UK Sales Manager Calls Shots With Photographic Film Shop

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

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Let's talk about taking photographs. In yet another sign of my old age, here's what it was like taking pictures when I was a kid. There was no such thing as a phone with a camera. You didn't have unlimited photos for free. You actually had to buy this stuff called film and put it in a real camera.

You would go and take your pictures and then you would need to take that film to the drug store or the Photoshop, which actually existed back then, like not just the software at Photoshop, but there were actually photo shops where you'd go and drop off your film. And then at some point they came out with this thing called one hour photo, which was like a revolution because you could go on vacation or on a trip or whatever, you come back and you take your film to the one hour photo place and you only had to wait an hour instead of three days. These days, most of us don't deal with any of that process, but there is a substantial niche market of photographers that still prefer what's called analog or real film for their photography. Until recently, however, there wasn't a one-stop shop they could visit for all the supplies they needed. Well, today's story features an anonymous founder who still has his day job.

It's actually a secret, his employer doesn't know about his side hustle and we'll see how long that can continue since it's going really well. But in any case, this founder operates the online store in partnership with his mom, who was nearing retirement, but became a logistics expert to help out with taxes and shipping, all kinds of details. This story is called "UK Sales Manager Calls the Shots with Photographic Film Shop." Stay tuned for the whole story. [Music]

Did you think it was no longer possible to buy film to take pictures? Or that it was not possible to have that film developed into print pictures?

Well, if so, think again. Analog Wonderland is an online store specializing in photographic film. It stocks over 180 different types of newly produced camera film and a few accessories like cases, which are small and fit well in the same shipping package. These packages are being shipped all over the world. But first, the store's founder, Paul, and we're just gonna go with his first name only here since his employer doesn't know about his side hustle, Paul has been a film photographer for almost a decade.

Because of his firsthand knowledge of using film for photography, he is very familiar with the market. He knows the needs of other analog photographers and this real life experience also made him aware of the gaps with the retailers and brands currently serving the market. For many years, it was just a minor annoyance to Paul that there was no one-stop shop to buy items he needed for his much-loved hobby. However, the minor annoyance turned into a huge time waster when he was trying to stock up on products before going away for a three-month trip. He spent hours trawling through numerous websites and eBay, trying to find all the items he needed.

This was the moment he realized he couldn't be the only film photographer struggling with this issue. Surely others could also benefit from that one-stop shop. Paul works by day as a sales manager in a large corporation. Until he came to understand the side hustle way, he always thought that owning a business meant making a choice between a stable career or a risky startup. Analog Wonderland is his second attempt.

For his first, he thought he would use his corporate skills to teach people the art of negotiation. However, he aimed too broadly and no one understood what he was really offering. Luckily for the film photography world and for him, Paul didn't give up, he decided to regroup and try again. He had learned that frustration is often a sign of a business opportunity. He began to ask fellow film photographers lots of questions about how they went about buying film.

What he learned was that others were just as frustrated as he was. Everyone had stories of having to look endlessly for their favorite brands or having to pay import costs from other countries. With this serious gap in the market in mind, he knew what he wanted to do. The first step in starting the online photography film store was to register a domain and build a website. That was easy enough.

He used Shopify for the website architecture, but it turned out he couldn't do everything on his own and Analog Wonderland became a family affair. His sister-in-law did the branding and subsequently launched her own design agency. So two side hustles for the price of one. And meanwhile, Paul's mom on the verge of retirement became his business partner and head of logistics and finance. In a matter of weeks, she acquired a tremendous knowledge base about shipping, taxes, and accounting.

Next, they needed inventory. And unlike everything else, this part wasn't cheap. They invested 10,000 pounds from their savings. It's about $13,000 in buying enough film to stock for up to eight weeks. They also bought some buffer stocks since they weren't sure which products would sell faster than others until after the launch.

Even though it was a good amount of money, they were reassured because they realized even if they attracted no customers and the business completely failed, they could sell their inventory to an established retailer and recover much of the cost. But of course, they didn't need to. Analog Wonderland went live on May 18th, 2018. For the month prior to opening, they ran a launch campaign with a manufacturer-sponsored giveaway. People entered the giveaway by signing up with their email.

This drove interest and raised awareness. When they finally launched at 8 a.m. that day, they sent out an email announcement and they had $2,500 in sales in the first 30 minutes. There was no time to do anything other than fulfill orders and reply to email and social media messages. That evening, Paul and his mom went to the pub to celebrate, but he says they both fell asleep after one drink.

The side hustle way can be intoxicating. Four months after opening, they hit 10,000 pounds in sales, or about $16,000. Paul says that neither he nor his mother needs the money right now, so they're reinvesting their profit into marketing in hopes of growing the business further. And for him, the best part of the experience has been the sense of ownership. When you have control, every decision is yours alone.

He compares it to playing a video game, but one that pays you to play it. You can try different tools like Shopify or an email list or something else, and suddenly you're connected with people from all over the world who can see what you've built. He describes it as addictive and highly enjoyable. The nostalgic world of analog film is a modern success. You could say he's calling the shots in a market that was underexposed.

We'll have to wait and see what develops next. [Music]

All right, what a fun project and website. Congrats to Paul. I took a look at the site. I actually have a couple of comments here.

First of all, this market, this niche market, is clearly a subculture. And if you're gonna market to a subculture, you have to really understand it, okay? Because customers have the potential to be super loyal and order frequently and tell all their friends, everybody else who's part of the same subculture or hobby, but only if they trust you. So building trust and using the right vocabulary, showing empathy, showing a willingness to be helpful, which I'll talk about in a moment here, that kind of stuff can go a long way. And I think Paul does this really well because his website, which of course we're gonna link up in the show notes, it's an excellent example of an e-commerce website that is focused on selling products, which is the whole point of an e-commerce website, while still providing a great experience.

And what I mean by that is, again, the purpose of an e-commerce website is to sell products, but it can't be really good to show a bit of your personality, to do some education, to provide some other content, as long as... [Music]