrestle with a lot internally. Part of our mission is to empower today's emergent photographers. Happy to share our current thinking. We've decided to try to optimize for total earnings each month for photographers. In other words, we take into account the volume of photos you'll sell as well as the actual dollar amount per photo. There are other startups (a couple of which you mention) who publish a % of revenue share. They also sell mainly individual photo licenses for a much higher price. From what we have seen in the market, they aren't doing nearly the volume of transactions that we are seeing at Twenty20. As a result, you may earn more per photo, but you'll earn less per month. In other words, you'll maximize your monthly earnings with Twenty20. At least that's our goal. It also remains to be seen if any of these companies will build sustainable businesses in the long term. We are very focused on building a marketplace that is sustainable for many years to come. If you look at a traditional stock photo company that has gone the volume route, and built very sustainable platforms for photographers, Shutterstock is an interesting example. If memory serves, photographers typically earn ~ $0.30 per photo licensed on a subscription with Shutterstock. Twenty20 offers about a 6x premium there. Hope this was helpful. The exact way to share revenue is an ongoing question internally, and something I'm sure we'll continue to iterate on. Welcome any feedback you may have.