This might be the official launch…
OK! With this post here I have officially launched Fat Orange Cat Studio. Deep breaths, gather, gather. It’s been about 6 months in the making – 3 months of thinking a lot about it and then 3 months of actual implementation, slogging through all the many details which included:
1. Coming up with a business name. Much harder than anticipated.
2. Shooting enough pets for an online portfolio. Thank you to friends and acquaintances for offering your pets!
3. Coming up with a logo, that’s simple yet professional. Thank you Jesse!
4. Getting the online portfolio up. Still not quite finished. I’m having a difficult time writing a biography that hits the right note.
5. Trying out various print vendors and with that, ensuring that my color management is spot on. This was keeping me up at nights.
6. Designing and getting business cards made.
7. Coming up with a solid business plan. Thankfully I have a head start just by living where I do. The South End neighborhood is really just one giant beautiful dog park. There is a pair of chocolate labs, a 3-legged Sheltie, a black-and-tan Cavalier, an Airedale terrier, a chocolate standard poodle that I’m dying to photograph. I see the poodle all the time and always when I don’t have my camera on me, rrrrr.
If I bomb in this venture it would not be due to a lack of photography skills, but a lack of business/marketing/branding/networking skills. I do not want this to happen. For sure I’m quickly discovering that running a business, however small it may be, is much less about performing the actual service, and much more about executing all the details around the service to make it work.
With all that, I have devoted zero time convincing myself this is the right thing to do.
