Free eBook: Dan, Should I Buy a Matterport Pro2 3D Camera (and Start a Service Business?) | Guest: Anonymous | Friday, 25 February 2022 | Episode: #135

WGAN-TV | Dan, Should I Buy a Matterport Pro2 3D Camera (and Start a Service Business?) | Guest: Anonymous | Friday, 25 February 2022 | Episode: #135 | (The voice of the WGAN Forum Member has been changed and edited for clarity and brevity.)

WGAN Forum Podcast #71


Dan, should I buy a Matterport Pro2 3D Camera and start a service business?

Hi All,

If you are thinking about buying a Matterport Pro2 3D Camera -- and start a Matterport Service Provider business -- you should watch this video (above), if you:

1. are not a real estate photographer
2. are not a real estate agent
3. do not have an existing service business where Matterport digital twins would be an Add On to your existing business.

Questions?

Best,

Dan

Transcript: (Video Above)

[00:00:03]
Dan Smigrod: Thanks for reaching out, Thanks for joining the We Get Around Network Forum. How did you hear about us?

[00:00:09]
WGAN Forum Member: Well, I just did some preliminary research and I just saw you everywhere. Anywhere I went talking about Matterport or 3D scanning your name on We Get Around Network just kept popping up and I was like, "You know what, I think this is the guy I need to talk to."

[00:00:28]
Dan Smigrod: Well, I looked at your LinkedIn profile, it didn't jump out at me that you are going to start a business. Why don't you tell me about what you're planning to do and then how I can help you.

[00:00:39]
WGAN Forum Member: Basically, I caught wind of the whole Matterport thing recently. I'm a retail merchandiser by trade, andlike we started offering the Matterport services to retail clients and I was actually out... standing with the camera: literally, physically doing it.

I thought it was the coolest thing, but my mind started turning like there's so many different uses for this. I can see eventually all this talk about a 3D and the whole virtual VR thing is where things are going, coming out of that 2D space into the 3D space.

I was like, "I don't want to be on the I wish I could have or I should have in the future when this thing blows all the way up and I'm like, man, I had an opportunity to get in on that."

In the past, even with cryptocurrency, there were times I could've invested in cryptocurrency when it was in its infancy, and because of my failure to act or my fears or I missed out on that.

I don't want to be on that end of the curve anymore.

The wish-I-could've-would've-curve. I said, if I see another opportunity that comes up in the market, I want to be on it.

I saw this, I got some experience with it and I was like, "You know what, I need to look into this," and more I talked to my business partner because he and I had been talking about going into real estate, doing what do you call it, buying houses on contract.

Not actually like real estate, but getting houses on contract and that's something he brought to me about a year or two years ago. In addition to that, he was also going off into photography.

And here I go a year or two years later, it is like real estate photography. That whole idea that he had got merged in a new way, presented to us, and I brought it back to him and I let him watch a couple of videos on the Matterport scanning and stuff like that.

He was interested. I said before we just put our funds together and buy our first Matterport camera, which we're planning to do, I would like to get a little more insight into market trends and things like that.

Now, I spoke with the Matterport salesmen. Of course, when you're talking to the salesmen, you always got this thing in the back of your mind where you are just really just trying to sell me this thing.

You don't know if they're really being genuine or even thorough in their explanation of things. Because at the end of the day, they are trying to sell.

I always have this thing in the back of my mind where I don't know when I'm talking to a salesperson. I thought it would be best that we spoke to someone like yourself because you run this Network. That We Get Around Network.

I see it like a portal where people could come and even hire cameramen of various sorts, and can get quotes as an information portal for customers, for providers themselves. Your name just kept popping up, I was like, "This is the 3D God, so we need to talk to him."

I want to say, thank you for even extending this opportunity to speak with you, I know you're a very busy guy and I really appreciate it.

[00:04:12]
Dan Smigrod: You're welcome. Tell me about your partner. What is his expertise in this venture?

[00:04:18]
WGAN Forum Member: He's more so into real estate. He knows more about real estate than I do. He's not a real estate agent, but he studies it on his own a lot. He even knows how to appraise a house. That's pretty much his whole thing.

We're just eager, we're just young guys. Well, he's younger than me, but he got more energy than I got and that's pretty much it.

We've been saving our money, working hard and we're looking for something to invest in that we can do.

[00:04:52]
Dan Smigrod: My initial reaction is, No! No! No! Don't buy a Matterport camera! No. Don't enter the business.

If you really want to do this, you're going to have to push back hard on me. But I'm going to be the opposite of the Matterport salesperson and say, I'm going to guess this is not the right opportunity for you.

[00:05:16]
WGAN Forum Member: Why do you say that?

[00:05:21]
Dan Smigrod: What I'm hearing is passion, excitement, enthusiasm. What I'm not hearing, and I think this would be a good opportunity to say, "Okay, who is your target audience for doing Matterport?"

[00:05:40]
WGAN Forum Member: I would say off the mat, it will be the real estate community here in Atlanta, homeowners look into doing private sales. Retail stores look to service or brand their products and give their customers a unique experience.

Then I found out that Matterport can be pretty much used as part of the metaverse, which I thought was really cool.

That can be anyone who's looking to put their personal space in the metaverse, they're going to need that 3D floor plan. Insurance companies, estimators, construction companies looking to assess places remotely, maybe to help with some planning cost or project estimation costs.

I know we use it in our company for what they call due diligence surveys.

Essentially it helps corporate plan retail resets, if you will, remotely. Which pretty much streamlines project costs for various entities. Now, I can see it being used by anyone who's showcasing products in an enclosed space. It can be a car dealership. It can be a hotel conference facility or events facility.

I think the possibility just goes on and on depending on particularly who would like to get the scan performed. Primarily, I see broadly, if I had to just break it down broadly, I see showcasing products, showcasing spaces, and providing an immersive virtual tour.

Then I see remote project management, facilitation of cost. That's the two broad categories and either one of those things I named can pretty much fit in that. Like I said, the possibilities are pretty endless.

[00:07:58]
Dan Smigrod: Let's go back for a moment to the time that you've done the scanning for the retail reset, retail audit, retail planning. Do you have a network of trusted colleagues that are potential clients?

[00:08:15]
WGAN Forum Member: Yes.

[00:08:16]
Dan Smigrod: Of your services?

[00:08:18]
WGAN Forum Member: I mean, yes I do.

[00:08:19]
Dan Smigrod: Not in general, but do you know their name? Who are they? How to reach them and they trust you?

[00:08:28]
WGAN Forum Member: A few. Not a whole bunch, but a few. A few. Not a bunch but a few.

[00:08:35]
Dan Smigrod: Okay, and how well do you understand that particular space?

[00:08:46]
WGAN Forum Member: Could you be a little more specific?

[00:08:48]
Dan Smigrod: Well, give me a little deeper dive into how you were using the Matterport camera.

[00:08:54]
WGAN Forum Member: Well, I'm going to try to without I guess going against the confidentiality agreement.

[00:09:05]
Dan Smigrod: Don't tell me anything that's confidential. Just in general terms of how Matterport is used to solve a problem.

[00:09:15]
WGAN Forum Member: Basically, Let's say you're an executive in a retail corporate office. Maybe you're responsible for store remodeling.

[00:09:25]
Dan Smigrod: Yes.

[00:09:26]
WGAN Forum Member: Or retail resets. Okay? Maybe, let's say, before you send out a bunch of people, need to be, what do you call it? Property inspectors, contractors, or whoever that's involved in this reset.

Before you send out all these people in various different instances to go assess the property.

Why would I go through all of that when you can have a 3D virtual scan that you can pull up at any given time. Now we don't have to fly people out. We don't have to continuously pay for people to show up on-site physically.

[00:10:19]
Dan Smigrod: Yes. You live in the Greater Atlanta area?

[00:10:23]
WGAN Forum Member: Yes.

[00:10:24]
Dan Smigrod: You're talking about retail spaces in the Greater Atlanta area?

[00:10:29]
WGAN Forum Member: Greater Atlanta area, all the way around Georgia, even and I'm on the road. I even talked to my boss, I said, "Hey, if I bought a Matterport camera for some of the gigs because we only have so many cameras, they have to ship them back and forth between the scanners. I said if I had my own, would you be willing to always as a possibility, we be contractors as well?" and he said possibly, you know what I'm saying?

[00:10:55]
Dan Smigrod: Okay. So there's a glimmer, but I would say don't quit your day job.

[00:11:02]
WGAN Forum Member: Oh, no, I'm not quitting my day job.

[00:11:03]
Dan Smigrod: Make sure that you have a firm agreement prior to buying a Matterport Pro2 3D Camera so that you know what your pricing is and what the terms are before you jump in.

[00:11:18]
WGAN Forum Member: Right.

[00:11:20]
Dan Smigrod: Because there's a difference between an expression in general of interests that, "Yeah, I'm happy to talk to you about being an independent contractor at the same time that you're an employee of the company for a specific service." But I would encourage you to actually get to, yes.

[00:11:47]
WGAN Forum Member: Yes.

[00:11:48]
Dan Smigrod: It's not a hypothetical. It may be helpful to know, I do a lot of calls like this and I've had a number of people who've said they've had conversations of an expression of interest.

But when they actually bought the camera, they couldn't get to yes. It was just people being polite about, oh, I'm a friend. I'm a colleague.

I'm happy to have that conversation with you. That sounds like it'd be a great idea, but when they invested in buying the camera and now went back and asked for the order, they couldn't get a yes.

[00:12:27]
WGAN Forum Member: Right.

[00:12:28]
Dan Smigrod: I think that's very important that you know that you have a firm order or orders before you invest because it's not just buying a Matterport Pro2 3D Camera. You're going to need an iPad or an Android tablet.

You're going to need a tripod, because of the investment in the camera you like, they need a case. There's a lot of things to spend money on even before you go out to your first location to do scanning.

[00:12:57]
WGAN Forum Member: Exactly.

[00:12:57]
Dan Smigrod: So on the retail, I'm hearing Greater Atlanta area and I'm hearing maybe some other locations in Georgia.

[00:13:14]
Dan Smigrod: If I understand correctly, you're an employee, but you're asking for, "could I do some freelance, independent contractor work using Matterport camera outside the Greater Atlanta area."

Would your company require you to scan exclusively for them or would you be able to do this moonlighting or side hustle for other companies in that space?

[00:13:39]
WGAN Forum Member: Moonlighting. Not just exclusive with moonlight; side hustle too.

[00:13:45]
Dan Smigrod: Then your partner-colleague who's considering doing this business with you, does he have trusted relationships in real estate where those people are either prospects for scanning or they can provide trusted introductions to those that do scanning?

[00:14:08]
WGAN Forum Member: Possibly. I think he's still building those networks.

[00:14:13]
Dan Smigrod: I have some concerns. My single biggest concern is this concept of you don't know what you don't know. For example, when you talk about, well, people who want to sell their homes are prospects.

Not really because most people who sell their home, who go through a real estate agent, the agent pays the fees for marketing.

In addition, it's a whole lot of time, energy, and effort to sell a person that has a house for sale; the same amount of energy as selling a real estate agent that has hopefully more than one house to sell.

You invest a lot of time, energy, and effort in somebody that has a house for sale. And even if you get the order, there is no future additional business opportunities to get from that person that engages you to do Matterport for selling their house.

[00:15:28]
Dan Smigrod: Are you or your partner a real estate photographer?

[00:16:22]
WGAN Forum Member: No. He does photography, but I'm not a real estate photographer.

[00:16:27]
Dan Smigrod: Is your intent to offer just Matterport to real estate agents, for example?

[00:16:34]
WGAN Forum Member: No. I would like to explore that space, but the retails and the retail space as well.

[00:16:44]
Dan Smigrod: Personally, I would encourage you to find a niche that you have subject matter expertise versus any other Matterport Service Provider.

If you're an expert in store remodels and retail resets and whatever that space is and you understand that space, then I would say, pick a niche and obsess on that niche.

The example is, if you tell me about residential real estate and you say, "Well, I'll learn how to take pictures.

I will learn how to take video. I will learn how to take aerial. " If I ask you what percent of real estate agents engage a professional? Well, that's my first question. What percent of agents actually engage professional photographers to shoot photos and other services?

[00:17:39]
WGAN Forum Member: I will say half, but I don't know for real.

[00:17:41]
Dan Smigrod: Yeah, it's probably a good number. Of the half that engage a professional photographer, what services do they order first?

[00:17:52]
WGAN Forum Member: As far as regular 2D pictures versus 3D pictures?

[00:17:56]
Dan Smigrod: Yeah. Or other services?

[00:18:06]
WGAN Forum Member: This is 50 percent, you're saying?

[00:18:09]
Dan Smigrod: Of the 50 percent that engage a professional photographer to do photos or video or Matterport or 3D or 360 or some other platform or aerial, what services do they order first?

[00:18:23]
WGAN Forum Member: I don't know.

[00:18:25]
Dan Smigrod: Photos. What services do they order second?

[00:18:30]
WGAN Forum Member: Probably aerial photos.

[00:18:32]
Dan Smigrod: It's typically video. What services do they order third?

[00:18:39]
WGAN Forum Member: Probably editing.

[00:18:42]
Dan Smigrod: Editing generally it's included with the photos. Video typically would include video editing as part of the service. Let me ask it a different way.

Of the real estate agents that order professional services from service providers, what percentage of those orders include either 3D or 360 virtual tours?

[00:19:10]
WGAN Forum Member: Probably from what? I went on Zillow and I went on another site and I just went through and tried to see how many of them were using Matterport scans versus just regular 2D. It seemed like about 30 percent roughly.

[00:19:34]
Dan Smigrod: That sounds like a high number to me. Typically, it's probably going to be about 15 percent.

[00:19:42]
WGAN Forum Member: So, half of that.

[00:19:44]
Dan Smigrod: I know that you've told me that real estate is not necessarily your first vertical to go after, but just to let you know, if you came back and said, "Well, we're going to offer Matterport to real estate agents,"

I would say, "Well, real estate agents, the first thing they buy are photos. The second thing is video, and the third thing may be Matterport or aerial, or maybe a different virtual tour service." It's a smaller percentage.

You can't make a living with residential real estate agents just offering Matterport. The We Get Around Network Forum – www.wegetaroundnetwork.com –

[00:20:26]
Dan Smigrod: 20,000 people come to our site every month. There is no photographer in the WGAN community that solely makes a living from Matterport for residential real estate.

[00:20:40]
WGAN Forum Member: So I'm glad you said that because this is something I was considering; building inspection and appraising as well as an additional service in the future, but not right now. What do you think about that?

[00:21:06]
Dan Smigrod: Again, I do a lot of calls like this for people who are thinking about buying Matterport. I'll tell you that probably 100 percent of the people that I say "no" to still go ahead and buy a Matterport camera. At some point, they get back to me and say, "Gee, I regretted doing that." I'm geeky.

The whole thing of the scanning appeals to me. I'm a photographer and this kind of photography appeals to me. The technology appeals to me. It looks like it's the way of the future.

[00:21:42]
WGAN Forum Member: All right.

[00:21:42]
Dan Smigrod: All that's great. I'll tell you, you'll be great at scanning. The single hardest thing about Matterport is not Matterport: it's developing business.

The easiest way to develop business, which is still hard, are three things: one is to be a subject matter expert in a particular niche.

Two, is to have a network of trusted colleagues that can place orders with you today. Three, is trusted colleagues and friends that can provide trusted introductions for you.

In my opinion, it's those three things. If you decide to do this business, I would encourage you to pick a niche that you and your partner have subject matter expertise. In your case, that might be retail resets, store remodeling.

In your partner's case, it might have something to do with real estate, but I would avoid every vertical that you have no history of understanding that space. The example is residential real estate.

You might immediately say, well, it seems obvious that real estate agents would want to do this, and I'll tell you that people who are professional photographers, professional real estate photographers, maybe 15 percent of their business is 3D or 360 virtual tours. Typically it's an Add On.

It's not the sole service. It's way different saying well, I need to pick a number, $250, $350, and $500 solely on a Matterport tour, and that's the only service that I get from the client. For a real estate photographer who says, okay, let's pick a number and it varies by market, expertise, etc so it's hard to pick a number.

But let's say you get $175 to shoot 40 2D still pictures in Atlanta, $175. Your client says they would like video, and you say, okay maybe that's another

Add On that may be is $175. Then maybe ... the same client buys Matterport and let's call it maybe $250, maybe $350. As a professional real estate photographer, you may have enough Add Ons to say, oh, well, as soon as that client engaged me to do photos, I had other things to offer them but a lot of clients are not going to spend necessarily more than $350 or $550 and you got to have a bundle of different things that you can offer.

Now, I've kind of tried to summarize some things, but again, I wouldn't encourage anyone to go buy a Matterport camera to go do a vertical, a space, that they have no subject matter expertise in, because you'll stumble in the dark for a long time.

Now, there are a couple of companies that offer services to help you succeed faster if it's residential real estate.

Again, that's not your area that I think I'm hearing that you're planning, without understanding your partner's subject matter expertise, and to the extent that he has trusted friends and colleagues that can order today or trusted friends and colleagues they can provide trusted introductions. It's hard to understand that.

But I would be really reluctant, on your behalf, to go buy something because it looks like it's the next big thing and you don't want to miss that wave.

To me, you really need to start with a problem, and the problem is you have trusted friends and colleagues that have a problem related to retail reset; store modeling, and they're doing something that you can do ten times better for a third less money, and a third less or 50 percent less time.

But then I'm going to push back and say, "well, how big is that space?" I'm just going to assume that you work for a large company, and large companies, for example, We Get Around Network track 70 plus companies that engage Matterport Service Providers or real estate photographers on a national basis in the United States.

Typically what happens is a large company has the problem of "we need the as-built of what the space looks like before we do the remodeling." They actually are trying to do hundreds of those a year rather than have one.

It's super-hard to say okay, I'm going to go find the retail category that has a need for an as-built in order to do a remodel that only needs one or ten stores in the Greater Georgia area, you may already have that client. If you do, that's awesome, and I would say run, don't walk to figure out your deal with your prospective client before making that initial investment.

But truly what happens is there's a lot of companies that are using Matterport for as-builts to say, okay, we're going to refresh, remodel the store or use it for retail. Help me out with the word say, this is what the story is supposed to look like and then send it out to 100 stores or 1,000 stores.

[00:28:21]
WGAN Forum Member: The plan versus actual.

[00:28:23]
Dan Smigrod: Yeah the plan. We're going to go do the plan at headquarters and scan it, and then we're going to send it out to lots of places to say, "here's your planOmatic in 3D." That's great. If you've got a client in the Greater Atlanta area that has that need, that's awesome.

[00:28:49]
Dan Smigrod: But again, a lot of things are done at scale. You may do all the selling, and then they go, that's great. But we really need somebody that can do this on a national basis.

Now certainly I can help guide you and direct you to companies that are: one order, one invoice, one point of contact, and you can live in between your client and a company that can actually provide hundreds of Matterport scans or hundreds of photo shoots or hundreds of aerial shoots or whatever it might be. That's cool. If you have a trusted relationship with the client like that, that's awesome.

But if you decide to go buy a Matterport camera and you decide to go pursue developing a business from scratch, I think what I heard is you told me at least ten different verticals, I would say please don't go after ten different verticals because all your marketing tools all your time trying to understand all those verticals, you'll just be too thin trying to go, well what's different about a restaurant versus a retail store versus somebody who's trying to sell their house versus a real estate agent versus an appraiser versus a building inspector versus fire-flood-wind insurance claim documentation.

It's not to say that there are not a lot of great use cases for Matterport, but I'm going to say business development is the hardest thing.

[00:30:26]
Dan Smigrod: You look depressed.

[00:30:28]
WGAN Forum Member: No, I'm just thinking.

[00:30:31]
Dan Smigrod: I haven't given you the words you were hoping for, which was, "Wow! This is really awesome! You should run, don't walk, go buy a camera, go develop..."

[00:30:40]
WGAN Forum Member: Oh no. My whole purpose in contacting you was to hear information like this.

[00:30:47]
Dan Smigrod: What did the Matterport salesperson tell you?

[00:30:50]
WGAN Forum Member: Oh, he basically, he did say I encourage you to do your own research, which to me was a disclaimer, of releasing himself from any capability if we were to buy and not to be profitable from it. That's why I said, you know, we need to talk to someone else because I want to know for certain if it's viable or not. And as you can see, I didn't go buy the camera and then call you.

[00:31:22]
Dan Smigrod: Yes. If I tell you if there's a really good chance you're going to still buy the camera because you're totally excited about the space; and about the camera; and about the technology. I wanted to do this call – When you reached out to me, I wanted to do this call because as soon as somebody asks me, "Is there a business here?" Red flags.

Because I'll tell you if you were a real estate photographer and you were a successful professional real estate photographer, and you were thinking about adding Matterport or one of a 170 plus other things that look or feel like Matterport, it would be a no brainer for you because you're just looking at it as an Add On.

It's just another thing and you're already successful, but you can get another job. You're already on location, it's something else to do while you are there; it's like, that's easy. If you were a real estate agent and you did eight listings a year, maybe it made sense to do it yourself. That's a whole separate conversation.

But I think two things that might be helpful to know is that Matterport competes with the people that it sells cameras to. In the We Get Around Network Forum...

[00:32:47]
You want to go look for Matterport Capture Services On Demand.

[00:32:51]
Dan Smigrod: Matterport, is presently on five. I think in five countries and I believe it's 120 plus markets.

[00:33:04]
Dan Smigrod: I'm in Atlanta and you're in Atlanta and they've sold me a camera and they've sold you a camera. If they come to me and say how much they're going to pay me to do a Matterport scan in Atlanta, I would say I'm sorry, I wouldn't roll out of bed for that. You're new. You might want to have the scanning experience.

You might want to have examples, though you probably can't use those examples publicly, but you might want to have some experience scanning different types of spaces because you're new. On the other hand, Matterport is not going to engage you to shoot spaces for them until you've done at least 20 jobs.

Anyway, I believe that's the number. There's this tension between, okay, you bought a camera, I bought a camera. You might be willing to do Matterport for some period of time.

For Matterport, think of it as being an Uber driver. You have a choice between being a limo driver and you own the limo or you're going to be an Uber driver and you're driving for Uber, and you might be willing to do that for some period of time. Then you say enough of that, they don't pay enough.

They're still selling cameras to someone who's next in line who's willing, and so when you go out and talk to a client, they might say, "Well, I don't understand. Matterport charges way less than what you're charging me. Why should I engage you when I could get that from Matterport for less?"

[00:34:32]
WGAN Forum Member: Right.

[00:34:34]
Dan Smigrod: The other thing you might want to research in the WGAN Forum, is actually a class action lawsuit that is in progress against Matterport. I would encourage you to read some of that.

There's a lot of people that bought a camera, set up a business as a Matterport Service Provider, based on what Matterport promised them and then Matterport not only didn't in my opinion, live up to what they said they were going to live up to, but also then started competing with the people that they were selling cameras to.

[00:35:09]
Dan Smigrod: There's not a lot of love in the WGAN Community for Matterport, because of how they've treated service providers; particularly those who have been in the business for a while.

I would encourage you to post questions to the WGAN Forum. You've talked to me, I'm a different data point in the course of your research, you might post in the Forum to say, "hey, is it hard to develop business for retail resets or for store remodeling" or whatever question that you might have.

But ask those questions and crowdsource the answers from many Matterport Service Providers. The other thing is there are many different platforms.

We actually curate a list of 170 plus 3D-360 virtual tour platforms and software. If you're doing as-builts and you're doing retail resets, Matterport is probably a really good solution for that.

When you signed up for free for the We Get Around Network Forum you automatically got an email from me. In that email, are these 'cheat sheets' that tell you how to get that list. If you want to go look at the list of 170 plus 3D-360 virtual tour platforms and software, there's also a list we curate of 50 plus 3D-360 cameras.

[00:36:38]
WGAN Forum Member: I saw that.

[00:36:39]
Dan Smigrod: You may find that there is a different platform or a different camera, even with Matterport, for example, you could use a Ricoh Theta Z1; a $1,000 camera. Ricoh just came out with another camera, the Ricoh Theta X.

Matterport hasn't announced that they are going to support that yet, but I would imagine that they will, and that's, as I recall, $700 or $800.

Is the tour going to be as good shot with a Ricoh Theta Z1 versus the Matterport pro 2D 3D Camera? No. But it may be good enough depending by what your need is. At the moment, that may be a hard question to ask you about, is a Ricoh Theta Z1 good enough for your needs or do you need a Matterport Pro2 3D Camera for Matterport Tours?

[00:37:36]
WGAN Forum Member: To go back on your point about the Matterport Capture Services.

[00:37:40]
Dan Smigrod: Yes.

[00:37:41]
WGAN Forum Member: I did see that and I was a little perplexed about it as well. The whole notion of, Why are you selling cameras to people that you compete with? I ran across that and I asked that question myself and then I saw

[00:37:58]
Dan Smigrod: What was the answer?

[00:38:02]
WGAN Forum Member: I ran across that. That's a question that I asked. I was like why? Then on top of that, I saw that Matterport's stock had fallen significantly in the past week.

[00:38:18]
Dan Smigrod: Yes.

[00:38:19]
WGAN Forum Member: Like 70%.

[00:38:22]
Dan Smigrod: It didn't drop 70% in the past week, but, over time it has dropped more than 70%.

[00:38:27]
WGAN Forum Member: Over time.

[00:38:28]
Dan Smigrod: Yeah.

[00:38:29]
WGAN Forum Member: That scared me by itself because if the company goes under then, of course, you can't take advantage of the services that they offer.

[00:38:37]
Dan Smigrod: Yeah, Matterport is a proprietary platform,

[00:38:44]
Dan Smigrod: at the very least, it's still up to nearly a $2 billion company. I personally don't have any concern about that.

[00:38:52]
WGAN Forum Member: Okay.

[00:38:53]
Dan Smigrod: They're sitting on probably close to $600 million in cash. There's a lot of reasons why the stock has gone down in price. And as a small business person, truly I would not worry about that.

[00:39:09]
WGAN Forum Member: Okay.

[00:39:11]
Dan Smigrod: But, I will say Matterport Capture Services On Demand is a two-sided sword. It could work in your favor in that, if you get a trusted client, you might use Matterport Capture Services to go do all your shoots around the country if you have that need.

[00:39:31]
WGAN Forum Member: Right. Because, I was thinking of the fact that I already work on the road. I'm always traveling, East coast, even in the Midwest. In the last three weeks I've been in Florida all the way up to Massachusetts.

[00:39:47]
Dan Smigrod: Yes, but know this, except for your clients, We get in-bound leads all the time. You've seen the help wanted notices in the We Get Around Network Forum.

If we have a paid Member in the Community – in that market – We don't run those help wanted notices. But when we don't have a Matterport Service Provider in a particular market where a company is looking for it, we run these help wanted notices in the WGAN Forum. I would say 99% of these in-bound leads, they want someone who's local. I have Matterport Service Providers that respond to us and say, "I'm willing to travel."

Well, typically the jobs don't pay enough to include travel and the client wants somebody local anyway, so that if they need to reschedule the job at the last minute; something comes up, they need to have the photographer come back. They don't want them to be passing through town. There are exceptions to that, but those are exceptions.

[00:40:57]
Dan Smigrod: One of the questions you might ask me is to say, "Gee. If I joined We Get Around Network as a paid Member, would I get any leads in Atlanta? I would say in Atlanta, yes. We get leads all the time and even though I have a Matterport Pro Camera, I don't shoot paid gigs anymore, for the most part.

So I just parse those out to We Get Around Network paid Members. But that said, there's not enough of those leads to run a business. They're like, that was nice. I got a nice surprise. I got a lead – a trusted lead – a qualified lead, and it converted into business. But it's not enough to be a sustaining business model.

[00:41:47]
Dan Smigrod: This whole conversation is about business development. It has nothing to do with technology or becoming an expert at scanning or using third-party tools. I've looked at your LinkedIn profile that you could do this stuff in your sleep. The only question is business development.

That's what I would encourage you to think about, because when you make this leap and again, I would encourage you to do it as a moonlighting business, as a side hustle, until you are so busy doing Matterport and related that you have to quit your day job.

But I would say stay, do it as a side hustle. But only if you know, going into this, 90% of your available time is about business development. That's the hardest thing.

Every one of the Matterport Service Providers – I'll tell you almost everyone in the We Get Around Network Forum Community who bought a Matterport camera early on, all of them thought that every real estate agent on the planet, they'll look at this and say, "just bring your truck to the loading dock so that we can fill it with money because you can't take our money fast enough for what you got. That tour is so exciting." I'll tell you it's not like that. It's just not like that.

It's more like if I said; "hey, I got a million dollars in cash for you," and you're going to say, "sorry, I'm too busy to figure out how to take that cash, our loading dock people are busy. Your truck won't fit into our loading dock."

There's a thousand things that totally don't make sense in having a conversation when you show them a Matterport tour and say, "This is going to help you get more business, time-saving, saving money, saving time, making processes easier." People will tell you, "oh, I'm just happier doing it the way that we've been doing it.

The next-generation will find that exciting." I don't mean to be a downer, but I want to give you some caution that it's not that if you go by the camera, the money is just going to be pouring in and you won't be able to count it fast enough.

That's not what's going to happen. It's going to be hard developing business.

[00:44:58]
WGAN Forum Member: We knew that developing the business was going to be the main part. That's why I wanted to speak to you because I wanted to make sure or at least have some inclinations as to if there was any business at all for a new service provider because I know that market saturation occurs for suppliers. I didn't want to be in a situation where we got the camera.

We haven't taken due diligence in properly assessing the market and whittling it down to where we have a target, and attacking them, and sitting around with a $3,000 camera and no money coming in.

[00:45:45]
Dan Smigrod: Not just $3,000. At the moment it's 3,300 plus an iPad. If you're starting a business, you better buy the one that's got the most memory with the most storage.

[00:45:57]
WGAN Forum Member: Yeah, 128GB.

[00:45:57]
Dan Smigrod: Pardon?

[00:45:58]
WGAN Forum Member: 128 gigabytes.

[00:46:00]
Dan Smigrod: As soon as you do your first large job, you're going to kill yourself you didn't buy one that had enough memory and enough storage, and the iPad crapped out on you.

If you go to the WGAN Forum, look for the tag "large" you'll read about all the problems that photographers had because they didn't get one that had enough storage or enough memory in order to do a super-large space. I'm sorry, I got distracted on what you were saying. I may have derailed you there.

[00:46:31]
WGAN Forum Member: No, you're fine.

[00:46:35]
Dan Smigrod: I know what I wanted to say. It's not just the camera, it's the $1,000 plus iPad. The case is going to cost you a couple hundred dollars, the tripod if you don't have it yet, it's going to cost you $150, $200.

By the time you get done, and plus with Matterport, I don't know if you've looked at the plans, but the plan that you probably need to be on at the very beginning is $69 a month. It's not the free account because the free account doesn't let you share a model publicly, and it's probably not the $10 account because as I recall, you can't use a Matterport Pro2 3D camera with the Matterport Starter account the $10 account a month. Boom! Now you're just committed to $69 a month.

It adds up, one thing that you might want to consider if you still decide to go forward with your partner, is that if you buy a VIP membership, it's called VIP360 with Adorama, you can get a 60-day, no-hassle return. Plus if you drop your camera, it comes with some good "oopsie" – dropped my camera, camera – insurance.

If you go into the We Get Around Network Forum and just search for the word Adorama, you'll find my write-up to say," Hey, if you buy the camera directly from Matterport, it will probably take them ten days to ship the camera.

If you go buy it from Adorama and you buy the $40, whatever it is, VIP360, then you'll get it in two days, free shipping, and you'll get a 60-day, no questions asked return.

If you can't do your hustle in 60 days at least you know you've got an opportunity to return it. You'll still be out your tripod and out your iPad.

[00:48:27]
WGAN Forum Member: And how do you spell Adorama?

[00:48:38]
Dan Smigrod: Adorama, Adorama. If you search for it in the We Get Around Network Forum, I talk a lot about, here's the link to buy the VIP360. This is what it includes. Here's the benefits of why you want to do this and it gives you a 60-day out.

But again, I still want to push back on you, so that you know, if you do decide, if you and your colleague decided to go forward your single biggest challenge, it's not the technology, it's all about business development.

[00:49:15]
WGAN Forum Member: As we knew. Well, you've actually confirmed a lot of things, so that's good.

[00:49:25]
Dan Smigrod: Again, if you do go forward and you probably will, because I'm telling you I do these conversations all the time, and no one will take "no" from me, even though –

[00:49:38]
Dan Smigrod: Again, if you told me this was an Add On for you, easy decision. Offering this as an Add On to some other service that's your core business, easy decision. Again, if you and your partner decide to move forward, I would encourage you to pick your niche or no more than two niches.

One niche for you and one niche for him. Everything else, not to say you couldn't scan, do Matterport scans in other categories, but just don't let it distract you from your messaging, your pitch.

It'll be way easier for your friends and colleagues to understand if you tell them one thing. But if you tell him ten things, it'll be hard for them to go. "Oh, yeah, I know what he's doing. I got to make an introduction."

[00:50:30]
WGAN Forum Member: Right, I get it.

[00:50:31]
Dan Smigrod: Be focused.

[00:50:32]
WGAN Forum Member: I get it.

[00:50:33]
Dan Smigrod: Okay.

[00:50:34]
WGAN Forum Member: I get it.

[00:50:34]
Dan Smigrod: All right. What other questions do you have for me?

[00:50:38]
WGAN Forum Member: I think you pretty much covered it all. I don't have any because that was my primary concern, the business aspect of it. Because like I said, that's why we didn't just run out and go buy one off the muscle. You know what I'm saying?

I wanted to make as informed a decision as possible. I've read things online, but it's kind of hard to assess how profitable something is just from reading online because there's so many different variables and combinations and so yeah.

[00:51:11]
Dan Smigrod: Let me add one other caveat for you. This happens all the time. Sometimes you go do a scan, and you put the scan in a client's account, so they pay $69 a month?

[00:51:24]
WGAN Forum Member: Yeah, I know I heard about that too and that's the one thing I didn't really like. I didn't like it.

[00:51:30]
Dan Smigrod: Matterport starts marketing to them, because they have a Cloud account and they start putting up ads that say Matterport Services On Demand, and you can order one scan On Demand so you can go see others if there's other photographers in Atlanta.

In fact, you might set up a Matterport Cloud account, free account, and then go attempt to buy a Matterport scan in Atlanta and see how much it is, and it might surprise you that it's less than what you think you were going to charge. Remember, Matterport, they control the processing; the hosting; the distribution.

[00:52:17]
Dan Smigrod: I don't want to say a startup, they're a mature, technology company. They're all about market share, not necessarily about making money. They can afford, perhaps to charge less than what you and I might charge.

[00:52:38]
WGAN Forum Member: Right. Well, what do you think about the smaller cameras like the Axis and all of that that they sell?

[00:52:46]
Dan Smigrod: Well, the Matterport Axis, announced but not yet shipping, let's you use your smartphone to create tours.

In my opinion, it's not an ongoing business solution, because it takes time for this smartphone to rotate, and, oh by the way, what they haven't showed you on the video, is if you want the ceiling and you want the floor, then you really have to tilt the phone in order to get up here and after it goes around, you're going to tilt the phone down and have it do another pass.

The photography will likely, in my opinion, probably be better than what the Matterport Pro2 3D Camera does when you use an iPhone 13 Pro, for example.

In the long-term using the LiDAR of the smartphone. But if you're running a business, I'll tell you, the day you put your camera on top of that tripod, if you're like me, you'll go through withdrawal because you won't be able to respond to that email or to that text, because your phone is tied up in rotation. In addition to just looking, here's the good news.

I think that the Matterport Axis will actually democratize this space.

That means it'll be easier for more people to be scanning. But I think that that's really designed for somebody who owns their VRBO or Airbnb and I go buy it for $150 and it includes hosting and a tripod and I can go scan my rental and I'm happy because that's my return on investment.

First time I rent out my place as a result of that tour, I'll be totally happy.

That makes sense. But if you're scanning day-in, day-out, that's not going to be the right tool. It might be an entry level tool for you.

It might not hurt to wait and get started, but I'll tell you when you start showing up to do a retail space and you're using your smartphone and you witness that thing rotate. It's not to say that that is going to take an inferior picture.

I'm just going to say it's going to take time, and your time, that's the most expensive part of doing scanning is if it takes you longer than other things you can't do.

It might be okay as an entry level, go back and tell the Matterport salesperson, you decided to wait till April when the Matterport Axis is scheduled to ship and you're going to start your business slowly.

Go pay the $150, buy it as a bundle, get the Axis rotator, the tripod, and an entry level account and then when you're ready to buy a Pro2, if you decide to, great. If you're ready to upgrade your account to the business Pro plan, $69 a month plan, you can do that.

[00:56:05]
Dan Smigrod: I don't see the Matterport Axis as something to build a business around. That would be great for your boss to say, "well, this is not that hard, we'll buy boxes of those and we'll send them out and let them do it in the field. It'll still mean we'll probably have to do some training. We'll have to do a video to teach him how to do a Matterport scan."

But when you look at the Matterport Axis, one of the things I'm concerned about, and I may be unnecessarily concerned. But I don't know about you, but I got $1,000 plus iPhone 13 Pro. I'm anxious about putting that on something that rotates around and to go do that 50 times and to have it accidentally get loose and fall on the ground.

[00:57:01]
WGAN Forum Member: I have an iPhone 12 Max Pro, so yeah I feel you.

[00:57:07]
Dan Smigrod: I could be totally wrong. It could be engineered to be totally safe and rock solid, but I have that fear. But again, also, if you're running a business, you need a dedicated smartphone if you're doing this all the time

[00:57:22]
WGAN Forum Member: Right. Yeah. My business partner, he was considering the smaller phone apparatus or whatever, but I didn't particularly see that as a business tool.

I saw as maybe something for smaller jobs, for a smaller price or something like that maybe, but not for some of those bigger jobs that you're trying to get it.

[00:57:50]
Dan Smigrod: I have the right tool for the right job and it's unlikely that I would still describe you as a Matterport Service Provider, that it's unlikely that the Matterport Axis is the right tool for a full-time business.

[00:58:08]
WGAN Forum Member: We weren't looking to start this whole time. We were really trying to segue. Start out with something small, build our way into it.

[00:58:17]
Dan Smigrod: It may be perfect.

[00:58:18]
WGAN Forum Member: Yeah. As far as the Adorama, that sounds like a better option as far as phasing into it.

That way we get a 60-day trial on it, if you will, before and a money-back guarantee just in case within that 60-day period is pretty dry. Nothing's coming in and we can't get anything going on and we can pretty much make our decision, "hey, this is not the thing to do and then get our money back." I like that because like you say, it's not cheap.

It's not super-expensive because it's two of us, so we can split the cost, but it is not cheap. Like you said, the iPad and I want to price one of those, I priced some refurbished and they were pretty cost effective.

I've priced the tripod and all of those things too. I mean, we were willing to shell out the cash. You know what I'm saying.

[00:59:30]
Dan Smigrod: I'm trying to save you the money because I have concerns.

[00:59:39]
Dan Smigrod: Unless you totally push back on me that you are a subject matter expert in retail resets, in store remodeling and you have trusted colleagues that are capable of saying yes to buying from you today, or have trusted friends and colleagues in that vertical.

Or your partner is a subject matter expert in vertical and has trusted colleagues that can say yes in that vertical or trusted colleagues and friends that can make introductions.

Then other than that, you can hear I have angst on your behalf. Maybe the answer is to figure out how to mitigate your risk. Maybe a Matterport Axis is a way to get just started.

Maybe the 60-day money-back, Adorama is an option. There's things that you might do so that -- Don't quit your day job. Moonlight. Side hustle.

Maybe all of those things help you decide you can ease into it rather than jumping into the deep-end with your eyes closed and not knowing how to swim.

[01:01:02]
WGAN Forum Member: Right. Well, I definitely appreciate your concern and your angst.

[01:01:16]
WGAN Forum Member: I don't tread lightly when it comes to spending money.

[01:01:19]
Dan Smigrod: That's good. Here's what I would suggest. Think about your questions, post them in the Forum, the We Get Around Network Forum. Crowdsource answers from other people.

You're always best when you give as much backstory as possible and only ask one question per post.

[01:01:44]
WGAN Forum Member: Okay.

[01:01:45]
Dan Smigrod: I highly recommend doing that.

[01:03:59]
WGAN Forum Member: I'm going to definitely do that. I'm going to take all avenues and all suggestions and I'm going to exercise due diligence.

[01:04:09]
Dan Smigrod: Let me know what you decide to do. I'm curious what the outcome will be and enjoy your weekend.

[01:04:20]
WGAN Forum Member: Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you for your time.

[01:04:22]
Dan Smigrod: You bet. Good visiting with you ...

[01:04:24]
WGAN Forum Member: Chao.

[01:04:25]
Dan Smigrod: Bye.