Adobe Expert Digitizes Millions of Family Photos

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

In today's story, a long time Adobe employee creates the picture-perfect business by helping families store and digitize memories across generations. Among other things, he chooses a really smart name for his business that offers a lesson all of its own. It is a smart name, also an intriguing name. I'm going to go ahead and tell you what it is now because we'll tell you the story and then talk a bit more about this lesson. But the business name is Chaos2Memories. Chaos2Memories. I imagine going from one place to another. Why is that

so significant? Well, listen to the story and then we will analyze a bit more. But all in a few action-packed minutes. I respect your time. I know you're busy. You're working

on stuff. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. The story is coming right up. It took a few years to develop, but Adam Pratt got his Cytosil into focus. He's the creator

of Chaos2Memories, a way to not only scan your family photos, but also make those photos searchable. Thanks to his process, people find it easy to look for specific images and share them with friends and family. It all started when Adam took 15,000 family photos to get scanned. Upon getting them back, he quickly spotted two problems. First, the photos he got back didn't have the greatest quality. But second, he had a difficult time finding

specific photos. Finding one image from among 15,000 is a nearly impossible task. And he figured he wasn't the only one who had this challenge. After all, lots of people scan old family photos and then feel overwhelmed. So Adam decided to do something about it. In 2018, he started dabbling with this photogenic

business idea. He re-scanned some of his photos and created a way to make them searchable. With a background in graphic design and photography, Adam worked for more than 20 years in sales, training and marketing roles, much of that time at Adobe. The combo of technology, creativity and storytelling was an important foundation to his skillset. Still, he had to iterate to find the right service.

Adam's first idea was to offer in-person workshops to teach people his new system of organizing photos. The idea wasn't as illuminating as he thought it would be. Adam loved teaching, but people have different levels of technical skills. So at that point, he was glad his side hustle wasn't his day job. He still had his salary and health insurance.

Last idea, what if he sold the already organized searchable photo system to other people? Well, that sounded good, but first he had to see if anyone would value that service. He volunteered his time offering to organize photos for some good friends. In fact, he worked for 30 hours all for free. His friends loved the result and that was the Kodak moment.

Adam knew he had a golden photo opportunity. He got his first paying client and the pay was decent. The client loved the end result. But to make the business viable, Adam realized he had to increase his hourly rate. So he did that, doubling it actually, and the business snowballed from there.

After a false start with social media, where nothing much happened, he discovered the most effective way to spread the news was to partner. He partnered up with genealogy organizations, libraries, and home organizers to offer workshops and webinars. Also, a five-star review on Google Maps brought in some of Adam's best leads. Flash forward to today, Adam's business makes well into six figures annually and he's hired four part-time employees. Before the business, Adam held onto the limiting belief that he would never make enough money in his side hustle to support his family and quit his day job. But chaos to memories shot that overexposed idea to the curb.

Now after two decades of working at Adobe, Adam is retiring. He no longer needs that day job. His decision to leave was easy, he said. In fact, when he said farewell, he felt more focused and passionate about his work. Next up, he's launching new online courses, he's expanding his staff, and he's even publishing a book. Adam pictures a bright future for chaos to memories.

All right, let's look at that business name for just a moment. There's lots of lessons we could take from this story, but when I was working on it, just doing some edits, I really kind of focused, no pun intended this time, on chaos to memories because it is a very emotional sounding name, much more than a practical name. The practical service is like digitizing photos and making them searchable, but that's a feature. The benefit is creating memories, which is really what people want. The problem, the barrier standing in their way in the situation is overwhelm, which can be translated as chaos. It's just

so much data, so many images. I want to look at all my family photos from generations, but there are thousands or tens of thousands. And what they really want, again, they want memories, right? The problem is overwhelm or chaos, what they want is memories. So you name your business, the problem to the solution, and you kind of get it right away. Of course,

you need to explain what the service is, so there's pros and cons to everything. But I think you have that pithy short name, and then you describe the service, it's reflected in the messaging. He does a great job on his website with lots of frequently asked questions. People say, "I feel paralyzed because I only want to do this once. I don't want to just spend forever on it." And he's like, "No problem. I've got you. I understand, I can help. Over

the past 20 years, I've developed a proven process that works every time, even on your photos." So lots of reassurance there. Anyway, well done. Congrats, Adam. And listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/2019-2019. How about that? Episode 2020 coming up. Of course, you'll

find links to Adam's website, anything else mentioned in the episode there. If you've got a comment or question, you can also leave it for us on that site or on social media or wherever you're at. Let me know what's going on. Hope you have a wonderful day. Take care of yourself, do something for yourself, and come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

This is Siduscleschool.