May I take 3 minutes of your time please?

Candid Arts

My girlfriend and I are starting our own joint portraiture business. We are taking some business classes to get the business going. For this, we are creating a business plan. To do this, we need some market research. We created a short survey with some basic questions. We are looking for as much data as possible.

If you could please follow the link below, take a couple minutes to fill it out honestly and submit it, we would GREATLY appreciate it.

If you've got any questions, please, don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you very much for your help.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8ZFSGD2

Candid Arts

Yes, I do realize that. I figured there was a lot of just parents on here as well, and was hoping to get more of them to take the survey.

Thank you for the compliments though. We are trying to do this the right way. Even taking accounting classes!

Snowgirl

I agree with Glort. It's great to see you planning the business side of things prior to opening your door! Congrats on being proactive. You've already given yourselves a leg-up on others.

That said, unfortunately I agree with Glort about asking other photographers to provide answers to your questions. I did answer them to see what you were asking to see if I could make any suggestions.

I realize that Survey Monkey has limitations but still, I don't think people will respond well to asking 'what they are comfortable' spending. Instead - pose some package or session options with hypothetical prices and see which they choose. Photography is a luxury item and people either go the Wally World route or they pay decently for professional work. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground.

Also - all of your packages include disks - are these high res print yourself? Or low res share on Facebook? Makes a difference in value to the customer and profit to you. Just sayin'

You're on the right track, though, for sure.

Sam

Don't start a business with your girlfriend.

(I know you will ignore this, but i had to say it)

Once you ignore the original advice, I would then council you put everything in writing. Who owns what, what is the business entity, how will costs / profits be shared, and everything else you can think of.

Sam

Candid Arts

Sam wrote: »

Don't start a business with your girlfriend.

(I know you will ignore this, but i had to say it)

Once you ignore the original advice, I would then council you put everything in writing. Who owns what, what is the business entity, how will costs / profits be shared, and everything else you can think of.

Sam

Haha. Yes Sam, I am ignoring the first part.

We are putting all of that in writing. The entire company is going to be split 50/50. All costs and profits, responsibilities, everything, split down the middle.

Thanks for the advice though.

chrisjohnson

Good luck whatever you do.

Sam has a point. Why not two businesses? You can share resources, help each other as second shooter, while you each follow your own artistic direction. You can even share accountant

I filled in your questionaire.

bitwise95

Look into an LLC as an option and you can divy up some number of shares, like 10 and you both start with 5. If you decide later to have a primary and a secondary, the other could sell a few shares. There are other advantages as well.

Just a thought...

Candid Arts

Oh I'm pretty sure we are going to be doing an LLC. However I didn't think you needed to do shares to have an LLC. Isn't it just an option? I'm not sure if we quite want to go that route right off the bat.

chrisjohnson

I have the unhappy experience to advise several times on splitting 50-50 partnerships. I would not recommend this construction, especially when you love each other.

The biggest reasons for disaster after a few years are:
- different ideas where the business should go. Both sides can be right.
- disproportionate effort. Very difficult to decide because "effort" depends on a shared view on goals.
- no agreement about who decides in the event of conflict.

This is assuming the business is profitable.

When NOT profitable I may not get paid for my mitigation and they are likely to submerge in the swamp anyway. My advice to them is to cut losses asap and my approach is to ask them for up-front payment for mutual damage limitation, including me.

I would NEVER start a 50-50 business with someone I love. Have some real respect for each other and believe that you both can succeed. Trade with each other if you must but preferably not. Your relationship is more important than the business.

chrisjohnson

Candid Arts wrote: »

Oh I'm pretty sure we are going to be doing an LLC. However I didn't think you needed to do shares to have an LLC. Isn't it just an option? I'm not sure if we quite want to go that route right off the bat.

With LLC you always need to issue shares.

It is much simpler when 100% of shares are owned by one person - you do not need to hold shareholder meetings except with yourself or conform with additional regulatory requirements which are usually required when multiple shareholders are involved. For a man-wife situation this does not matter much as usually a spouse anyway has entitlement to your assets unless you have a pre-nup.

Many juristictions insist that the LLC is provided with an initial cash investment. This is not usually a problem for cashflow - you can give the money to the LLC and take it back immediately, the LLC only needs to show that a capital amount has been on the balance sheet even for a few seconds. However, it does impact your liablility should the LLC go bankrupt - it represents the eventual limitation of your theoretical LLC liability as far as tax is concerned - no big deal as IRS is not inclined to chase naked chickens.