Building Volume Photography Communities: Ian Hatch's Journey from Corporate to Entrepreneur

After dedicating 30 years to school photography and rising to Head of Sales at the UK's largest school photography company, Ian Hatch found himself unexpectedly redundant at age 54. Rather than retiring or changing careers, he channeled what he candidly calls his "revenge" into something extraordinary – a thriving school photography business that's grown from a single school to 66 in just three years.

One of the secrets to Hatch's continued success lies in his innovative "Moving Memories" technology. By linking printed photographs to videos through augmented reality, he's solved a persistent industry problem: low conversion rates on group photos. When parents purchase a print, they receive a QR code that, when scanned and held over the image, brings their child to life in video form. The genius lies in the exclusivity – the video content is only accessible to those who own the physical print. This approach has transformed typical sales rates from 8-10 per class to nearly 100%, with some classes recording more sales than there are students due to split households wanting their copies.

Alongside his photography business, Hatch has built MOFOTO, a thriving online community that's grown from just two members to nearly 2,600 photographers worldwide. This Facebook group fills the void left by the decline of traditional industry associations, offering support, advice, and camaraderie to volume photographers at all levels. Hatch extends this community through workshops and roadshows across the U.K., sharing his expertise on starting and scaling a school photography business.

By focusing on his strengths and partnering with specialists for everything else, he's created a business model that prioritizes work-life balance alongside profitability. "I'm an outsourcer," he explains. "I don't like to do any work. I want to be able to use the services out there."

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Transcript

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Erin Manning 0:02

Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast , the photo imaging industry's leading news source . Here's your host , Gary Pegeau . The Dead Pixels Society podcast is brought to you by MediaCclip , Advertek Printing, and Independent Photo Imagers .

Gary Pageau 0:18

Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast . I'm your host , Gary Pegeau , and today we're joined by Ian Hatch of Hatchbox , and Ian's coming to us from the UK and Ian is the guru of UK school photography almost by accident . Hi , Ian , how are you today ?

Ian Hatch 0:38

Hi , Gary , great to see you and great to talk to you . I'm doing well . Great to see you and great to talk to you . I'm doing well .

Gary Pageau 0:45

So , Ian , you're well-known in the industry . I met you at SPAC I don't know what was that two or three years ago , yeah , and I think the discussion was hey , I see what you do at the Dead Picture Society , I'm trying to do something similar in the UK with a photographer , and you've had impressive success over there with building a community around the UK volume photography market . But what's your story ? How did you get into this business ?

Ian Hatch 1:11

Well , yeah , I mean I'll touch on that very , very quickly . I mean , when we , when we saw each other three or four years ago , it was a very strange time for me but I was just starting and creating a community , I suppose more so for the volume photography industry in the UK . I go to SPAC quite regularly , I go out to America and what they do out there Calvin and the team is pretty incredible and I wanted to find and the Dead Pixels Society and what you do as well , Gary , just trying to get more collaborations the key word they use out there . So collaboration , get together with people all over the UK . So we're trying to create a community and so I did start a Facebook group at that time .

Ian Hatch 1:55

But my original story , if you like , going right back to the beginning , it starts in 1990 .

Ian Hatch 2:01

As a youngish man , just over 20 , 20 odd years old , um , I started working for um , a high street photographer in the uk , in a place called gloucester which is in the midlands in england , at that company again , you know , we didn't go to university or anything like that . I just ended up stumbling into a job that was an office job , ultimately in a high street studio really interesting , you know photography , people coming in off the streets , you know studio type stuff . But on the side that company did class school photos for a number of schools in the area . It was even thinking about it today . It was still a fairly good number . They have 30 or so schools that they had in the local area . This is 1990 and when I joined that company just to cut a long story short eight years later we were doing 1,500 schools out of that um , that office in that um , in that high street studio . Again , I will tell you , if you like , that it was all down to me it wasn't 100% down to me .

Ian Hatch 3:01

I was part of a group of people that came up with , you might say , a niche in the market , and I suppose the reason that business really exploded is because that niche became a tradition within schools , right .

Gary Pageau 3:17

Which is what's happening here in the US , right , yeah , now , at that time , were you attending any conferences , or this was all stuff you were doing on your side ?

Ian Hatch 3:27

No , at that time it was literally a very small operation in the middle of England and we were trying to just grow that business quickly , which we did do . And you know there were some conferences around the country at that time , but a lot of the . We had something called the PSPA , the School Photographers Association .

Gary Pageau 3:46

Yep , yep I remember that very well , yeah .

Ian Hatch 3:48

Yeah , but there was a UK version of it but unfortunately it was very much aimed at sort of the top echelons of school photography . There was only a handful of businesses and most of those businesses didn't really like talking to each other and they were much bigger businesses . So we did start attending that . I did start attending that occasionally with the company that was at the time , but ultimately the growth of that business was down to what we in the UK have as leavers in high school . So in high schools in America you know you have graduation ceremonies .

Ian Hatch 4:18

In the UK we didn't really have any kind of you know celebratory thing because 16 year olds in the UK it's different to the American market totally . We can't make much money out of our 16 year olds in the UK . You do make quite a bit more money out in the UK because you get them into the studios and all that sort of stuff . So the concept and the niche we stumbled across was year groups . So we took large group photographs of the the children in the year 16 leavers , but we'd also take their individual and then create a product which was the group and the individual .

Ian Hatch 4:51

So it's me and my year , if you like yeah and instead of doing that at the traditional time of year that everybody does them , we did it in the spring , so it sort of filled the gap in the time of year that was traditionally quiet for up for businesses , but it was also in the lead time up to when children left . So this was all probably just as proms were getting really popular in America and things like that .

Ian Hatch 5:12

So it's a similar thing . We were trying to find ways in which we could celebrate the end of the child's life at school , 16 year olds . But to go from , you know , 30 , 40 schools up to 1500 schools in eight years showed that there was a . We created almost created a market ultimately for that . Um . So it also meant that even if you had a photographer doing the normal stuff , we could actually do this at this time of the year and then most of the time , schools would just use us because you know they wanted that as well , and you'd end up building up your , your portfolio . So that was a very successful sort of eight years grounding in volume photography for me , really .

Ian Hatch 5:49

And then what happened is that company was purchased by the largest company in the UK . Um , so I suppose , if you know to to compare it in America in American terms , like LifeTouch purchasing a business . Ultimately we have a company called Tempest that is the dominant force in the UK . They purchased that business and then I moved down to their headquarters , so Minneapolis , or , as we call it , st Ives . I moved down to St Ives , to the head office area of where that business is located . So I worked for that company for a long time , 23 years , wow yeah . Up until 1990 , sorry , 2021, . Just after the pandemic , after the first year of the pandemic , I was made redundant by that company .

Gary Pageau 6:35

Now , was that pandemic related ? I mean , were they having trouble because of the pandemic or was it because ?

Ian Hatch 6:41

Well , I think you'll find there's a lot of politics in sometimes the upper echelons of some of these businesses really and in that , in that particular business you know , again , I would never talk negatively about any business and there were so many absolutely amazing people at that company .

Ian Hatch 6:56

They're really and they still are now , and you know , I know a lot of people that have left and people that are still there . But what happened , I think , in the upper echelons and again this is me just saying this out loud is that I felt that I , that there was a couple of people , felt threatened in , you know , in the higher level , by me and my , I suppose , ability might be the way to put it . So it fell to a couple of people to make a decision , to uh decide that I was being made redundant . When it came to me as a huge shock , to be honest with you , I thought I was probably going to retire with that company and I also remember , when I started my new company , the first school I walked into , I actually said it's Ian from Tempest , so I couldn't get him out of my head even when I started my new business .

Gary Pageau 7:40

Boy , there's a lot of people who are former LifeTouch . People are going to feel that because they say the same thing , right ?

Ian Hatch 7:47

100% . Yeah , I mean it's quite weird because when you love something so much because I really did love that business for a long time and all the people connected to it to then not be connected to it , going forward and having to start again , it was really quite a hard time for me , oh yeah .

Gary Pageau 8:02

Absolutely , really quite a hard time for me . Oh yeah , absolutely , I think a lot of people of a certain age , because you know it's no secret . You're saying at the time that earlier it was , you were in your mid-50s , right that everyone , yeah , yeah , right , it's , it's very yeah , it's very difficult 54 , I mean 54 years older .

Ian Hatch 8:17

You don't really want to be thinking about what you want to do when you grow up , do you really ? I mean , I was . I was sort of literally uh thinking , yeah , hang on a minute , I've been doing . I've been in this industry for 30 , at the time , 30 , well , 31 years I've been working in volume photography . So to turn around , say you're redundant and then think , oh , I'm going to be a taxi driver now or whatever it was . For me it was like , no , I'm gonna , I need to use these skills I've had for all this period of time . So what I thought is I need to get revenge . I was really quite revenge driven , not against the people that I liked , but against the company itself and the people that made that decision at the top end , really . But yeah , it was .

Ian Hatch 8:56

It was quite interesting to have to , you know , to have to start all over again , I suppose . But the great thing about that is I've been trying to convince the company that I work for , the largest company in the country , to look at companies like Gotphoto and look at some of the other offerings that were out there . So weirdly , I'd already been connected to Gotphoto because I'd invited them to come to a head office of that company . They didn't do that . The company I worked for previously didn't really want to know about that , because they have their own systems , they've got their own legacy and they just wanted to carry on doing what they do . Then that actually paid dividends for me , because as soon as they knew I was redundant , as soon as uh got photo knew I was redundant , they asked . They got in touch and said you know , would you like to get involved and work with us for a little while ? So that helped me out , because then , you know , I didn't feel useless as you would do if you made redundant sometimes feel as if you were .

Ian Hatch 9:47

I thought , well , actually , people , do you do care ? So they got in touch . I worked with those guys as an ambassador , as a freelance , for a while , mainly because I believed in what they were doing and they were helping out lots of small operators around the country . When I think about that , that's all I was really doing when I worked for the company the largest company in the country , because all they had was small regions all over the UK and they're literally just small businesses all over the country , you know .

Ian Hatch 10:15

So , even so , I'm coaching and helping out . You know somebody , I don't know , in Scotland who's got you know a hundred schools , and then there's somebody else in like Lincolnshire who've got 30 schools , or you know , and these people work for the same company , but they're all , if you like , almost individual businesses right all over the country so I had the experience of helping and coaching and supporting the outside staff for that company and so when I left on the work we've got photo I just sort of thought , well , this is just the same as working for the company I was with before .

Ian Hatch 10:44

All I'm doing is , you know , contact them saying look , you know , can I help ? How can I help ?

Ian Hatch 10:48

and right um , and , if I can , I've got some . I like to think I've got some advice that I can I can give out . So , so very much . That was , um , that was what happened at the time . And then , um , I also thought , why don't I start ?

Ian Hatch 11:03

If we were talking about this before we started actually workshops , I sort of thought , well , what I've got might be worth offering out to people to to hear really about . You know , I've seen businesses fail . I've seen businesses do really well . I've grown businesses quickly .

Ian Hatch 11:19

So I thought I had quite a lot of a broad experience as a , you know , to help people grow their businesses really , company I worked for before they do graduations , they do military photography , they do yearbooks . They just started , actually , ironically , one of my they started doing tempest travel , which is , uh , ships photography , yeah , yeah , probably on ships . Um , and ironically , the introduction to make that happen was made by me into into the company and that was all happening just as I was leaving . So , anyway , but , but it's nice to see that they're diversifying and they're trying different areas of the market , but anyway . So so I created these workshops and all of a sudden , around about the time I was starting , that somebody who also used to work for that company previously said to me you should start a social media group because I think that we could make a little bit of a you know , just a .

Gary Pageau 12:06

We could have a little chat online and talk about , you know , school photography and volume and stuff and I said well , I don't know , I don't know , I mean , if you , if you join , then at least there'll be two of us , we I suppose we could .

Ian Hatch 12:18

We could start , you know , and so I did I that , literally that day , I set up what's called mofoto , m-o-f-o-t-o , and that's a social media group on on facebook . You know , not everybody's on Facebook , but a lot of us oldies are are on there . And lo and behold , when I started that up , within you know five or ten days or so , we were up to 30 , 40 , 50 people joining up , and it started with people that I knew and people that I'd previously known through the company I worked for before . And then , before you know it , I was starting to look at other social media groups doing a similar thing , not just in the UK but across in America , and I thought I would love to get you know a hundred people , or you know Right exactly . And then , before you know it , we did have over a hundred people , and then the next minute , we were heading towards a thousand , and now we've got 2000, . I think it's 2600 , nearly nearly 2600 .

Gary Pageau 13:09

Well , I'm one of those people .

Ian Hatch 13:11

Well , thank you . Thank you for that , Gary . I appreciate that that's really good , but yeah , it's sort of we've hit on something . There was obviously a gap . I suppose a gap in the market for people being able to talk about volume photography , because I've just been to the photography show in London a few weeks back where I did a session that was basically a lot of people ignore volume photography in photography because they don't understand that it's actually a great opportunity to run a business and make a business work , whereas studio photography and wedding photography it's quite a hard graft . You know it's hard work to get repeat business and constantly be on on it getting business , you know , in in through your studio or or whatever , whereas the volume side of things is often looked down upon . However , once you get a client , an account , the repeat business and annual repeat business it's such an opportunity it really is .

Gary Pageau 14:30

people don't realize so well , and the other thing is is that it's photography , but it's different , right ? I mean , if your drive is to get that great bridal shot or the , the , you know the wedding shot or whatever , you probably aren't going to be satisfied doing very true .

Ian Hatch 14:47

Yeah , right , because it's photography , but it's a different beast .

Gary Pageau 14:49

It's a lot of . That's right . It's not fashion . Yeah , exactly , it's a lot it's right , it's not fashion .

Ian Hatch 14:53

Yeah , exactly , it's not fashion . It's not . It's not photographing eagles in the highlands in scotland and you know the landscape shot . It's not that it's still important .

Gary Pageau 15:02

I mean , that's the thing . These are still important . Uh , memories for parents yes , I'm not diminishing the importance of it , I'm just saying it's a different style . And you know , sometimes you see that at events like SPAC , where you get people who are coming in , who are coming from that world , and you know they're they're thinking like you are . If I could just pick up five or 10 schools , it'll help my fall , because that's my slow season and it's it's a different , difficult adjustment because they want to do three poses , they want to do yeah , yeah , difficult , difficult adjustment because they want to do three poses .

Ian Hatch 15:33

They want to do yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , I mean 100 . You've hit the nail on the head there . Really , there are people out there that if they do , if they did , 10 to 20 schools a year , they could enjoy some of the stuff they like . They want to do , right , uh , which is go off and photograph eagles up in the highlands or in in you know , montana or whatever . Do you know what I mean ? It's like they could do that if they had a little volume business together and and and and what . I suppose you know .

Ian Hatch 15:55

When I'd left Tempest , I was even even . I didn't even think I was going to run a school photography business . I mean , the first thing I did after I was made redundant in March was the September of that year and I'd done a bit of work , got photo in between . I thought , well , I know revenge , I need to get some revenge . I'm , my wife is a teacher . They're not having that school . I'm going to take it off them . So we took that school as our very first one in about six months after I left that company and when I saw the results , I realized that I need to do this for a living . You know , I was like I should be just doing this for a living . I reckon I can get 20 schools is what I thought , and I suppose . Suppose the other thing to remember is that although I worked for the national company , I didn't have any contacts , I didn't know any teachers , I wasn't photographing in any of that stuff . I had to start completely from scratch , you know .

Gary Pageau 16:41

So what was your role at Tempest ? When you left , what was your like ?

Ian Hatch 16:45

Well , I was head of sales . That was my job , head of sales . So you were actually calling on people , you were helping the sales people call on people . That I was more of a mentor , I suppose you would say more of a coach , more of a support network for not just the hundred they got , 120 regions . That tempest have got spread out uh , roughly , or maybe 100 , maybe less these days , but that was like looking after 100 businesses , I suppose , and I had direct sales people whose job it was to go out every day and sell . But but I talked , I never really walked the walk . Do you know what I mean ?

Gary Pageau 17:15

It's interesting because if you look at you know that sort of mentality wanting to be a mentor , wanting to be a coach that dovetails completely into the MoFoto stuff . That's more of a natural transition for you . But anyway , going back , you started that fall with one school . Now I have a question . You started that fall with one school . Now I have a question . One thing I've noticed is that for a lot of people , covid was because there was a pause there . They gave them a chance to reinvent the business . Right , they went to a got photo , they went to a photo day or you know whatever Keptour's platform is , et cetera .

Gary Pageau 17:51

They were able to evaluate that , but you didn't have to do that because you were starting from scratch .

Ian Hatch 17:56

yeah , I mean to be that's quite , it's true I mean it's quite exciting what you're saying really , because before , just before covid , when I was working for tempest , one of the things I was trying to pioneer was was contactless photography , so paperless photography , so you don't need to print anything , you don't need to hand anything over , you just either messaging , texting or emailing to parents . So I was trying to pioneer that from within the company and then COVID came along and actually it made the company more prepared when COVID came along to be able to do that . So I kind of ironically helped them a little bit in the latter stages of before COVID came along . But yeah , what it meant was that explosions . It really does help like the companies like got photo net life , all the overseas ones , photo day , like , say , everyone that's at spac . It really helped them become more attractive because people thought , well , during covid that's , you know , the systems that are now successful during that period are now ones that most people can use quite easily . And again , 10 years ago you couldn't really start a business up in this space unless you had lots of experience or you had lots of things lined up to be able to do it . But now with those kind of software platforms , as long as you can get the work and you can photograph it . You can use these off-the-shelf workflows to literally get it to your client and get the money and bring the money back to you . So it was never been so , so easy , really , as I was going into starting the business as um , as compared to what it's been like in the past , really .

Ian Hatch 19:25

So , yeah , we started out with one school . When I saw the results , um , I was very happy , and not only that , I got two ex-photographers from the company I'd worked for before to come and do the photography for me . So it was like a little little group of people that you know had worked for that company and that went very well . And then , going into 2022 , I decided I needed to do it properly . So I started to call on schools and again , I had no contact , so I did it completely from from scratch . As I went into 2022 , I managed to get about 10 to 15 schools booked into the diary for that year . So I've gone from 1 to 15 or so .

Ian Hatch 20:02

But it was the middle part of the year where things really changed , because I met some guys at one of the conferences in London and they had an augmented reality service basically , so they basically could link an image to a video . And the irony of that is that seven years ago , when I worked for the other company , I was trying to find out ways in which that I could link video to a photo to make the photo more appealing to the client . Now what you have to remember is , in those situations , what I was trying to do was improve the sales of big groups . So we have a group of , say , 300 people in a photo and at the moment you get 30 people who might buy that photo . It's the same picture but you just get 30 . Why aren't you getting , you know , three or 500 people buying that picture instead of just the 30 ? So when I worked for for that company , I was trying to work out how I could increase the sales of that . How could I get go from 30 to ? It would just make much , so much more money . All you're doing is just getting more people . They're all in it in the photo . So we started doing videos . You know , after the group of people coming past the camera and waving at the camera and trying to say that this , this video , is linked to this picture .

Ian Hatch 21:10

Now , at the time , the time seven or eight years ago it wasn't easy to find a way to link the two things together and make the print more desirable .

Ian Hatch 21:19

So when I started my own business , I met these guys who had this augmented reality sort of I suppose solution .

Ian Hatch 21:24

I said to them look , if we can create a web service where I upload an image and I upload a video and you give me a QR code that I hold over my , that I scan and then I hold it over my print and you make the print come to life and the video's only available if you've got that photo , I said can you , can you do that ? And eventually they said yes . They said you just write out sort of a bit of a workflow that you'd like and we'll try and do that for you . And so a little bit of a learning curve . The first year I did one school where I photographed and we did individual videos as well for individual children . So the children spoke for five to 10 seconds and then we linked it to the picture . When you buy the picture , if you spend a certain amount , we'll give you this QR code and then you scan the QR code and that photograph will come to life . What I found was that that became incredibly popular , and not just now ?

Gary Pageau 22:13

can mom or dad share that video , or is it , you know , once they've ?

Ian Hatch 22:17

no , the video to explain it is always difficult in these situations . That's why it's been so powerful to show it to people . But , um , yeah , what you do is the qr code . Once you've scanned it , it's on your device that the actual the link is on your device . So you hold your device over the print that you purchased and that video comes to life .

Gary Pageau 22:37

Now , if someone in another state . That kind of stuff's been around for a while . I mean it's , it's , yeah , yeah , yeah , do that too yeah , there certainly is .

Ian Hatch 22:43

I mean chris garcia and stuff . We were out that we we did actually a session at spank talking about with chris and with and with the other guy I can't remember what's his name , the other guy from California Cornerstone Photography .

Gary Pageau 22:54

That's right .

Ian Hatch 22:55

Yeah , Cornerstone , that's it . So , yeah , basically in 2022 , we started doing it . It became popular and I started showing it to other schools and then all of those schools were literally falling over themselves to want to get involved . So the great thing about it is the video is not online . Okay , the video is not online . Okay , the video is not online . The only way you can see the video is if you buy the print Right , because to activate the video , you have to have the print in front of you . Okay , so if mum and dad live in different houses , mum needs one as well as dad . It's the same QR code , so they both have the same QR code , but they're in different houses .

Ian Hatch 23:34

So what we started to find was when we did a group picture of 30 kids the class photograph size instead of eight to ten people buying a group of 30 , we were getting 25 , you know , in some cases , 32 people more photographs being bought than there are children in the picture , because there's split households .

Ian Hatch 23:46

Yeah , well , yeah , and we and we knew we'd hit on something , because normally you get eight orders out of a 30 and you end up with 30 and sometimes more than 30 , you know and or you don't always get 100 , so 28 , 27 , whatever , but you were getting big numbers for one photo . So , and with one one qr code , um , and so we knew we'd hit on something there . So moving memories became . That's what we ended up , sort of naming it , if you like . Moving memories became a natural part of what we do . We wouldn't do it at the in the in the autumn term , when you're doing the normal profitable stuff . So you know , most school businesses across the whole world they have a portrait sort of term when they're just doing portraits and that's what the parents buy and if you're doing , you know in our primary schools they're not very big compared to america .

Ian Hatch 24:29

If you do 300 children , you don't want to be stopping with every single one to do a video . So we have taken the same concept we did with the when I worked for the photographer in gloucester many years ago . We created a niche , so the levers have it . So you just do it for your levers , right ? So you've already photographed them in the autumn term , just before they're going to leave that school . You photograph them again , but you do a video with it . This time you sell the photographs in the normal way , but when the parents buy , they get this special video they can only get if they buy their prints . So that that has been really successful . So , going into 2023 , we were then heading towards 40 odd schools and last year we got we're up to 66 now . So to go from you know one in 20 at the end of 2021 to 66 in this year , let's say it's just my incredible personality that's done it , gary .

Gary Pageau 25:18

Of course , of course , yeah , no , I mean , who wouldn't want ? I want to move to the UK and have children , just so you can photograph them clearly .

Ian Hatch 25:25

Well , thank you so much , Gary . That's it . That's what we need . We need more parents that want children . That's what we need .

Ian Hatch 25:30

Yeah , of course , of the kind of story and in the background , while that was happening with my own business , I was doing a few workshops you might say coaching trying to support other smaller operators that were starting up and as similar to what's happened in in America with LifeTouch is , you get people that have worked for that company for a long time that then decide to move on and when they move on , they may start up their own business .

Ian Hatch 25:53

And what was happening similar in the UK is people were leaving and they were naturally coming to . People like myself who'd already already done that as well , start up their own business . And what was happening similar in the UK is people were leaving and they were naturally coming to people like myself who'd already done that as well , and getting support and and and and , realizing that actually they could do it on their own . You know they could do it on their own and with the software options that are out there being very successful very quickly as well at doing it on their own . So the Facebook group was very much for me . It was sort of therapy for myself almost . It's like I was able to , you know , put things out there and then people started to realise very , very quickly that there was almost a need .

Ian Hatch 26:28

You know , other people wanted therapy too , other people wanted to know that they were doing the same thing wrong in a different place , whether that's in the world or whether that's in in the uk . I mean , most people in the group are uk . That's the huge majority , but there are now a lot of americans because of spac I've been out there a lot of people have joined .

Ian Hatch 26:46

There's a lot of australians in there some south africans as well , and you know we've got we've got a whole wide range of people that I've got the same problem , no matter where you are in the world , with , with volume photography and with questions with lighting and all that sort of stuff .

Gary Pageau 27:02

And do you have the same challenges that they have in the United States with student privacy Cause that's a big issue here where some of the technology I mean for some of that what ? Is the situation over there .

Ian Hatch 27:14

Well , I think you'll find it that GDPR is one of those words , that we call it gdpr , the general data protection regulation .

Gary Pageau 27:21

Yeah , we have here so , yeah , same thing .

Ian Hatch 27:23

So I mean , from from our point of view , it's not so much of a problem in that we are dealing with school offices and , uh , principals and that the people that are responsible for what goes on in the school , and quite often what happens is that they get the wrong information and believe they can't share anything with you because they're trying to protect the parents and quite often you know there's a lot of miscommunication and they don't really understand and all that sort of stuff .

Ian Hatch 27:53

So it's actually quite hard work as a business person persuading the school and saying actually what we're doing here is to benefit the school , to benefit the parents , to make it easier for the parents and so , yeah , gdpr is a .

Ian Hatch 28:05

There's been a few hoops that we've had to sort of jump through to make sure that we're doing the right thing . Um , and ultimately we are doing the right thing , as long , as you know , consent is given by the parents ultimately , and in most cases that's well , in 99.999 percent of the time , that's that is the case , because obviously , if we say to our schools if , if there is any issue with gdpr , you don't want your children to be photographed , then we won't photograph them , and and that has to be the starting point . It really does . But , you know , most of the time parents want the photos or they want to see them . Even if they don't want to buy them , they want to be able to . They're quite happy to have their child photographed for record . Um , as you know , as far as my experiences go , really and they have done for a for a long time- are uk photographers also doing all the other things like id badges and those kind of things ?

Ian Hatch 28:54

yeah , yeah , I mean id badges . Uh , photographers do do and and make that available in this . Normally that's more of a secondary or a high school thing . The market I've been focusing on is primary age , so the six-year-olds to 11-year-olds is what I focus on . We don't really get much call for id badges . You do get them for staff id badges . You know that staff needing them . But the senior market market the 11 year olds to 16 year olds there's a little bit more of that . But again , id badges are not necessarily something in this country that we haven't really taken on that .

Gary Pageau 29:26

We've got different security concerns , frankly in the UK than in the United States Socially . So that's yeah , Now over here in terms of copyright , you know we've got several states that are saying you know you have to delete the images after two years and things like that . Is there anything like that happening in the uk because of the ?

Ian Hatch 29:45

uk schools , a lot of them now , are in trusts , you know , groups of schools , you have this in districts , I think , and things like that over there . So so we , we have trusts . So sometimes you , there might be a trust driven concept that we have to follow but not normally to do . I mean , occasionally I get questions about how long you're going to keep the images and that sort of stuff and we just , you know , we can get rid of them whenever you like , really , if you want us to . But ultimately those questions do come up , but I don't think it's quite as a much of an issue as it might be in some of the places in in the us , in the states .

Ian Hatch 30:17

Really , we are very lucky . I think our market is barely simplistic , depend , uh , base , you know , compared to some of the things that happen . I mean , when I , when I go to some of the events at SPAC and listen to them talk about district tenders and things like that , I think I'm so glad I'm not in that world . But we , we are very lucky that we , most of the time and it still seems to be the case now uh , individual decisions are made by individual schools and that's really , really good for us ? Um , because it means that you can really focus on working on the schools you want rather than the ones you don't , because there's quite a lot of schools in a trust that some of them , you don't actually even want . Really , you don't want the contract for all of them , because there are certain ones that you , you specifically want .

Ian Hatch 31:00

So , yeah , and that's the same for me down here . I mean , I'm very focused on being regional . I don't go any further than , uh , 60 miles that way to the right . If you go to the left , it's america as far as you go , because I'm right down the bottom of cornwall so I've only got a 60 mile radius going to the right of where I live .

Ian Hatch 31:17

that I would really want to work in at the moment . I mean and that may change as we get bigger and bigger but at the minute I'm happy with that kind of you know we're not having to drive to too much more than about an hour a day to any sort of school really .

Gary Pageau 31:33

So let's talk a little bit about the MoFoto community and the MoFoto in-person events you've kind of done , because that's sort of been an outgrowth of this . It started as a two-person Facebook page and it's really grown into a pretty significant entity , like you said , filling a vacuum that PSBA UK once held . Like you said , filling a vacuum that PSPA UK once held , and I don't think you know I mean SPAC has tried some . I know they did a meeting last year in the UK . I don't know if they did it this year , but it's certainly something that you know there's an appetite for , so you've tapped into that , yeah , yeah , I mean , there's a couple of us in the industry .

Ian Hatch 32:12

We mentioned a few names earlier . There's Harry out in Norway , there's a few in europe , a few people , and nothing would please me more than to get a european version of smack going , something like that . That would be really , really great , but I suppose , in the meantime , the the best version of it is the online community that we've currently got um , and that that community , as I say , and now it's grown to us the size it has grown to , we're attracting people who want to learn more , and in some cases , they're people that have been in the industry a long time . I've been saying that I'm going to do some workshops and now , especially now in the last year or so , I've not only have I said I can do it , I've proved that I can do it by running my own business from scratch , really . So to then have a workshop saying , look , you know , I started with nothing and now I've got this . Uh , this is how I did it . I'm quite happy to share that with anybody who wants to come , and so I had , uh , what I have . I've done some zooms this year with with uh , 12 , 12 or 14 people in it . Last year I went on about four or five different road shows around the country doing it . I also went to a got photo roadshow this year with with some of their users at that event as well . But yeah , mo , photo has grown into this marketplace .

Ian Hatch 33:18

I suppose where you can get help really and the extension of that is running these , these workshops . But as I say to anybody that comes to any of my workshops , ultimate all I'm interested in is finding ways in which I can help them to win some tools or keep the ones they've got , or be more profitable or find better solutions of working in this industry . Because you know , I'm a very simple guy and with my business I'm an outsourcer . I don't like to do any work . Yeah , I don't want to do anything for myself . I want to be able to use the services that are out there right , and there are people that can do it better than you . It's like my . I don't do my own printing because I would never want to do that , because there are great printers out there that you can automate your processes with . Same goes for . That's how I feel , and if anybody wants to run their business differently , I've been involved with businesses that run it where they own it all themselves . It's all in-house .

Gary Pageau 34:07

Yeah , the vertically integrated model , as they say , totally , and that can work . I mean , that's one of the beautiful things about this . Yeah , there's really no one way to do it , or not ? I mean , when I talk to people at SPAC or SPOA or things you know , it's always interesting to see when you hear people saying oh , you know , I , you know , I used to print , then I outsourced it and I'm much more profitable . And then there's other people saying you know , I outsource some , but I'm going to bring in the gift items . Right , I'm going to do those in-house .

Gary Pageau 34:39

And you have that flexibility .

Ian Hatch 34:42

It's perfect because I've got quite a few people who I speak to who are in MoFoto , who they would always want to print their own stuff because they really , truly believe they're making more money and I think they are making more money for sure than I am , but I'm happier . Do you know what I mean ? So you can look at it in different ways really . I mean he's happier because he's got more money , I'm happier because I've got more time , you know . So what suits you ? It doesn't necessarily suit others , but the good thing about it is to be able to look at it from you know , without ego . Look at it and say actually , yeah , that suits you , you do it that way . But here are some other ways you can do these things . And I'm not here to tell you to change and I'm not necessarily saying I'm the guru , but I'm certainly someone who's got a lot of experience of it being done in different ways .

Ian Hatch 35:24

And you know , like I say , I've worked for that company . It's all in-house . I mean , I'll tell you what another thing is . You probably don't realize I've actually been to LifeTouch's headquarters in Minneapolis . I've actually been in the boardroom there a few times because our company in the UK used to have a relationship with LifeTouch and so we sometimes did an exchange visit . So I went with three of our other senior managers out to Minneapolis , probably 2000 , and trying to think now 17 . It was just before they , or just after they bought Shutterstock , not Shutterstock Shutterfly . Yeah , just after they bought shutterfly .

Gary Pageau 35:58

I literally went out , it was the other way around . Shutterfly bought them .

Ian Hatch 36:01

But yeah , yeah , sorry , I mean the other way around , but shutterfly bought them . I went out literally as that changeover was , uh was happening and uh again , it was really interesting because they were very , very in-house , almost insular , it's kind of kind of business where they didn't really outside influences , weren't really coming in . So that was amazing time because they finally got all this , these onlookers from outside coming in and sort of trying to shuffle the business around and change it a little bit really . But and again , I'm not necessarily saying that was a good thing for life touch possibly , um , because you know , like , like with everything , most of the actual , real business is done down at ground level by the local people servicing photographers , servicing those schools .

Ian Hatch 36:42

That's where you know even the company I worked for before . That's where they're strong . They're not necessarily strong because of their name or because of their legacy . It's about those human beings that they've got on the ground in those areas that make it really , really special . And that's why I knew when I grew my business that I could be like that . You know , it's you . You just have to become the go-to person in your area , um , or the one of the go-to choices in your areas . That's why , especially with doing something like moving memories , it made me stand out a little bit . So I I think I gained an advantage because I had something totally different they'd not seen before . So you know , that did help me with a fairly quick increase in the numbers and stuff .

Gary Pageau 37:23

And you had the flexibility to be able to turn on a dime and do that . You want to introduce a new product , make a change . You don't have to run it up the district and run it up the corporate and have somebody up on it and run it down and then you know , have , have you know , 17 people in marketing ? Look at it and everything else .

Ian Hatch 37:39

you can pretty much and then and then it still wouldn't go anywhere . Yeah , you're right . You're right . Do you know what I mean ? Honestly , it's so true . Some of these businesses is you know . Uh , it was quite interesting . Life touch as well . They talked about background replacement , or what they call it . Yeah , the three letter acronym , was it brt ? They called it back on replacement therapy I always think of . Anyway , when I went to see LifeTouch , they were almost upset that they'd introduced it to the market because it became a bit of a pain in the ass for them . Do you know what ?

Ian Hatch 38:06

I mean it's like they they created this new thing , which you know was was quite good , and you know you have all these different types . Parents loved it . Yeah , exactly , but because they created it and they made it happen , it then became almost neat , well wanted , needed in the marketplace . It was interesting that their take on it was oh my God , we've created this monster .

Gary Pageau 38:24

And you know , we've created a whole industry for ourselves . Yeah , ultimately .

Ian Hatch 38:28

Yeah , yeah , exactly Exactly so , yeah , it just made me laugh . And that what's also made me laugh is my company that I used to work for is now doing the same thing down here . They've just started doing , you know , image replacement for backgrounds and things like that . But it's just good to have a community out there that we can talk about these things really , and I'm a massive fan of SPAC and what Calvin and Corey and even Matt the younger ones they've got now coming through on the board at SPAC , what they're doing and again , again , emulating that anywhere else in the world , um , you know , especially in Europe would be brilliant , I think , really , and and the Facebook group is a little tiny bit of that really a little tiny bit of support for for us out there . So awesome .

Gary Pageau 39:11

Well , where can people go for more information about MoFoto , Hatchbox photography , moving memories , all the other things that you're involved in ? 100% ?

Ian Hatch 39:22

Gary , thank you very much for that . Well , there's two things you can do . One is just go to Facebook if you're not already part of the group . It's all about volume photography for schools , nursery sports , dance , mainly in the UK and Europe , but all across the world . We've got people from all over the world . We've got people from all over the world , so don't be frightened of joining that group .

Ian Hatch 39:40

Facebook group is called MoFoto M-O-F-O-T-O . We also have a Facebook group for moving memories as well , so that's like a users and support group . So if you use moving memories in your business , or you want to , or you're interested in it , there's a support group called moving Memories Support and User Group . Ok , that one's only got about 232 people in it because it's really new .

Ian Hatch 40:11

And again , that's a place where I often post information about what I'm doing with Moving Memories and how I do things , because people always ask how do you do it ? Why do you do it ? All those sorts of questions are answered in there , because ultimately for me , that is something that really even this year as well . We're doing something called time tag hoodies . So we've got hoodies now that come to life . So this particular image on my arm when you hold your phone over it , it plays a video as well , so that's something that can also enhance what I do in levers , because every lever in the uk has a hoodie so we're looking at selling hoodies that have an image on that plays a video that ties into the photography that we do as well .

Ian Hatch 40:49

So there's there's lots of little exciting things going on , but wait and get hold of me . Facebook group mofoto . Facebook group moving memory support and User Group it's called Awesome .

Gary Pageau 40:59

Well , thank you , ian , it's been great catching up . It's always a pleasure when I see you at SPAC and look forward to seeing what you're up to again .

Ian Hatch 41:07

Thank you very much Gary take care .