In response to the recent MP branding & TnCs3049

Originally Posted by VRealExperience

Bill,
I hope this finds you well. From Day 1 of learning about Matterport I knew it was going to be the cornerstone of my business I had not even yet formed. Fast forward 30 days, and I was a formed LLC. I couldn't have been happier.

That has suddenly changed.

For a small business, our brand, and our personal touch is our value. You have an accomplished career, from start ups, to larger technology organizations. I would be a fool to think you didn't understand channels. I may be a young Owner, but I too understand the value of channels, both building them, and executing on the strategies to ENABLE the channels for a Fortune 60 organization. I have done this at an accomplished level.

With respect to brand - I know it's equally important to you as it is to me. You are on the brink of the big leagues now as an organization. Perhaps that is what has inspired you to seemingly push harder to inlay your brand onto the final result. While I understand and am willing to tolerate this to a degree....there are limits.

With the recent addition of the Matterport Terms and conditions smacking you in the face of every scan - it is unbearable. It is a major eyesore, to everyone, including customers, and viewers (target audience of the purchaser for the scan).

This means less customers, this means less scans, and this means less revenue/profit for Matterport.

Not only that, the community is pissed. Going back to me referencing channels, you know as well as I that the most important component of the machine is the Matterport Pros out there, who essentially provide your Professional Services. I give you credit for building a model and package with a somewhat substantial capital investment on top of a Monthly recurring cost, your overall offering was very attractive. But some markets are already extremely saturated, charging $100-150 for a scan up to 2,000-3,000SqFt, which is roughly a 2-3 hour job. After consideration of other business expenses, this is not all that lucrative of a Solution to be providing - coming in at roughly $50-60 an hour. You are well aware of how quickly that $50-60 is dwindled by overhead and costs of doing business.

You are a SaaS solution. I have been involved in SaaS for more than 10 years at a forementioned Fortune 60 organization, at the IT Distribution level. We sell to IT Solution Providers, such as MSPs (Managed Service Providers) who resell Cloud and SaaS based solutiions. That industry was BUILT ON Private labeling, also known as whitelabeling. Now I would never try to advise you on how to build a camera, or what technology to use....but this is down my alley. There are a great many SaaS who have private labeled, or hid their brand to allow their partners to build their brand instead, knowing they would be incented to drive end customer adoption. Many of these companies or gone on to be acquired at a nice price, went IPO, or are very healthy and have no regrets Revenue wise. Smug companies who push their brand first, while also trying to pretend about the channel, end up often being outed.

Many of your partners question your care and appreciation of the value for the channel. The support is meager - by having virtually no phone support, forget about weekend support, and 24x7x365 is a pipe dream. Considering this is a solution many have to resort to nights or weekends to perform scan, as thats when most businesses are not busy, meaning thats when support is likely needed most, and your company could care less. We resort to email. And wait 3-4 days in many cases, with clients clawing down our backs and at our throats. It's that bad for some, and scares the living daylights out of the rest of us.

I won't beat up your Sales team, because aside from inflating the prices they suggested I charge based on their other clients (Which I knew was inflated because I was able to research in advance) they did their job. I am used to Sales professionals doing what it takes to cement the sale, not offended.

In conclusion, the technology works great. But you can have the best solution, you can even have the best staff, but if that staff isnt there to support and enable, and the companies agenda is the only agenda they care about, partners wont stick, and they wont fight with you.

More freedom and ability to gain for us, means the harder we fight and push for you. Please, remove the Terms and Conditions on the scans, that is one heck of a start to showing you care.


had amount charge dwindle substantially, This has happened in a meager 5 years.

A majority of your partner base, and especially those developing your channels for you, are relatively small organizations, people who have developed a passion for this type of work. It is more than money, it is the end result. It is an Art. Profiting at large requires a full blown army of a photographers and videographers to scale big time. Biting the hand that feeds you by pushing your brand to an unreasonable degree will damage your organization more than it will help.

Thank you for listening


Erik Walczak
VRealExperience, LLC
Founder
[Contact Info]

Originally Posted by Jamie
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