For the first post in this Business Model Innovation series, I was inspired by a photo studio which I came across last week, I found the small business concept extremely innovative and decided that I would write the first post based on this. I’ll be analysing the business based on the Business Model Canvas. There may be many ways a business can be run, but I hope that this post can serve as a basis to explore your creativity.
Unique Value Proposition
To create and document unforgettable memories for (our customers).
To strengthen the Unique Value Proposition (UVP), there will be a need for a clear definition on the customers.
Customer Segments
There are a few customers who will document important memories, to list a few important life events:
- Birth of a Child
- Graduation
- Wedding
- Other memorable events
Based on this our target audience will be different. This is a segmentation by life cycle stage.
Other possible segmentations can be geographic, psychographic, behavioural segmentation.
Key Partners
For the ease of analysis, we have chosen the customer as graduates and next we can think of potential partners. A key question is where the customer comes from, secondary school, polytechnics, university. In order to reach the customer, we establish some partners. Potential Partners can be the Ministry of Education, the various higher education institutions, special education institutions, the various student clubs.
Key Activities
Some key activities in this business value chain is lead generation, sales, the photography services, editing, finishing, as well as packaging of the final product.
Other activities can include business functions like marketing, procurement, and other support functions.
Key Resources
The key resources of the business come from the partnerships, where you want to have exclusive rights to the customer, as well as potential incentives which you can offer. Having enough cashflow would also be important to ensure that the high overheads from studio rental. The staff would also be essential in securing sales and carrying out the business activity with standard.
Customer Relationship
The customer would first need to be baited in with something. A loss leader can be used or even offered for free to up-sell to different photography packages.
The customer can also have loyalty benefits, early discount to lock them in and returning benefits, referral discount, etc. This is also the place where you can exercise your creativity.
Channels
The channels for your photo studio can be offline or online. The offline channels which could be explored includes booths at the locations offered by various partners, where the customer will be at. For graduation, the added benefit would be also schools will usually have designated vendors for the various segments in the event, every student who wants to attend the graduation will likely take notice of your business.
Online channels through google AdWords or SEO can also generate potential leads to your website.
Costs
To list a few possibilities:
- Rental
- Salary
- Cost of Materials (Photo Frame and Photos)
- Cost of Capital (Photography Equipment, Photo Printer)
- Cost of Freebies
- Other Business and Support Costs
Revenues
To list a few possibilities:
- First Photo Sales
- Subscriptions
- Deposit for Advanced Booking
- Lifetime Membership Fee for future discounts
- Additional Add on Packages (e.g. finishing, larger photos, repeat prints, embossing, waterproofing, soft copy)
That’s a photo studio business summarised in one page, do let us know if it worked for you and do let us know the other business models you may be interested in!
Interested in exploring other business ideas? Do drop us a note at businessmodel@tanweixiang.com.
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Do look at our analysis on hair salons too! You can also read our analysis on DIY Bakery.
Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash