Phoebe's Photo Studio
Executive Summary
Opportunity
Problem
Families need photographs to capture the special moments of their lives. Families of professionals are busy, and if too much time goes by between photos, these moments are lost forever. Babies, especially, grow fast and parents need photos of them several times a year.
While nearly everyone has a camera for snapshots, people need professional quality photos when they will be shown to an important audience, and when people want to be seen in the best light. The Internet has expanded the use of photos, making it possible for anyone to send them or to publish them for wide viewing.
Solution
Phoebe’s Photo Studio will meet the needs of professionals and their families to capture the special moments in their lives and present them in the best light. We will establish a relationship in which we initiate the calls to keep their photos up to date. Digital files of their photos will be available for free by e-mail, or with a nominal fee for CD. Because of our relationship with the families, when something big like a wedding comes, there’s no place else they would go.
Market
Families with children are the biggest market for portraits. For the purpose of this analysis, these families are divided into three socio-economic categories:
- College graduates
- High school graduates
- Non-graduates
Families of college graduates are most likely to be professionals and to have the means and the taste for professional portraits. There are nearly 20,000 such families in the metropolitan area.
Competition
Competitor X is an award-winning, highly creative photographer with a style that one would expect to find in a national magazine. His prices are the highest in the area, up to $15,000 for a wedding album. His strategy appears to be to capture the high-end market, where a magazine look is a luxury that people can afford.
Competitor Y is a more typical photographer with more staged photographs and wedding packages running up to $5,000. His strategy appears to be to occupy the middle-ground of quality and price where most of the market is likely to be.
Competitor Z offers same-day photos. This is easier to accomplish with digital processing for a studio organized around speed, but the quality is necessarily sacrificed. The market for same-day photos doesn’t necessarily demand quality. Prices are average. The strategy of this studio appears to be to appeal to convenience and speed.
Why Us?
Our competitive edge is that we provide not only a photograph, but a program of ongoing portraits to capture the special moments in a family’s life. We then make the digital images of their photos easily and affordably available for distributing on the Internet.
Expectations
Forecast
Phoebe’s will grow at a healthy annual rate by targeting families of professionals with newborn babies for baby pictures and then developing a relationship with the client over the years for ongoing photographs. The funding envisioned in this plan is projected to result in a comfortable healthy business by the third year.
Financial Highlights by Year
Financing Needed
We foresee a total of $80,000 in startup financing to get this business going and healthy. That comes $10K from owner savings, $20K as a 5-year loan (family cosigning), and $50K as an interest-free loan from family.
If the business proceeds according to plan, we will have about half of the $50K family loan paid off within three years.
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