Ansel from PSL here. You're exactly right. The entrepreneurs we work with want the best shot at a winning idea. Just because we decide to kill an idea doesn't mean we don't end up finding something else in the same area to work on together. It also doesn't mean they can't go do that idea by themselves if they disagree. PSL does not hang onto any rights whatsoever after killing an idea.
It's also worth noting that only half the companies we end up spinning out were generated by entrepreneurs. The rest (including XYLO) are generated and validating in-house before we even seek an entrepreneur to partner with.
Ansel from PSL here. PSL Studio has raised $28.5M. PSL Ventures has raised $85M. We have spun out 20 companies over 4 years. 6 of which are in the 50 Seattle companies to watch in 2020 (https://www.builtinseattle.com/2020/01/21/50-seattle-startup...) and of the early-stage venture backed companies who raised money in 2019, over 12% where PSL companies.
We specifically avoid "creative" ads. We know how to make ads more effective but that's for when we have a business we're trying to grow, not for when we are trying to determine if there's a business at all. We want to distill a very specific value proposition and target demographic in each ad. If the value prop resonates, they will click and they will convert regardless of ad "creativity". If we were just trying to juice numbers, we wouldn't learn anything whether and which value propositions are effective.
Absolutely. Because we're venture-backed and are spinning out venture-backed companies, we are limited to billion dollar ideas. It's not uncommon for us to kill great ideas that could "only" make tens of millions of dollars.
We're hoping through blog posts like this and other means to be able to share more of them because we want those companies to exist, we're just not set up to create them!
Well I was right there with you, thinking it was a completely shit idea, but a little math shows how it at least popped up on the radar (and I don't think its quite so bad myself after some thought):
100,000 music instructors, $60 per hour, at 365 days per year is roughly: $2.19 billion gross revenue per year-hour in the segment. Assuming, the average hours per day are like 3.5 (I can't imagine folks doing this are giving lessons for a full 8 hours per day, 5 days a week), that gives a total market of like: ~$7.65bn. Assuming they could earn a 20% stake in 100% of the market, that's like $1.53bn.
Looking at the numbers, I think there is likely more potential than they realized[1]. I would suspect that by and large, digital advertising is capturing almost none of the market as kinda proven by their analysis. Looking at how low the frequency of searches were compared to the sheer number of employed individuals tells me something is off as a whole with the analysis.
That is to say, digital advertising isn't showing the volume of or demand for musical teaching service because it's highly likely everyone believes it's incapable of doing so or adding value... That (driving the market online) is the problem to be solved in the space, because it sounds _hard_, and solving hard problems tends to be the way to make a lot of money. The other opportunity I would look at is, sort of from the other side: how to fix (what I assume to be likely) most music instructor's "underemployment" problems (i.e. inconsistent, few, or not enough hours). I imagine this angle would probably net more gross sign-ups as well since users (instructors) would be advertising the platform for you.
With all that said, you'd have to assume there is latent under-served demand (25-35%) in the market too to bother with anything I've said... that 25% is essentially what would be left over for others after you've captured the niche.
One last thought, for the VC since it looks like they're reading HN. Have you thought about doing retroactive market analysis where unicorns now exist to see what the market looked like then (e.g. short-term vacation rentals in ~2006)?
Might give you some strong signals for where there is potential...
[1] They are indeed a VC so it may not be in their best interest (time value of money, opportunity costs, etc)...
$60 / hr is not awfully high, lots of private tutors in the western world charge that, but note, that's it the west. There are also hordes of tutors charging as low as $5-$10 / hr in the west. It is unfortunately a business that is absolutely overrun with undercutting.
I think in reality, the only tutors you'll find that can charge that much, consistently, are professional musicians (i.e doing it for a living), and those with a degree.
Neither does it help that free alternatives like youtube and IG vids are in great abundance, which again can help to bring down the perceived value of lessons ("Why should I pay $60 when this great musician with 100k followers is putting out lessons for free? / on patreon for $10 a month")
There's probably some kind of market, but I'm not sure it's a billion $ market.
I'm a member of various FB musicians groups: buy/sell, discussions, theory, etc. and you see small businesses and startups like these come by all the time.
> Assuming they could earn a 20% stake in 100% of the market, that's like $1.53bn.
That makes no sense. Why would/should instructors+students continue to give them 20% commission for follow-up classes beyond the first one? It seems like just wishful thinking. The app store situation is very unusual (monopoly/monopsony), and does not apply in this context.
Yeah, this is the problem Wag has been having... and they ended up trying some draconian things to try to prevent people from working outside the system.
These market place ideas don't work nearly as well for businesses where there are long term, repeated, interactions between seller and purchaser. They work best when there is a one time exchange, because a market is really getting paid to make an introduction.
edit: I see now that many people made this argument much more eloquently in other comments on this thread.
Isn't that what VCs are trying for? Or rather, the nature of their investments? We're talking hypotheticals to analyze the potential of the business, saying it "makes no sense" doesn't mean much. We're trying to gauge an idea and to do so we have to be able to look at the potential.
If there is a medium to high drop out rate, and teachers are constantly looking for new student to fill their schedule (even 30% of their schedule), it could well be worth it.
By providing some small value-add products that are not possible easy for individual instructors to provide, but customers like to see. E.g. nicer scheduling of lessons or a way to share sheet music with the customers?
With platforms like these the choice isn't really up to the supplier, but to the consumer. The consumers come to expect those value-adds and so the suppliers have to switch to the platform (where the revenue share is opaque to the consumer) to get gigs.
The 20% cut also does sound rather extreme, but if you build a very good product where you can end up charging even more than the usual price, the 20% isn't taken away completely from the supplier, and might end up more like a 10% actual cut.
With platforms like these the choice isn't really up to the supplier, but to the consumer.
Once the platform has a significant number of suppliers, sure. If the platform is new then attracting suppliers is the number one problem to solve, and that's really hard if it's too expensive.
Yeah booking 10-15 hrs a week at $35/hr for 40 weeks would probably be a much more representative sample (Thats $14,000/year per person on the low end)
It also assumes that all discovery of teacher is done by direct searching instead of word of mouth - I know some one Phd in music, London session Musician who's played on top 10 hits he wont need to advertise
This is basically a hyperlocal seo play not sure why PSL seems obsessed with PPC only paid is not the only channel - go talk to some one Like Norm at DAC group
Not sure about now, but I was a musician with a variety of instruments for about a decade in my youth. In my experience, private instruction was always locally advertised. For instance, I had lessons on oboe, violin and piano. The piano teacher was a friend of my mothers, oboe and violin I had a class at school where the instructor suggested where to get tutors, typically either former students in the local orchestra or students at the local college music program.
To me, an app would have to improve upon this relatively convenient method of finding instructors. Typically these instructors come with the implicit approval of a trusted person as well.
> That is to say, digital advertising isn't showing the volume of or demand for musical teaching service because it's highly likely everyone believes it's incapable of doing so or adding value
An ad for online one-to-one art lessons has been popping up in my Wechat moments. Judging by the ad copy, they feel they have two strengths:
1. No need to transport your kid to and from the lesson.
2. Your kid will like this more than classroom-based lessons.
I conclude that the market they're trying to serve is parents who would like their children to learn to draw. But there are a lot of those, and their selling points seem pretty reasonable.
Brainstorming and validation rarely starts with a perfect idea. It starts with some about of demand, an unsolved problem or an inefficient market. We start to dig and as we talk to potential customers we get a better understanding of the problem and pivot accordingly. Sometimes we end up unearthing a great idea, sometimes not. It's worth remembering that finding billion dollar business narratives often involve some amount of market creation or expansion. It's not just "can we capture enough of the market that exists". It's "would customers pay more for a better experience?", "would more people become customers if the process was easier? Or cheaper?".
Hey Ansel, thanks for responding and for validating my train of thought...I don't have that much exposure to the VC world so the things I suspect far outweigh the things I know. :)
We have spun out 20 companies over the last 4 years which we are confident meet this criteria using this methodology. All are venture backed (led by investors other than us) and still operating (except for 1 which sold to Nike last year)
Does this apply to the vast majority of VC's? So if I want to do a yc pitch it needs to be able to have unicorn level potential? Who would you target as investors for tens of millions ideas if so? I'm guessing a larger focus on angels and IB's after a more proven, traditional profit model is shown (often a much different model than VC-startup profit model).
Yes, VC returns are dominated by the huge hits, so everyone is chasing those. Google almost certainly returned more than every other investment made that year for example.
For a tens of millions pitch go to Earnest Capital who will be perfectly happy to invest.
Yes due to how the economics of traditional venture funds work, in order to achieve the returns that limited partners expect, investments are made in companies with unicorn potential. Some will do well, most will fail, sometimes one will actually become a unicorn but because you don't know which is which you need every at bat to have a path to a home run.
This means that if your business is the right shape, VC is a fast way to raise a tremendous about of money.
But that's NOT to say that every company can or should raise a tremendous about of money. There are less traditional VCs, angel investors, debt, and other financial vehicles that can help businesses succeed. There are tons of examples of companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars who raised little or no money to get there (Webflow and Atlassian are two top-of-mind examples).
I understand the logic, but I can't help but feel that this type of assessment is really shortsighted.
Would Facebook have passed this "test"? There was Myspace and Friendster dominating. How about Instagram? Why would anyone want to share photos elsewhere when everyone posted their lives on Facebook?
We all know how those stories ended.
Your firm's method only addresses the current market in current conditions. Having the foresight to see the currently unseen before anyone else is what yields amazing results. And if this is the main reason for killing something like this off... let's just say I'm glad I don't have my funds there. :)
That's not quite right. Ad pricing is a marketplace like any other. The "demand" in the marketplace is demand by advertisers to get in front of any particular set of eyeballs. The price will be high if many advertisers are interested in the same group of people (and low if not). Price is an important metric for determining customer acquisition cost but you can't use it to infer customer demand. You instead use impressions, click through rates, and conversions rates to do that.
Generally correct, but do watch out for some recent changes by Google, where you pay what you bid instead of being charged the lowest next bid even if you set your bid higher.
It's also worth noting that only half the companies we end up spinning out were generated by entrepreneurs. The rest (including XYLO) are generated and validating in-house before we even seek an entrepreneur to partner with.