[bben70]

Hello, my name is Ben and I am trying to introduce our new company 1HourMovies, and to obtain any feedback regarding our services. We are also interested in any investors or people looking for affiliates.

The way our service works is you can order a movie rental online, by text, or by phone just like Blockbuster and Netflix, however our pre-zoned drivers are texted immediately through our new software and the members address and title will be sent to the driver. Since we are just starting, our company only services Broward and Dade county for now and are in the process of obtaining major funding. Each driver carries up to five copies of the last few years new releases, and we would like a driver on hand at the distribution center to deliver any odd titles that may not be carried in the vehicles. Inventory is already on-hand from our previous business, and our memberships are residual, plus we have all of our previous members already on board. Eventually we would like to have a driver for all five mile radius zones. We hope that these new ideas can revolutionize home entertainment. Wouldn't it be cool to get a pizza and a movie delivered right to you within an hour, along with snacks and beverages. Please give us your feedback!!
P.S. For now we have insurance through our business, and are looking for new policies to cover us. We are still in the building process and realize that our ideas cannot be implemented without capitol, which is why we would like feedback from anyone so we can have our complete business plan set up before allocating our resources.
Thank You

benh@1HourMovies

[Vee_UNIT]

on the one hand 1hour movie gets delivered fast but will the cost of delivery scare off people. netflix and blockbuster have a monthly charge and say that is next day. i dont know if a lot of people are going to pay a ton to get a movie delivered unless they are loaded or stuck in their home

[bben70]

Hello, Thank You for your reply. We have a monthly membership just like Netflix and Blockbuster, and the delivery is included with the membership. There are three different memberships, at different monthly prices. We realize that cost of delivery is going to be high, but our goal is to have drivers on routes to specific areas, thus having a daily run to eliminate traveling back and forth. Our website will eventually have a calendar, where you can drag and drop movies to the specific day you would like it, and we will deliver it to you. We are trying to break new ground and bring the ultimate convenience to your doorstep, which is going to take some time.

Thanks Again, We Really Appreciate Your feedback!!

[Trob82]

what about returns. Another driver visits the home?

[bben70]

Hello, Thanks for replying. The returns are the best part. You keep the movie until your next rental, then we swap your old rental for the new one. The idea is to have people renting movies and returning them without having to leave their home. We have already figured that some members will only rent a few times a month, so after they have had the same title for about five days we send out emails letting the member know of the next weeks upcoming titles, which will hopefully motivate them to order another rental giving us the opportunity to swap out the old title for the new one, and thus getting the titles back into rotation. Thanks again, and we are still looking for any ideas anyone may have.

bben70

[rogercbryan]

100% video on demand is less then a few years away. Good idea but about 5 years too late.... sorry to bust your bubble...

[MASapparel]

I actually love the idea and would be willing to help out on any of the site or graphic design needs.

I run a design/print studio so shoot me an email if this is something you are serious about.


But as I think of it there are sites that you can get movies right then and there so you may be too late.

[domjuan20]

Hello,

I'm going to go with the complete and brutal honesty approach here. Please don't take this as undue criticism. Concerning your business idea, I would have to direct you to the following websites: movielink.com and cinemanow.com. These 2 sites are already poised to make your idea obsolete before you really go into business. I would never wait 1 hour for one of your drivers to deliver a movie to me, if I can download a movie from movielink.com and begin watching it less than 5 minutes after I start the download. I suppose you might say that I'd be missing out on the additional features that are available on an actual DVD, but to be honest, all I ever watch is the movie itself so that is really a non-issue for me. Anyways, I just wanted to offer my opinion. It may not be the one you wanted to hear, and you may end up discarding it all together, but there you have it. Who knows, perhaps I'm wrong... I don't think I am, but I could be. If you do decide to go ahead with the business, I certainly wish you luck with it. I am going through something similar right now. I am in the middle of starting a business right now. I actually had hoped that one of my favorite professors from University of San Diego would help/mentor me in the business creation process, but he feels adamantly that my idea will not succeed. I don't agree with him, despite his experience, because I think I am seeing a side of things that he might not be considering. I think he's biased because my business is in the real estate industry and he is currently having a hell of a time selling his house in San Diego and is projecting that difficulty onto the entire real estate industry. However, I think I've found the opportunity in the adversity, and am going ahead despite his warnings. So, I wouldn't say not to move ahead if you think it will work, but would definitely recommend that you make sure that what you see in your idea is based on reality... Perhaps on an aspect of your business plan that I hadn't considered or had been biased against due to my complete abandonment of traditional movie rental forms (brick and mortar/mail order) and utilization of completely online mediums for accomplishing the same.

Again, I wish you luck.

Dominique

[MASapparel]

Regarding the above post:
I agree and disagree.

Even though we are in a computer savvy and high tech world not everyone is up to par. I do watch a lot of my movies and such online or at the movies but there is a reason movie rental stores are still in business.

Also if there is a group of people and they want a movie then they aren't going to want to gather around the computer unless they have a hell of a setup. Internet movies are meant for the speed and so forth but they do not give the best movie experience. People have surround sound and plasma tvs to watch movies on Im sure they would like to use it.
I think this is a good idea like I said before and it brings the best of both worlds, speed/convince and quality together.

Thats my 2 cents on this whole thing, I live in a major college town and I would even consider letting you expand your business this way and try and manage this region for you. Who knows as long as tvs are still here I think there is a market for this idea.

[bben70]

Hello, thank you all for your feedback. We are very pleased to see that people actually think about the movie industry, and how people would like to rent their movies. We realize that the new downlaoding age has come upon us, however we feel that people do not want to watch a movie on a computer screen, especially with all of the money spent on flat screens and HD Tv's. Our company is going to be one of the first to offer all HD and Blu-Ray titles for rent, and we stongly believe that people will respond positively. The downlaoding technology is a great thing, we don't want to compete with it at all, we just want to offer different rental mediums to cater to every different kind of renter. Until people can download movies right to their Tv's, the rental industry is still going to strive. We are ten years away from being able to download all movies directly to TV's in HD, and On-Demand movies aren't nearly as popular as people think, mainly due to the price per title and the amount of time they are available on the digital box. Remember, we just want to bring the next level of convenience to the member, and we are looking for new ways that no other rental company has offered. We are very excited to read all of the feedback we are receiving, and hope to here more from anyone who is interested.

Thank You All!!!

[ADVERTISE HERE!]

A couple things.

First, I don't, and wouldn't, pay to download a movie to my computer. Why do I want to crowd in front of a small computer screen with my wife when I can watch my new Samsung 1080i and Blu-Ray Disc Player? It doesn't make sense. However, I DON'T know that we're ten years away from downloading movies to televisions. I think we're only a couple. And it's not for lack of technology, it's due to companies strategically taking their time to maximize profits with each new step in technology.

I don't really know what I think of this idea yet. If you could provide me something that I can't get elsewhere and which is the best option from a cost-benefit analysis point of view, then you have something. But I don't know that you do. I don't like to pay extra for something unless I have no other choice. If I HAVE to have a new movie that was just released, I'll pay the $20 for it rather than waiting for prices to drop, but that's because I have a very high demand with no substitutions. You, on the other hand, are dealing with more elastic demand with plenty of substitutions.

Make sure that you think like your customer. I know you are in balls deep at this point and there seems to be no backing out, but you can at least make adjustments to maximize your chance for success. Give the customers something that they have a demand for but which others don't meet. I don't know that the convenience of not having to drive a couple miles would warrant paying extra money, but that's just me.

One additional thought:

I think you are going to be operating at a VERY thin margin, if any margin at all, and this won't be sufficient to cover your fixed costs. You need to REALLY begin to think creatively if you're going to be successful. Why not partner up with a couple struggling movie stores (at least at the outset), the local ones that can't compete with Blockbuster, and cut a deal where you exclusively rent from them to provide your customers their movies and in return get below market rental rates? And/or set up a system of picking several large and affluent neighborhoods in which to advertise your services door to door, and then set up a system where people in those neighborhoods order a movie to be delivered to them Thursday or Friday evening and then leave them in their mailbox for your pickup Monday morning? They could order anytime throughout the week, up until maybe 5:00 on that day, either by phone, email, whatever. You would save driving all over the city for just one movie, you'd build a solid base, and you could strategically grow from neighborhood to neighborhood, growing your sales force as needed.

As a business consultant, I HAVE to learn to think creatively like this and keep the customer in mind. Hope this starts to set you in the right direction, because I don't think your current plan is headed that way.