Ep.7 | Starting Over From Scratch

What would we do if we had to start our photography business from zero today? No brand. No leads. No clients. Just day one with everything we know now.

In this episode of Talkin’ S#!t with the Cincottas, we break it all down—exactly how we’d rebuild if we had to do it all over again. From setting up marketing systems first, to choosing what we’d shoot (spoiler: we’re not doing weddings), we talk about the strategy and mindset that would drive every decision—plus what we’d avoid at all costs.

This is the honest blueprint for photographers and creatives who are burnt out, overwhelmed, or just wishing they could reboot with clarity.

In this episode:

• What we’d shoot—and what we wouldn’t
• How to build marketing that drives results from day one
• Why we’d set up backend systems before booking clients
• What we’d prioritize on social (and what we’d ignore)
• Can you actually build real work/life balance from the start?

If you’ve ever wanted a do-over—or need a smarter path forward—this one’s for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. In today's episode, we're going to talk about what would we do if we had to start it all over again from scratch. First of all, we should talk about my shirt. Just repping the Irish. Wicked Smat.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

That just says Wicked Boston.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Oh, Wicked Boston. Wicked Smat.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Wasn't there a new commercial with...

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

No. Oh. No, it was... Dunkin' Donuts commercial? Yeah, the guy from The Office. Krasinski.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Oh, yeah. No, that's not new. That was an SNL skit. It was like, car park.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Oh, I thought it was a commercial for Hyundai or something.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

No. Oh. No, that's funny. It's a total S. Well, you know what? It was an SNL skit, but I think it was a Hyundai. Yeah. So who knows? There was probably some collaboration, but it was like, he parked his car. It's car smart. It's the new car park. It's

SPEAKER_01 0:52

the new car park. Whoever that comedian is, is so obnoxious with it. She's like, car park. Okay. Let's get serious. All right. Sorry. Let's do a real intro. That was the intro.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Oh, that was. Okay. Yeah. We're done. We're going. All right. So.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Okay. So. Where

SPEAKER_00 1:07

do you want to start this? What would you do? We have to... Shit goes sideways. You know, could you do it all over again? Could you start from zero? Same industry, same business. Could we start from zero today?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Do we take this from the position of we don't have... 15 years of experience behind us? No. Okay. So we know everything we know. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Experience is very practical.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

I think personally.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Man, this is tough. Would you do weddings? Would you start like a photo studio with weddings, portraits? Would you start the way you started where you offered anything to everyone? Or would you come out of the gate very niche? Niche. Niche.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Niche. Niche. You know, I met a guy who kept saying niche. No. Yeah, he did. And I kept saying niche. They were like, yeah, you could put it in this niche over here. I was like, you mean the niche?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Oh, my God.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

The nook. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

I hope that guy's not watching.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, well. He's a fucking idiot. Anyway, so it's great. I like this question. If I started from zero today, I would not go the same direction I went last time. I would start immediately in content creation and commercial work.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

So you would not go into the portrait world?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

No.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Why?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

So history's on my side. I have found over the years it is easier to work with commercial clients than it is to work with the consumer client. That consumer client who wants to pay you$400 is driving you fucking nuts about shit that just doesn't matter. They wanna haggle with you. They focus in on details that are really not overly relevant. I guess you could make the argument, well, it's relevant to them. Well, that's the problem. Everything is relevant to them and you're paying$400, right? So they don't wanna pay money for what you're bringing to the table, et cetera. What I've found over the years now is, We have clients that are spending$40,000 on commercial work and they are not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as a customer who wants to call you.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

No, because they're hiring you because they trust you and they need you to do the work. They're outsourcing the work that they don't have capacity to do. So do they have capacity to be micromanaging you?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

No, they need you to do your job. So I would, that would be where I'd shift. My entire business would be into the content creation commercial world. Um, you know, Still do photography. That's what I'd want to do. Still do video, which is what we do today. So we know that stuff. But that's where I'd go. If I were starting out today as a photographer, not even starting over, I'd focus on that. Because every small business in the world needs content creation. Whether they know they need it or not, they do. And if you can make a compelling proposition to them, they're going to hire you. And it would be simple. Everything I would chase would be... subscription-based. So what I would do is I would go and find businesses, right? And then come up with a pricing structure for$9.99 a month. You get two hours of me on location. I create 10 reels, you know, 15 Instagram posts, right? You put a whole package together for them, but I'm here two hours a month for you to do that. And it's a thousand dollars. Don't, copy my pricing structure, but I'd work this all out. I'd have a$1,000 package, a$2,000 package, a$4,000 package, something like that. Now get 10 clients a month. So you have a six-figure business with 10 clients. That's what I would do. Average photographer in the United States makes less than 40 grand. So you follow my strategy, you get 10 clients, you would have a six-figure business almost immediately.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

I think you talked about this one in the episode about, can you make money in photography? I think you broke this all down. And yeah, I mean, it's, so that's how you would start over the, the path that you've already written out. Like, yeah, because

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I

SPEAKER_01 5:24

believe in it.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

It's not just,

SPEAKER_01 5:25

and then, so you have this like guaranteed income and then anything else you do on top of it is just

SPEAKER_00 5:30

added bonus. It will lead to new jobs because if you're doing that type of work for a business, you're going to go, Hey, who's doing your web work? Right. And you don't have to be a web designer. That's the other part, right? I would outsource that work. We have staff for that, but again, if I were starting over, I'd outsource that work. Yeah, I wouldn't have the same profit margin on it because I'd have to pay somebody to do all that work, but it doesn't matter. Now you're building trust. Now they go, you know what? We need a commercial photo shoot for a billboard. We need this. We need this. We need a 30-second spot for a TV commercial that we're running or convince them to start running web commercials, right, for Instagram and social media. So it'll start leading into all this other work, and that$100,000 business quickly becomes a$200,000 a year business. I think I'd be able to have that up and running. I think I'd be able to have that up and running in 30 days or less.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I think so. Yeah. I think for my part of things, because obviously I didn't start.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

I want to be clear. I think I'd be able to get the 10 clients. In 30 days or less. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Easily. I think with...

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Maybe I'm going to wrap this whole thing up that we do and just that's what I'm

SPEAKER_01 6:39

going to do. No. No. You have way too expensive of a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

That is true. I am the high maintenance one.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

It's true. No, I think on my end, obviously, I'm not the one starting the photo studio. And so to ask me that, I would say I wouldn't do it. But like the customer end of things, what I would do, what I would make sure... to have done first is have all the systems in place before we started. Because I feel like I kind of got thrown into a broken system and I've been having-

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Explain what you mean by systems.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Systems being like 17 hats, your client email, your client experience, what you want that client journey to look like. It wasn't mine. So when I got thrown into it, I've been band-aiding ever since. We just got so busy and I still to this day have not had a chance to go in and make it mine. Like start from scratch, write every email over. Like I'd love to redo our process.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Yeah, but I mean that, you know, if you think about it, you're saying start over and you do this thing with 17 Hats or just your systems, right? How you're responding to clients, all that stuff. And when we started... this 18 years ago, that didn't exist. There were no There were no programs. It

SPEAKER_01 7:56

was Studio Cloud. Right. Do you remember that? That was the only software that had any level of automatic reminder.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

They were new at the time.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

So my first few years in business, there was nothing. And then this company, Studio Cloud, comes out where it was like automation of customer relationship. It was customer relationship management for the photography world. But they

SPEAKER_01 8:15

emailed your clients. That was why you guys chose that was because they emailed your clients a reminder for their session. Right. That was important. That was the one thing that changed everything for you.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Right. Because prior to that. that you know, the only kind of CRM systems were like SAP and they were these like big million dollar installations of software. There was nothing for like small businesses, really nothing. I think maybe Microsoft came out with something and it was complete shit at the time. I can say that because I worked for them, but they came out with something. It was complete shit. And then the studio cloud and then subsequently others came out, but it didn't exist. So yeah, if you're starting out today new, you have no reason not to have your client communication on point. You're, you know what I mean? Like client shouldn't have to wait three days to hear back from you. That shouldn't.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Automate as much as you possibly can. That would be the biggest thing I would, I would do day one.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

I would, are you done? Yeah. Cause I, well, I don't want to cut you off. I want to add to it. I wasn't like, are you done? Stop talking.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

I was like, I guess so.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

No. Do you have more to say?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

No.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

The other thing I would fucking like triple down on, AI. Immediately, AI. Yeah. AI automation, AI voice.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Hang on. Yeah. I need to clarify.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Clarify.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

I love AI.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

I am so tired of everybody just using chat GPT.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

I'm not saying AI chat GPT. I'm talking about conversation ai where clients reaching but i'm also saying no

SPEAKER_01 9:53

but with 17 hats you can use chat gbt to write your emails but take what it writes and make it in your own voice

SPEAKER_00 10:00

yeah i mean that that's just back to the overall fucking laziness of

SPEAKER_01 10:04

yes i'm saying it tap into to ai for everything you can

SPEAKER_00 10:08

yeah i'd have if you want to scale your business quickly you can you can embrace conversation ai so that when somebody's you know, on your website, reaching out to you or emails, you can have this respond in real time to your customers. So it's more conversational. You have voice AI, which can handle inbound calls and outbound calls. And it's pretty fucking good. Like it's, it's not, you know, hi, thank you for calling. You know, that's not what it's like anymore. That

SPEAKER_01 10:37

actually sounds like me.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I was fucking around with it. That's crazy. Yeah. Sound just like you. I

SPEAKER_01 10:43

know.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

I even named her Alyssa.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

No, you didn't. Her name is Victoria.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Just kidding. But yeah, I would lean so heavily into AI to give me some level of scalability for the business.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

How would you, okay, let's say you had a very low budget. How would you market?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

If

SPEAKER_01 11:04

you're brand new.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Yeah, I'm brand new. I wouldn't market probably at all. I would, this would be guerrilla marketing tactics. I would form all sorts of partnerships with people who were parallel to my business, right? Not other photographers. You know, if I were doing weddings, I'd partner up with a dress shop. Excuse me, I'd partner up with a catering hall. I'd partner up with a florist, hair and makeup. I'd start doing collaborative work with them, right? And I would do that because again, We did that in the early stages of the business and it was very, very fruitful for the early growth of Salvatore Sincotta Photography.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Didn't you do a collaboration with a St. Louis dress company where you did a styled shoot and then you went to their salon and you mapped out all their wall space and then you printed a bunch of like canvases and medals of girls in their dresses on their wall. Yeah, that's cool. It

SPEAKER_00 12:00

was huge.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

I mean, and that was a significant cost for you

SPEAKER_00 12:03

too. Yeah, but minimal compared to having to pay for Facebook ads, Google ads. direct mail, bridal shows. At

SPEAKER_01 12:09

the time, I mean, Facebook ads weren't even a thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

But now on their wall with my logo and website were all these like high-end, you know, bridal portraits. So everybody going in there to buy a dress was like, so you want to talk about like targeted marketing.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

And it was in like in the fitting rooms too. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah. I mean, it was, we went there, we hung it up. I mean, it was, it was really, really cool to do stuff like that. But, you know, these are all things that I would, If the business blew up tomorrow, that's where I'd go.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Let's hope the business doesn't blow up tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

No plans on it, but that's how I'd start over.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

I'm trying to think what else we would do. Because this is going to be a short episode otherwise. Man. I can cut around this.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

You know, the other thing I would do is I would put together a... a formal business plan. You know, when I started out, even though I have a business degree, I didn't put together a formal business plan. I was just kind of... Is

SPEAKER_01 13:14

that why you almost lost everything?

SPEAKER_00 13:15

No, I probably would have lost it with or without a business plan or almost lost it with or without one. No, I think it's, you know, again, hindsight's 20-20. I didn't know who my customers were. I didn't know how I was going to get those customers. I didn't know... what I expected the average sale to be. I didn't have pricing and packaging together properly. So if I were to start over again, I would really invest in either working with somebody, a mentor or somebody, to make sure all that baseline stuff is done right to avoid all the mistakes that you're going to make by not having that done right. I think that That's a big lesson learned for me early on in my career.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

What are all the ways you think somebody starting out should outsource from the get?

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Well, look, if you're starting a business, specifically photography, the only way you're making money is by shooting. You know, and so you've got everything else to a certain level should be outsourced. Editing, you know, I watch photographers spend way too much time editing their images. And not only do they edit them, they edit them to a point that makes no sense. You know what I mean? Like... I

SPEAKER_01 14:36

do.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I'm not talking about like, you know, hey, I like warm tones or cool, like do your thing, like whatever your style is. But they will sit there and obsess about details that just your fucking client has no idea. They're lost on your client. Like... How much magenta? Should it be 12 or 15? It doesn't matter. And for you to keep going that fucking slider back and forth, and then you realize your clients today, they're looking it on monitors that are not calibrated. Some of them are looking at it on TV sets. Some of them are looking at it on their iPhone. Some of them are looking at it on their iPads. You're not gonna get color right. So just edit it. to like 80%, 90% and move the fuck on. And if they order it, you can perfect it. Then you can perfect it because then you have control of the final product because it's coming from a lab or something like that. To watch photographers obsess over details like that is just mind-boggling to me because it's not making you more money. If you were focused on a detail that made you money, okay, well, then that matters, right? If I do this thing and I keep focusing on it, I'm going to make... 10% more money. Okay. Well, that's fine. Tell me how much more money you're going to make because you've now rendered your image in three fucking variations of black and white, right? Like, right. Here's a matte finish. Here's sepia tone. And here's like blue duo tone. Like no, no one cares. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

So when we were first getting, I mean, I didn't, I wasn't with you when you were first, first getting started, but like when we started working together, um, we, we weren't, chasing business but i know when you first started the company

SPEAKER_00 16:17

this episode sponsored by dude coca-cola oh dude yeah yeah there's nothing better than a coca-cola you know what i mean what do you think you get that like

SPEAKER_01 16:28

yeah so good i'm totally gonna forget what i was gonna ask you

SPEAKER_00 16:33

you said something about when we first started working together

SPEAKER_01 16:36

oh man

SPEAKER_00 16:37

it's so good so good

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Um, I don't know where I was going with it.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

You better figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah, I better. Um, Oh, so we weren't, we didn't have to like chase clients the way you did when you first started. So like when you first started, you were shooting anything that would get in front of

SPEAKER_00 17:01

your camera. Because probably because I didn't have a business plan, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

So you really, like you were a slave to your client and this, like you, The idea, the perfect world, this like work-life balance ideal world that everybody's chasing, if you were to say, okay, we're starting over tomorrow, would we have the luxury to set a schedule that allowed for some kind of work-life balance where you say, I'm shooting Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'm selling Thursday, Friday, weddings on Saturday, relax on Sunday? I

SPEAKER_00 17:35

don't think so. I don't even

SPEAKER_01 17:37

think we live that way now.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

No, we don't live that way now. And I don't think you can be an entrepreneur and have that, I want to say bizarre, but fantasy mindset that that's how it's going to work. You can't be an entrepreneur and have those types of clean boundaries. Like owning a business is messy. Owning a successful business. If you want to turn your phone off on the weekends... Go for it. See how that does for your business long term, right? But generally speaking, you know, I'm working every weekend. Now, I can't even imagine going into a new startup like, you know, hey, everything failed. We've got to start over and being like, you know, well, I'm only going to work three days a week.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

That's why people call it you're in startup mode.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Right. You're in startup mode. Exactly. Which means Silicon Valley, the hardest time, not the easiest time. Right. The hardest time.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

But don't you think there is a level of like organization and streamlining that comes with having a schedule with boundaries? Like so, you know, maybe. your clients understand that these are your shoot days and these are your production days and like maybe sometimes you'll make exception

SPEAKER_00 18:54

what clients are your clients are not they don't come back every fucking four days that your clients are always net new for the most yeah

SPEAKER_01 19:01

but you could easily just send somebody a calendar link and then they go to look at the dates that are available and it's blocked out on Thursdays and Fridays

SPEAKER_00 19:08

right but now you have clients who have a family session and they're only available on a Friday they're only available on a

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Sunday like maybe you make exceptions in the beginning but don't you think having that kind of like streamlined structure creates a level of, I don't know, like high end feel to your business or you, you think just availability is, is key.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

So you're saying artificially create scarcity as a business strategy.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah. Does that

SPEAKER_00 19:37

work? That is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Cause I know why you're teeing me up for this because we heard someone recently pitch this. I think that is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Because you're not Louis Vuitton. You're not... Well,

SPEAKER_01 19:54

even Louis Vuitton doesn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Well, maybe Louis Vuitton has a bag. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's limited editions, you know, availability for the bag. I just don't think if you want to be... Look, we're getting a little bit off topic. But if you rewind, again, I feel like I say this every episode... been at this 18 years. I would say at that longevity, there's plenty of studios that are multi-generational. We will never be multi-generational. But if you've been at this 15 years or longer, I would say you're in some rare air. You're one of very few. Maybe you're in the top 1% of photography studios, right? And I would imagine every photography studio owner that here's what I'm about to say, who's been in it this long would agree with what I'm saying. We have seen over 18 years, some of the most moronic business models that I have ever, like they are so ridiculous. They defy consumer behavior. And it's not like photography consumers. Do you do this on purpose? You like to get me going. I feel like on these podcasts, like you intentionally needle me.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

No, I just want to talk through things.

UNKNOWN 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

I want to hear your side of

SPEAKER_00 21:15

things. We have heard all these nonsensical business models that a photography consumer is not like some anomaly. They're just like every other consumer. So somebody who's buying photography is the same thing as somebody who's buying a car, is the same thing as somebody who's buying clothing. They're buying shit, right? So when I start seeing all these ridiculous business models come out, it's usually by people who are not really running a multi six figure business. So if you wanna run some like weird, inconsistent niche business, then start doing random shit with your business model, like ridiculously unavailable times, right? To somehow prove how, well, I am so busy, right? And like, you know, we just have very limited availability. Like that is... It's just nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

It's such a turn off too. As a client, as a customer. Of course,

SPEAKER_00 22:13

of course. So I just think, again, I'm not going to highlight everybody's business models. You asked me about this particular one, which is just absurd to me. And there's been other models where you're just like, well, that it just, if it sounds, you have to ask yourself as a consumer, how would you respond if you were trying to get in to somebody's office and buy a product, buy a service, how would you respond as a consumer if the availability is so limited? Think about the dentist you tried to get into. Yeah, I went to another dentist. You

SPEAKER_01 22:49

called in November and the earliest availability was March.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Right. You

SPEAKER_01 22:52

all but hung up. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Adios. I'm out of here. Right? There's no reason for that. Hire another fucking dentist.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

And it's not like you're a new patient. Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

I

SPEAKER_01 23:01

also don't understand that. Like, why do new patients have to wait longer?

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Yeah. Well, I wasn't a new patient.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

I know. I know. Side note. Why is it like, oh, you're a new patient?

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

It'll be six months out. Right. Why?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Right. Thank you. Is he available or not? Because

SPEAKER_01 23:17

they're so busy. Yeah. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Maybe the doctor's, he's working three days a week. He's in retirement mode.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Well, see, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

So if I had to start over as a doctor, I'd work seven days a week. Yeah. For real. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

So, okay. Off of the topic of... photography studio in general, if you had to start all over, would you still have launched conferences, all of the conferences we've ever done?

SPEAKER_00 23:43

You know, I don't think I would.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Why?

SPEAKER_00 23:45

That was such a leap of faith. I remember when I signed the contract for Shutterfest, you were there. If we didn't fill the hotel, I was going to have to cut them a check. of over$100,000. That would have ended my company and I would have had to go back to corporate America and get a job.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

So Shutterfest was intentionally created to happen in April because that is the time of year that you had prior years almost gone bankrupt multiple times,

SPEAKER_00 24:21

right? Right, because cash flow.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

I needed cash flow into the business and I knew I had to come up with something that was other than shooting clients because historically here January February March the weather's bad right we're not and we weren't in studio photographers we were location photographers

SPEAKER_01 24:38

so knowing that going into you signing that was out of a position where you weren't just sitting on a bunch of cash that's what made you want to want to do it no like

SPEAKER_00 24:46

oh yeah

SPEAKER_01 24:47

you believed in the industry you believed we needed to do something different

SPEAKER_00 24:50

right I wanted it to be different and I've said it before sometimes I'm too stupid to know that I could fail at this yeah uh and so I You know, I'm just like head first. Let's do this. We'll figure it out as we go. Right. You know, we'll build the car as we're going, so to speak. And that's always been our philosophy here. And if I started something new, it'd be the same, you know, that you bring that mindset with you that not going to have all the answers. You know, that's that's for sure. If I were starting something new right now, you I wouldn't wait until I had all the answers to move forward because you're never going to have all the answers. There's always going to be something you didn't know. So fail fast and move forward.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

That's something else with the, the main question of, you know, like if we would start all over, what would we do differently? I would say as we were growing, we failed a lot, but our biggest mistake was not preparing for the success we were going to have. And so we always like under prepared.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

So talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yeah. I'm interviewing you again. Yeah, you are. No, that's a really good point you're making. We have never, I don't even know that we've gotten smarter about it at this point, but we never seem to plan for success. For success, but not the

SPEAKER_01 26:08

amount of success. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 26:11

I'm...

SPEAKER_01 26:12

We're always on the lowest

SPEAKER_00 26:13

end. We're skeptimistic.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

That's my favorite word.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Yeah. We're skeptic, skeptically optimistic.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Uh, about opportunity. Right. So I'm always, I air air more on the side of like skepticism, you know, and just thinking this can go wrong. This can go wrong. This can go wrong. But there's a lot of people out there like that and that paralyzes them. I use that skepticism to pinpoint failures, right? to avoid them. Right. So I think that's the thing. If, if I'm going to embark on an opportunity and I'd give this advice to any entrepreneur out there, you just said embark. Yeah. Embark. I did. Oh my gosh. It's like, it's like chat GPT. It's in my

SPEAKER_01 26:54

brain. Are you chat GPT?

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Elon Musk put a chip there. Um, if, if I were to embark on a new adventure, right. Journey, whatever it is, uh, in business, I would go, I would have to go after it. Um, was I saying?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

I'm talking about success, like not planning for enough success or the amount of success. We always err with skepticism

SPEAKER_00 27:20

or skepticism. Oh, I know what I was going to say. If I move forward on something, I'm clearly optimistic that it's going to work. Right. So I think that's key. And I would give this advice to any entrepreneur coming up is like, look, if you see an opportunity and you've poked holes in it, right? Like, well, what about this? What about this? What about this? And they don't all have to go your way, but you poke enough holes in it and you're like, I feel good. I feel good that this is an opportunity. Full bore, right? You gotta go after it. Now, that's when you become skeptical about the whole thing because that skepticism is what's gonna protect you as like a built-in defense mechanism because then you're not blindsided by like, this is gonna be great. Everyone's gonna buy it and they're gonna love it. Like that... That's delusional to me.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

And you can't be delusional as an entrepreneur. So you

SPEAKER_01 28:14

have no plan when it all blows up.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Right. Right. And you didn't, you're like, I didn't know blueberries were out of season. Well, yeah. So you opened up a blueberry pie store and blue, I don't know why it's blueberries, but it is.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

This man loves talking about blueberries.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

I don't even, I barely like blueberries. You don't even eat them. Yeah. Anyway. So, you know, it's like, here's a good example. Like you're like, I'm going to open up a blueberry pie bakery and we're going to specialize in blueberries. Right. And you're like, let's go. It's great. And we only do organic. Right. And we only do organic. Right. And then all of a sudden you open your store, you push out 10 pies and but you didn't realize that there was backlogged, a blueberry international shortage or whatever, right? That to me is when people are just delusional about the opportunity. They're just wide-eyed about it all, right? So I think it's a two-step process when you start something new. Is there an opportunity there? And not because your mom told you so, right? But is there really an opportunity there? And once you determine there is, foot on the gas, we're going after it, but you have to identify potential fail points. And if you see fail points and you're like, what are the top 10 things that can go wrong? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right? Okay, all right, I can plan for this. We can deal with that. We can withstand this one, right? If you look at those and the worst case scenario in what you think can go wrong, you can survive as a business owner, green light, go. That's how we make decisions around here. So... Can we, if worst case happens, you know, or are we going to die? No? Right. Okay. Is it worth it? What's the upside? What's the downside? You weigh the risk there and then you go. Yeah. I like that. I think that's important. That's just important like entrepreneurial mindset stuff that you need.

UNKNOWN 30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Is that it?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

I think that's

SPEAKER_00 30:13

it. All right. It doesn't have to be long. No. It's got to be short and sweet sometimes. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

It's still 30 minutes, so. Yeah. But I wouldn't say that's short.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

No, definitely not short. But I would do it. I would start over. I

SPEAKER_01 30:25

would not. Why would you say you would start over? Like you're saying you could. No, I'm

SPEAKER_00 30:30

saying we've started over with it. We've started new ventures, not necessarily because we had to, but because we... I'm an entrepreneur, so I love creating new things, right? We created a marketing platform, Disruptor Marketing. You know, somebody else in my shoes, maybe, I'm 55 now. He was supposed to retire at 50. Yeah, well, that's probably, I'm never going to retire, let's be clear. I think retirement is, the word retirement, it's different to different people, right? My idea of retirement is probably like, I'm working 40 hours a week. That's retirement. Right. That'd be, that'd be amazing actually. Yeah. Um, but no, on a serious note, I think, you know, we started disruptor. That was new. That was a new venture that when I, when it was in startup mode, I mean, my gosh, I was putting so much time into it. It was like

SPEAKER_01 31:19

six months. I don't think I saw you.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Yeah. That was, you didn't shower. That is true. There were many days with, yeah, no showers.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yeah. But think about like, even in the, I don't know, like, maybe 2012 through 2019, that was probably our biggest growth period for the company. Think about how many different things we tried that failed.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

You just don't see it. And we don't talk about it. People see your wins. They don't realize the struggle.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

I think you make it look really easy. I think our team makes things look really

SPEAKER_00 31:52

easy. Yeah, it's 100% the team. But again, if you're on a winning team, it's easy to keep winning because... you see those pitfalls, right? That's why like in sports, when you have a championship team, you don't want to break them up.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Right. You want to keep them together. Why? Because they know how to win. They know how to work hard. They know how to deliver results.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

And we know how, if we fail, we know how to just brush it off and move on to the next thing. Right. Like we're not going to sit. If something is failing, we also know when to cut the ties.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Right. And like call it a day. But again, that's from experience because we have failed so many times. Right. So it's, you know, I think a lot of times, right, you will see people, because that statement you made can be interpreted a little bit dangerously, meaning somebody might, you know, grab that pan, fire hot, ooh, I'm not touching that again, right? We don't

SPEAKER_01 32:39

quit, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Right, but you have to know, no, well, you have to know when to quit, and you have to pull the plug on something. What I'm saying, though, is I don't want people believing that just because you're trying something and it didn't work the first or the second time, don't quit on it, just regroup Right. But there will be things where you will immediately know it's time to quit. Think about your... It only comes from experience.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah. The bug out bag.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

When we tried to go through GoFundMe, was it?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah. You know, guys, here's a...

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Was it GoFundMe?

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Yeah. I think I tried a GoFundMe. Okay. You know, we created a bag. Many of our listeners, viewers probably have one, which now that I say that, I don't know that I have... and you left for myself. You have four

SPEAKER_01 33:22

hanging in the studio for you. You have two gray and two black. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

It's very important. So I don't remember how many years ago, maybe it was seven, eight years ago, we created this bag for photographers. And I drew it on a napkin because as a working photographer, I was getting frustrated with having to roll this roller bag around. Not

SPEAKER_01 33:43

easy to get in and out

SPEAKER_00 33:44

of. Not easy to get in and out of, especially when you're in a church and you want lenses and you're moving around the church or you're just grabbing your stuff to go get pictures of the groom getting ready. Right. You don't need everything in your bag. You just need this kind of like smaller kit. But you needed more than a traditional shoulder bag. You needed to be able to change lenses. And I watch I would watch photographers like, you know, stick the lens under their arm and or put it down and it would fall like all those kinds of things right so I draw this bag on a napkin and it has this kind of like side kangaroo pouch, right? And that was meant to be your third hand so that you could take your lens off, put it in the pouch and put a new lens on the camera without any risk of this falling. And we called it the bug out bag and it was a working photographer's bag and drew it on a napkin. And, you know, we got some prototypes being made and we tried to go the GoFundMe route cause that was a big thing seven, eight years ago. And I think, You know, we had like the initial, we wanted to cover the initial order, which was like 75 grand or something for all the bags to get here stateside with the, you know, minimum order quantity. And I think we raised like$1,500 or$2,000. Yeah, it was a massive fail. It was abysmal. Yeah. It was a massive fail. It was borderline embarrassing. Yeah. I think anyone else would have quit. Yeah. on that, they would have totally given up on that. And I was like, fuck man, now it's time for me to put my money where my mouth is. Do I believe in this bag enough to bring it to market? And so we jumped on a plane, went over to China, started really getting into this with a couple of factories and because to prior to that all we had was a prototype

SPEAKER_01 35:33

yeah didn't we it took like three or four trips over to china because they could not figure it out and we couldn't like we were trying to do video calls to explain

SPEAKER_00 35:40

the couch yeah but we you know we went over there on our expense and i'm like and at a before that you and i were like either we believe in this or we don't

SPEAKER_01 35:50

right

SPEAKER_00 35:50

And if you, we believe in it, we got to put our money where our mouth is. We can't just put some drawings up on, you know, go fund me.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah. To an audience that has no idea who you are also. Right. Right. You had no built in loyalty of people who wouldn't even try it.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Yeah. So we go over there, we get, we get, we get a real working prototype now. And I think we were like, okay, we're going to do this. And I put up, I put up all the cash myself. Yep. Again, a shit your pants moment because you're betting the house on this. And I'm just thinking to myself like, man, we're gonna have a lot of fucking bags laying around the building. And we sold the entire, the first order I think from China was four to 500 bags. I can't remember the exact number. We sold 90% of the inventory before it ever made it to the United States. That was insane. Then, so we were placing our second order. The first order hadn't even reached the United States.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yep, I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

That bag generated over a million dollars in revenue for the business with significant profit margin. So those are the types of things where, you know, you're a photographer, you're working in the shit every day. You don't even have to be a photographer. You're in any kind of business. You don't have to, you know, you're in the shit every day of what you do. What's a better mousetrap? Can you come up with a better mousetrap? And if you can, are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and bring that to market? You know, there was a couple of photographers. I forget who they are. I still have some of their prototypes. They had this really cool hot shoe or cold shoe stand for speedlights. So, you know, when you buy a speedlight, from you know any of the manufacturers they come with those little kind of flat feet

SPEAKER_01 37:47

yeah

SPEAKER_00 37:48

um which you know if there's uneven ground or whatever they're they're not really practical these guys went off and they they prototyped this thing and it was made out of uh metal so i don't know you know it wasn't 3d printing or whatever and it's about you know it's it's smaller than this

SPEAKER_01 38:07

And it goes on your camera?

SPEAKER_00 38:09

It goes under... No, no, no. This is like if you're going to have off-camera flash. Oh. So like if I wanted to put my flash over there.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

This is what you... How would you stand a flash up over there if you didn't have feet?

SPEAKER_01 38:24

I mean, you'd put it on a light stand, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Right. Or the feet that it comes with.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

I feel like I'm losing you.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

I'm lost.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

You know what a speed light is, right?

UNKNOWN 38:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

It comes with feet that kind of look like your phone. Yeah. It's like that. Yeah. Okay. So this one is a little square cube that has claw feet that open up like this.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Okay. Kind of like a Joby.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

No, it's not gripping on anything. It's just to give it stability. Okay. I believe it has like an umbrella slot in there as well. So you can put an umbrella on it. So it was a really cool idea. They never brought it to market, right? So I think they like tested it by giving it out to a couple of photographers to see if they'd build momentum around it. It was a really cool product. I remember that. It's still at the studio.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Really?

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Yeah. I'll show it to you next time we're in there.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

It might make more sense because right now I'm like, I don't see what's different from the feet than this. It just has three legs instead of one flat piece.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Yeah, yeah. You'll see it. Okay. So right. That flat piece is not going to work on uneven ground. Okay. Right. So anyway, but I'll show it to you. My whole point in this is they, they had a product that they could have brought to market just like I had my bag, but either they couldn't get funding or they weren't willing to put their own skin in the game to bring it to market. Right. So this goes back to what I was saying earlier. Like if you see an opportunity out there and you've gone through the checks of like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. can I live with worst case scenario? Nobody wants to lose money. Don't get me wrong. So that's not worst case scenario. I mean, that's a given. So in the bad case for us, it was like, Fuck me, man. Do I believe in this bag? Yes. How much do I believe in it? What's worst case? Well, worst case is I have about 500 bags sitting in the studio somewhere that I'm giving out to friends and

SPEAKER_01 40:17

family. You need four bags,

SPEAKER_00 40:20

I think. Put groceries in it. Take it to the ballpark. Use it as your kid's diaper bag. Exactly. So, right, you have... You have to go, okay, I believe in this, I think I can sell this product, I think it's valuable, I think it solves a problem, which I knew the bag solved a problem, and I went and I did it. So, you know, off the topic of the podcast today, you know, if I had to start all over, but it's more along the lines of just being an entrepreneur, right? And trusting your gut a little bit, taking some risk. You're not gonna be, look, you are not gonna be wealthy unless you just hit the jackpot or, you know, win the lottery. you are not gonna be wealthy if you don't take risk. And that's gotta be the lesson learned for everybody is that you've got to take chances. Because everybody's gonna walk up to the same cliff, right? And you're gonna walk up to that cliff, you're gonna look over, and it's gonna scare the shit out of you. You're gonna be like, I could lose everything. I could, you know, I might not be able to go on vacation next year. Whatever the fear is of the edge of that cliff, The people who are successful, jump. And that's it. And then for us, luckily, we've never looked back. I mean, because it starts building confidence. You start building a team of people around you, whether it's employees or vendors, partners, but you start building a team around you of people who know how to win. And when you get to that point and you've got your championship team, so to speak, you're unstoppable.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

I like it. Well, it was almost a short episode.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, thanks for watching. Hopefully I motivated you a little bit to get out there, take some chance and kick some ass for sure. So we'll see you in the next episode.