Company History (About us)
A BRIEF HISTORY OF FORTUNE PHOTO BOOTH
My name is Soren and I am the owner of Fortune Photobooth, here in Sunny Portland, OR USA. Everyone Loves a Photo Booth, and this is the story of how Fortune Photobooth began and how it can lead to your own profitable photo booth rental company.
My Mission: To make the best portable photo booth possible. In order to be the best the booth must; fit into a car, feel like a photo booth, look like a photo booth, be able to be set up by one person, and be a ton of fun!
History: You may have heard about Portland, Oregon in the TV show “Portlandia.” That about sums this place up. A place where people are free to go into a photo booth any time they please, even if they’re riding a unicycle or have large ear hole plugs and are covered with tattoos.
I came to designing photo booths through my career as a Photographer www.portlandphotographer.com (1996-present) I loved photo booths and looked into buying one for my Wedding and Portrait photo studio. What I really didn’t want to do is to get one I needed a truck and a trailer to get around. I also lived a former life as a Chemist (MA Chemistry OSU, 1996) and I knew I didn’t want to mess with the chemicals involved in a traditional photo booth. That left me with little choice but to either wait till someone came up with a portable photo booth or do it myself.
Halloween 2006 I made my first prototype of a photo booth and I “wore” it to a Halloween Party. Sure it didn’t print, and sure it was basically made out of duct tape, but it was a start. I was hooked, and determined to build a fully functional booth that I could incorporate into my photography business. A few months and 10 more prototypes later and I had something I could rent out. Then came several years of modifying, writing software and manufacturing components to make it really sturdy and portable, and functional.
What I soon realized was that this thing was big, bigger than just an add on to my photography business. I had to start a separate side of the company just to rent out booths in the Portland area, not necessarily just with my own weddings. People loved it!, Businesses Loved it, Kids, Grandparent, even pets loved it! Every event we did, we got more business. We had to make our own market in Portland since no one knew it was available. yet, it didn’t take long and we had 2 booths, then 3, then by 2009 we had 6! I really had to design this thing to fit into a car and be easy to use so I could hire people to set them up at parties while I was running one at another.
By the end of 2009 I had all the basic building blocks that we use now in our portable photo booth kit. We decided that selling the booths outright instead of franchising was more our style, do we began The sales side of the business (www.fortunephotobooth.com) while maintaining our rental side (www.portlandphotobooth.com)
The Business:
I not only sell photo booths, I sell photo booth businesses. That is really exciting to me, to give someone the tools to make money and make people happy at the same time. Our booth can be used in many ways and there are many avenues to make money with a booth. Many people rent them to weddings and parties, Bar Mitzvahs, and Sweet 16′s. There are also many corporate uses; holiday parties, trade shows, product launches, product advertising. Normally my model has you renting the booth for a flat fee, paid by the party host or company/event sponsor. This way the photo booth appears to be Free!
I am in the rental business so I can help you start your own rental business. I sell the booths, but I also use them which gives us an advantage over the competition. We can give you tons of practical advice to get you started. We can even design you a website and start your advertising program at the same time you learn the booth.
Our support of the booths is something I’m really proud of. Call me and see what I mean. I am there for you when you buy a booth to help you get started quickly. I know if you are successful I will be too. It won’t be long till you want booth number two or hopefully three. I want to help you be the photo booth master of your area.
We design our own software to work in our photo booths so we can help shape the photo booth rental business with new innovations and features. I want to keep photo booths fun and popular for the long haul. Our Flip Book Software is just one example of how we are innovating in the industry.
What still inspires me about photo booths is how much enjoyment it brings to people at an event. I see it it almost every day, people constantly let me know how much fun they had in our photo booth, or how much more fun we made their wedding. I am inspired by it and I love to share this enthusiasm with you, and other business entrepreneurs who want to start their own successful photo booth rental business.
We are bringing joy to the people 4 photos at a time! I am here for answering your questions, motivating and for giving support. Call me personally to chat about our photo booths.
Soren Coughlin-Glaser
(503) 230-1181 www.fortunephotobooth.com