To everyone reading this company update: I wish you a happy, creative and healthy 2025. While we're already a few days (uhh weeks?) into the new year, I am excited to share what we’ve been up to in the last quarter of 2024.
Q4 was busy.
We onboarded new companies like Carte Blanche (Norway) and TanzKassel (Germany) and had all of our previous customers return for new auditions. Having 7 simultaneous auditions on the platform significantly increased traffic, user activity, and media uploads. This surge put our current system to the test, showing key areas that need improvement to support scalability.
But let’s first start with some financial talk 😉
In the past two years, we conducted a handful of paid beta trials. The main goal was to get feedback and understand whether companies were willing to pay. Since October 2024, we’ve started to focus more on monetizing our software and platform. I’m excited to report that in Q4 2024, we secured six paying customers, generating a total revenue of €3.000,-.
The dealsizes vary from €149,- to €750,- with an average dealsize of €500,-. However, we anticipate that two key factors will impact pricing moving forward.
As we work with more companies, we’re gaining deeper insights into the value our platform provides. While we operate on a subscription model, our current target customers typically use the software for 3-5 months. During that period, we deliver significant value which justifies the potential for higher pricing.
Ultimately, our goal is to deliver value year-round, extending beyond the initial audition period. For now, however, our focus remains on mastering and resolving the challenges of the audition process.
I’ve already hinted at this topic in the opening: scalability. Lanced is a media-heavy platform due to the industry's visual hiring nature. Showreels are vital to the recruitment process. With over 40.000 media files uploaded, including 11.000 videos, we are nearing 2TB in media storage. To create more storage and improve the delivery time of videos, Stavya developed a custom video compressor and launched it in December. It’s a temporary fix for a larger problem we are facing.
Lanced is built in Bubble. Bubble has been a great way (and affordable!) for us to quickly develop, test, push, iterate and release new features. However, if we want to scale, we need to migrate away from Bubble and build a more robust infrastructure.
Our product is functional, highly valued by early customers, and delivers significant monetization opportunities. However, strategic investments in our infrastructure and technology are essential to achieve scalability and support growing demand. Especially since Lanced deals with the careers and livelihoods of artists, we need to minimize scalability risks in terms of functionality.
Basically, we’ve bootstrapped our way to a point where it’s inevitable to raise funds. So if you’re interested in what we are building or want to support us on our fundraising journey (through advice, network, introductions, etc.), please feel free to reach me at [email protected].