Looking for Non-Technical Cofounder
I have a new startup focused on selling services to photographers, specifically for selling services to photographers who sell workshops to their clients.
What I need is someone that's experienced in marketing / sales / social media and driving traffic to a website. I have the technical aspects covered - the website and services are created.
The ideal person for this role is a photographer themselves and/or someone that has experience around the photography and / or educational space.
A bit about me:
I founded a company in 2014, sold it in 2015 and then was the CIO and co-owner of Sundial Capital Research until the end of 2022. My partner and I sold the company to a private Equity company. Find out more about my background here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbrown/
Now, I've got a few other ideas -- this is the first idea and the one I'm most passionate about as the marketplace is very undersaturated.
If you're interested, let me know and I can share more details.
Interesting idea Eric, one question, what would make it different than photographers using their own websites or using kajabi or something like that? Or is it more like marketing services for photographers? (Not exactly LTPU but just curious). Maybe clarifying that can make it easier to find the right partner.
Great question.
The idea is to provide additional marketing support for photographers.
The target market is photographers who are just starting out and trying to sell workshops and education. They don't have a large following (normally), so they could list their workshops on this site/service to get in front of a much broader audience.
For photographers who have already gained a following, the service is still useful when they are having trouble selling all the 'seats' in their workshops.
Interesting. I might be a bit ignorant on your targeting. But would I be correct to assume that it would be for photographers that already have some years of experience and want to expand with a different vertical?
Have you have the chance to talk to some of those type of people and see if it's something that would be even affordable for them?
I'm thinking that you'll probably want to charge a good monthly fee to take care of all the marketing and such, right?
"so they could list their workshops on this site/service to get in front of a much broader audience." oh, so it would also be sort of like a marketplace for photographers' courses?
yes -- It is a marketplace for workshops.
I've spoken to a number of photographers (I'm a photographer myself) and there's definite need in the marketplace and very few competitors.
ohh, yea, chicken and egg type of situation. This is probably what I would try if I wanted to get the idea in front of a bunch of people. First, get 5-10 photographers that would be willing to post their workshop announcement, etc. on the site. Then I would create content that with those people to post on tiktok, etc. For the content, it could be tips, some type of challenge video, or even short interview cuts of anectodes that they could share.
That would probably be the best way to reach the buyer portion of the marketplace. Now, to reach the sellers, you could try a similar approach, but I am thinking the most effective way could be to create some sort of case study with the first batch of photographers that join. (I know case studies do take time)
Also, you might want to make it sort of exclusive on the sellers side, that way you can position it in a way that buyers see the marketplace as the place to find the best photographers workshops, and not just 100 different random photographers.
But then at the same time, if they don't already have a big following, then the only way to convince the buyers would be for each profile to have a well made introduction telling who they are and showing some of their work.
...
Man this is definitely a bit of a complex project on the marketing side because it is a marketplace. I have never ran a marketplace, so these are definitely just random thoughts that came to mind. I could be 100% wrong.
Some great input / ideas here. I appreciate the input/ideas/thoughts (and the time you've put into it).
I'll have to take some time to digest this. Good stuff...thanks!
Hey Eric, nice work on your previous success.
However, do you have a landing page that explains what, how and why of your project that solves the photographers dilemma?
Quite interesting and it's great that it's an idea deep in a niche.
Having run a semi-marketplace startup before, the most effective marketing tactic I experienced was the marketplace itself (which may sound a bit unsatisfying).
I noticed once I had a few really excited members - I'd go to them and ask why they have / have not referred it to others (since photographers will definitely know other photographers). Based on their response, I'd either reinforce the 'why they have' and try to solve / incentivize (within reason) the 'why they have not'.
Happy to get into the specifics but that's the approximate framework I used because ads didn't really work too well.
Good info, thanks for sharing. That's something I'm doing partly but I haven't systemized it at all. An for ads, yeah...they don't work at all for this stuff (or I haven't found an approach that works yet