How I Built My Small Business

Jennifer Tsay - Free Photo Shoots to $9M Revenue: The Surprising Business Model of SHOOTT

• Season 2 • Episode 16

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Jennifer Tsay is the co-founder and CEO of Shoott - with two Ts, a fast-growing company making professional photography more accessible for clients and a reliable supplemental income for photographers.

In just seven years, Shoott has grown from $800K to over $9 million in revenue, achieving operational profitability and expanding services to over sixty cities across the US.

"Jen" shares her journey in a very candidly and authentically, and we talk about leadership, giving and receiving feedback, and why experience (even unpaid) is one of the most undervalued assets in today’s time-value culture.

She was named a Forbes #Next1000 honoree, Brit + Co’s 30 AAPI Founders We Love to Support, and on the side, she works as an actor and speaker.

Shoott has been featured on Forbes, Oprah Daily, The Today Show, People, and much more.

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Website: https://www.annemcginty.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemcginty

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to how I Built my Small Business. I'm your host, anne McGinty. In today's episode, we're chatting with Jen Tai, the co-founder and CEO of Shoot with Two Ts, a fast-growing company making professional photography more accessible for clients and a reliable supplemental income for photographers. In just seven years, shoot has grown from $800,000 to over $9 million in revenue, achieving operational profitability and expanding services to over 60 cities across the US. Jen shares her journey in a very candid and authentic way. We talk about leadership, giving and receiving feedback and why experience, even unpaid, is one of the most undervalued assets in today's time value culture most undervalued assets in today's time value culture. Jen was named a Forbes Next 1000 honoree, brit Co's 30 AAPI founders we love to support and on the side, she works as an actor and speaker. Shoot has been featured on Forbes, oprah Daily, the Today Show, people and much more. You'll find a link to shoot in the episode's description.

Speaker 1:

If you've been tuning in, you know this show isn't about selling anything. It's about sharing meaningful stories and learning along the way. If how I built my small business has brought you any insight, inspiration or even just a spark of curiosity, there are a few simple ways you can support the journey, follow the show, share your favorite episode with a friend or leave a quick review. Each one truly helps me grow this show. Thank you, let's get started, jen. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm really excited to hear your story. Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here. So where are you from? Can you give us a little bit of a background on you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania so I, you know I was there for like a good 13 years of my childhood, went to school in Philadelphia and I've lived in the New York area ever since I graduated, which has now been a little North of 20 years. You know, I did a lot of years in the corporate world doing investment banking, corporate finance. I tried doing a little bit of nonprofit work and then I transitioned into doing some creative work. So I produced a documentary, I took acting and like writing classes. I was an actor and I still am sometimes for upwards of, you know, over a decade. So that's kind of how I got into the creative world.

Speaker 1:

How did that bridge over to starting Shoot Really?

Speaker 2:

Shoot came about because I wanted to figure out a business model that solved the gig economy for a certain subset of artists so that they could stay artists, because it's so hard to find enough work and cobble together enough work in the gig economy, and being an actor kind of taught me that. So we figured out we could do it for photographers. But all of this is to say I'm actually not a photographer, I came at it from an actor's point of view, right. But I had a lot of friends who were artists of all different sorts and we were like well, we can't do a business model that kind of aggregates demand for acting. It doesn't quite make sense.

Speaker 2:

So then we were left to think about what industry could have that and we realized that we could do it for photography, meaning the average photographer has to kind of find a gig here, a gig there. They have to cobble together enough gigs to create a living. But we were like can we create a business model that aggregates demand all at one location so that the clients come and meet you somewhere, right? So much the same way that like when you're in a I guess when you're an actor and you're in a show all of the people come to your show and see you. We were like is there a way to do that for photography, where we can amplify the demand for them? So we realized, if we stationed them at set places for a certain timeframe, that we could have back-to-back sessions for them. So that's really where that came from.

Speaker 1:

That's interesting. How did you test the model?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we did an MVP, or like a minimum viable product, of what we thought our business model could look like in New York with our friends and our just general business network. There were a couple of us working on it and we were like, oh just, you know, if we advertise these free sessions where you only pay for the photos you want, is there enough demand? And we realized there was. So that was really exciting. You know, we just launched a really rudimentary version of our website. We had like a plug and play booking service and people booked the sessions and so from there we really developed proprietary systems for it. But yeah, we trialed it with our own community.

Speaker 1:

And as far as cash flow goes, how did you know that the model that you had created was going to be sustainable?

Speaker 2:

That's such a good question. So we didn't. We had a feeling. We were like I think there's enough of a market because it's a volume game. Right, a lot of things are a volume game to cover all of your costs.

Speaker 2:

So in the beginning years, you know, we were like how do we structure this that we get enough value from each of our clients and then we have also enough clients? So for the longest time you're kind of balancing what your pricing should be, what your advertising costs should be to warrant that, and so it took us five years to become profitable. Now we're like definitely a profitable entity. That's amazing. Like we hit break even in 2023. And then in 2024, we actually 20X to that profitability, which is, you know, it sounds crazy, but it was just North of like 40,000 the first year. So it is impressive. But at the same time, like you know, we're going off of a pretty low number. But yeah, and then we were like oh, this, this does have legs. So like we have to really figure out how to maintain that, no matter what's happening in the economy or whatever. But it was, it was a lot of very disciplined working and betting that it did work in the first few years.

Speaker 1:

Can you describe a little bit more about how this business model supports the photographers, how it works for the clients and then how you're able to make money as a company?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great question because our entire reason for being was to see if this business model we could create was like a win-win-win for us, the photographer and the client. So really we have this idea that a photographer stationed somewhere you know someone who goes to Central Park from like 12 to five has half an hour sessions that they book out we're looking to see can we attract enough people? It's really dependent on us to have the right marketing to attract the right types of people who want not just one photo but multiple. So our main demographic are what I call, like millennial and Gen Z moms. So that's really where people want the photos. You want photos and memories of your family. So that's really, you know, the the impetus for who we're targeting.

Speaker 2:

And then on the photographer side, we know that the whole offer of like a free photo shoot is really scary for them. So we do whatever we can to protect their time. We have always offered a 100 minimum guarantee per shooting hour. So if they're working, they're making money, no matter what clients pay, and then we offer the greater of that amount or what they make. On commissions, we have a commission structure as well. So the more photos they sell, the more they benefit and on average, even though we have that a hundred dollar minimum guarantee they're making in 2024, they made between 166 and 199 per photography hour, which is pretty great. So we're always aiming to protect their time. We also give them extra payments if clients are late, if they don't show up, if they pick up extra sessions. There's all these other ways where we try to really incentivize them to work for us and make it worth their time and the way that we work. So we take a cut of it, but the cut is really to support that we do all of the marketing, which is insane because it's like never ending changes in the digital marketing landscape that we have to optimize for.

Speaker 2:

So we do all of that business strategy. You know, gallery, delivery, customer service. They never have to like deal with the clients themselves, basically all of the business activity we take care of. So they just have the freedom to come in their supplemental time and just do what they love doing, which is photography. So really it's meant to be a convenient source of supplemental income for preexisting photographers.

Speaker 2:

And then, you know, the clients benefit, because photographers want to make as much money as possible, so they're incentivized to give them the best experience and the best photos.

Speaker 2:

And then there's that free offer, so it's a risk free upfront for them. So a lot of people who normally when you you know you go for a photo shoot, it can cost upwards of like 400, 500, 600, if not more, and it's like multi hours and it's like, no, you have a half hour, you know people are not going to burn out in the middle of that Like it's the perfect amount of time for everybody and it's an accessible price point where people can book photo shoots to commemorate all of their life moments, no matter how big or small. And that's what we're trying to incentivize is greater demand. And we started asking our clients and I think about 25% of our clients have said that they've never booked a professional photographer before working with us, and we consider that a major win because it's not like we're taking demand from other photographers, we're actually creating demand in the marketplace, which we consider a major win.

Speaker 1:

It is a pretty brilliant business model. I'm not going to lie. When I first was reading it I thought my gosh, how does that even work? How many sessions did you need to have before you reached a breakeven point?

Speaker 2:

Great question. So I feel like on a yearly basis we need to have at least like around like 43,000 sessions.

Speaker 1:

Wow. It's something like that, and then you have an office space, I assume, where everybody is working.

Speaker 2:

We do not. You don't, no, no, no, we're fully remote. So, like the other part of us figuring out whether we're profitable was like what expenses can we cut and how can we automate certain things so we can still keep our team really lean, so we can start being profitable? Okay, so where are the greatest expenses then? The greatest expenses are definitely just the cost of paying the photographers. Definitely, obviously, that's going to be a huge portion of it. And then it's marketing. Marketing is a huge part of it because we have to really balance getting enough clients for them and optimizing what is the cost to get them, get them clients. Are we making also enough per client to make it worthwhile at the scale that we're having?

Speaker 2:

And our year's a little wacky because people want photos but they really really want them in fourth quarter. The rest of the year maybe if they have like maturity. So you know, we're trying to incentivize people to come for the rest of the year but like come, like September, we don't have enough photographers to meet demand. It's so insane because everyone wants it for holiday cards and for family reunions, all of that stuff. Because of that timing, we actually don't know how we do financially until like January of the following year. So it's up to us to optimize for the year, hope that we stick the landing, so to speak, and that it works out in our favor. But we don't know, and so there's always this like it's always terrifying for us up until we know how the numbers land.

Speaker 1:

It's an atypical seasonal business. Yeah, and so if somebody, let's say they go for their 30 minute session and there's 10 or 15 photos that they want, what are they spending At?

Speaker 2:

10 photos, you can get your entire gallery for 180. So it's like $18 a photo. However, it's actually less than that because we include like $20 of retouching credit. So if you have like an extra trash can in there or whatever that you want to take out, or, you know, fly away hairs or whatever that you want to adjust for, there's credit to go towards a retouching of some of your photos, if you'd like, and then you can get your full gallery for $298. And that also includes even more retouching credit. And then we have bundled packages with Paper Culture, which they provide eco-friendly print products. So there's a photo book or photo cards, things like that, to create like invites or cards from.

Speaker 1:

How much has to be done on the backend as you grow in size, Like your team? How many people are on?

Speaker 2:

your team. We have like 12 people full-time and then we have like six others that are like that are part-time for customer service. But our team, team, that really runs everything. We have 12 people. Five of those people are tech, so the remaining six seven people are really doing operations or hybrid operations plus customer service.

Speaker 1:

And then the marketing. So is the marketing outsourced or in-house?

Speaker 2:

It's a little bit of a hybrid. So we run some of it in-house and then we have an agency that runs our Google and Facebook that we watch like a hawk, because marketing is so expensive for us and such a huge component to how we work. We look at it on a daily basis. We have a proprietary tracker so we see how each platform is doing and then we make decisions, you know, on a daily basis.

Speaker 1:

Smart, yeah. And how effective are the various marketing strategies? What works for you and what doesn't?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so there's the evergreen stuff. So Facebook is definitely an evergreen, it's our greatest driver of people. And then Google is also a huge driver and the two work really well in tandem. It's nice because they play off of each other a little bit. Sometimes people discover you on Facebook or Instagram and then they Google you, so it's those two go really well together.

Speaker 2:

And then we also use connected TV, and that's been an interesting one, because when we first started using that, it didn't work for us. It was really expensive, and then now we've actually gotten it to work, which is fantastic. So we have one platform that we use and we're still looking to see if there's other ones that are out there. And like not all advertising platforms are the same. Some of them don't have the best tracking and attribution, so you can't even tell what your ROI is.

Speaker 2:

So it's a little bit of like experimentation, of like, hey, how do I run ads on on Hulu or Disney plus or like whatever, and then what does the interface look like? Can I tell what's happening with my money? If I can't, we pull our money. So we're really good at doing very lean tests. Usually. We've tried other things like podcast advertising, which is a little bit hit or miss. You know radio hit or miss. Uh, there's things like digital billboard, which we haven't quite gotten ever to work, and then there's also guerrilla marketing. So you know, figuring out like, hey, how do I advertise to local communities? That's also different. So we try everything. We do really lean tests of like if it doesn't work, in 10 days we pull it, and then we always will come back and try again, because sometimes people change their technology and it gets better.

Speaker 1:

Wow, this sounds like a lot of whack-a-mole. It is so. With Shoot, you wanted to tackle an industry and you wanted to solve a problem. Where did this entrepreneurial spirit come from for you?

Speaker 2:

I think it's because I worked in corporate America and I didn't really enjoy that experience even though I did enjoy the stability and the benefits and all of that stuff and I was like you know, I don't feel happy here, Like I'll go to work, but I'm so bored. Once I learn my job I'm super bored and not stimulated, and then I get very existential, and so I've always had that. I think there are certain times where having a stable job really matters, right, I think if you have young children actually I'll say this if you have any really major financial thing that you're trying to achieve, the stable job is great. Or if you have any health issues. I think about, like, all the reasons why.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's actually a lot of reasons why, but there were points in time where I was like no, I can gamble a little more, Like I think I want something slightly different, and that's why I did transition into doing a lot of arts stuff where I was producing a documentary, I wasn't getting paid for it, I'd rather accumulate skills and if I can gamble on that a little bit, I'm going to do that.

Speaker 2:

I'm willing to forego the pay a little bit just to learn something and experience something new Cause. Maybe I'll learn something about myself. And I think in the process of doing that, I discovered that I did like startup environments because everything was totally new and it was things that I didn't know Like. I liked having different challenges every day, and so I realized when I, when I was in that environment, I was like I kind of missed that. So it made me go back to being like is there another startup that I can be part of or like work on? And so I kind of stumbled upon realizing that I had more of an entrepreneurial spirit than I realized.

Speaker 1:

And now that you've been an entrepreneur for seven or so years, what do you miss about the corporate life or world, or do you not? Would you ever consider going back to it?

Speaker 2:

I mean I would say I do. I do miss the benefit. The benefits are better, you know, like the health benefits are much better. You know, sometimes you do miss having an office to go to and having all of like the perks of like free coffee and all of that fun stuff. You can still have that, I think, in an entrepreneurial existence, but we don't have that. So I think there's aspects of community and there's certain just perks that are really nice to have when you have a corporate entity. But other than that I don't miss the work at all. I felt like I worked on a lot of things that were just nice to have but not very much necessary. Or I would work forever on something and it just like nothing happened with it. So I'm like my work doesn't even matter, whereas literally every decision we make as entrepreneurs makes a huge difference somewhere. So all of a sudden everything matters and it's it's kind of nice to work knowing that.

Speaker 1:

And those fringe benefits can come as your profitability increases. Yes, exactly, those fringe benefits can come as your profitability increases. Yes, exactly. Have you taken anything? I imagine that you have, so I should rephrase that in saying what have you taken from your past professional experience whether it's the acting or it's the investment banking into your business world? What came with you that's been the most helpful?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, okay. So like, very practically speaking, the most helpful thing was for my investment banking days, like learning how to be very spreadsheet literate and create financial projections. When you're an entrepreneur, like in, money obviously matters because it determines whether or not you have a business or not. It's helpful to have those skills. It's helpful to know how to project things Like I can weirdly do that in my sleep. It's like a weird thing. It's like knowing a language. I'm like, oh gosh, I, every time I look at a spreadsheet I'm like I don't know if I can do it. And then I'm like, well, I can do it. Like it's so strange.

Speaker 2:

So I appreciate that Right Cause, if I had to learn and then how to write business writing, like getting all of those skills out of the way Really really great. I would always recommend that people have that. And then from my acting days, I think what I really pulled from that is how to give people notes. So everything's hypersensitive in the acting world and you have to know how to give people notes, because people hear differently and I see that in play so much as a people manager. Now, how to give notes, how to speak to people if they respond poorly how to kind of tactically deal with all of that. What do you?

Speaker 1:

mean by give notes, give feedback, oh, feedback.

Speaker 2:

Sorry, yeah, it's called giving notes and acting, but when you give feedback to people on your team, it's also still touchy right. It's the same thing, like people get defensive and how do you talk through people's BS and how do you, you know, how do you kind of get people to do what you need them to do and have them grow and have realizations and all of that stuff. There is a sensitivity to that and there is kind of a strategy you can have when you really understand the people on your team, which is important to have.

Speaker 1:

So you know seeing the people as the people they are. Okay, so give us some tips. Then teach us what you know about giving notes. What's the best way to do that for the outcome that you are hoping for?

Speaker 2:

How would I articulate this? Let me see. So I would say people are motivated by like they. They are both motivated and understand things very specifically. So, for example, I had a team member that you could tell them prescriptive things, but they couldn't understand it until you gave them, like the overall rubric of like hey, we're telling you this because like. So, if you were like hey, just do a, a, b, c and D, like, they were like okay. And so then we were like hey, we're asking you to do this for these particular reasons. This is why it's good for strategy whatever.

Speaker 2:

Then they can contextualize what they're being told and be able to do it. So that's one type of person, another type of person. We would then try to talk to them from a contextual point of view. Hey, it's really important that you do this because you know we need better oversight, we need to be able to share work streams. We could say all that stuff, but it wasn't until we like dictated A, b, c and D that they could even do anything.

Speaker 2:

So, knowing the difference between people and then, similarly like we have some neurodiverse people on our team knowing that and being like okay, I know how you hear and I know what things suit you best, like this is how we're going to try to you know, come to this together and making it seem like teamwork. So I think, understanding that everyone is different from each other and from you, and figuring out how to problem solve that together, making them feel like they're part of that process and making sure they feel safe in that and not just criticized. A lot of people just come from a background where they don't know how to take criticism. I think there's a lot of examples where criticism is only meant as a destructive force versus a constructive right. So knowing that there's already that kind of sensitivity there, like being able to plan and budget around, that is really important.

Speaker 1:

That is such a good skill to have, just in life, but then also in leadership and management, and one that I wish was taught to everybody. It's really hard. It's like a very compassionate way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's an EQ thing and not everyone has the same definition of EQ or feel its importance Right. And then, and then it's also about judgment, because like you could read things one way, but somebody reads it a different and then like, how do you bridge that in a way that that again feels like you're on the same team versus like against each other, navigating all that kind of stuff? That's the soft skills that will really build or destroy your team for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and to keep moving forward without the judgment. Yes, so that everybody can communicate in a stronger fashion. Yes, yes, so that everybody can communicate in a stronger fashion. Yes, so, with the building of your team. So, first of all, how many partners did you have going into this business?

Speaker 2:

I mean it's it's changed a little bit, but like we originally started with around three people and like some people jumped on, some people jumped off and then we I think we were always around like three people in the very beginning stages and then we slowly started adding from there. So we added somebody to do customer service. That was like the first kind of like team member beyond the original team members on it, and then we started adding more and more people. So you know, then we have more customer service people. We have a tech team which we didn't really have until year, like three. And then we added somebody who does recruiting for a photographer or somebody who manages our locations or our partnership. So like we kind of added as we went and oftentimes we took people who had much more seasonal jobs. So because we're fourth quarter heavy, we would need a lot of customer service people in fourth quarter, but then we'd have to let go of them or like furlough them from January through August, which is a long amount of time. So we're like, can we use these dedicated people in different ways? So then we gave them hybrid roles. So we actually have quite a number of people with hybrid roles so we can make them full-time. So our full-time stays constant through the year, so that there's about 12 people and then we have anywhere from like an extra one to six people handling customer service, six being, like the most additional, you know, the highest amount additional for fourth quarter. But that's kind of that flex is really in that customer service portion.

Speaker 2:

One of my co-founders is my primary advisor and he's a serial entrepreneur. So in the beginning it was a lot of his guidance to be like I think you should focus on this. I think you should focus on that. The more years that we were in business we kind of figured that out for ourselves. We're like, hey, we need this, we need that. So we're like, how big is the need? Like you have to prioritize kind of the needs that you have.

Speaker 2:

And then you're also looking at the people that you have and seeing if there's a direct match. So, for example, if, like, I could get somebody, I was like, oh God, we really need someone for partnerships. And we're like, hey, this resource of ours is really good with clients, so maybe they'd be really good with partners because it's kind of the same skillset. So then we kind of float that and trial that. And I do think, especially when you're doing something like adding skills to somebody, you can misjudge that somebody has a certain skillset or that they would like the additional work. Some people might not right it's not exactly the best fit. So I would always at least try it a little bit, see if they like it, see if they're good at it, and then, if they are, then you know, make that official.

Speaker 1:

With everybody being remote, what's your structure around keeping your team on the same page?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we have like an all team operations meeting on Mondays and then, separately, the tech team has their own meeting on Monday, and like we kind of compare notes and look at things and then everyone kind of goes off on their own and then, you know, there's kind of this uh, our customer service lead then tells the rest of the team that he has their his own meeting with them.

Speaker 2:

So we also provide like email updates where, like, hey, these are the development, this is what we're focusing on, these are the things that we've achieved, these are the things that we're looking at.

Speaker 2:

I'll admit, though, like I didn't realize until maybe like this year or last year, I'm like, oh, it would be so much more beneficial if we had even just like one or two days in an office, where the osmosis would be much more natural. Because now we have to be so purposeful about being like who knows what, because sometimes we'll make a decision and forget to tell people, like it's bound to happen, and also people might not really like that and feel left out. So like it's really important for us to be really conscientious about that. We basically do go through meetings, email updates and then if anyone ever has any questions or anything where it was like hey, you can always book a time with us Like you see the full availability of our calendar, just like we're usually online anyway, so you can happen to join one of our calls to ask us any questions. So we make ourselves super accessible in that way, so the rest of our team doesn't ever feel like they can't find the answer they want.

Speaker 1:

And your normal workload like a regular week for you. What does it look like?

Speaker 2:

There's no real like regular work for me. We just do what is the most important thing of the day and we kind of go through that way, and so there's definitely no set thing. Like I think that the markers that are the same are the meetings where we talk strategy and we figure out, like what we're going to do and if there's any changes we need to make to our understanding of how the business is running. And then we may have to deal with legal one week accounting, one week taxes, like it, just updates, and we just have to do whatever's the most important and time sensitive.

Speaker 1:

That's kind of what makes being an entrepreneur fun, though, isn't it that it's just always changing. Yeah, isn't it that it's?

Speaker 2:

just always changing. Yeah, so you can't. You don't get bored. I'll say, like there's never a day where we're like I'm so bored, but you know, there are weeks where you're like I hate taxes, but you're like, but the nice thing about hating taxes is that the season is over. Like you know what I'm saying. There's like a kind of a finite amount of time that you suffer through each one of those things, and before you started this seven years ago. So what have you?

Speaker 1:

learned the most about doing business or running a company or managing a team that you didn't know prior?

Speaker 2:

I would never want to kind of tip off my past self, because I think learning, all of those things happens for a reason and you only learn by making mistakes, and so I don't ever regret my mistakes. But I will say I took a bad piece of advice early on when somebody had told me that like, oh, your accountant doesn't really matter, and I was like, oh, okay, I don't have to prioritize that so much. Right Of all the things I'm like in the beginning especially, I'm like taking everyone's, everyone who's done it before. I'm like taking their advice much more literally. And then I realized that that was really not good advice to take and it was a very costly mistake, and so that one I regret. But I think it's only through trial and error and working on things yourself that you realize who you can trust. It can be like you overall trust a person but they can be biased about this or that, and then you you know, you just learn that over time and people love to give advice, even if it's not necessarily wanted.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and people give biased advice and you can't be like, well, they know so much better than me, so I'm going to listen to them at a hundred Like I think you have to learn to listen to people at like 75 and then take what's useful to you and throw out what's not and don't take anything personally.

Speaker 1:

And take everything with a grain of salt, because their experience is probably very different to yours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you know a lot of what you're going through is normal, because it's going to be normal the first time you do something that everything's super confusing and just try to find mentors and other people and other sources of information to validate your experience, cause you'll find it, if you really look for it, you'll find it. And finding a community where you can bounce ideas off of other people. Like you know, when we were having a hard time hiring quote the right people, I'm like why is this so hard? I don't, is it just us? And people are like, oh my God, we complain about this all the time. And so when you know that you're in the same boat, you're like, oh okay, so I don't have to on top of experience how hard this is, feel shame about it. You know that makes it easier. So it's things like that.

Speaker 1:

I agree. A lot of what you learn, you kind of just have to learn by doing. You know people listen to this podcast and they can get a lot of information from others who have done what they want to do before they're starting. Ultimately, listening is a very different thing to doing Absolutely, absolutely. So how is, how are you currently using AI in your business and do you have any concerns over the impact of AI on photography?

Speaker 2:

So the way that we're using AI right now is we use it a lot for content creation and just like pulling up a first draft of anything. So if we have like a blog post where like, hey, these are kind of the ideas that I have, it just helps you coagulate all of your ideas much faster and I love that. So, across the board, like we do use it for a lot of writing, just as like again a first draft, we'll always put our own spin on it afterwards, but like the first ideas and first research, really great to have AI do that for us. No, I think our tech team also uses AI to help code some stuff and have shortcuts that way, too. In terms of how I feel like AI is going to affect the photography industry, there's a lot of editing tools and other tools that help just some of the workflows for photography that we want to introduce our photographers to, just so it saves time when they're doing the post-production stuff. So when they're actually photographing, like they have them and their camera and that's one experience, but then all of their stuff afterwards whether it's culling, editing, whatever there's a lot of AI that exists that helps them edit photos in their style much faster, so they're not burning so much time in things that are very admin oriented, those kinds of things we want to share with them for sure.

Speaker 2:

And then, in general, I just don't think that you can substitute real photography with AI photos. Now, that's not to say there's some really great AI photos out there. So, like I 10 selfies and it comes up with a pretty photo, realistic headshot that's fine, but I feel like you would never want an AI generated photo of your family for Christmas where you're not in a real place. Like you want your actual family. Does that make like you want an actual memory? And so I feel like, to that end, I'm not concerned for what we do, since we do portrait photography. It's about your relationships, it's about milestones. Do I think like AI could come in and take the same family and put them like in a photo with, like the Taj Mahal? Yeah, that's fine. Like I don't care. If you want that, that's fine, but you still need, at base, the real photos of real people. That's, I think, what people want at base the real photos of real people.

Speaker 1:

That's, I think, what people want. Yeah, I think that people will want that for a long time. From how I've seen it, and from photographers and videographers that I've spoken to, it seems like the custom style work, where you're interfacing with another human, is just not really going away. Where do you see shoot going, say, a year from now, two years from now, five years, like what would you like to see for the trajectory of your company?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so like ideally, I would love when people say, like we should get photos taken of our family, that the first brand that comes to mind is shoot with duties. I want to be like the brand name that people think of when they think I want a trusted platform that gives me high quality, affordable photos that helps benefit local photographers. Like I want all that entire narrative to be in the concept of when they think about shoot. And so you know, we want to definitely grow our brand in the US.

Speaker 2:

So many people still don't even know that we even exist and so there's so many families out there, and then we want to just have more market share in that way. And then, I think you know, looking longer term out, we want to figure out how to be international. So expanding first to English speaking countries so it's easier for our customer service team, like Canada, australia, new Zealand, england, all that fun stuff. Like I think we would love to be able to expand our footprint that way, cause I think our technology and our platform can support that, and also creating more robust solutions for the photographers and also like better bundles for our clients so they get photos and they can get whatever photo products they want with it. I think we just want the entire universe to be a little tighter and better.

Speaker 1:

What about the talent that you bring in? How do you decide who gets to be on the platform and who doesn't? How do you decide?

Speaker 2:

who gets to be on the platform and who doesn't. So we have a really rigorous screening process. So people apply on our website and we look at their portfolio first and we also look at their equipment. We need to make sure that their equipment is of a certain quality and level where it's going to create high enough megapixels so that if people want to blow up their photos and really enlarge them, that it doesn't lose quality. So that's kind of the first order of business.

Speaker 2:

We look at their portfolio to see hey, from the photos that they're generating and showing me, do they look like they can photograph in the style that we currently have our photos looking like on our website and our Instagram, because that's why people book us. And then, if they pass that, then we invite them for a video interview. We interview them to make sure that they have the technical skills, the personality as well, because having your photos taken is inherently a very vulnerable process and a lot of people are not models. They don't know how to pose. So having someone really be able to dictate that and make people feel comfortable and make people feel seen and confident, we want to see that that person understands that that's part of being a photographer right, so that's also a part of it.

Speaker 2:

If they pass that stage, then we go on to having a test shoot, where we have them do a trial test shoot over 10 minutes to see if they can photograph in our style. Like, what kind of variety can you do in a 10 minute session? Because our sessions are 30 minutes. So it's kind of like a slice of that. Once we decide that they should join our team, we then do a background check and then we onboard them and then they you know, when they take a test, they understand our policies, they join our team. So it's a lot of different steps to make sure we have the right people on the team.

Speaker 1:

And how many photographers do you have on your team now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we have like a little North of 750 right now. Oh my gosh Across the U S yeah.

Speaker 1:

Have you had anybody discontinue, because their photography brand is growing independently and so they they tend to focus on that, yeah.

Speaker 2:

We've had cases where people have stayed for the seven years that we've been in existence and we've had people who feel like they graduate and we fully welcome everyone at every stage, like we don't take it personally. We are here to support you. So if that means that you're like, hey, my wedding photography business is taking off and I don't want to be in your platform anymore, we're like we're sad, but go ahead, fully support you. If you ever want to come back, we're always here for you. And then we've had other people leave for other things, like we. One of my favorite photographers was a great photographer but really wanted to grow his tattoo business, so he used this to make enough money to start his tattoo business and now he tattoos most of his time and I love that for him. We just want to be a really reliable source of supplemental income for people who are talented photographers.

Speaker 1:

This is such a unique business model that serves a very niche need, whether you're using it as a stepping stone to a different business or need supplemental income. It is a very unique business model. So, just to wrap this up, what life wisdom would you give to somebody who is coming out of college right now?

Speaker 2:

My life wisdom is that you should get as much experience as possible, and I say that because there's been this trend where people are like, get paid what you're worth, and I agree with that. But I think asking for that too early kind of cuts you off at the knees, like you need to make sure that you are coming in as leveraged as possible, meaning like I remember, um, I would do work for free, I would do work as an intern, I would do all types of things just so I could learn, so that when it came time to contribute, I was really confident about what I could contribute and how. Because, like, no one can take your confidence away from you and your confidence comes from competence. One of the things I really promote is having a broad basedbased experience. That's what I had, right, I did investment banking, I planned weddings, I whitened teeth, I tutored.

Speaker 2:

I also produced a documentary, I did corporate. I did all of those things. And when you're older, it helps you synthesize information in a strategic and creative way that other people can't, because they only ever did one thing. So all of a sudden, their ability to contextualize different systems and processes is much more limited. So that's my personal advice for people maybe a little more like me. I didn't always know what I was really good at, but I knew that I loved working on problems, solving them, making order out of chaos, and the ability to synthesize all these different things and look at it together and be like no, these are the priorities that we need to look at. This is how we solve this problem that skill not everyone has, and that comes from getting as much experience as you can in all different types of ways.

Speaker 1:

I think that is really good advice. It is such good advice and so relevant for today. It's just there's been a cultural shift where maybe the expectation is that the time shouldn't be given away for free. But when you give your time away for free, you're not really giving it away for free, because you're learning something in the process.

Speaker 2:

Yes. So I think the mistake is thinking that you're only valued by a dollar, like a dollar amount, and I would say that that's just like, really not true, right, being able to learn something. Normally you have to pay to learn something, right, and and like you're learning something, and you're learning something in context, you're learning how to practice it, you're learning how it works. I know that people are afraid of being taken advantage of and not getting paid what they're worth, but, like when you don't know a lot of stuff, you you can't contextualize things and so you're not as effective, whereas, like, I can hear different people say things to me and I can. I can understand where they're coming from a lot faster because I understand the 10 different ways of looking at something, if that makes sense and what might pertain to them. So it's about. It's about that kind of like you can you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:

Well, and it's not like you're. It's not like you're working free forever. You may have a full-time job, but then after your job you might go and pick up some experience that you are doing for free, just so that you can broaden your options for later on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I I've had a lot of experiences where I or I started underpaid and I was like I know I'm really underpaid, but let me see what happens when I do a rockstar job for them. So I go in, I do the base what they want, and then they are like, oh, you're really good at this. And then I'm like, hey, I kind of want double what I was paid. Usually people will give it to me because they're like I am so reliant on you or I trust you so much that I can see that you're actually worth that. So, whatever you think your value is, you have to agree on that.

Speaker 2:

You can't go in and be like I think I'm worth a hundred dollars an hour and they're like I don't even know you. That's insane. Do you know what I'm saying? Like I don't care what your degree is. I've I've met people that have really crazy degrees, that are can't do certain things Right. So we have to agree on my value. I'm going to prove it to you. I'm going to show you that, like I can respect the way that you work and people will just generally give it to you because they trust you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, prove it first, yes, and then earn the right to get that promotion or get that raise or get paid more, because now they already know that they're not taking a gamble on you yeah, I've.

Speaker 2:

I've never been told no when I've, when I've asked Like, there's always like this yes, you deserve that. And then you ask them when you're working for the right people, because if you think you've proven your work and they're like no, and then I'm like, oh, I don't want to work for you because my upside is limited, because I'm giving you my best and you don't appreciate that.

Speaker 1:

It's. It's like a dating relationship. Everyone should appreciate each other on the same level. Yeah, this is real wisdom. Anybody that's listening in, please listen to what Jen is saying. Jen, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your business model with us. The very innovative approach that you're taking Love the way that you think and I really appreciate your time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

It's been an honor. Today's key takeaways build win, win, win models. Start noticing problems and figuring out a business model that solves a problem for a certain subset of the population. Many creatives avoid the business side of their work, which leaves wide open opportunities for entrepreneurs who can bridge that gap. Start small and prove your MVP. Stay scrappy. Test your idea within your own circle to validate demand before scaling. Make sure you forecast your cash flow. Make sure you forecast your cash flow. Low margin, high volume models can look great on paper, but if you don't forecast cash flow properly, they can sink you. Make sure your operations and pricing support the pace you're aiming for. Make sure to watch your marketing expenses like a hawk. Run lean tests, Look at each platform and make sure you know what your ROI is. And if you can't track what's happening with your dollars, try other avenues. Having a remote team can save significant dollars, but comes with other challenges. Removing overhead expenses for office space can help you reach profitability sooner, but one or two days a month in the office with your full team could be highly beneficial.

Speaker 1:

Manage your team with emotional intelligence. How you give feedback can make or break members of your team. It's about knowing how people hear things, not just what you say. Not everyone has experienced receiving constructive criticism, so try and see people as the people they are and understand what motivates them. Some people are motivated by understanding all of the steps in the process, while others need to understand the why behind the steps. Every person is an individual and, as a leader, you have to figure out how to problem solve together as a team and how to motivate people to want to do what it is that you want them to do.

Speaker 1:

The corporate world can provide more stability and benefits, but sometimes the work can feel boring, unrewarding and feel like your efforts have little impact. Entrepreneurship can be more exciting. Every day has a new challenge, but stability isn't usually immediate. If you like your health benefits, free coffees and need stability, working in corporate America may be a better fit. Learn some basic business finance and accounting. Being spreadsheet literate and being able to create financial projections is really helpful when starting a business. Numbers are like a language. The same goes for business writing and understanding how to craft a professional email that connects, whether it's to partners or clients. This style of communication is handy. Advice is biased, so trust your judgment. Learn to take advice at 75%, not 100%. Find a like-minded community, meaning, if you're a small business owner, build connections with other small business owners, whether in your niche or in your local area. Being able to bounce ideas and lament on similar problems can provide emotional support and also help you solve problems.

Speaker 1:

This next key takeaway seems like common knowledge now, but I'll say it anyway Use AI as a force multiplier. If you aren't, your competitors likely are, and you'll get left behind because they'll be able to achieve more work faster and for less expense. So if you haven't yet started, jump in and learn how Experience is worth more than early pay. Get as much experience as possible. Your confidence comes from competence and your value becomes undeniable when you've earned trust through results. So accumulate skills and be willing to forego the pay a little bit. When you learn something and experience something new, you might also learn something about yourself.

Speaker 1:

Don't get so hung up on maximizing the value of your hour when you're starting out, because this can actually hinder your growth. So you may feel like you're starting out, because this can actually hinder your growth. So you may feel like you're starting out strong, but then get cut off in your trajectory. Instead, get a broad base of experience, and in all different types of ways. Don't just value your time by a dollar amount. You know that education usually costs money. So if you're learning, there's value. If you want to increase your pay, try this. First Go above and beyond to deliver more than what you're being paid to do. Prove you're worth more. Then go in and ask for more. Once you've established that trust of your work ethic, you and your employer need to agree on your value with matched appreciation. So if you're proving your worth yet your upside is limited, perhaps you're in the wrong job. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.

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Anne McGinty

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