Advice for the newish folk...

Bit of advice for you. I realised this not that long after being here… some will have realised it before even uploading, a long time before me. A very few might still not have realised it. It’s pretty basic advice, but I thought I’d share while my phone is charging, before I head back to the pub. And it becomes less relevant as everything moves to ADP, so thought I’d get it out there while I can.

So… I first stumble across VideoHive back in 2009 I think. Could have been 2008. At that point I was pretty much dipping my feet in the world of visual effects and motion graphics. I was ok, but I wasn’t going to win any awards. So I’m checking out VH and I’m thinking… wow, look at all these people making loads of money from their work! I should do that!

As the prices, and the commission rates, and the sales figures are all public, it’s pretty easy to figure out how much somebody is making per month on an item. So I’m there doing my calculations, working out that somebody might make $10,000 per month from one item. And I’m thinking to myself, if I can make an item that’s not even ten times as good as that… then I’ll be making $1000 a month! Happy days!

This general outlook on the situation stuck with me for quite some time… at least until I’d started uploading and selling a bunch of items. I’d confused something ten times worse with something selling ten times less… which is completely wrong. If something is the same price as something else, but it’s ten times worse… then it’s not going to sell ten times less, it’s not going to sell at all. There are exceptions, and there’s no accounting for taste… but if Pepsi and Coke are the same price, but Coke tastes ten times worse, what are you going to go for?! Coke sales wouldn’t be 10% of Pespi… they’d be 1% or less.

So yeah… pretty simple advice, most people will have already clocked it if they’ve been here for any reasonable amount of time… but my point is to not aim to create something that is ten times worse, or half as good, and hope to get 10% or 50% of the best sellers. Aim to create something that is as good as, or better than the best sellers… and watch the sales roll in. Don’t set you target as something getting approved. Set your target as something getting featured item or top seller.

Peace out… be excellent to each other.

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