Thinking of starting a photography business?
Your first photography web site and your first business plan will fail. Guaranteed. You will have to make changes and try again. Then more failure and more changes, and more failure and more changes.
If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you won’t get anywhere important. And you won’t know if you’ve arrived anywhere important until you know where’s not important.
You must have a good answer to each of these questions or else you’re in the wrong place:
1) What problem will your business solve?
If your answer is that people want photography then you’re wrong.
2) Exactly who is your target audience?
Anyone with money? You’re wrong.
3) How are you better than your competitors?
If you say you’re a better photographer then you’re wrong.
4) Why is your photography special?
You know all sorts of cool lighting styles? Wrong answer.
5) Why is your photography valuable?
Because you’ve been to photo school or you already have experience? Wrong.
Define your business not by what you do but rather by why you do it. Answer the above questions not from your viewpoint but from that of a customer.
(Many photographers fear anything that has to do with business. So if someone says that your answers to the above questions can help start your business plan, don’t listen to them.)
