Pixmac: microstock agency
Two months ago Vita, the CEO of Pixmac, has visited us in the studio to discuss our future cooperation. After lunch and a nice chat, we took the opportunity of Vita’s visit to pay back for a friendly interview with Jean-Marie that took place in February and was then published on Pixmac blog. Enjoy reading!
Why did you launch Pixmac? What gave you the idea to start a microstock agency? Where are you now with Pixmac?
The basic idea came from a business partner of my friend who runs a traditional agency. Later on my friend got involved in the business and asked me to help with “a little design job”. This “help” later became full time job for me and I moved from design area to management. Quite frankly, the reason was simple. It was a big opportunity at that time as the market was changing.
After almost 3 years of Pixmac’s public existence we’re somewhere halfway to the target of becoming the best agency in the market. We’ve come with several new approaches such as single image purchase, great visual similarity search or search engine optimizations. All that combined with great user experience generates nice traffic and profit. We’ve made it to TOP10 of microstock agencies recently. On the other hand we’ve passed the first level of this game and there are more levels to beat :-)
How do you make sure your business is continuously improving and offering your customers (buyers, contributors) a better service?
Empathy is the key. Listening to customers and contributors is the crucial way to make improvements. Changing the product to meet their needs is absolutely required for survival and growth. I don’t say we do everything people ask for, but the time of arrogant organizations is gone. As a good inspiration I recommend to check Zappos story in a book called “Delivering Happiness” or Dee Hock’s book “One From Many”. These examples are everywhere around us, some people just don’t like to be opened to them. And that’s Pixmac’s opportunity.
We all learn from our mistakes… What about you? Was there something at Pixmac you learned from? What is the best advice you have ever been given?
I’ve learned a lot in last 3 years. It would be a story of it’s own. To point some crucial ideas, it is:
- Listen to the message of your user, not just what they say
- Enjoy your job; make it great for everyone in the team
- Change is the only thing that remains always constant
- Being open and clear inside and outside the company is a must
Why did you initiate “Fair agency declaration”?
It is my feeling that something like that is needed. I’ve seen a lot of negative buzz on forums. It’s still about the same issue of talking about agency as evil and contributor as hostage. I wanted to change it somehow to achieve fair play between agency and contributor. That would help everyone with decision whether to upload to that agency or not.
It’s still in the early stage but my vision is to make it as standard within the industry.
What does it take to make a good stock image from your point of view? Are the best-selling images the nicest ones? And are buyers taking their time to choose the images themselves or just go on-line and buy the best-selling ones?
Many buyers are just used to “sort by downloads” if the default result is not good enough. Best selling images obviously require technical quality on high level, but the most important requirement remains a story. Best sellers tell a story by visual means and help designers to save time. If all that is well done then it just integrates with any flyer, presentation or website. CandyBox is definitely in the right direction with this :-)
Could you describe your typical working day? Your daily tasks, responsibilities… How many hours per week?
When I come to the office I briefly talk with everyone about their current status. Easy emails follow. In the rest of the day I switch between heavy emails and my daily tasks that I set to myself. Pretty often, our team helps me not to forget going to lunch. The afternoon is usually full of brainstorming and new ideas about what should be done next. I must say that the team is the crucial part of Pixmac and without that it would not work. Pixmac/about us
What motivates you? Where will Pixmac be in 2015? Where do you see the stock image industry going?
I’ll answer it from the end if I may. The industry is going to diverse in terms of content and aggregate in terms of agencies. There will be all levels of prices and quality on single pages such as Pixmac. And there will be fewer agencies, but those will be stronger in regards of volume. I already see many latecomers in the industry that are definitely not profitable and don’t even know how to make it work properly.
Pixmac in 2015 may be even more effective and automated. We’re constantly increasing our performance. It would be unbeatable in the user experience and quality of results and it will aggregate majority of the content available in the market while serving it locally to each country. I hope we’ll be constantly increasing the commissions to contributors. On the other hand 2015 is so far away that it’s difficult to predict any details.
My own motivation? To make the best agency in the market and to achieve the impossible of “making happy contributors and buyers”. That needs a lot of motivation. I love to talk with people from different parts of the world (as I love to travel) and I’m happy to implement my ideas into an international product such as Pixmac. I like to connect the right people to make the best product in terms of UX/UI as I’m a designer by trade.
Thank you for the opportunity to talk about Pixmac a bit. I feel we share more than just a pink color and country of residence. I’m looking forward to seeing more great content by CandyBox in our database :-) Good luck!
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