I think it would be perfectly reasonable to give people full access free for 30 days with say 10GB storage and then they have to pay, or lose access. That model is common for a lot of paywall newspapers, for example. After paying they could immediately get say 200GB with options to increase that.Alternatively give full functionality permanently, but restrict storage to 2GB which is enough to trial the features, and could even be enough for 'home' users to edit an occasional clip of their kids or whatever, without ever paying. 2GB would only cost a few pence per month, based on typical retail costs for Google Drive storage, which is £1.99 for 100GB. So even if we hit 1M freebie users in an initial run, that would be less than £50k per month, which is affordable in the short term. Of course if numbers started going through the roof then we would be needing further working capital... but in that scenario we would be raising it at 50p+!! |
johnveals
I get that having masses of free users will help to get the word out, but if the conversion rate is only 5% I would just like to understand the cost benefit analysis.
I accept that SR and the team will have done all the analysis and so will proceed with a scheme which they believe will work and which can be afforded. |
salmon 9
‘Thanks Cocorico, but is more than 30 days free for the full version affordable and should anyone have a basic version free for ever?’
Yes, otherwise you strangle growth through the networking effect, but with reduced function and storage capacity to limit overheads.
There needs to be a visible carrot dangled in the free version. |
Couple of billion next week, tens of billions next year.
Decisions, decisions.
In Sumit we trust.
££££ not pence |
Yes, I agree that a giant would have the option of a very different launch budget! |
Good Q's - For BIRD - I really dont know.
But shouldn't be a prob for the big boys like Amazon or Google |
Thanks Cocorico, but is more than 30 days free for the full version affordable and should anyone have a basic version free for ever? |
Post paid launch.
30-90 day Free Trial full elevate offering.
Non paid subscribers revert to limited elevate offering/ limited storage capacity & limited storage time period.
Or
Post paid launch.
30-90 day Free Trial full elevate offering.
Like it or leave it - Non paid subscribers discontinue access
imo. The future starts with a capital G |
chriscallen
I recall IM saying in the past that they would need a bid of at least $1billion to sell out and then at the last investor presentation he said that with elevate they are building a company that will, in time be worth $ tens of billions.
So it seems to me that for a bid to succeed in the near future, it would have to be more than $1billion, maybe double that or more. That would surely convince all the shareholders to accept the offer.
I know that some people here think that such a large amount would not be offered when the share price is so low, but I think, to be realistic, we must forget there being any relationship between the current share price and the offer price that could succeed. Instead, all that matters is what is the IP worth to a giant, it is as simple as that. |
In the case of the free version of elevate, there will be costs in servicing and storing data for those using it without charge. I am not clear on what those costs would amount to.
Will people be invited to use the free version without a time limit or will there be a limit of say a few months by which time people would be expected make a decision to pay for one of the subscription options or drop out? |
NickB I can understand the logic of being taken out but the facts now make a pre-release bid unlikely. A bid after the paid release does make sense for any bidder as they will have some feedback on the rate of take up.
But the biggest obstacle are the the directors and the employees. No bidder will proceed if they are not on side. Their other problem is setting a price that will win over more than 90% of all shareholders, otherwise they would be left with a minority holding of shareholders or worse if over 25% remain. If the takeup is fast the price will likely be much, much higher as going it alone will be a genuine option. |
I love all this positivity.
🙂🙂 |
SS I believe has designed the technology for mass adoption and I reckon a tech giant is part of his equation for that mass adoption to happen. |
Chris
I think 9% is a high figure more likely 5% (of a very big number)
Signing up for a free account is so easy and no barrier to entry
CapCut has started advertising on its free level I understand.
The numbers can get very big hence it’s reasonable to think big tech like Google would want it for their platform
I’m sticking with my theory of 3-6 months either side of paid launch for being taken out, if not we are staying independent and building the business |
chriscallen
I hear what you say and respect your logic.
The team at Blackbird will no doubt be weighing in the balance the preferred route to maximising the future success and payback of elevate.io
Risk management is a very important consideration.
I have never met SS, but if I was in his shoes, and with his shareholding, I could imagine the feelgood factor of teaming up with a giant who would establish my technology breakthrough quickly as a world beater. It might be difficult to resist!! |
One thing is certain: if BIRD has got deals lined up with products that complement elevate.io or even one of the big players adopting it nothing will be said until elevate paying version is released.
It would be very disappointing if less than 9% of users paid for elevate once it gets into its stride. On BIRDs figures (2nd iteration by Allenby) on 1m users they should be making a profit in excess of £300M. BIRD shouldn't be piling it high and selling it cheap. It's a world leading, quality product and selling it at a discount is foolish as people only really value what hey pay for. |
Salmon
I haven’t yet watched the Bump video.
Sounds interesting.
Behind the scenes action seems pretty plausible to me. |
Nick B and Cyberhub
Very interesting contributions.
The Canva story was very interesting and encouraging and I also very much enjoyed watching the following youtube video about David Lieb who founded Bump with a team of 30 people.
When Bump was fading as a product, he approached Google with a demo of his concept of a photo product called Photoroll that his team had produced.
Google liked it and he says that Google ultimately bought his company and commissioned him to rebuild Photoroll with Google technology. The team size was increased to 120 (20 from the Bump team and an extra 100 people from Google).
They finished the product within 9 months and Google launched it as Google photos so it never entered the marketplace as Photoroll.
Since the potential market is so big for elevate, I do wonder whether behind the scenes there is something similar going on now with elevate. |
cyber yes an inspiring video documentary
Interesting numbers from you, also worth realising that Canva has a lot of growth ahead of it. |
 Yes all very inspiring...
Latest figures I can find on Canva:
"Canva was most recently valued in April 2024 at over US$26bn (A$40bn), earns over $1.7bn in revenue, has 16m paying subscribers and 185m monthly users."
So two key facts from this:
* Paying subscribers pay about $110 p.a. in fees. I suspect that "revenue" in the quoted text refers to "net revenue", as the UK price quoted is £100 p.a. for individual users, so $125. As a SAAS-type company I think they probably have a very high gross margin of 85-90%.
* 8.5% of monthly users are paying subscribers - a very healthy %age IMO
Extrapolate to Elevate?
Storage costs will be higher for large video files so Elevate will have to charge more. Equally their freebie users will cost more as (even with restricted storage) a lot of users means substantial cash to pay. But hopefully paying video editors will understand why they need to pay (say) £250 p.a. instead of £100? It's still very small beer for any serious video editor / vlogger. IMO a small distributed team of 6 people (say video editors on a multinational's corporate comms team, or a marketing company with several offices, or a training/educational video company, or a decent-sized YouTube channel's video production team) wouldn't think twice about paying 6 x £250 = £1500 p.a. *if* Elevate delivers faster, and/or more efficient, and/or higher quality videos.
A YT channel I follow (Mentour Pilot) was recently explaining how they have a team of 5 content creators and video editors distributed around Europe and the US - a perfect client for Elevate! And with 2m subscribers, why not offer that channel free use of Elevate in return for giving it a plug, and/or a commission on anyone signing up?
As for conversion rates, never mind 8.6%, if we can get to even 5% of users willing to pay, that means we only need approx 200,000 users to hit breakeven. Surely that's not an excessive target in the first year of a proper continual marketing programme? I mean we've already got 40,000 users! Yes it's not clear how many are reasonably frequent ("monthly") users, but the 40,000 were achieved with what we understand was minimal one-off marketing.
Without wanting to state the bleedin' obvious, progress all depends on both the quality/usefulness of the finished product, and a professionally rolled out marketing campaign. Not long to wait now!
Touch wood we will be in a very different place by next Xmas.
GLA NAI |
Fantastic 14min mini documentary on the early days of Canva as just an idea and Melanie Perkins with her vision for everyone to be able to design, and how she got investors
Lots of parallels with elevates vision
Very much worth a watch |
Sorry bonio my frustration with your 5p to launch got the better of me. |
I didn't say it was nick
How about you stop putting words in everyone's mouth? |
bonio
That’s irrelevant to the investment case. |
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