Okay, my friend and I are thinking about starting a business around playing D&D. Basically, we're wondering if anyone would be interested in a subscription service similar to Netflix, but related to large scale mini's. If you don't mind answering 5 questions, please click the link to take our Google forms survey and help us out!
Looks not bad idea. Its interesting question. Nowadays people actively use blockchain and bitcoins in own work. I also do the same and decided to promote my startup and create bitcoin banner for finding new customers.
A big THANK YOU to those getting involved in the survey. We're just a couple guy's that love playing TTRPG's - not really business people - so if anyone has additional thoughts about this topic, it would be great to hear your input.
Thanks to the encouraging feedback received from the survey, we decided to move forward another step. Check out our initial website at https://bossfightrentals.weebly.com/. Information about startup progress and product development will be posted in the blog section.
I wonder as to the viability of this - purely from a "people are *****" standpoint.
Netflix worked as DVD rental as the price for subscription was about the same as an average DVD, particularly bought in bulk as netflix would have. If someone didn't send it back, they stopped them renting anything else. If the person "used" netflix to "buy" a dvd for cheaper than Retail price, cancelling their subscription immediately afterwards, netflix would have made enough money to replace said dvd's.
You will have to either price your subscriptions on the basis that someone will rent a tarrasque and never give it back, or you will have to charge a deposit which will be held against the expensive miniatures. Alternatively you can stipulate in your terms and contract that there is a substantial cancellation fee (which covers non-returned minis) which they are legally obliged to pay if they cancel and have minis non-returned. That will involve a legal team.
No doubt you've thought of this already - just wanted to put my 2 cents in!
I wonder as to the viability of this - purely from a "people are *****" standpoint.
Netflix worked as DVD rental as the price for subscription was about the same as an average DVD, particularly bought in bulk as netflix would have. If someone didn't send it back, they stopped them renting anything else. If the person "used" netflix to "buy" a dvd for cheaper than Retail price, cancelling their subscription immediately afterwards, netflix would have made enough money to replace said dvd's.
You will have to either price your subscriptions on the basis that someone will rent a tarrasque and never give it back, or you will have to charge a deposit which will be held against the expensive miniatures. Alternatively you can stipulate in your terms and contract that there is a substantial cancellation fee (which covers non-returned minis) which they are legally obliged to pay if they cancel and have minis non-returned. That will involve a legal team.
No doubt you've thought of this already - just wanted to put my 2 cents in!
Redbox will only allow you to rent a movie with a card that is an actual card, name and everything attached. Even if you decide to keep it and never return it you are charged until you hit an X amount. That being said, there is a point to this, just other companies have other ways around it.
I wonder as to the viability of this - purely from a "people are *****" standpoint.
Netflix worked as DVD rental as the price for subscription was about the same as an average DVD, particularly bought in bulk as netflix would have. If someone didn't send it back, they stopped them renting anything else. If the person "used" netflix to "buy" a dvd for cheaper than Retail price, cancelling their subscription immediately afterwards, netflix would have made enough money to replace said dvd's.
You will have to either price your subscriptions on the basis that someone will rent a tarrasque and never give it back, or you will have to charge a deposit which will be held against the expensive miniatures. Alternatively you can stipulate in your terms and contract that there is a substantial cancellation fee (which covers non-returned minis) which they are legally obliged to pay if they cancel and have minis non-returned. That will involve a legal team.
No doubt you've thought of this already - just wanted to put my 2 cents in!
Redbox will only allow you to rent a movie with a card that is an actual card, name and everything attached. Even if you decide to keep it and never return it you are charged until you hit an X amount. That being said, there is a point to this, just other companies have other ways around it.
Our initial thoughts were to require a valid credit card to start the subscription and then charge that if folks lost or decided to keep a figure. A customer wouldn't be able to receive future shipments until the previous one was returned (or paid for). Of course you will run into completely dishonest people that try to get away with stuff. I'm not sure there's a way to be completely safe from that kind of activity. As long as the vast majority of folks are honest gamers we should be able to grow the business.
Taking the example of a Gargantuan Red Dragon figurine, Miniature Market would charge me $5.99 just for shipping one-way. If that means shipping two-ways will cost $12.00, then you will probably need to charge $15~$20 to cover your basics cost. If I were to pay $15-$20 just to rent a single miniature, I would rather buy it from my local game store and reuse it later (Or use it as decoration). By comparison, Redbox will charge $1.75 per day, which represents approximately one-tenth the purchase price.
I suspect that a physical product subscription service won't be sustainable simply due to the cost of safely shipping the products. (This is also ignoring the issue of timely delivery. If a model arrives after a scheduled session, then the customers are going to be pretty unhappy.)
A better option might be to create "Libraries" in a few major cities (L.A., Chicago, New York, etc), where players can do a pick-up/drop-off exchange. Charge a security deposit in addition to the rental cost, and then refund it upon the product's return.
Another obstacle is the issue of availability. Red Dragons might be very popular, which means you'll need to have a dozen or so on hand, just in case people want them. If someone tries to rent their BBEG only to find out that it's already rented out, they aren't going to wait patiently for it. That means you'll need to have a lot of redundant inventory, which is going to push your profitability way down the road.
Personally, I would probably be willing to pay about $5 to rent a $30 miniature, if I thought I would only use it once. If I plan to use a miniature multiple times, I'd probably only pay $1.50-$2.00 per rental. Unfortunately, that falls well under the shipping cost.
Now, an alternative to the idea of renting out individual miniatures would be to offer a service where you can rent a campaign or a module. This would be a box set containing bespoke foam packaging for minis, a complete set of the paper materials you need (the DM's guide to the module and the handouts for players, drywipe maps + markers for running it) and every model you need for the missions, up to 8 players. Each encounter is built as a chart where the DM simply checks how many PC's there are, the levels would be milestones so the level is know, and the encounter is set up (EG. the party has 5 players, DM checks row 5 of the chart and sees the encounter should be 8 goblins and 2 orcs).
The user would be charged monthly for the service in a subscription, and would expect to use 1 module per month playing once a week - each box should offer circa 20 hours playtime. then you have a cancellation caveat that they have to pay if they cancel whilst they still have minis, or have broken minis. Any damages on returns are added to their next bill (or the cancellation fee if they try to cancel before the bill), or can be paid for in a contract over X months (the reason they are renting is because they can't afford the models - doing this will make people much happier).
I'd be interested in this a lot more than in just individual model rentals. I'd also give the option to buy a currently rented box if people want to keep them, and would even offer "mystery campaigns", where each box includes 3 or so options for the next module (for DM's eyes only) and they make the decision as they send the previous box back.
You could also offer different tiers of service - some people might want cardboard cutouts of enemies or tokens for them to reduce costs, which would also reduce shipping cost due to reduced sizes. Others might want a bespoke module service where they tell you what they need for the module and you supply a box of minis for them. I'd also include a terrain service.
Now, for the sake of supply & demand, I'd start with pre-defined boxes with modules, for which you know what models you need and how many of them. add more services as you grow.
I'm now pondering starting this myself as a UK business, I wonder how well it would take off... But feel free to use this over the pond!
Okay, my friend and I are thinking about starting a business around playing D&D. Basically, we're wondering if anyone would be interested in a subscription service similar to Netflix, but related to large scale mini's. If you don't mind answering 5 questions, please click the link to take our Google forms survey and help us out!
https://forms.gle/MDNmdFWMrjjTvKay9
Thanks for your consideration.
Looks not bad idea. Its interesting question. Nowadays people actively use blockchain and bitcoins in own work. I also do the same and decided to promote my startup and create bitcoin banner for finding new customers.
A big THANK YOU to those getting involved in the survey. We're just a couple guy's that love playing TTRPG's - not really business people - so if anyone has additional thoughts about this topic, it would be great to hear your input.
Thanks to the encouraging feedback received from the survey, we decided to move forward another step. Check out our initial website at https://bossfightrentals.weebly.com/. Information about startup progress and product development will be posted in the blog section.
I wonder as to the viability of this - purely from a "people are *****" standpoint.
Netflix worked as DVD rental as the price for subscription was about the same as an average DVD, particularly bought in bulk as netflix would have. If someone didn't send it back, they stopped them renting anything else. If the person "used" netflix to "buy" a dvd for cheaper than Retail price, cancelling their subscription immediately afterwards, netflix would have made enough money to replace said dvd's.
You will have to either price your subscriptions on the basis that someone will rent a tarrasque and never give it back, or you will have to charge a deposit which will be held against the expensive miniatures. Alternatively you can stipulate in your terms and contract that there is a substantial cancellation fee (which covers non-returned minis) which they are legally obliged to pay if they cancel and have minis non-returned. That will involve a legal team.
No doubt you've thought of this already - just wanted to put my 2 cents in!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Redbox will only allow you to rent a movie with a card that is an actual card, name and everything attached. Even if you decide to keep it and never return it you are charged until you hit an X amount. That being said, there is a point to this, just other companies have other ways around it.
|| Sol Night-Arrow, Tabaxi Ranger ||
||Currently DMing a Homebrew Campaign ||
Guides or Important Threads of Mine ----- || List of ALL Official Familiars || My Homebrew Monsters ||
Level 3 One Shot Character Concepts ----- || Fist of the Gods || Triple Tap Hunter || Bullseye Dartmaster || Captain America ||
^^^Those are Links BTW^^^
Our initial thoughts were to require a valid credit card to start the subscription and then charge that if folks lost or decided to keep a figure. A customer wouldn't be able to receive future shipments until the previous one was returned (or paid for). Of course you will run into completely dishonest people that try to get away with stuff. I'm not sure there's a way to be completely safe from that kind of activity. As long as the vast majority of folks are honest gamers we should be able to grow the business.
Taking the example of a Gargantuan Red Dragon figurine, Miniature Market would charge me $5.99 just for shipping one-way. If that means shipping two-ways will cost $12.00, then you will probably need to charge $15~$20 to cover your basics cost. If I were to pay $15-$20 just to rent a single miniature, I would rather buy it from my local game store and reuse it later (Or use it as decoration). By comparison, Redbox will charge $1.75 per day, which represents approximately one-tenth the purchase price.
I suspect that a physical product subscription service won't be sustainable simply due to the cost of safely shipping the products. (This is also ignoring the issue of timely delivery. If a model arrives after a scheduled session, then the customers are going to be pretty unhappy.)
A better option might be to create "Libraries" in a few major cities (L.A., Chicago, New York, etc), where players can do a pick-up/drop-off exchange. Charge a security deposit in addition to the rental cost, and then refund it upon the product's return.
Another obstacle is the issue of availability. Red Dragons might be very popular, which means you'll need to have a dozen or so on hand, just in case people want them. If someone tries to rent their BBEG only to find out that it's already rented out, they aren't going to wait patiently for it. That means you'll need to have a lot of redundant inventory, which is going to push your profitability way down the road.
Personally, I would probably be willing to pay about $5 to rent a $30 miniature, if I thought I would only use it once. If I plan to use a miniature multiple times, I'd probably only pay $1.50-$2.00 per rental. Unfortunately, that falls well under the shipping cost.
Now, an alternative to the idea of renting out individual miniatures would be to offer a service where you can rent a campaign or a module. This would be a box set containing bespoke foam packaging for minis, a complete set of the paper materials you need (the DM's guide to the module and the handouts for players, drywipe maps + markers for running it) and every model you need for the missions, up to 8 players. Each encounter is built as a chart where the DM simply checks how many PC's there are, the levels would be milestones so the level is know, and the encounter is set up (EG. the party has 5 players, DM checks row 5 of the chart and sees the encounter should be 8 goblins and 2 orcs).
The user would be charged monthly for the service in a subscription, and would expect to use 1 module per month playing once a week - each box should offer circa 20 hours playtime. then you have a cancellation caveat that they have to pay if they cancel whilst they still have minis, or have broken minis. Any damages on returns are added to their next bill (or the cancellation fee if they try to cancel before the bill), or can be paid for in a contract over X months (the reason they are renting is because they can't afford the models - doing this will make people much happier).
I'd be interested in this a lot more than in just individual model rentals. I'd also give the option to buy a currently rented box if people want to keep them, and would even offer "mystery campaigns", where each box includes 3 or so options for the next module (for DM's eyes only) and they make the decision as they send the previous box back.
You could also offer different tiers of service - some people might want cardboard cutouts of enemies or tokens for them to reduce costs, which would also reduce shipping cost due to reduced sizes. Others might want a bespoke module service where they tell you what they need for the module and you supply a box of minis for them. I'd also include a terrain service.
Now, for the sake of supply & demand, I'd start with pre-defined boxes with modules, for which you know what models you need and how many of them. add more services as you grow.
I'm now pondering starting this myself as a UK business, I wonder how well it would take off... But feel free to use this over the pond!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!