Gainesville Photobooth

gtmcknight:

After successfully running two make-shift photobooths in a closet (Halloween 2007 and The Green Party) and having such a blast at my Uncle’s wedding I felt like there was a good opportunity to do the same thing professionally in Gainesville.

This also came at a time when I was helping my family a great deal financially. It’s better to teach a man to fish…. so I figured instead of simply giving my sister money I would offer to work with her together on a business I believed in that would also provide great entrepreneurial skills going forward in life. I would make her a 0% loan to pay for expenses which would be recouped before she starts accepting profits and she would own 100% of the business. During Thanksgiving dinner she committed to the project now known as Phobooth and we went full speed ahead! 2 weeks later we had the booth built, software running, professional lighting and camera (refining and tweaking over time).

It’s been a wonderful way to not only spend time with my sister but work on something fulfilling and “real-life” (as opposed to the rest of my time spent on websites). Seeing how happy and goofy people get just stepping into a photobooth is really rewarding. It’s nice to know we helped contribute to that memory on your fridge or pinned to your wall that will always make you smile. Just check out our gallery to see what I mean :)

My sister has been learning how to keep track of finances, make informed decisions (is this worth the investment even though you see less revenue in the short term?), interact with people in a professional manner and even manage us (she’s the “boss” and my mom, stepdad and I are technically her employees for now). By the end of summer I foresee her being able to hire one of her friends/peers to help her with future events. She’s also learning the importance of saving for the future as half of the profits will be for her college (the rest she deserves to have fun with!).

One of the business philosophies we are shooting for is to donate at least one “installation” a month for charities/good causes. Like the Let’s Eat Cake fundraiser (that raised money for St Judes) or the upcoming UF Dance Marathon that raises money for Shands Children’s Hospital. It’s been one of the ways I’m increasing the time + money I donate to good causes this year.

Favor: I would be extremely appreciative if you could reblog this link to help my sister’s budding company in it’s Google rankings. Feel free to remove all the above text as the link is most important.

Source: gtmcknight