CEO at BH PhotoBooth

At the age of 18 I went from being a young adult with no business skills, to owning my own photo booth business. With no knowledge on how to manage and operate a business, I began to study specific fundamentals needed for my new business. But I am here to show you what’s needed and what I have done to turn my business into a success.

Most people believe that all that’s needed to start and operate a photo booth is a: camera, computer, and a printer. If you fall under the category of people who do not believe that statement, I thank you, but if you do believe the statement I am going to prove you wrong. The duties to owning a small business like mine will surprise most.

Three main requirements needed to operate my photo booth are as follows:

·      Advanced technological skills

·      Professional Social skills

·      Creative and innovative skills

All the skills listed above are part of the everyday operation of the business.

Advanced technological skills

The technological skills required are as follows:

·      Building and breaking of equipment

·      Quality checks

·      System failure assessment and repair

This skill set is the foundation of the company. For example, let’s say that I have an upcoming wedding that my company and I will attend. Once arriving to the venue, I will have to begin constructing the photo booth by building the machine itself, calibrating both the camera and flash, and setting up the event’s customized template. What comes next is the quality testing the photos and the photo booth endures to ensure a high level of customer approval once the event comes to an end. And finally, the most important step, in my opinion, is failure assessment and repair. On average at almost every event something goes wrong, and I must be able repair is as quickly and correctly as possible. This last task alone requires most of the technological skills that I need in the operation.

Professional social skills

In this role, I must be a part of the user’s photo booth experience. I do this by following these three guidelines:

·      Teaching the users how to operate the photo booth

·      Inform potential customers on what we offer

·      Ensuring the photo booth experience in up to par with our standards

This may seem as if it isn’t important, but believe me it is. Being a photo booth attendant, at almost every event, makes me a part of the photo booth itself. Many instances arise where the user has no clue on how to operate the machine, so us attendants patiently await as an aid to help our users. Then comes along the average user who asks me where my boss is because he or she wants to hire the photo booth for their event, and I inform them that they are speaking to the boss. On average, at each event one of the users from the photo booth will book us for the future.

Creative and innovative skills

The final role that’s taken in a day to day operation is how creative and innovative the photo booth can become at the specific event. What values are needed to fill this set of skills are as follows:

·      Stylish graphic design

·      Event coordination

·      Consumer analysis

Arriving to the event, we ask our client a series of questions to better acquaint ourselves with the event itself, and from there the creativity begins. I fully customize the interface of the machine to better fit the event and do the same to the prints of the photos taken to match the occasion. The location of the photo booth at the event is vital to the whole experience in using it. What we offer that most photo booths don’t is our backdrop. We use the event itself as the backdrop so the event itself is found within our pictures and not only the users using it. Innovative wise we ask our clients what they wish they could have and what they wish they couldn’t have with our photo booth, and with all the data that we collect, we integrate what we believe would be vital to the photo booth’s success.