PeoplePRINT, Yawning all the way to the bank
The uncool, unhip, unsexy, total yawn fest, 4 year path to a $1B Market Cap
The fifth biggest manufacturing industry in the world has stood like an awkward, plump, spotty kid in the wings as all the PYT (Pretty Young Thing) industries have gone to the Internet dance.
The Printing Industry has 2 main challenges that separates it from most industries and held it back from online riches;
1. Almost every printing job is bespoke,
ie: a custom job from the client’s specifications and printed from artwork supplied by the client or their designer.
2. The artwork files used in printing are usually very large, complex and fragile.
The Printing Industry started the democratisation of knowledge in 1455 and the Internet Industry strapped an afterburner to that process 527 years later.
You should care about this if;
1. You are a printer,
2. You buy print
3. You have a well balanced investment portfolio and have been looking for an investment that has the potential to really light things up
4. You have the chops to help take PeoplePRINT through dominating Australia onto dominating the global stage
5. You know someone who is one of the above.
The poor, deprived, Printing Industry is a victim of over 500 years of success. Society is so used to printed communication that we receive printed messages all the time oblivious to the medium. People do not notice we are all constantly surrounded by Printing.
So, like the awkward, plump, spotty kid, Printing is easily underestimated.
Recently Printing has been;
- derided,
- written off,
- labelled an environmental sinner (unjustly) and
- scorned as;
- low tech,
- low brow,
- dirty and,
- worst of all “unhip”!
If you believe “The Papers” Printing is set to be killed off by the Internet and new media but the opposite is true.
Printing is about to enter a renaissance thanks to the Internet and new media.
Printing was an analogue Industry before computers and the Internet, but over the last 20 years the Printing Industry has been making the large and difficult transition from analogue to digital. The final step in that transition is the most difficult one, the step between customer and printer.
Online Printing, Web 2 Print, Printing over the Internet, whichever name you prefer, is the answer to the final step in the total digitisation of Printing and the key to the renaissance of Printing.
Many have tried, the latest DRUPA Exhibition (www.drupa.com) showcased 52 Online Printing solutions, but they all fail in 2 crucial areas.
1. The customer still needs to go to significant effort to gather and compare prices
2. Current Online Printing systems do not comply with the requirements of significant print buyers and as a result the very people the printers most need to use their system will stay away in droves.
So the Printing Industry may have been largely asleep to Internet commerce as it completed the transition to digital but at $700 Billion a year turnover, the Printing Industry is clearly a sleeping giant that is about to wake up.
That is why at 5:23am, January 11, 2012, D2P Managing Director, John Weichard was so excited; the key to Printing’s renaissance had just occurred to him.
14 years of running D2P, a company specialising in the Internet and the graphic arts, 18 months of working the Future of Print project with Kodak and a relaxing summer of contemplation was coming to fruition.
John Weichard sat bolt upright in bed and said, “I’ve solved Web 2 Print.”
He woke his wife, “I’ve solved Web 2 Print.”
“What, what time is it?”
“Just after 5, I’ve got to write.”
John didn’t know its name just then but PeoplePRINT had just been born. Since that morning John has spent 90-100 hours a week documenting the process, producing a business plan and in consultation with D2P staff and external consultants preparing all of the material required to raise the $3 million it would take to build PeoplePRINT.
The Australian Printing Industry turns over $13 Billion a year but the way it interacts with customers, wastes more than $2 Billion a year.
The problem isn’t limited to Australia either; the global Printing Industry has revenues of $700 Billion per year and wastes over $100 Billion.
PeoplePRINT has reduced the print sourcing process from over 50 steps down to 7 and dramatically reduced the effort and expense for print buyer and printer alike.
PeoplePRINT stands alone as the one system that significant print buyers can support and carry it all the way to the NASDAQ.
The PeoplePRINT discovery delivers a commercial renaissance to the Printing Industry by opening up online opportunities and smashing the cost and effort barrier for buying and selling print.
PeoplePRINT will also deliver a creative renaissance by making the interaction between the printed piece, the Internet, mobile phones, new media and new technology much more accessible.
For example;
1. View a printed piece through your mobile phone’s camera and it will spring to life.
2. Point your phone camera at a printed item to be taken straight to the company’s website.
3. Point your phone at a disassembled and boxed toy to see the toy floating above the box before you buy it.
4. Point your phone at a brochure, sign or advertisement to order or enquire about the product or service.
5. Want a printout the size of a city building? No problem
But it has not all been plain sailing for PeoplePRINT, the Australian Venture Capital and Angel Investment community have greeted PeoplePRINT with a collective yawn and an attitude of, “It is just Printing” and “Printing is dead”.
If Printing is dead somebody forgot to tell Vista Print, an American Online Printer targeting a much smaller market than PeoplePRINT. Vista Print signed up 11.3 Million new customers in 2011 and hit their $1Billion market cap after a 2004 IPO. Any VC Fund would have patted themselves on the back if they invested in Seek or the REA group but Vista Print, an unsexy Printing company, grew at exactly the same rate over the same period.
PeoplePRINT stands to grow even faster. Thankfully, some people at the big end of town are visionary and have seen the PeoplePRINT light, Ernst and Young, have been supportive of PeoplePRINT from very early on, helping pitch the idea to investors and putting their money where their mouth is, backing the PeoplePRINT application for a Commercialisation Australia grant on a no win, no fee basis.
Printing’s top performers inherently understand the importance of the PeoplePRINT solution and the size of the opportunity. Some of Australia’s more successful printers are taking the opportunity to dabble in the high risk, high return, high tech investment arena by taking a position in PeoplePRINT LTD.
Reasons to visit www.PeoplePRINT.com.au:
1. You are a printer and thought as you read this, “About time!”
2. You buy print and thought as you read this, “About time!”
3. You have a well balanced investment portfolio and have been looking for an investment that has the potential to really light things up
4. You feel you have the experience or chops to help take PeoplePRINT through dominating Australia to dominating the global stage
5. You know someone who fits one of the above criteria
About PeoplePRINT
PeoplePRINT has uncovered a technical breakthrough that removes the final and most difficult impediment to printing’s Holy Grail, Online Printing.
Before a customer can say; “PeoplePRINT is the best thing to happen to printing since Herr Gutenburg changed society by making the flow of information to the masses open, cheap and accessible and in the process helping to create the society we have today, including the Internet which is mirroring the same changes in the dissemination of information that Gutenburg did 560 years ago and now I’m ordering print online. Ow! my brain hurts.”
Their job is delivered back to them.
About D2P
D2P are the leaders in helping Printing Businesses reap the rewards of Online Business since 1998. D2P has invested millions of R & D dollars in discovering the best techniques for finding, attracting, winning and keeping customers online. D2P has won an ATUG award for its broadband services to the Graphic Arts Industry.
