Chad went from being a self-taught photographer hobbyist that took photos of his family's travels and memories the way many of us do. In 2008, after experiencing reduced hours and a shrinking paycheck at his job, he boldly launched Chad David Kraus Photography. Since then, he has photographed over 1000 weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and several iconic Broadway shows and red carpet events with images featured in the New York Times and on Times Square billboards as well.
Check him out on Instagram @chadkrausphoto
Listen along to his incredible story and learn what you can do to make this happen too.
Subscribe on Apple Podcast , Spotify or other major streaming platforms.
If you have a comment, a question you wish I’d asked, an idea for an episode or want to say hi, I'd love to hear from you!
For inquiring guests, please keep in mind that this podcast is for the benefit of listeners and I am not interested in any “puff pieces.” Thank you for understanding!
Feel free to send me a message through my website, or through LinkedIn.
A diary of episodes are posted on Instagram at
How I Built My Small Business.
Chad went from being a self-taught photographer hobbyist that took photos of his family's travels and memories the way many of us do. In 2008, after experiencing reduced hours and a shrinking paycheck at his job, he boldly launched Chad David Kraus Photography. Since then, he has photographed over 1000 weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and several iconic Broadway shows and red carpet events with images featured in the New York Times and on Times Square billboards as well.
Check him out on Instagram @chadkrausphoto
Listen along to his incredible story and learn what you can do to make this happen too.
Subscribe on Apple Podcast , Spotify or other major streaming platforms.
If you have a comment, a question you wish I’d asked, an idea for an episode or want to say hi, I'd love to hear from you!
For inquiring guests, please keep in mind that this podcast is for the benefit of listeners and I am not interested in any “puff pieces.” Thank you for understanding!
Feel free to send me a message through my website, or through LinkedIn.
A diary of episodes are posted on Instagram at
How I Built My Small Business.
That's the real beauty when you realize that you can do it and that you are in control and you don't have to worry about layoffs or downsizing or cutbacks on hours or anything like that. It's all you. For me, it was. How can I make more money, do what I love and have more time for what I want to do outside of my business? More time for what I want to do outside of my business.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the third episode of how I Built my Small Business, the show that is dedicated to sharing the insight that entrepreneurs have about how to start and grow small businesses. Join us as we unravel the stories behind their entrepreneurial journeys. I'm Anne McEntee, your host, and today I'll be chatting with Chad Krause from New York, about how self-taught skills, continued learning and determination can pave the way to small business success. Chad is the owner of Chad.
Speaker 2:David Krause Photography voted Best of Westchester for multiple years. Krause Photography voted Best of Westchester for multiple years. What makes his journey even more incredible is that he started his business without taking a single course in photography, but by honing his skills, doing what many of us do taking photos to document our family's travels and memories. Since then, he's photographed over a thousand weddings, bar and bar mitzvahs and several iconic Broadway shows, with his images featured in the New York Times and gracing Times Square billboards as well. You can find a link through to his business in the episode's description. Thank you to our listeners for being with us today. Chad, it's so good to have you here.
Speaker 1:It is so good to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Well, let's get into it. Can you take us back to before you had your business and tell us a little bit about what you were doing and what your life was like?
Speaker 1:tell us a little bit about what you were doing and what your life was like. Yeah, absolutely so. Before I started my current business, I worked for a world music record label called Putamayo World Music and I was the head of the sales department that actually did sales to what we called the non-traditional market, which was independent bookstores and gift shops and museums and zoos and coffee houses and natural product stores and stuff like that. So I would work with those accounts and get them music CDs to play and sell in their stores. It was a great experience for me. I learned a lot of what I now utilize in my current business from what I learned when I was at Putamayo World Music. But it was also.
Speaker 1:It was a traditional job in the sense that I had a boss and I would commute from Westchester County where I live, just north of New York City, about 45 minutes on the train, into the Grand Central Station in the city and then would walk usually a mile or so to the office, so door to door, probably about an hour and a half each way, each day, and at the time I was perfectly happy doing that and didn't think twice about it. But then, once I ultimately started my new business, which we'll get into, I realized what a difference it was to get back that time. Every day I enjoyed my job at Putamayo and I was doing fine. I wasn't killing it. I became complacent in just accepting what I was doing and sell into the routine of it all.
Speaker 2:So then, can you talk with us about the moment when you started exploring other options, and why?
Speaker 1:So for me it was going to my cousin's daughter's bat mitzvah that I was invited to in Phoenix, and this was in like 2006 or 2007. And I had been into photography since I was 12 years old and I had been into photography since I was 12 years old. I actually bought my first camera with my lemonade stand savings from in front of my apartment building in New York City on the Upper West Side when I was 12 years vacations and New York City street scenes. But I was totally self-taught. I didn't ever go to school for photography. It was truly a hobby and something that I liked to do.
Speaker 1:And what ultimately happened was when I went to my cousin's daughter's bat mitzvah. I had just bought a new digital camera and I brought the camera down with me and took a ton of photos just for the fun of it and sent them to my cousin. And she called and said these are better than the thousands of dollars I paid to the professional photographer. And that was my light bulb moment. And that was when I kind of just all of a sudden said to myself why not, why not see what I can do with this professionally as opposed to just personally as a hobby, and I started the photography business.
Speaker 2:But I assume that you still had a full-time job.
Speaker 1:I did. I did still have a full-time job. I was still commuting in on the Metro North Railroad into Grand Central every day and there were three or four guys that I would see pretty regularly that lived the next town north from me, so I would get on the train. They'd already be on the train and I would find them, and when I was first riding in with them I hadn't even started the photography business. It was probably three or four years of riding in with them and then I went to my cousin's daughter's bat mitzvah and decided I was going to start listing myself on Craigslist and taking odd jobs here or there as a photographer. And over the following year or two or three I remember probably monthly one of them would say to me so when are you leaving Putamayo? When are you going to make this your full career? I would literally laugh and say it's never going to happen. But little did I know that they were foreshadowing a bit, weren't they?
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Maybe you should surprise them on that commuter train one morning and let them know how you're doing.
Speaker 1:They all still do.
Speaker 2:I'm doing the bar mitzvah of one of their chins Amazing. So how did you balance getting a side gig photography business going while still doing your hour and a half commute each way and going to your full-time job?
Speaker 1:That is a good question. The thing that I wanted to do photography, event photography bar and bat mitzvahs or weddings or special family events were almost always on the weekends. I was able to keep doing my day job, as it were, at Putamayo. I was able to keep doing my day job, as it were, at Putamayo, and then I was able to book certain gigs, initially on the weekends, on Saturdays and Sundays, and it was to not do that traditional leap of faith of leaving a job and completely risking everything. I really didn't have that option because I already had kids and my family and a mortgage and I couldn't just leave one job and start from scratch at another.
Speaker 1:So this was really the perfect scenario for me because I was able to keep doing my day job and slowly build up the photography business. And, honestly, I never had the expectation that the photography would turn into anything more than a really nice side gig. A dozen or 15 or 20 times a year, do a shoot on a weekend and have this extra money on the side to supplement my day job. And it was just as big of a surprise to me that it turned into something much, much bigger than what I was doing at my day job much, much bigger than what I was doing at my day job Much bigger.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you have your nieces' bat mitzvah photos, but beyond that you didn't have any experience or any reviews and you didn't have a portfolio, so can you take us through that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So after I had the impetus to give it a go and see if I could actually book some clients to trust me to shoot their events, my first step was to pull together photos that I had taken over the years, even if they were on film, and scan them and convert them to digital files. And then I had the photos that I had taken at my niece's bat mitzvah and I put them all on a Flickr photo stream. I don't know who remembers Flickr, but it was out there and rather than building a website right at the get-go, I just put up this photo stream of a bunch of my photos and I listed myself on Craigslist. I never had a business plan Again. I didn't really go into it with the expectation of turning it into a real business. It really always just felt like oh, this is a nice way to make some extra money doing something that I enjoy doing, and for me, I've always been a big people person and I love interacting with people and having a great time alongside. So in this case, I put myself up on Craigslist. I got my first inquiry and my first booking, and it was for a suite 16. I got my first inquiry and my first booking and it was for a sweet 16 and it was $75 an hour for two or three hours. They booked me and the time I was like great, I'll take $300 cash or whatever it amounted to and go and have fun at a party and take some photos, and I sent them to the client and the mom of the sweet 16 girl loved the photos and it just kept going from there.
Speaker 1:A big part of what allowed me to give a go of it was the fact that it was digital. If it had still been film, even though I believed in my abilities as a photographer, there's a whole different leap of faith if you're shooting with film, because you can't review anything in the moment. At an event, it didn't matter how many photos I took. It wasn't like I was wasting film, right, it was just going on a memory card and I was able to quickly glance at the back of the camera and see what I captured. So I would know if I was doing a good job and if I was capturing the moments that I wanted to capture. And if there was something that didn't quite get captured as I would have wanted, I could try and do it again.
Speaker 2:It's amazing that the evolution of the technology enabled you to do this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, after the Sweet 16, how did you go from $300 into what it is today?
Speaker 1:Well, I would say the progression of the business really fed into itself. So I kept listing myself on Craigslist and I definitely got more inquiries and jobs from there. But then I started getting the referral business. I think with any service business, the businesses that are successful compared to those that don't make it, a huge part of that is the service part right. That is the service part right.
Speaker 1:It's not all about the artistic part, because there are plenty of photographers out there that can take a great photo, that technically know what they're doing, that have been trained and educated in school, college. But what sets me apart from a lot of other event photographers out there is that for me it's not just about getting a great photo. It's about the experience that you're giving your clients and the families that you're working with. And what I mean by that is are you a photographer that is there and just going through the motions and if you had your druthers, you'd be taking pictures of mountains in Colorado, or animals on a safari or whatever in Colorado, or animals on a safari or whatever or are engaging and fun and friendly and love interacting with people.
Speaker 1:I love family histories and learning about these incredible stories of families, and then, especially with Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, which is what my main business now is and we can get into that. I myself am Jewish as well, so I have a little bit of that historical and ancestral background to fall into. But it's always just an honor and fascinating to me when I meet a grandfather or a great-grandfather that lived through the Holocaust, our bat mitzvah boy or girl that is wearing the talis, the prayer shawl that was passed down from like three generations ago. That was from over 100 years old. So I think people can see that interest that I have and that I'm not just there as someone just snapping photos. It's much more than that for me.
Speaker 2:Which I wonder if your job in sales with Putamayo kind of trained you, or maybe being a people person is just an innate part of your personality.
Speaker 1:Definitely my work at Putamayo. It was a small independent record label, I think at its height there was 30 or 40 employees and because it wasn't a huge organization, I was very much involved. I learned a lot about customer service and marketing and promotion, which has definitely lent itself to my current photography business. The other thing that I would say that has helped me in terms of my people-person skills was that I grew up as a young kid in New York City in theater. I went to the high school of performing arts for drama and I went on to college that was a conservatory of theater arts, webster University in St Louis Missouri, and so I think a big part of my education was working with others right Like doing scene work or doing a play and being able to collaborate and work with other people.
Speaker 2:You're a connector.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In the words of Malcolm Gladwell right.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. How did you navigate, leaving your stable, full-time job with benefits and do the full transition? How many years was it before you decided to take a complete leap of faith?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the whole idea of leaving a stable full-time job with benefits and moving over to my own business was definitely a very gradual one, and again, I don't lose sight for a minute the situation and the luck being able to thread that needle and walk both sides for quite a while. I was at Putamayo until, I believe, about 2017.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, it was probably about seven or eight years that I was still working at Putamayo. I was building up the photography business, but it was almost like one elevator going up and another going down. So when they met in the middle and there was that sweet spot, I was able to fully leave Putamayo, as it got to be too much in terms of time away from my family and too much focus needing to be put on the photography to continue to build it. I was able to eventually go down to four days a week at Putamayo and then three days a week, and then I started working remotely from up here in Westchester. Before remote work became all the rage with COVID, I was able to do my job from up here and that gave me more time again to focus on the photography and then eventually, to be perfectly honest, once I was making as much in the photography business as I was making as a salaried employee is when I started floating the idea of letting go.
Speaker 2:Such an exciting moment that your side gig had built enough momentum to make a choice. Yeah, but you have to give yourself credit for taking the leap.
Speaker 1:And it was definitely still a bit of a leap, because you feel like you can make a go of it with something that you've built yourself. But it still feels scary to let go an organization that's been in business for a while and, as you say, benefits. You know it was a big concern having to find my own health insurance for my family and having to depend on myself. But I will tell you this that's the real beauty, right? It's the real beauty right is when you realize that you can do it, you are in control and you don't have to worry about layoffs or downsizing or cutbacks on hours or anything like that.
Speaker 2:It's all you a week, and then three days a week and then remote work. How did you convince your employer to allow you to shrink your hours and also to let you work remotely?
Speaker 1:I had worked there for so long and had the benefit of that. It wasn't like I was working for some big corporate organization where you're really just a name on a board and there's not as much personal influence. The owner of Putamayo knew that I was doing photography, knew that it was something that I loved and at the same time I was really good as a salesperson, so they were trying to accommodate me as best that they could as well.
Speaker 2:Well, that's an interesting consideration for anyone debating about whether to get a job with a corporation or a smaller company. So, moving into some of the finances, have you had to spend any money on advertising?
Speaker 1:I have, but not anywhere close to what one might expect or anywhere close to, maybe, what used to have to be spent. I benefited from social media in a huge way. So there's a magazine here in Westchester it's called Westchester Magazine and when I was first starting my business, they approached me and I quickly found out that it was three or four thousand dollars for a quarter page ad, or a third of a page ad, in a monthly magazine that had a circulation of you know, maybe a hundred thousand people or something like that. I didn't feel I had to be a rocket scientist to recognize okay, for three or four thousand dollars, it's gonna be in this magazine which gets a lot of distribution. I would sit there and I would say to myself okay, if 100,000 families, households, get this magazine, how many of them actually even open it at all? Maybe you knock out half, right there, right, and so now you're down to 50,000 people. And then of those 50,000 people, how many of them actually get to the page where your ad is? And then of those, how many actually stop and look at your ad? And then of those, how many actually have an event that's coming up in the right timeframe to where they would be interested in your services, and it becomes so, so minuscule that it just never seemed worth it to me.
Speaker 1:Now, as opposed to that, I maybe spent three or $4,000 in an entire year, and that was for many boosted posts and ads.
Speaker 1:Facebook had what they called a targeted ad, where you could feed the ad to people who liked your page and their friends. So connections of connections, basically, and so I spent a good amount of time encouraging anybody that used me and anybody that had been interested in booking us to like my Facebook page, and that way, when I put up an ad and targeted it in that way, I knew that it was not only going to the people that already knew about me, but their friends. And the beauty of that again in the bar and bar mitzvah world and the Jewish world is that if you've got a mom that booked my studio for their kid's bar mitzvah and then a lot of their friends that have similar age kids that are also having upcoming bar and bat mitzvahs, I was getting in front of a lot of people that would be interested in my services, as opposed to a magazine where I had no idea who was going in front of.
Speaker 2:That makes so much sense, and you keep on mentioning bar and bat mitzvahs. So this is the niche that you picked. It sounds like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say bar and bat mitzvahs are the niche that I picked and that picked me, and what I mean by that is it quickly became apparent to me that it was a perfect niche for my location, my ability, my personality and my style of photography and the marketability of it. So that's really the key With a bar and bat mitzvah. What I really quickly discovered was there was a huge built-in audience that would likely their own events, right, as opposed to say, a wedding, that's what most event photographers would be going after. Right, you'd be going after the big weddings and everybody's getting married and all of that. And I honestly didn't really think about bar and bat mitzvahs too much. The first few came to me, booked me, asked me about doing it and was like, yeah, absolutely what I realized now and why I think it's such a great business and a great business model. If I was shooting a wedding and there were 200 guests and people see me at the party and love my personality, love my work, see my work afterwards, that's all well and good. But if you don't have a wedding coming up in the next year or two, then there's not going to be as much word of the mouth that's going to organically spread or they're not going to be as much word of the mouth. It's going to organically spread or they're not going to have just seen me. So if I do a wedding and there's 200 guests, 100 of them are already married and of the remaining 150 or 60 of them are from out of town and far away, and of the remaining 30 or 40 aren't going to have a wedding anytime soon, and so you've really limited your potential new clients from doing that one event. Now counter that to a bar, bar mitzvah, where same number of guests.
Speaker 1:But what I've learned and what I've seen and what I know to be true, is that the mom of the mitzvah kid that I'm photographing and the family that I'm photographing has invited, you know maybe 10 or 20 of her friends that all have, or a lot have, similar age kids to the mom's kids that I'm photographing and they oftentimes have bar mitzvahs coming up, or they have friends that have bar mitzvahs coming up.
Speaker 1:And then on top of that you add in the sibling business, which is really nice because, again, at a wedding, the bride might have one or two siblings, but they might live elsewhere or they might already be married or they're nowhere close to being married, whereas with the bar mitzvah you've got a 13 year old kid that's having theirs If you're lucky enough to get in on the top floor, as they say, with the first kid in the family, that's having their bar mitzvah. A lot of times they've got a sibling that's one or two years younger and another one possibly that's another couple years younger than that. Sometimes I've had families where I've shot four Bar and Bat Mitzvahs for all four of their kids over the last eight or nine years. So it's a really great business to be in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no kidding, that's so brilliant. I mean, what a perfect opportunity for word of mouth, organic marketing. So if an aspiring photographer came up to you and said, hey, how did you do this? To find what you love? If you love nature photography then go for that.
Speaker 1:Don't necessarily squeeze yourself as a square peg into a round hole by trying to do event photography. Or if you love events, don't try to make a career photographing nature. And if you love music, then try to follow that passion. It's really about finding what you love and also not pressuring yourself right. I didn't start this photography business till I was 36 years old and before I had that fortuitous moment of going to my cousin's daughter's bat mitzvah, taking a bunch of photos and realizing that this could be something. I figured I would be at Putamayo World Music for the rest of my life. A lot of times it just needs to fall into your lap, but I think the key is being able to recognize it when it falls into your lap, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned on your journey?
Speaker 1:I would say that the best lesson that I learned was to not compare myself to others. I think that in a lot of life not just business, but life in general comparison is the surest path to misery. All you're looking for is personal growth, right Is your own expansion of your own skills? There are, without a doubt.
Speaker 1:I will sometimes look back at a shoot that I did six months ago or a year ago or a couple of years ago, and I can see mistakes that I made or things that I would have done differently, and so that's how I learned by reviewing my own work and always striving to get better and to look for new ways that I can capture similar moments. I'd even do it in the middle of a shoot. There's times where I will consciously have gotten a shot of a certain moment and I'll be like, oh, where else can I move to to get this from a different angle or a different view, and how is that going to tell the story? A little differently than when I go back and I review my work. From a certain event, I can see that it was a great choice to go and try something else.
Speaker 2:That's so true about the comparison to others. It can be easier said than done, but you're right, it's about continued learning and personal growth, and sometimes people can feel like they can't do something because they see that there are others that are more experienced or educated, and it can feel like a major block to growth. But, as you've done, with the right determination, you can learn anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's determination and it's confidence. Right, I think a lot of it is believing in yourself. You know, and I've had people say to me like, are you nervous? Especially when I first started going and doing the first events, I charged like 900 bucks or something like that. Now it can be 10 times that. But I had several people that would say to me are you nervous? And I would be so nervous. There's no do-overs with events, right? It's not like portraits where if something went terribly wrong you'd be like all right, we'll come back another day, let's try it again with weddings or bar bat mitzvahs or other special events. It's one time only and you can't do it over.
Speaker 2:Speaking to that, has there ever?
Speaker 1:No, the closest that ever came to a big problem was when one time I dropped a lens and it didn't break the glass of the lens, but I couldn't mount it to the camera body anymore.
Speaker 1:And another time where one of my flashes just failed, stopped working, the bulb went out, or something like that. And the answer to that and I would give this advice to anybody that's looking to book a photographer One question you should always ask is do they have backup equipment? Because that's huge, especially for an event where you can't tell everyone to just stop doing what they're doing while you go out to a store and buy a replacement or reschedule it for a different day. So in both cases with me, you know I have backup lenses, I have backup flashes and I just calmly went and the client was not the wiser that anything had happened. And I just calmly went and the client was not the wiser that anything had happened and I just continued on. When I first started out, you know, when I was doing that Sweet 16 or even that first Bar Abba Mitzvah, I don't think I did have backup equipment because it was a side gig, right? I wasn't investing in all of that because I wasn't sure where it was going to lead to.
Speaker 2:Can you share some insight into how you approach pricing your photography services and how that's evolved over time?
Speaker 1:Pricing has always been a very difficult tightrope to walk. It's, I think, for any business. I think it is difficult to know your value or the value of your products, if it's not a service and to know where to put that pricing right in terms of you don't want to price yourself too low and you don't want to price yourself too high, right. Trying to find that sweet spot is really really hard, especially in the early going. My initial concern was okay, if I raise my prices, then people maybe aren't going to book me because I'm just not good enough, and I think that's also where, like imposter syndrome plays into it. I know it's a big word these days, but there's no doubt that at times I've felt that I'm self-taught. There's others that are better than me. Am I really that good, or am I just fooling everyone and making a career out of something that I shouldn't be?
Speaker 2:You really are that good.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I appreciate it. The thought or the belief that I had that, yes, there would be some people that would not book me if I raised my prices to X or Y because it just wouldn't be in their budget. But then what I now know to be true is that for every person that wouldn't book you at a higher price, there's probably the same number of people that wouldn't book you at the lower price because that perceived value right Like, oh, he must not be that good if he's only charging this much. So it was a very, very gradual thing, and I think that that's probably what it's like for most people and businesses. You're going to run into a big problem if you suddenly went from $1,000 for an event and then all of a sudden you were charging $,000 or 10,000. So it was definitely gradual.
Speaker 1:I would you know, at the beginning I might've stayed pretty even or level, and then it just kept going up and going up and going up.
Speaker 1:And part of it is also supply and demand.
Speaker 1:As with anything in economics and in a capitalist society, is that as I was getting booked more and more and as I had less and less availability and was booked further and further out, I realized, well, I can charge more because if some people don't book me because it's too high, then I have time for others to still book those dates.
Speaker 1:Other part of my business that developed, which was adding associate photographers under my studio, which again happened really organically that it was me coming to the realization that, wait, I'm booked. You know all these dates and I keep getting inquiries for these same dates that I'm already booked and I'm just turning away business. How can I not just send them elsewhere but instead give them something to consider, even if it's not me personally and I know my name is the name of the studio but I think done a good job over the years of being able to use that sales acumen that I started learning at Putamayo in selling myself and my brand and my studio and my style and being able to tell people that you know, yeah, I'm not available, but I've got these five photographers that have all been working for me for a number of years and all not only shoot in a similar style to myself but are also similar personalities to myself.
Speaker 2:How did you find?
Speaker 1:them. Most of them found me, interestingly enough, the two that have been with me the longest, Nancy and Alba. Well, one of them found me from Facebook. Nancy was a budding photographer herself but had a day job, had a passion for photography, did events for friends and family that she knew, but was not really interested in the business side of things and growing her own business. And so she sent me an instant message on Facebook and said you know, I love your work and it reminds me of my own work and you know, could we talk or whatever.
Speaker 1:And I first had her shooting with me at some events, second photographer so that I could work with her and see how she works, but that she could see my style and how I moved through a party and worked with the guests. And then she became a full lead associate photographer. And then Alba she actually was a nanny for a family that also lived here in my town in Westchester, and I was shooting the bar mitzvah, one of the kids that she nannied, and the dad of the bar mitzvah, one of the kids that she nannied, and the dad of the bar mitzvah boy came up to me towards the end of the party. I want you to meet Alba. Maybe you guys can connect afterwards, because she loves photography also and she started freelancing with me.
Speaker 2:You did. What'd you feel if one of them branched off and started their own?
Speaker 1:I had one photographer with me that did that. I kind of knew it going in, though. He came to me, already had his own website, was definitely entrepreneurial and wanted to grow his own business, and as he started building up his own business he recognized that there were dates that people were inquiring to him direct about and he wasn't able to take them because he had already committed to booking through me and obviously could make more money taking a direct booking through my studio. So it was amicable. We talked about him finishing up those that he was already committed to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess when people are starting their own entrepreneurial journeys, they're really trying to create a certain lifestyle for themselves. So how can you really hold that against them?
Speaker 1:I totally respect that for themselves. So how can you really hold that against them? I totally respect that for sure. Especially having you know, having done it myself, I wouldn't want to hold anyone back. The thing that has really benefited me and the photographers on my team is that, in the case of each of the five of them that are currently with me, they're all really happy with the arrangement as it is, because just love to shoot and are more than happy to have me kind of do all the legwork and get them the bookings and then they can just show up on the day of and do a great job and have a great time and be done with it.
Speaker 2:And not handle the operational side.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:How many events are you doing per year now?
Speaker 1:So we shoot about 100 bar mitzvahs a year between the six of us and then we'll do a handful of weddings. We do some corporate events and galas and some nonprofit annual gala fundraisers. The other thing that we do, which is mostly me, is for Broadway theater. So I've done a bunch of Broadway shows, photography of the rehearsal process and opening night, cast parties and curtain calls on opening night and first previews and red carpet affairs and all of that and I'll tell you it's a ton of fun and it's great to still have my foot in the door of the theater world Since I grew up in the theater world. The Broadway world is so welcoming and so friendly. Even the biggest of the stars Lin-Manuel Miranda or Ben Platt or Idina Menzel all these people are just so, so kind, so welcoming.
Speaker 2:That sounds like a blast. And so up your alley, and what a beautiful full circle back to your childhood passion your childhood passion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great and, honestly, it's another way in terms of helping to kind of spread my brand awareness to even the bar and bar mitzvah world. Because if you're a mom looking to book a photographer for your child's bar mitzvah and you're looking at photographer A and then you're looking at photographer B and I'm also photographing stars and Broadway and credibility yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, to wrap up, just looking back at your journey from 2008 to today and all of the lessons that you've learned, and now you're a successful entrepreneur and you didn't expect to be here, but you are. What advice, tips or last words would you offer to anyone else aspiring to follow a similar path?
Speaker 1:I knew you'd hit me with this question. I think that what I would say to anyone is don't pressure yourself into the belief that the first job that you get out of college, or out of high school even, is going to be, or has to be, your lifelong profession. High school even is going to be, or has to be, your lifelong profession. I think the thing that I learned is that anything that you do in life and not even just professionally but personally all of your experiences help to shape you and take you on a path that is different from everyone else. Right, and I've had plenty of times in my life where I felt dejected or felt like, oh, I screwed that up, and yet I know today that, as long as you learn from it, that's the gold, that's the reward.
Speaker 1:There was a quote actually from Kobe Bryant, the famous basketball star, who's no longer with us, unfortunately, but he was asked at some point by a reporter something to the effect of do you play the games to win or not to lose? And most people would immediately say, well, surely he played to win. You can never play not to lose. But his answer wasn't one or the other. His answer was I play to learn, and whether I win or I lose, as long as I learn something from it, then that's great, and I think it's what I'm trying to get at here in terms of starting a small business is to take your time and not rack your brain trying to figure out what's the big thing that I'm going to do to be successful. Take your time and explore a lot of different things and then, hopefully, you will find the one or two things that really speak to you and that you do well, that you can share with others.
Speaker 2:And I think if people listen to what you had to say in your story, I mean it took you 10 years, a transition of 10 years from your full-time job to letting go of that and going fully on photography. So that wasn't a rapid process, it was gradual, but it kept building and building and then it eventually gave you the opportunity.
Speaker 1:But it kept building and building and then it eventually gave you the opportunity. Yeah, I believe people definitely set these timelines on themselves and expectations, and letting go of those expectations, I think, is the first step, because no one follows the same exact path. Some people might find success at 16 as a high school dropout, and others might not find it until they're 35 and start a photography business, like me. And others might not find it until they're 35 and start a photography business, like me. And still others might not find it until they're 75 or 80 years old and write their first novel. A big part of my quote, unquote success is that I'm happy with where I'm at. I think there's some people that are always looking for more, and always looking for something bigger and something better and more money. And when I started out, yeah sure, I wanted to grow the business, and now I'm at the place where I'm really happy and comfortable and not worried about growing it that much more. I just let it ride. I love it so much.
Speaker 2:Your story is so awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with me and the listeners. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with me and the listeners.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Anne, for having me A pleasure to be here with you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for being here. Please follow the show on your favorite streaming platform to help me reach more listeners' ears. Today's key takeaways. To help me reach more listeners' ears. Today's key takeaways Hobbies that you are, or could be, interested in can be explored as income earning.
Speaker 2:Teach yourself how to improve with trial and error. It can feel scary to transition away from stable income. Keep your full-time job and start a side gig. Keep a strong relationship with your boss and wait until that moment when a side gig. Keep a strong relationship with your boss and wait until that moment when your side gig starts bringing in more and ask if your employer would accept a gradual reduction in your hours.
Speaker 2:What you are doing today for a job does not have to be your lifelong profession. A business plan does not have to be necessary to start a side gig. Start offering your service or product for a low price to get your first few clients or customers. As demand grows, increase your prices very slowly. Organic growth in a service business is about building relationships and establishing real, authentic connection with others, and getting referrals is free advertising. It's a win-win scenario.
Speaker 2:Don't squeeze yourself as a square peg into a round hole. Find what you love and don't pressure yourself to try to do something that isn't you. If you're interested in event photography, remember that the experience of your service is as important as your final images. Comparing yourself to others is a path to misery. Instead, focus on your own personal growth and expansion of your own skills in comparison to where you were six months to a year ago. Have determination and believe in yourself. Whether you win or lose does not matter, as long as you learn from it. I hope you enjoyed today's show. If you did, please leave me a five star review and share it with a friend. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.