Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Tsay.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
From my time as an actor and creative, I saw firsthand how most artists struggle because their lives are gig to gig and they can’t find enough work to sustain a career. For photographers, we came up with the idea of consolidating demand at specific locations so photographers could enjoy multiple back-to-back clients; we then had the crazy idea of passing along the benefit to clients in the form of a free photoshoot where they only pay for the photos they want – so we’re helping both photographers and clients for a great win-win solution. Most times clients have to pay upfront no matter how they felt about their photos – we wanted to give clients the power of choice and a convenient, affordable solution to create more demand for photography. For photographers, we know the free photoshoot offer is scary so we provide a $100 per photography hour minimum guarantee plus commission, tips, and extra bonuses to respect their time. In return, Shoott takes care of all the pesky business logistics including but not limited to marketing, customer service, gallery delivery, sales, etc. so the photographers just have to show up and focus on what they love: photography. We are intended as a great source of supplemental income for professional photographers so they can stay in the game.
We’re now in 60 cities across the US, we’ve become a source of supplemental income for 2000+ photographers over the past 7.5 years, we’re a scrappy team with a proven track record of executing smart strategies, we’re proud to maintain a 4.9 star rating on Google, and we’ve been featured by Forbes, the Today Show, Oprah Daily, The Strategist and more.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Entrepreneurship is full of unexpected challenges, but few tested us as profoundly as Apple’s iOS 14.5 update in 2021. Practically overnight, our customer acquisition costs (CPAs) skyrocketed—some increasing by 3x to 5x—jeopardizing the sustainability of not just our digital marketing efforts but also our business as a whole. As a company that had always relied on paid social advertising to find clients, we suddenly found ourselves in uncharted territory.
Our small team had no real prior expertise in digital marketing (we were all operations folks), so we had to roll up our sleeves to learn the intricacies of digital marketing from scratch. We immersed ourselves in analytics, experimented with new targeting strategies, made creatives, and restructured our campaigns to optimize performance. We tried different agencies, tested different softwares and platforms, spoke with dozens of vendors to figure out marketing attribution, learned how to improve our email marketing, tested influencer marketing, and leveraged our scrappiness to outmaneuver rising costs. I am so proud of our ability to keep moving forward despite the overwhelming nature of the task at hand.
Through this process, we transformed a dire situation into an opportunity for long-term resilience. Our shift from a growth-first approach to a profitability-first mindset was painful to endure, but our efforts have not only stabilized our CPAs but also made our business fundamentally stronger. We proved to ourselves that with grit and adaptability, we could pivot, innovate, and thrive—even when faced with industry-wide disruptions.
This experience reinforced the power of perseverance, continuous learning, and the importance of controlling our own narrative rather than being at the mercy of external forces. More than ever, we believe in the strength of scrappy, resourceful entrepreneurship, and we take pride in knowing that our business is now more sustainable, profitable, and primed for smart growth.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Shoott’s mission is to create a business model that democratizes access to professional photography while improving the gig economy for photographers.
When hiring a photographer, clients are traditionally faced with a time-consuming list of logistics: researching to find the “right” photographer, back-and-forth coordinating with the photographer, enduring wait times for gallery delivery which can range from weeks to months (with some clients sharing horror stories about never receiving their photos at all!), and paying high prices for photos they might not even like. These challenges deter clients from booking photographers, which means major milestones go uncaptured while talented freelancers aren’t working as much as they could – a losing equation for both sides.
Shoott specializes in offering a unique business model that offers FREE 30 minute photoshoots where clients only pay for the photos they want because we deeply believe in empowering clients with the gift of choice. At first, we are accused of being anti-artist by allowing clients to not buy anything – but we see this as a compelling challenge for us to hire the best photographers and attract the right clients. When we make the right decisions, our photographers and our clients benefit, putting us in a true win-win-win mindset for clients, photographers, and Shoott as a business.
Our business model only works because we consolidate client demand at set locations so clients are funneled to photographers, resulting in multiple gigs a day – a major win for photographers who traditionally spend a lot of time building and maintaining their business versus doing what they love most: photography. Shoott is proud to provide all the other business support – marketing, customer service, gallery delivery, and easy scheduling that fits gigs into their supplemental time – so photographers have a convenient and seamless solution for finding extra work.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Our core founders are actually not photographers by trade – we’re multi-disciplinary artists (actors, designers, writers) who are obsessed with processes and systems who learned about portrait photography as a business in the process of building Shoott; we were more obsessed with the concept of building a business that helped artists stay artists and we happened to make it work for photography!
Pricing:
- Free 30 minute outdoor photo sessions
- Pay only for the pics you love starting at $25/pic or less!
- No sitting fee!!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shoott.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shoottphotos/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shoottphotos
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shoott/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shoottphotos
Image Credits
Shoott photographers
