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Spitfire business things

  • Thread starter Thread starter thereus
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I don't understand two things about the story.

On the one hand, SA says that Soaring Violins were never part of the plan, huh? On the other hand, they then recorded 1st and 2nd Violins in Unison instead of Octaves, huh?

That doesn't seem very credible to me.
 
jbuhler said:
Sometimes it can feel more like he's selling a creative's life style than tools of the craft.
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That is what marketing is about and what reaches through the noise and creates a following. You don’t sell to people that need what you have. You sell to people that believe what you believe. You don’t talk about products. You talk about beliefs. This is what Apple always did, what Christian always did. And one of the main reasons (besides fantastic products with great design of course) why these two companies have been so successful and have so many dedicated followers. :)
 
To make up for some of the losses Spitfire could release a course showing how to operate a successful sampling company so that other sample developers will flock to buy it. Then they won't have to keep developing libraries anymore because the course will be enough. I'm thinking the course should be called Spitfire Shovels. If they can make hammers they will be able to make shovels.
 
mybadmemory said:
That is what marketing is about and what reaches through the noise and creates a following. You don’t sell to people that need what you have. You sell to people that believe what you believe. You don’t talk about products. You talk about beliefs. This is what Apple always did, what Christian always did. And one of the main reasons (besides fantastic products with great design of course) why these two companies have been so successful and have so many dedicated followers. :)
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This is excellent. Both make some fantastic products - it is buying into a dream that typically bears no reality to real life.

Off topic, but I find Spectrasonics an interesting comparison. I feel they appeal to the same kinds of things and same kinds of people, but they do so with less hoopla and messianic hype.
 
Guy Rowland said:
This is excellent. Both make some fantastic products - it is buying into a dream that typically bears no reality to real life.
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Simon Sinek said it very well in a talk about Apple: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

In our uber technical make believe world here in VI-C many might want just the stats and not the ”bullshit” (though i don’t believe it is).

But that’s not how you captivate any masses and become a big company. You do that by selling the why.

Apple was and still is great at this. Spitfire too. That’s how they broke through the pro-barrier and cought the orders of magnitude larger market of people aspiring to one day write music. :)
 
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In 2019, they were finishing up BBCSO, which was released in October 2019. They were already recording AROOF, which they announced at the same time BBCSO was released. CoVID hit in 2020, delaying recording, but also introducing Spitfire to a lot of hobbyists who were getting paid not to work. So, income, but no expensive recording sessions. AROOF was released at the end of 2020 as well. This would account for the higher than usual profits in 2020. Also, 2019 would have had all the expenses of recording libraries that were released in 2020/2021.

Recording started reopening in 2021. I would expect profits to start going down as expenses increase. Also, the flagship SSS got greatly reduced in price in the last few years. Probably in expectation that pros will move to ARO and hobbyists, as Nick pointed out, don't like paying more that $300 for a library. (I resemble that remark)

I'm sure there were payouts to various people as a result of the "incident" in 2023. There maybe other things we don't know about yet, as they continue to record new libraries. The problem with having 100+ employees is you have to keep them busy making libraries to pay for themselves. I'd be interested to see how OT handles the making of collaboration libraries in comparison. They are not a big company. Maybe they contract it out?

What I am wondering about, is in 2019, when BBCSO was released and the AR line announced, Christian stated they wanted to record an orchestra in every recording space in Britain. At the time, Maida Vale was closing. Colossus got a couple? I can't remember if the small and big orchestras were recorded at the same location, but different rooms or two different locations. I wonder if that will still be happening now Christian is gone?

And yes, I have an accounting degree, though I work as an evil auditor. We always want to figure out the why.

Edited to fix bad spelling as I am typing on my phone.
 
Is this kind of data available for Orchestral Tools or is this only because Spitfire is conducting business in the UK and that information is public? And I guess in Germany it's private?
 
dzilizzi said:
What I am wondering about, is in 2019, when BBCSO was released and the AR line announced, Christian stated they wanted to record an orchestra in every recording space in Britain. At the time, Maida Vale was closing. Colossus got a couple? I can't remember if the small and big orchestras were recorded at the same location, but different rooms or two different locations. I wonder if that will still be happening now Christian is gone?
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Colossus was two halls in the same venue as I recall.

dzilizzi said:
And yes, I have an accounting degree, though I work as an evil auditor. We always want to figure out the why.
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Not an accountant here, but, yes, exactly. And not just the why but also what does the future of this market look like? And also how does a sample company keep a hundred employees busy and generating income (since the income is needed to pay the salaries)? These are all interesting questions.

polynaeus said:
Is this kind of data available for Orchestral Tools or is this only because Spitfire is conducting business in the UK and that information is public? And I guess in Germany it's private?
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Besides OT, I'd be interested in seeing similar data (and employee head counts) for VSL and East West.
 
jbuhler said:
Colossus was two halls in the same venue as I recall.


Not an accountant here, but, yes, exactly. And not just the why but also what does the future of this market look like? And also how does a sample company keep a hundred employees busy and generating income (since the income is needed to pay the salaries)? These are all interesting questions.


Besides OT, I'd be interested in seeing similar data (and employee head counts) for VSL and East West.
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According to OT's website, they have 25 employees: https://www.orchestraltools.com/jobs

I can imagine however that they do a lot of stuff with contractors / freelancers.
 
It's interesting how Spitfire has almost 5 times the headcount that OT has, but I don't feel like Spitfire has much more production capacity than OT based on what they're releasing currently.
 
Loerpert said:
It's interesting how Spitfire has almost 5 times the headcount that OT has, but I don't feel like Spitfire has much more production capacity than OT based on what they're releasing currently.
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By my count, Spitfire's catalog is twice the size of OT's at the moment. I imagine they also have at least twice the amount of customers, which means a larger customer support team would be required as well. 5x the headcount doesn't mean 5x the amount of people involved in production / 5x the production capacity.
 
Loerpert said:
It's interesting how Spitfire has almost 5 times the headcount that OT has, but I don't feel like Spitfire has much more production capacity than OT based on what they're releasing currently.
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I really don't' think SFA has 100+ full-time employees showing up for work every day at their location in London.

Of course there are some, you have the CEO, tech support staff (I am sure there are more than just one or two of those), a person or two or three or more doing website stuff, and others, but I think a large chunk of the "employees" are not people on the payroll, but instead are made up of "others". Andy Blaney (assuming he is still around), the engineers (Jake Jackson, Simon Rhoades, etc) and the assistant engineers at the various locations they record, orchestrators who get hired for specific recording projects, demo composers, beta testers, and so on. Crunchbase seems to have the in-house staff at 69 (I have no idea if these sites have accurate info), which still seems high, but would speak better to many of the employees being contractors, hired as needed.
 
ALittleNightMusic said:
By my count, Spitfire's catalog is twice the size of OT's at the moment. I imagine they also have at least twice the amount of customers, which means a larger customer support team would be required as well. 5x the headcount doesn't mean 5x the amount of people involved in production / 5x the production capacity.
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Yeah I think you're right, but when you say the catalog is twice the size, do you mean the amount of products? OT has fewer projects but I think most of them are generally bigger / more complex. Spitfire has a lot of small products.

But still I think you're right.
 
100+ employees looks like a lot to me, even for Spitfire. Is it 100+ full-time employees?
If they hired a lot during the pandemic, layoffs could be expected.
 
cedricm said:
100+ employees looks like a lot to me, even for Spitfire. Is it 100+ full-time employees?
If they hired a lot during the pandemic, layoffs could be expected.
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There were many departures last year. I recall reading somewhere on here that the number of employees is now closer to 70, which is still a lot, but a significant reduction in head count.
 
polynaeus said:
Is this kind of data available for Orchestral Tools or is this only because Spitfire is conducting business in the UK and that information is public? And I guess in Germany it's private?
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Information in Germany is free and public if the company is big enough (most are): www.bundesanzeiger.de
OT has a company construction commonly used in Germany (GmbH & Co KG) that does not reveal too much insight. Nothing special, though.
 
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