# Pixeldrain business plan

## The problem

Sending large files to people is still hard. In the last 20 years we have made
little progress in this area.

## The competition

There is no shortage of file sharing sites on the internet. Some of them are
very large, but none of them are perfect.

### WeTransfer

WeTransfer is the world's 410'th largest website. It gets an estimated 140
million unique visitors per month. WeTransfer is loved by its users, but it has
many flaws in my opinion.

 * ✅ Minimalistic user interface. Easy to understand
 * ✅ Ads do not get in the way
 * ❌ Slow and hard to navigate website
 * ❌ Unclear what the limits are
 * ❌ No way to view video, audio and images online
 * ❌ Trackers: Google Tag Manager, no privacy for users
 * ❌ Pro plan is expensive (€12 / m)
 * ❌ Low limits. Files expire after only 1 week and max file size is only 2 GB

### Zippyshare

Zippyshare is the world's 850'th largest website. It gets around 56 million
unique visitors per month. Despite its size and popularity I think it should be
easy to overtake. Users are not very loyal and it mostly gets used for piracy.

 * ✅ Easy to use
 * ✅ Clearly defined limits
 * ✅ File retention is 30 days after the last download, same as pixeldrain
 * ✅ Very fast download speed
 * ✅ No limits on how many times a file can be downloaded
 * ✅ Viewing files online is possible
 * ❌ Low size limit (500 MB per file)
 * ❌ Outdated design (looks like a website from 15 years ago)
 * ❌ Horrible ads on download page (push notifications, popunders, clickjackers,
   fake download buttons). Not the kind of thing you'd want to send to your
   family and friends
 * ❌ No premium plan (at least not well advertised)

## The solution

Pixeldrain presents itself as the best of both worlds:

 * ✅ A clear user interface which guides the user through the process of
   uploading and sharing files
 * ✅ Fast content delivery servers around the world make sure your files are
   always right around the corner
 * ✅ Clearly defined and liberating file size limit of 5 GB per file. The
   highest in the industry
 * ✅ Files stay around until 30 days after the last time it's downloaded
 * ✅ Because pixeldrain does not use trackers we can't see what you're sharing,
   and neither can Google or Facebook. This makes pixeldrain the ultimate
   solution for privacy-minded people

## Monetization

### Pixeldrain Pro

A subscription plan of €12 per _year_ (that's 10x cheaper than WeTransfer!).
This amount of money should be enough to cover all the usage costs for most
users. With this you will get:

 * File size limit will be raised from 5 GB to 10 GB.

 * File expiration will be increased from 30 days to 60 days after the last
   download.

 * No ads on files you share, the download page will be completely clean. This
   results in a faster and cleaner experience for people who receive the shared
   files. Which should make them more interested in the product.

 * No trackers on the site, everything your browser requests will come from
   pixeldrain's servers. This caters to the privacy conscious audience. This
   market has been booming lately, just take a look at all the VPN companies and
   all the social media scandals.

This plan does not diable the rate limiting which kicks in when a file has 3
times more downloads than views. So direct linking is not an option. To solve
that we have to second option.

Pixeldrain doesn't actually need people to subscribe in order to survive. But I
think turning off ads and trackers is a basic right that every website should
have. This plan only really starts getting profitable when more than 10 000
people sign up for it. I will still have to look for advertising deals.

### Pixeldrain Enterprise

We will also cater to business owners and professional file sharers with a
pay-as-you-go subscription. This subscription will charge €6 per TB for storage
and €2 per TB for bandwidth respectively. This is extremely cheap for content
delivery standards. For this money you will get a product which does not really
offer what a real CDN would (automatic file caching and load reduction), but you
will get an easy and cheap method for sharing huge files to enormous amount of
people. And that at one tenth of the cost of a regular CDN.

Apart from that you will also get:

 * Access to pixeldrain's Buckets feature. This allows you to create public
   directories which you can use to share large datasets selectively. And easily
   manage your files through a blazing fast web UI or even SFTP.

 * Whitelabel download pages. Brand your download pages with custom colours,
   icons and background graphics.

 * You are completely shielded from all of pixeldrain's limits. Rate limiting
   will be turned off and you will be able to directly link to your files
   instead of having to go through a separate download page.

 * A billshock prevention mechanism will prevent people from repeatedly
   downloading your files and increasing your usage.

## Spreading the word

And this is the beautiful part. Pixeldrain's download page already sees millions
of users _per day_! I don't have to spend a ton of money on marketing and
advertising. All I have to do to let people know about all this is place some
witty ads on my own download page.

 * Files expiring too soon? Pixeldrain Pro, only €1 per month!

 * Tired of those annoying ads? Pixeldrain Pro, only €1 per month!

 * Are your files too large for other sites too handle? Pixeldrain Pro, only €1
   per month!

 * Are Google and Facebook following you around the internet? Pixeldrain Pro,
   only €1 per month!

 * Et cetera

## TODO: How pixeldrain can afford to be cheaper
