Hi @bradleytmorris I hope all is well. 🙂 I have actually just hit a bit of a curveball and I would really appreciate your feedback, please. I had a meeting with the artist yesterday and gave him the brief. He has sent me back a quote today. It is for ten grand.

This is much higher than I was hoping for and now I am freaking out a bit. This is for 12 setting images (one for each module), plus loops that will be edited into the 12 videos (I am wanting to give the feel of an ayahuasca journey), plus the title image for the e-course and banner, plus a new book cover for my lead-in book, and a new banner for the Cosmic Journey series for my homepage and fbk.

Here is his artwork here: http://pumayana.com/

Here is an example of the loops he does and the effect I am going for with the video modules:

He has also done my book cover and my logo previously.

I know that you advocate starting small and then upgrade as we go, but the art is a very central aspect of what I am creating, and I really can’t see any other way of creating my vision properly without it.

I guess my biggest concern is spending all this money and then the course doesn’t sell.

Do you have any thoughts or guidance please? Thank you 🙂

thanks @rangerbosslady 🙂 I have been mulling all of this over and talking to people about it these last couple of days. I’ve also drawn up a rough budget for the rest of the project (now in the process of getting actual quotes). I think I am looking at somewhere around 21K for the whole thing inc artwork. That includes the platform and video editing obviously, but also things like script consulting and facebook ads. Once I’ve finished getting the actual quotes I will have a clear figure.

The business model I am thinking of going with is a flat rate $150 for lifetime access. On top of that I am thinking of providing group coaching for those who want it for a $35 subscription fee. People who pay the $150 won’t get access to the coaching unless they upgrade. Based on this model I will need 140 flat rate sales to break even, which I think is doable.

I also have access to lists of 40K, 20K, and 35K with friends/JV partners who have offered to promote the project. One of those lists is the artist’s. There’s also my own list of 5K. Although my list needs some serious pruning, which I’ll do when I start rolling out the content marketing.

So really, I see that I have 3 options.

1) decide it’s too expensive and use my savings to travel around the world with instead and then just get a boring job in the system and waste the rest of my life away doing whatever the fuck it is that people do in this weird reality and watch the world burn in a dark cloud of climate change

2) go smaller and produce something medicore that doesn’t match my vision and probably won’t have as much impact

3) just go for it and attempt to do something that can make a positive difference on this planet

Everyone I have spoken to this weekend has advised me to go with option 3. These people include my friends, one of my coaches, a friend who is a successful businessman, and my Mum. Oh and also my spirit guide. LOL.

So I’m going to finish getting actual quotes and then make my decision but from where I am standing there really is only one option.

Thanks heaps @rangerbosslady and @xbobby for the moral support! 🙂 And thanks heaps @bradleytmorris for the business advice. 🙂

@bradleytmorris I have created the sales projections and also looked at different business models in this spreadsheet too. Absolute worse case scenario with my current traffic and what I know how to do in terms of generating leads and where/how and based on my past results, I would still be happy with that for my investment. That doesn’t include any new lead generation strategies or JVs. Given however that my worse case scenario number is actually quite low, I don’t think the artist would go for it as a partnership deal. I also don’t think I’d want a partnership deal if that ends up being the reality of the sales.

The artist does actually have to create all the stuff from scratch and it will be about 3 months of work for him (13 original images plus 2 banners plus 12 x sets loops). He got all his stuff stolen earlier this year including 10 years of backups. Regardless though he still creates all custom images as originals. Most of his existing stuff he has left out there is already licensed (I already asked if I could use pre-exisiting stuff). He also charges a higher rate now than when I first worked with him because he is now working with some big names in the industry. TBH I think he is actually giving me a pretty sweet deal considering.

One of the really interesting things from doing that spreadsheet was seeing the two different business models (subscription V one-time-payment) play out over the long term. Obviously these are all guestimates but it will definitely be something to think about and test once I’m up and running.

Anyway, I’m feeling a lot better from doing that. I also feel like the weight of crossing through this last threshold has finally lifted, and I’ve been tuning into new parts of the vision, so the show must go on!

TBC.