Today we’d like to introduce you to Kanish Bhattacharyya.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My wife Samantha and I started Bhatta Boom Photo Booth in 2020 when we were looking for a photo booth for our wedding. We were in the process of finalizing vendors when COVID hit so we had to put our wedding plans on hold. During this time, I came across some photo booth content and was intrigued by the industry. We had a passion for photography and tech, and this seemed like a perfect blend. Both of us had full-time jobs when we started Bhatta Boom, Samantha worked as a Mortgage Loan Advisor, and I was at Salesforce, so we would do events on weekends. The first couple of years were primarily weddings and private parties with a few corporate holiday parties.
A few year in we started getting more corporate & brand activation events. We enjoyed this as it was a lot more challenging and helped us push the envelope. We started adding more members to the team and soon what started as with the two of us has now grown into an operation with 10+ member team.
We have always tried to bring new products and experiences for our clients and were the first in the Indianapolis market to introduce Digital Drop-off Booths, Audio Guestbook, Vintage Newspaper Booth, AI Sketch Artist, and this year introduced Indiana’s first luxury Enclosed Booth and soon will be launching a Bullettime Booth, to cater to the growing sporting events.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It was not easy to juggle Bhatta Boom and our full-time jobs and grow the company at the same time. That is why we started investing in a team as quickly as we could. This enabled us to focus more on the big-rock items.
Over the years, we have made many mistakes, like investing in products without properly assessing the market, spending too much time dwelling on lost deals, and trying to do everything at once. One thing that helped us grow was that we always learned from our mistakes; sometimes they got expensive, but we learned from them and always embraced a positive attitude.
One of the toughest months was in our second year when we booked a big wedding and used the proceeds to purchase new equipment. Unfortunately, the couple’s wedding broke less than a couple of weeks before, and though our contract stated that we do not provide refunds for client cancellation, we felt that refunding the bride was the right thing to do, even when she wasn’t expecting one. We had to pull money from our savings to extend our runway and thankfully, we were back on our feet. Even to this day, the thought of those couple of months haunts us, but never did the thought of what if we didn’t refund the client pose as a regret for us.
The barrier to entry into this industry is quite low so at a fairly early stage, we decided that racing to the bottom would not serve us well long term, so we capitalized on our decades of corporate experience, where we understand our customers’ needs, we audit our operational processes on a regular basis to increase operational efficiencies and reduce costs to provide the best photo & video experience to our clients.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We specialize in one-of-a-kind and bespoke experiences that solve problems faced by brands. Today we have a team of designers and creative directors who work with clients to understand their goals and curate experiences to achieve them. Recently, we did an activation for Eli Lilly’s 150th anniversary, they wanted to portray the different eras of Lilly. We utilized 4 photo booths facing 4 different walls, each wall depicted Lilly’s HQ through that era, and we utilized our software and camera settings to differentiate them by doing black and white for 1920, a vintage/sepia look for the 1950, Polaroid for the 1970s, and then regular for the current era. We had props to match the eras as well and at the end of the day, did over 2000 prints.
Last December, we did a two-day trading card activation for IU during the Big Ten Championship, where guests got to take a picture and create a custom photo, which we transformed into a trading card within a minute.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
My wife, Samantha, has been the biggest supporter and we wouldn’t have been where we are today without her unwavering support. Our Family and friends helped us by being our first attendants when we were stretched too thin. Without their support, we couldn’t have made it this far.
Pricing:
- Wedding packages starts at $550 for Digital and $800 for Printed Booth
- Enclosed Booth is $4500 for the whole day
- For Corporate we have packages starting from $600 and going upto $15,000 for a single day
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bhattaboomphotobooth.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bhattaboompb/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bhattaboompb/
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/bhattaboompb/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNXLKtGUSQFnlC4NxXKVVgQ
