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Before the rise of digital technology and without a talent for photography, Austin Haines always knew he was going to develop a national chain of digital photo studios.
Five years after rounding up venture capital, he accomplished what he set out to do in the form of a franchise company, DigiQuick Portrait Studios Inc.
Now with 27 franchised studios nationwide under a new company, Clix Portrait Studios, the venture is launching a different kind of business for home-based franchisees at a reduced cost and with a new focus - outside events instead of in-studio portraits.
Instead of paying some $200,000 for a bricks-and-mortar studio similar to the Clix studios in Greece and Victor, franchisees can pay in the range of $30,000 and set up their own studio on-site at the events they shoot.
The original idea behind Clix a decade ago was fueled with capital from Trillium Group LLC's Monroe Fund and individual investors including Richard Kaplan, president and CEO of Pictometry International Corp.; Colby Chandler, former chairman and CEO of Eastman Kodak Co.; and Richard Fox, president of Wendy's Restaurants of Rochester Inc.
Prior to implementation of his business plan, Haines said, industry insiders called it farfetched, even impossible. In the 1990s, the image quality of digital cameras costing $13,000 or more was inferior to the quality of most BlackBerrys today.
Haines, with a long career in photo processing, said he was just biding his time, waiting for the technology to catch up to his dream.
Without his ever doing a photo shoot, Haines' jobs have always involved photography. His first company was among the first one-hour photo finishers in Rochester. After selling it to Moto Photo Inc., he started a new venture doing lab processing for portrait studios.
Around that time he started to understand the improvements possible in the portrait industry. Many portrait photographers, Haines explained, are artists, not businesspeople, and he found the sales volume from photographers often unreliable.
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The experience with portrait photographers gave Haines the insight to develop a concept whereby photography and processing can be done in one place, without proofs and within a tight window of time.
And digital was the only way to do it.
To keep a close eye on the unfolding...