Progress of Start-Up Venture Week 13

what is working? I made a profit at the end of this business and I take that as a win. My determination and perseverance allowed me to obtain a profit.

what is not working? The weather and bad timing are a challenge for me in which I cannot control.

how do you feel the project is coming? Since the project is over, I feel like I did a good job despite the struggles I faced every week.

what are you learning about running a business? I learned how confident and strong willed I am to continue to pursue and grow my business during this project.

what are you learning about yourself? I learned that I am capable of more than what I originally thought.

Prezi Link

Progress of Start-Up Venture Week 12

what is working? Posting on social media is working on spreading the word of my business. Social media is helping me save money by not having to pay for advertising. This is allowing me to make more profit off of my revenue.

what is not working? Securing more bookings isn't working. In this industry it is a slow acting company. Once more people become more interested in my work, the more they will be willing to book with me.

how do you feel the project is coming? I feel like the business isn't as successful as I hoped it would be at this point in time, but things work out how they are supposed to.

what are you learning about running a business? I am learning that with the right attitude and positive mindset, you can make a lasting impression on your clients.

what are you learning about yourself? I am learning that changing my attitude to being more positive gains a better first impression to new clients.

Progress of Start-Up Venture Week 11

what is working? Advertising through social media is working. By posting example work online, it is showing potential clients what I am capable of. This peaks their interest in my business.

what is not working? It is not necessarily not working, but the weather is still going against getting more clients. It is the off season for photos, but when Christmas gets closer clients may start to increase.

how do you feel the project is coming? It is slowly coming along but it is getting there. This is a slow starting company, it just needs more traction to get more clients.

what are you learning about running a business? I am learning that sometimes waiting and staying strong will be beneficial to growing your business.

what are you learning about yourself? I am learning that dedication and time management are my strong suits.

Progress Of Start-Up Venture Week 10

what is working? Keeping patience and staying consistent is what is working for me. It is beneficial to keep this mindset through the hardships.

what is not working? The attempts to gain more clients in the colder weather is not working too well. As much as I try to gain more customers, it is not paying off like I was hoping it would.

how do you feel the project is coming? Although it is still slow, I feel like the project is coming along. Since the market is very seasonal, it has its highs and lows.

what are you learning about running a business? I am learning that you need to stay patient and continue to persevere through the hardships of owning a business. Hard work pays off.

what are you learning about yourself? I am learning how patient I can be and how to keep a positive mindset.

Progress of Start-Up Venture Week 9

what is working? What is working is the advertising through the word of mouth. It has brought on a lot more acknowledgment of my company than I thought it would.

what is not working? The weather has hindered my bookings due to the fact that people tend to book during good weather days and not bad weather like snow. This is something I can not control and as I do not have a backdrop inside a building, I can not accommodate for these unexpected events.

how do you feel the project is coming? Although this business is over half way done, it is still in the early stages. Therefore, its slow but it is getting more traction, so I think it is going well.

what are you learning about running a business? I am learning that as events occur, you need to roll with them. This means that I will have to accommodate for unexpected events such as weather and come up with a way to still book clients in undesirable moments.

what are you learning about yourself? I am learning to remain calm and organized to find my way through the unexpected weather. It has taught me how to plan things out better.

Online Customer Showcase

Progress of Start-Up Venture

what is working? What is working is that gaining more inquiries to book services such as couple portraits are occurring. This means the business is becoming known in the community.

what is not working? What still isn't working is that I am not receiving as many customers as I had originally anticipated.

how do you feel the project is coming? I feel like the project is progressing well, it just needs more support from the public to grow.

what are you learning about running a business? I am learning that business stagnant do occur, but if you stay strong you can fight through them.

what are you learning about yourself? I am learning that I am good at what I do, and I do not back down without trying my hardest.

Progress of Start-Up Venture

What is working for the start up venture is that reaching out to the public by advertising on social media is spreading the word about the company. What isn't working is finding the amount of customers that I anticipated there would be. I feel like the project is working smoothly. Any start up takes time to increase in sales and customer interest. It is slowly following the plans. I am learning that starting a business isn't as easy as I thought it would be. It takes time and a lot of effort to make a business work. I am learning that I am very organized and determined to make the business succeed. I have the drive needed to keep going during difficult times.

Financial Sources

The financial source that I would use to my business start up is personally investing into the business with my own money and a line of credit. I would start my business while having a second job to receive money while I wait for my business to start growing. Once the business picked up and I no longer had to use personal funds to invest into the business, I would quit my second job and focus solely on the business. While I start my business, I would also apply for a small line of credit with the bank to use for emergencies only. I would explain to the bank that I would not solely rely on the line of credit because I have a second job to use to invest money into the business.

Business Operations Plan

Since my business is a photography company, I do not need to purchase product or generate resources to offer my services. I already have a camera to capture all of my photos. I will not have to worry about sourcing my service in time due to it being readily available. The only license I will need in order to operate my business is a business license. Every company needs to register/license their company to operate legally. My vision on what I will need to launch my business is different social media websites to promote my business. I may need some USB's to store all of my clients photos on to give to them. I can use online options to send photos to my clients, but I know some people prefer to have a USB with their photos on it.

Creative Advertising Exercise

Headline: Worlds Best Charging Port Cleaner

Sarah Stobie

Customer Persona

Dennis Dufour

About Him: Dennis is a 27 year old man who lives in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. He works at multiple local restaurants for a career while he searches for his dream job. Dennis has a girlfriend named Jessica Jones. He plans on proposing to Jessica very soon.

Use Case: Dennis is searching for a photography company to photograph his upcoming engagement to his girlfriend. Dennis knows that Jessica has always wanted that special moment to be recorded so she can look back and see how magical that moment was. Dennis knows Photos By Stobie S is a good company to choose to capture the surprise engagement.

Previous Solution & Pain Points: Before coming across Photos By Stobie S, Dennis was at a loss for who would capture his planned moment. The pain point he experienced before choosing Photos By Stobie S was the feeling of discouragement and uncertainty.

Benefits: The main benefits that Dennis now experiences from choosing Photos By Stobie S is the feeling of being confident and secure knowing he will be able to pull off the surprise properly and ensuring he will have gorgeous photos to remember his special moment.

Buying Trigger: Dennis searched for a photography service that Photos By Stobie S provides because it is well known that Photos By Stobie S have provided excellent work for other newly engaged couples. He also knows that they were able to stay hidden so the surprised was not ruined by accident. This made him feel confident on who he was choosing to capture this moment.

Buying Process: The process in which someone goes through to book with Photos By Stobie S is by simply looking us up on social media or on our website, and then using one of the various ways to contact me. Wether that be by email, Facebook message, Instagram or inquiry message through the website. The message would include what the customer is looking for, preferred date and if I am available. Once the message is sent, I will respond letting the customer know if their desired date works for me or not. If the dates line up accordingly, the date is set and a deposit is paid.

Choice factors: Some things that people are looking for in a photography service is capturing special moments such as weddings, engagements, couple shoots, maternity shoots, new born photos and family photos. What allows me to stand out from my competitors is how well I communicate with my customers and the way that I capture the photos for my clients.

Sarah Stobie

Local Competition

Competition: Josh Pace Photography, Meaghan Kent Photography, and Brie Takes Pictures.

The only thing that differentiates all the competitors from one another is simply their photography style and editing styles. Photography is hard to be unique when it comes to a business, but each person has their own creative twist when it comes to posing and editing.

Josh Pace Photography:

Experience they are offering: friendly, calm experience. You can tell he is very down to earth and wants his photos to turn out very well.

Strengths: Clean and user friendly website. Contact information is listed on website and various social media platforms. Very high reviews from customers. Customers range from wedding to couple photoshoots. He posts a daily photo, that shows the public what he work he has done to promote his work. He responds very quickly. Pricing is very reasonable considering what he's offering.

Weaknesses: No prices listed on website. Website doesn't have much descriptions or packages for potential customers to review.

Meaghan Kent Photography:

Experience they are offering: fun, friendly and positive photography experience. She takes pride in her work.

Strengths: Website is very clear on what she offers and what packages there are to choose from. She makes very detailed posts about each photoshoot she does. It allows customers to feel like they get to know her and feel more comfortable around her. She has very strong reviews.

Weaknesses: She does admit on her social media that communicating isn't one of her strong suits. Her pricing is higher for short periods of time, but she is good at what she does.

Brie Takes Pictures:

Experience they are offering: Modern and simple experience. You can tell she enjoys her work. She makes posts on social media about her photoshoots.

Strengths: Website offers many different kinds of photos such as wedding, engagement, and commercial photos. She takes pride in her work. Very high ratings from customers.

Weaknesses: No pricing or packages available on website. From experience, she is VERY expensive.

Sarah Stobie

Sarah Stobie

Strengths and Weaknesses

As I start this new venture as a photographer, I recognize that I have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to being an entrepreneur.

Some of my strengths when it comes to entrepreneurship is communication, leadership, time management and organizational skills. I have strong oral and written communicational skills. I developed strong communicational skills through discussing issues within the organization that I work for, but also when it came to future business endeavours. This has taught be how to properly express myself in a calm manner to ensure my peers can understand my ideas thoroughly. During my time in my previous employments and education, I have developed the skills of leadership and time management. While being the leader, I have ensured goals were being completed before the due date and everyone participated equally. In being a leader, I developed strong time management skills. To ensure all assignments and set goals were completed on time, I placed a timeframe for small goals to be completed so the final goal would be completed before the due date. My organizational skill has been taught to be while performing my time management skill. To ensure my work is completed on time, I have to organized to ensure I can utilize all the time I can get.

The weaknesses that I experience is low self-esteem and sometimes having limited creativity. I can improve self-confidence by doing more research on what I am not confident in so I can ensure I know as much as I can. I can also hype myself up by telling myself that I am capable of doing good work in a field I am not confident in. Also, in some situations I have low creativity skills. I can research to become knowledgeable in a topic, but coming up with a new name or a slogan can be difficult. I can improve these skills by pushing myself to come up with new names for ideas to allow myself to become more creative easily in the future. This can also include different things to photograph and come up with new poses.

Sarah Stobie