Nashville Startup: PhotoRankr Prepares For JumpStart Foundry Demo Day INTERVIEW

It’s Demo Day month in Tennessee. Last week was Demo Day at the Gig Tank, Chattanooga Tennessee’s startup accelerator themed around the city’s one gigabit fiber optic network.

This week is Zero to 510’s Demo Day in Memphis Tennessee. Zero To 510 is the first cohort based medical device startup accelerator in the country. Their teams are preparing for this week’s big event with a series of rehearsals in Memphis this week. This makes the third big startup event in just as many months in the river city. 48 hour launch kicked off the summer, then there was Startup Weekend and Demo Day this Thursday.

200 miles east of Memphis the seven remaining teams in JumpStart Foundry are preparing for their Demo Day next week. Solidus Partner Vic Gatto told us last week that there were 10 teams originally but three teams couldn’t keep up with the rigorous training, working and perfecting their startup and dropped out of the program.

PhotoRankr is one of the seven startups preparing to present next week. They bill themselves as a community and a marketplace for passionate photographers. Of course right off the bat we noticed that PhotoRankr has an actual up and working product. The website for PhotoRankr is polished and aesthetically appealing to anyone, especially those photographers with a nose for design.

Within PhotoRankr members can get genuine feedback from fellow photographers. They can also find link minded photographers that they would want to learn from. They can find photographers based on portfolio, location or skill level which means the user can have role model photographers and peers to exchange experiences with.

PhotoRankr also offers a marketplace for their users own work. PhotoRankr members can sell their original work for whatever price they would like. It gives a much more creative and artistic source versus traditional stock photography sites.

In reading all of the profiles for next weeks startups it’s a tough call. We got a chance to talk to the PhotoRankr team in the interview below. Check out the interview and then after that hit the link and check out PhotoRankr yourself.




What is PhotoRankr?

PhotoRankr is a social marketplace for photography.

Billions of high-quality photos are taken every year by people with digital cameras and camera phones.  There is currently no good outlet for both sharing and selling this content in one site.

We give photographers of all types, everybody from amateurs to professionals, a much-needed outlet to share and sell these images that existing photo networks and stock photo sites do not provide.  We do so by combining a social network and marketplace in one site.

Likewise, we give buyers of all types, everybody from bloggers and small businesses to advertising agencies, the ability to find fresh and affordable images by leveraging the power of social media.  The best user-generated content to the top of the Marketplace through photographers ranking and commenting on photos on the social network.  In addition, buyers can crowd-source unique image requests by using the PhotoRankr Campaigns feature.

In layman’s terms, how does it work?

Photographers on PhotoRankr rank, comment, favorite, and engage with each other’s photos.  Each photographer has a personalized profile system, which includes, among other features, a personal portfolio, store, and blog.  Photographers can use their personal stores to easily manage the prices and license options for their photos.  The personal blog allows photographers to use their photos to promote their work and teach other photographers about different techniques.

Buyers on PhotoRankr can search the Marketplace for photos not only based on traditional metrics such as category and orientation, but also social metrics such as trending, top ranked, and newest photos.  If buyers cannot find what they need on the Marketplace, they can crowd-source their image needs by creating a PhotoRankr Campaign.  The buyer simply describes the image specifications, the license terms, including the permitted uses, the price, and then lets the photographers on the social network do the work.  PhotoRankr photographers submit photos in response to the Campaign Brief and additional feedback from the buyers.  At the end of a Campaign, a buyer purchases a photo and a tailored license agreement is generated.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

We have a young and talented team at PhotoRankr.

Our CEO, Jacob Sniff (Princeton 2013), is a physics major who has prior tech startup experience.

Our CTO, Matthew Sniff, is a talented product developer with experience developing social networks such as CollegeCambio.com.  He has also developed successful iPhone applications.

Our Creative Director, Noah Willard, does graphic and web design work for the site, in addition to broader product development responsibilities.

Finally, Tyler Sniff, a third-year law student, is our Vice President and Head of Business Development.  He is responsible for business networking, marketing, and avoiding legal pitfalls.

What’s the startup scene like in Nashville

Don’t try to start a social network in Nashville!  Just kidding, Nashville is emerging on the tech scene thanks to the combined efforts of its investment and entrepreneurship communities.

How did you come up with the idea for PhotoRankr?

Over the past few years, there has been an explosion of high-quality photography, spurred on by the digital camera revolution and the advent of smart phones.  However, there exists no easy outlet to license and sell this work.  That’s why we came up with PhotoRankr.  When the average person realizes that they can easily make money from their photography, PhotoRankr will be enormous.

How did you come up with the name?

In order to filter out the good content from the bad content, we decided to let our users rank each other’s work.  By ranking photos, the existing photography community filters out the good content from the bad content.  That’s how and why we settled on the name PhotoRankr.

What problem does Photorankr solve?

PhotoRankr makes it easy for photographers to sell photos and make money from their photography skills, while at the same time making it easy for buyers to find images to purchase.

It is very difficult for photographers to sell their images through stock websites.  It is an older business model that pays out less and less to current photographers and shuts out amateur and semi-pro photographers.  Yet these photographers continue to produce, upload, and share awesome photos.  And they use social media to do it.  Online photo buyers, on the other hand, have difficulty finding fresh and affordable content on stock sites.

At PhotoRankr we tried something a little different.  We built a social network for photographers to share their photos, knowledge, and inspiration.  To make it easier for both buyers and sellers we linked it to a marketplace and crowd-sourcing platform.

PhotoRankr’s Market gives everyone the opportunity to submit images.  We only ask you secure any necessary model and property releases.  It’s simple: drag and drop, license and price, keyword and go.  You can even skip steps two and three to price and license later.  Buyers can search by more than category, license and keyword.  Use the rank of photos, reputation of photographers, and other social metrics to sort your results. If a photographer you purchase from uploads photos you can consistently use, you can follow their work.

What’s your secret sauce?

We are a democratic platform.  To that end, we let our photographers decide how to price, license, and promote their work.  We also value feedback.  Our photographers have provided an integral voice in the development of this product from the start and will continue to play a fundamental role in its future.

What’s one dilemma you’ve encountered in the startup process?

Our site crashed one night because it was over-used.  We had to quickly change to a private server to account for this activity.

What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Taking the leap from building a product, to making a business.

What’s the first thing you would do with a one million dollar investment?

Hire a bunch of rock star developers to develop a new licensing standard for photography.

What’s next for PhotoRankr?

PhotoRankr just launched a major site redesign, which included the PhotoRankr Marketplace.  PhotoRankr is now developing several exciting features to offer photographers as part of its subscriptions.  These features include an API that would allow photographers to track their photos on the web and custom domain names.  In addition, we are working on allowing international users to sell photos on the Marketplace and partnering with other photography and social networks.

Linkage:

check out PhotoRankr for yourself here

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