<div dir="ltr"><span id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-fef7ba36-bd5b-a635-4585-fb5ab52c2f17"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">ElRuggers!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal" id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-fef7ba36-bd5f-f8a1-8b94-b806d8214ef2"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">For those of you I know - ahoy! And those of you I don’t, also ahoy! I’m the founder of</span><a href="https://www.picfair.com/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Picfair</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> - we’re changing the way global image licensing works.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Quick primer: image licensing is a multi-billion dollar duopoly controlled by Shutterstock & Getty, who have become masters in enforcing the industry’s Three Great Nonsenses, namely:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Nonsense 1: Screw the Photographers</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Brace yourself. Every time an image buyer licenses from Getty or Shutterstock, the vast vast majority of the money goes to Getty and Shutterstock, not the photographer whose image is being licensed. Getty take 85%, Shutterstock around 75%; the leftovers to the photographer. Yuck yucky yuck.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Nonsense 2: Make Licensing Stupidly Complicated</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Getty has 324,000 ways to license an image. A cynic might say that this has been deliberately complexified to ensure the middlemen simply HAVE to be in the middle charging bucketloads to connect buyers and sellers. But I wouldn’t say that, nope not me your honour.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Nonsense 3: Exclude the amateurs!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">We are living through the greatest proliferation of digital images in history. This isn’t just a quantity thing - it’s quality too. Exponentially-improving cameraphones, affordable DSLRs, hitherto professional-standard editing software baked into camera apps … there are billions of fit-for-market images being produced by “amateurs” every year. And yet the industry wants nothing to do with them. Professionals with mega-expensive kit only please thank you very much.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Picfair is reversing each of the Three Great Nonsenses: An open market connecting any photographer with any buyer (they choose their own prices, we add 20% on top), with 3 super-simple & super-broad licenses, and open access to any photographer (our tech filters the what from the chaff).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Where are we at?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">We’re at a really exciting stage having spent the last three years building a formidable library of 4.5 million images uploaded by 25,000 photographers across the globe (they’re stunning - go have a</span><a href="https://www.picfair.com/blog/post/best-of-2016" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">looksee</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">). Armed with a fresh investment round, we’re now turning our attention to revenue generation, with a multi-pronged assault on publishers, agencies, and corporates. Every type of modern business licenses images, and we want all of them. We’ve already got some of the biggest publishers in the country nibbling - The Guardian, Lonely Planet, Random House, OUP all use Picfair images. And we don’t even have a proper sales & marketing team yet (they’re coming).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Finally .... The role!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">We’ve got a small development team helmed by a stupendously-good CTO (and a technical CEO, that’s me - I </span><a href="https://hackernoon.com/-242f8b94afa1" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">built Picfair myself</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> and still code when I’m allowed to), and we’re looking for a junior-to-mid-level Rubyist to join us. Ideally we’d like someone who’s also passionate about design and front end, or, at the least, highly front-end-curious.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Our stack: Ruby on Rails, JavaScript/jQuery, Elasticsearch, HTML/HAML, Sass, a pinch of Backbone but let's not talk about that, Postgres, Redis, Heroku. On the design side of things, we’d like you to know your way around Sketch or Illustrator.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Some of the technical challenges we wrangle with:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How can we intelligently & algorithmically rank images uploaded from anywhere, both subjectively and objectively?</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How can we weaponise our army of 25,000 photographers into buyer-acquiring advocates?</span></p></li><li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How can we produce beautiful buyer-facing content that engages while converting? How do we make a site that could stand alone as a gorgeous online publication while ensuring its raison d’etre remains commercial?</span></p></li></ul><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">And some other stuff: we work from a very fun multi-startup workspace in Shoreditch next to Spitalfields with lots of other creative companies, offer a £1,000 academic bursary to all staff members, and do a team lunch every week.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b style="font-weight:normal"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Money & Things</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How we’re doing this: We’d want to meet you first, and if it feels like it’ll work, after a small code test we’ll get you in for a week or so on a £200-300 day rate depending on your experience. If that goes swimmingly, we’ll look to either put you on an extended contract with a month-long notice period, or a staff role. Our budget for the staff role is a maximum of £50k, again depending on experience.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">This is already a horrendously-long email, so I’ll leave it there. If this sounds up your street, we’d love to meet you.</span></p></span><div><br></div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Benji Lanyado</div><div>Founder, <a href="http://Picfair.com" target="_blank">Picfair.com<br></a></div><div><a href="https://twitter.com/benjilanyado" target="_blank">@benjilanyado</a></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div>
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