World Youth Day in Krakow 2016. At that time, Dimitri Conejoa young man dedicated to web development and interface design, was thinking about how to serve God.
In that meeting with the Pope, "the Lord touched my heart and told me clearly 'I want you to renew my Church on the Internet,'" Dimitri emphasizes.
At that time, "they contacted me from Religion in Freedom they were looking for a technology director. In that assignment, as Dimitri himself notes, he learned a lot and got to know the Catholic digital world firsthand.
The first Cathopic
The project of Cathopic was beginning to take shape in his head. "I had been thinking for some time about setting up a clearly Catholic image bank. I realized that, on many occasions, Catholics, when it came to designing or making posters, for parishes or whatever, would simply go to Google and 'grab' the photo. As a UX/UI designer, I have a lot of respect for the work of creators, photographers, etc., and I thought this practice was barbaric... but there was really nothing to go to.
The realization of this need led him to create the first version of Cathopic: "I started Cathopic with about 400 royalty-free photographs that I was able to gather from various image banks and that had a Catholic background".
At that time Cathopic was a relatively simple site, Dimitri restructured an earlier web code, bought the domain, hired the server and "little else, it was about 19 dollars what that site cost".
The site began to receive thousands of visits and grew, much faster than Dimitri himself had imagined: "I wanted to create something small but, when it came out, it was crazy. As it grew I realized that there were many more needs: covering the project's social networks, sending newsletters, etc."
The increase in needs also led to an increase in the team: "First one person joined, and then others. What has always been clear to me about my evangelization mission is the fact that I have to take it very professionally. My mission remains that everything I do should be as professional as possible.
If the Lord has given me these gifts, it is to make the most of them. That's why our projects like Cathopic or Holydemia always have that touch of study, research and training. Very good interfaces are created, with a studied branding... Aspects that, in the Catholic world, often sound 'Chinese', but I believe that nowadays it is very important to know how to transmit the faith in the most effective and professional way possible".
At this point, Dimitri refers to a benchmarking study he carried out before launching Cathopic and Holydemia, from which he drew several conclusions. Among them, "what struck me the most, when I started to get to know the world of Christian content on the web, is that the Protestants had years of professionalism and experience behind us. When I saw some Catholic websites and compared them with Protestant ones, I often asked myself 'Why do they do it so well and we are sometimes so crappy?"
Professionalization
Cathopic's growth has been steady and continues to be so today. From a simple website of 400 photos, it has grown to a hub of Catholic resources involving hundreds of Catholic content creators, especially photos and video. The team has also grown and the management has become more professional.
The turning point in this improvement of Cathopic was the second version. At that time, the members of the Cathopic team "realized that many people were uploading photos that were not theirs. They were taking them from another image bank and uploading them. We have a human moderation filter that checks the images, but some of them could slip through. In fact, this experience led Dimitri to create Dimconex Media, the company that manages Cathopic and Holydemia. In this way, "not only was the project protected, but we were able to expand the content with video and illustrations". Phase 3 of Cathopic is already underway and, with it, a new modality: Cathopic PRO. With this system, through a payment per download as in any professional image bank, the user has access to more and better quality content, as well as videos and illustrations. Dimitri points out that in Cathopic "we are bringing together many creators of Catholic content and they are very 'cracks', they do real wonders and, from Cathopic, they can make themselves known to many more people".
Cathopic 3
"Cathopic tries to be a meeting community for all Catholic creators. A place where they can come together, where they can share and grow professionally and, why not, profit from their work, because it is something very lawful," says Dimitri. In fact, it is the creators themselves who decide whether their content is offered for payment or free of charge.
As Dimitri points out, "sometimes, we still live with the mentality that 'everything from God is free,' in a misunderstood way. I don't think that's the case. Just as all Catholic workers get paid for their work, content creators, photographers, have the right to get paid for their work..., In fact, Cathopic 3 seeks to protect the content, the creators and create a business model that sustains the project."
Cathopic's pricing packages have not been made looking for excessive profit, as Dimitri relates "we listened to many people about how much they would be willing to pay, we studied the costs of servers, equipment... etc., and so it was done". Prices range from $29 to $119 per month, depending on the number of downloads required.
Just as the user pays less for each download the more volume he contracts, the more the creator makes the more content he uploads. "We are based on a collaborative economy model, when the user pays Cathopic pro, most of the money goes to the service and to the creators," Dimitri stresses.
As of today, Cathopic Pro hosts nearly 5,000 high quality images, more than 2,800 video clips available in 4K and HD and almost a thousand illustrations and graphics. All with the collaboration of nearly 300 content creators. This bank of images and resources is used by more than 63,000 individuals, churches and organizations around the world. "The United States, especially, and Latin America, demand a lot of content," says the creator of Cathopic.
A project that continues to grow in users and resources and that makes real that call of the Lord to a young web designer at the WYD in Krakow.
