The app is pretty much dead. Some eTicketing is still working, but expect that to go away shortly.

I would be surprised if MP works tomorrow.

How the hell'd they burn through $5M in a weekend?

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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How the hell'd they burn through $5M in a weekend?

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They probably just needed $5mm to pay back what was overdue.

I believe their cash burn was up to $45mm/mo.

Just cancelled my subscription. I had it for 4 months and only saw 4 movies. Still, I came out ahead considering the tickets cost $14-15 each.

Movie pass back up but no peak pricing tonight. Doubt I will be able to go tonight but curious if the only option is eticketing that you find out when you get to the theater

I still don't understand how any business person thought Movie Pass would survive. It only works if people don't use it.

I also would not be surprised if we find out some movie theater owners signed up for Movie Pass, and then used it to buy tickets to every show at their theater. They are getting the full price of the ticket. They could have made thousands of extra dollars doing this, and I don't see how it would be illegal.

I'm pretty sure that was actually an issue and was a factor in leading to some of the changes awhile back (taking pictures of tickets, being limited to one viewing per movie).

AustinAg2K said:

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I also would not be surprised if we find out some movie theater owners signed up for Movie Pass, and then used it to buy tickets to every show at their theater. They are getting the full price of the ticket. They could have made thousands of extra dollars doing this, and I don't see how it would be illegal.

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https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/2873493/replies/51121083

I know for a fact this happened.

Guitarsoup said:

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AustinAg2K said:

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I also would not be surprised if we find out some movie theater owners signed up for Movie Pass, and then used it to buy tickets to every show at their theater. They are getting the full price of the ticket. They could have made thousands of extra dollars doing this, and I don't see how it would be illegal.

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https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/2873493/replies/51121083

I know for a fact this happened.

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Awesome. There are some really, really dumb people that thought this would be a sustainable model and invested in it. Movie Pass reminds of the dot com bubble at the the end of the 90s. At the very least, they should have made their $9.95 an introductory price, and then jack the price up on people after the first month. If enough people forgot to cancel and had to pay $24.95 or something like that, then they might have had a chance to break even. Props to everyone who used the service. This will go down as a spectacular failure.

This is going to be an epic case study in business schools.

I will look back fondly on them. They changed the model and industry. Money ran out sooner than they realized, or they were not able to transition to a sustainable format because of expectations set with their customer base and a ceo who couldn't shut us mouth and undercut other ways to monetize a furvent customer base. And had a swing and a miss on a more sustainable concept (owning the product - Gotti - where they can legitimately control costs).

The biggest theater chain took notice and joined in the model. So did Alamo (actually makes more sense for Alamo, who likely gets a larger % of revenue from food/drink and incentivizing repeated viewings, etc can help).

What is the next iteration? A studio introducing a subscription model for all of their releases (a la Netflix in its current form)? I could see Disney doing this as they transition to their streaming stand alone - for $15/mo get all streaming Disney channels/movies, and $15/mo more get theater tickets to all new Disney releases? Or will we first have more chains join in the concept?

I'm not sure this is an epic business case...it's actually not that uncommon for startups. Most of them just don't get quite the visibility before they exceed their burn rate.

This is the exact operational model that Uber has, Uber was just able to get more venture funding and scale fast enough to manage their burn. They are still a long way from being profitable, but viewed as a success story.

Amazon did the same thing with books, Dell did the same with PCs, Warby Parker did the same with eyeglasses. And there are literally thousands of no-name companies that we don't remember who crashed and burned.

I think MoviePass will be the start of disruption in a very entrenched industry, but not the end game model.

Quote:

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I will look back fondly on them. They changed the model and industry. Money ran out sooner than they realized, or they were not able to transition to a sustainable format because of expectations set with their customer base and a ceo who couldn't shut us mouth and undercut other ways to monetize a furvent customer base. And had a swing and a miss on a more sustainable concept (owning the product - Gotti - where they can legitimately control costs).

The biggest theater chain took notice and joined in the model.

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I do agree with this. Not a perfect analogy, but it reminds me a little bit of the grocery related dot.coms of the early 2000s. They were a little before their time with imperfect, unsustainable models that ultimately crashed and burned. But ultimately, the ideas were adopted and are changing the game. Now that was a long-term process where years passed before the newer, sustainable versions arrived vs. where some of these theaters have reacted much more quickly with their own offerings. But it did at least seem to identify a new path.

littlebitofhifi said:

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I'm not sure this is an epic business case...it's actually not that uncommon for startups. Most of them just don't get quite the visibility before they exceed their burn rate.

This is the exact operational model that Uber has, Uber was just able to get more venture funding and scale fast enough to manage their burn. They are still a long way from being profitable, but viewed as a success story.

Amazon did the same thing with books, Dell did the same with PCs, Warby Parker did the same with eyeglasses. And there are literally thousands of no-name companies that we don't remember who crashed and burned.

I think MoviePass will be the start of disruption in a very entrenched industry, but not the end game model.

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I disagree. none of the examples you listed were hurt by people using their service MORE. movie pass was set up from the beginning to do worse the more people used their service and no real leverage to get "partners" to shoulder some of it. I think it's pretty fascinating what with all different steps they have taken to try to make it work.

Well, looks like they finally upped the price to $14.95, which I'm still onboard with.

However, ANY movie that opens on 1,000+ screens will now be disabled in the first 2 weeks.

That part is what's making me considering cancelling, since I don't know if I want to wait 2 weeks for all the big blockbuster movies.

I guess I'll try it out until Nov/Dec, when the big Holiday movies start coming out.

Edit: Come to think of it, it might be worth to keep through Oscar season.

schmendeler said:

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littlebitofhifi said:

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I'm not sure this is an epic business case...it's actually not that uncommon for startups. Most of them just don't get quite the visibility before they exceed their burn rate.

This is the exact operational model that Uber has, Uber was just able to get more venture funding and scale fast enough to manage their burn. They are still a long way from being profitable, but viewed as a success story.

Amazon did the same thing with books, Dell did the same with PCs, Warby Parker did the same with eyeglasses. And there are literally thousands of no-name companies that we don't remember who crashed and burned.

I think MoviePass will be the start of disruption in a very entrenched industry, but not the end game model.

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I disagree. none of the examples you listed were hurt by people using their service MORE. movie pass was set up from the beginning to do worse the more people used their service and no real leverage to get "partners" to shoulder some of it. I think it's pretty fascinating what with all different steps they have taken to try to make it work.

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Sounds like a gym membership, or prepaid legal, or a home warranty service. Lots of businesses can succeed with that type of model, it just seems like in this case they never found the correct price point, or were not able to mix in ad revenue or data mining to make their 9.95 price profitable.

expresswrittenconsent said:

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schmendeler said:

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littlebitofhifi said:

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I'm not sure this is an epic business case...it's actually not that uncommon for startups. Most of them just don't get quite the visibility before they exceed their burn rate.

This is the exact operational model that Uber has, Uber was just able to get more venture funding and scale fast enough to manage their burn. They are still a long way from being profitable, but viewed as a success story.

Amazon did the same thing with books, Dell did the same with PCs, Warby Parker did the same with eyeglasses. And there are literally thousands of no-name companies that we don't remember who crashed and burned.

I think MoviePass will be the start of disruption in a very entrenched industry, but not the end game model.

---

I disagree. none of the examples you listed were hurt by people using their service MORE. movie pass was set up from the beginning to do worse the more people used their service and no real leverage to get "partners" to shoulder some of it. I think it's pretty fascinating what with all different steps they have taken to try to make it work.

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Sounds like a gym membership, or prepaid legal, or a home warranty service. Lots of businesses can succeed with that type of model, it just seems like in this case they never found the correct price point, or were not able to mix in ad revenue or data mining to make their 9.95 price profitable.

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It's nothing like a gym membership. At a gym, if you go once a month, or 30 times a month, the company is not worse off. If everyone shows up, the most that happens is the gym gets crowded. A home warranty service is probably the closest example, but home warranty services charge a service fee every time someone comes out for something. They also argue everything to try to not pay for it.

You're right that they did not find the right price point to be profitable; however, when they announced their $9.95 price everyone said this can not last. In a lot of places, a single movie ticket costs more than $9.95. If they wanted to make $9.95 an introductory price, and then charge $24.95 a month after that it would have made a lot more sense. They didn't do that, though. Everyone said they were morons, and they would crash and burn. They acted like they were smarter than everyone else. Turns out they weren't.

I think it remains to be seen how much they change the industry. The monthly services places like AMC are offering are pretty expensive, especially if you have a family of four (A-list would be $80 a month). I think these monthly movie passes are going to remain a niche market. Most people don't go see multiple movies a week. We'll see though.

schmendeler said:

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littlebitofhifi said:

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I'm not sure this is an epic business case...it's actually not that uncommon for startups. Most of them just don't get quite the visibility before they exceed their burn rate.

This is the exact operational model that Uber has, Uber was just able to get more venture funding and scale fast enough to manage their burn. They are still a long way from being profitable, but viewed as a success story.

Amazon did the same thing with books, Dell did the same with PCs, Warby Parker did the same with eyeglasses. And there are literally thousands of no-name companies that we don't remember who crashed and burned.

I think MoviePass will be the start of disruption in a very entrenched industry, but not the end game model.

---

I disagree. none of the examples you listed were hurt by people using their service MORE. movie pass was set up from the beginning to do worse the more people used their service and no real leverage to get "partners" to shoulder some of it. I think it's pretty fascinating what with all different steps they have taken to try to make it work.

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I think what people don't understand or know is that you can lose money on the front end, while still raking in cash. The money is in the data of the consumers. I don't know the business plan, but I'd be shocked if big data/data analytics wasn't at the root of their plan to make money. Now, I have zero idea if they had buyers for their data, if they had large enough data sets, or if they were even running the correct analytics to get useable data for theaters/studios to use. However, the idea to take a loss up front to acquire enough customers to get the data set is not new.

How on Earth can you collect enough data from a movie app to justify the fact that you are paying for a movie nearly every time that app is used?

I would happily pay $24.95 if they want back to the original model with no restrictions. (Except IMAX.)

jschroeder said:

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How on Earth can you collect enough data from a movie app to justify the fact that you are paying for a movie nearly every time that app is used?

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Companies pay big money for the analytics that come from that data. It is used in more ways and products than you could possibly imagine. Fun fact: every time you use one of those fancy customizable coke machines at a restaurant, you are helping coca cola figure out how to stock store shelves in your area.

The low price is to quickly build a user base, doesn't mean the price point stays there long term.

I know how data works.

What type of data do you think MoviePass collects that would justify them paying for a movie ticket when they collect it?

If that is true, than why the hell haven't they come out with a cherry/vanilla/lime/lemon coke zero???

jschroeder said:

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I know how data works.

What type of data do you think MoviePass collects that would justify them paying for a movie ticket when they collect it?

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You can help movie marketing by allowing them to better target their efforts on their target market.

Studios can make more informed decisions on scripts, sequels, etc based on the demographics of who is seeing a movie.

I didn't write their code and have never used their app, so no clue what they are tracking from your phone. However, they are most likely teacking your geolocation and know where you are going before and after the movie, how often you are seeing movies, what type of movies you are seeing etc. Your name can be cross-referenced in a number of ways to market to you. If you say you understand data, then you should easily see what they can attempt.

Again, I didn't say they had a successful plan, I said I would be shocked if big data wasn't behind this. And I said there are companies out there taking a loss up front but making their money on the back end.

Think for a second how much studios would have to pay MoviePass for them to turn a profit on demographic info I guarantee you they've known how to collect for decades.

Data is certainly behind it but they pay too much to get the data to be able to turn a profit off of it.

They turned the lionshare of their geotracking off several months ago after privacy complaints.

It's not about collecting the data. You are right. Companies everywhere have been collecting this data for a long, long time. It's been sitting on storage arrays doing nothing in most cases because companies didn't know how to process that data or what to do with it. That has changed in the past few years. The amount of data you can collect and the number of ways you can parse it is very high. You can use data collected in one industry and parse it in ways that allow you to sell it to a completely unrelated company. It's not just the movie studios that can be targeted by data collected from movie pass.

I sell the the hardware to companies that the analytics software runs on, and we partner very closely with the software companies. Some of my customers entire business is collecting, analyzing, and selling data.

I could be wrong and moviepass doesn't use big data, but it would surprise me. I probably won't change your mind, but I do know more than the average person about data analytics.

I explained it a few pages back, but MoviePass tried to sell data and they were turned down very early in the process last year.

HMNY is a data/statistics company and they bought MoviePass.

Going to try out Sinemia. The "new release" restriction is the end of MoviePass to me. I may of cancelled my yearly subscription too early (have it until late december) but I'm over the on-the-fly changes they continue to make.

I live next to a movie theater so i constantly go there during the week and on weekends.

They use it, they just pay WAY too much to get it.

Facebook can only harvest ~25/month per user and they have a ton more info.

Again, I never said moviepass had a solid business plan. Maybe they thought they did, they burned through capital faster than they thought they would and couldn't recover/adjust the cost of customer acquisition.

My initial point was that this business wasn't about selling movie tickets. People, in general, were trying to figure out how moviepass was making money selling passes for $10/month. That part was never their money-making plan. The rest of my posts were explaining why there are businesses that can sell a product at a loss and still make money, and why moviepass might believe they could as well.

I've found that people, again, in general, don't realize how many ways their data is being used. Some applications are very obvious, some are fairly mind-blowing.

Guitarsoup said:

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I explained it a few pages back, but MoviePass tried to sell data and they were turned down very early in the process last year.

HMNY is a data/statistics company and they bought MoviePass.

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Thanks. I haven't followed the thread from start to finish. Just checked in a few times.