I Left My Tenured Position To Start An $11K/Month Photography Studio
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hey guys! My name is Sean Audet and over the last few years, I’ve built an award-winning commercial photography studio that specializes in food and product photography. We’ve worked with clients from over 20 countries around the world and have collaborated with everything from small startups to multinational brands.
When I first created the studio, we almost exclusively shot food photography. Over time, though, we began to branch out into food-related products, beverages, and other small items like cosmetics and home goods.
Since I started the studio in 2018, it’s grown from a small, part-time experiment into a full-time career that brings in around $11,000 a month.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
To be honest, I started my studio on a bit of a whim! At the time, I had spent the better part of a decade in the hospitality industry working in fine dining restaurants and was transitioning into academic and research work for a local college.
Within the college’s culinary research department, I started an initiative to provide our clients with simple photography for the products and recipes we were developing. I made a proposal, sourced some equipment, and before long photography became a regular part of my day-to-day responsibilities. Over time, I started to look forward to that part of the job.
I’ve always found learning new skills to be exciting. I didn’t have any formal training or anything, but my prior experience styling food (combined with a healthy amount of YouTube tutorials) quickly gave me a decent level of proficiency.
It wasn’t too long after that I borrowed a friend’s camera and started experimenting with photography on my own time, as well. Soon, I’d signed myself up for several online freelancing platforms and before I knew it, I’d started a small part-time business.
Eventually, it grew to the point where I had to either cut back or take it seriously. At that point, I decided to take a leap of faith and left my research position to give the studio my full attention. It was a little nerve-wracking at first (I was leaving a permanent, full-time faculty position, after all), but I think it’s important to take risks and embrace new opportunities, even if there’s a possibility of failure.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
In the beginning, I had no idea how to reach out to clients so I signed up for several online freelancing agencies like Shutterstock Custom, Upwork, and Fiverr.
I kept things simple and created profiles and services based on what I knew best: food photography. I leaned into my experience interacting with clients and styling food, which helped compensate for my lack of knowledge in other areas (like lighting, technical knowledge, and post-production). By using the skills I’d already gained through years of working in the culinary arts, I gave myself a strong edge over the competition in my price range. Explaining this to my clients gave them confidence in my skills and led to the first few sales, despite my lack of experience in photography.
Speaking of pricing… Hands down, determining pricing was the most difficult (and confusing) part of launching the business. In the photography industry, there isn’t a lot of reliable information to guide you when it comes to this, even though it’s such an important part of running a business. I think this caused me to initially set my prices much lower than I should have. Since I first started out, I’ve raised my pricing by roughly 300%.
Thankfully, borrowing almost all of my equipment from a friend meant that my startup costs were also essentially zero, which helped tremendously. This, combined with the fact that I was still supported by a full-time job meant that I was able to quickly build a portfolio, and iterate my services and my prices without feeling too much financial pressure.
Describe the process of launching the business.
Since I started my studio as a part-time experiment, I’m not sure we ever really launched! I think it would be more accurate to say that I got the business up and running on a whim, with the absolute minimum viable setup, then scaled my services and processes as the demand grew.
After all, in the very beginning, my business was essentially just a series of profiles across various freelancing websites. I didn’t even really see it as a business, at the time. To me, it was just an experiment and I didn’t go in with any strong expectations. As far as equipment goes, I had a 10-year-old camera my friend lent me, a few budget LED lights from Amazon, and a handful of props from IKEA.
Learning a new trade wasn’t always easy, but I think it was always rewarding. Now and then I’d receive negative feedback, but taking criticism to heart and using it to produce better work usually led to gaining new skills and more dedicated clients.
It wasn’t long before I was making enough money to support myself, but it took probably 2 to 3 years before I started to see some strong traction. I think a big part of this can be attributed to lucky timing. I had built a decent portfolio just in time when COVID-19 first hit. Online sales exploded and suddenly the demand for e-commerce content became huge overnight. Our revenue grew quickly in a short period, and at that point, I built out our equipment and processes to accommodate more ambitious clients and projects.
Pricing also helped play a part, as well. Regardless of your portfolio, I think that potential clients (especially big ones) may be skeptical if they see that your prices are too low. In a lot of cases, they’re looking to hire the very best. If your prices don’t match your portfolio (or the potential client’s pricing expectations), it might drive a client away. I found that increasing my prices brought in better clients and allowed me to create better work and stronger relationships with my clients.
So many people in the photography space (especially in the amateur photography space) obsess over equipment, but you don’t need the latest and greatest stuff to start learning the ropes and building a portfolio.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
At first, almost all of my business came through freelancing agencies like Shutterstock Custom, Fiverr, or Upwork. I’d reach out and bid on projects, or clients would approach me based on my profile. The clients and projects were typically smaller (usually just a handful of images for small business owners), and the frequency of work was more sporadic, but without them, I would never have gotten the opportunity to build a studio in the first place.
Over time, though, more and more clients started seeking me out through social media, word of mouth, and my website. Now, most new remote clients will seek me out specifically because they’ve seen my work elsewhere and want something similar for their brand. It also really helps to build out a good network, especially when it comes to local business. All the local work I’ve done has been through personal or professional connections and referrals.
Client retention is the most important factor when it comes to maintaining consistent revenue over time. When it comes to bringing clients back time and time again, it’s just a matter of offering great service and results. If you can connect with a client and show them that you understand their needs, then follow up on that connection with great assets, they’ll likely come back to you the next time they need content created.
When a business is making a large investment in new assets, they’re often looking to mitigate risk. If they know you’re able to reliably deliver good content, then working with you is less of a risk, and they’re more likely to get a good return on their investment.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We’ve seen incredible growth year over year for the past several years and I’m not sure when things will start to drop off. I currently have a studio assistant who works with me part-time and we take on additional staff as needed to help with larger productions, but I’m at the point where I need to consider either bringing someone on full-time or setting a cap on the amount of work I’m willing to take on.
As far as profitability goes, this business doesn’t require too much base overhead (since I’m mostly selling my time), so I’d say it’s quite profitable (roughly 85%-90% profit margin). We periodically have to invest in new equipment to stay current (or accomplish new tasks), but good equipment will typically last many years. Certain projects do require more overhead (usually when hiring other professionals, like models), but these costs are typically built into the project budget.
As the studio grows, though, I’d like to continue expanding our local network so we can accommodate a larger volume of work and get to collaborate with other talented professionals. I live in a relatively small city, but I’ve learned that there are some great folks here.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
When an opportunity comes along, jump on it!
So far, I've made a point of taking just about every opportunity that’s crossed my path. I've always been determined not to have regrets about taking risks, even when things don't work out, I'm happy knowing that I made the effort and that I learned from the experience. If you don’t try new things, you’ll eventually stagnate.
Also, it’s important to know your limits and recognize when you need a hand. You can’t do everything, and other people are better than you at certain things. Even if you’ve made it this far on your own, you need to learn how to leverage the talents of others if you’re going to grow and scale your business.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
- For my website, I use Squarespace. It’s quick and easy and works great for displaying portfolios.
- For equipment, I mainly shoot on Sony cameras with Godox strobes. As far as rigging and props go, I have way too many sources to list.
- As for software, I mainly use the Adobe Creative Suite.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I’m not sure I can point to any one specific resource, but YouTube has been invaluable in helping me pick up the basics (and even some of the more technical aspects) of photography and post-production.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Don’t worry about getting everything perfect, just get started!
Figure out how you can start selling your services as quickly as possible with the smallest possible start-up cost. So many people in the photography space (especially in the amateur photography space) obsess over equipment, but you don’t need the latest and greatest stuff to start learning the ropes and building a portfolio.
I started out with a borrowed camera (already nearly a decade old at the time), a cobbled-together computer, and a couple of the absolute cheapest lights I could find on Amazon. Were they great? Of course not. But they were good enough to get me going until I could easily afford to drop tens of thousands of dollars into a new suite of equipment.
If you’re always worried about the conditions being perfect, you’ll never get started.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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