Photography Marketplace
Snapwire is a marketplace for photographs. It leverages its community of 330,000 photographers in over 180 countries to deliver authentic, original photos to brands and businesses that need images to help illustrate a concept or tell a story.
Some of the 1800 businesses using its images include Google, Hertz and HuffingtonPost.
Commercial photography is a big business: according to a 2015 report from North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), it’s a $10 billion market.
Photos are used online on websites and blogs, on Facebook and Twitter posts, and in ads. It's been estimated that 200,000 online publishers need 20 photos a month. Photos are used offline, too, on print brochures and posters, and in magazines.
But instead of hiring pricey photographers, millions of businesses use relatively inexpensive "stock" photos that already exist. And this is a sector where investors have done well:
Getty, a stock photography pioneer, was acquired a few years ago by a private equity firm for $3.3 billion, and a relatively young company called Shutterstock (NYSE: SSTK) has a market cap of about $1.4 billion.
Snapwire is a new upstart in this sector.
A stock photography executive named Chad Newell realized that, thanks to the high-quality camera phones many of us have in our pocket, a new generation of photographers had emerged, and they were taking a lot of pictures.
In fact, one photo-sharing site called Instagram receives 70 million new photos every day.
Chad recognized that some of those photographers were very talented—and that they’d probably enjoy earning some extra income. So he decided to create a photography marketplace called Snapwire.
Here’s how it works:
Businesses create a “challenge,” where they post a description of the images they’re looking for (e.g., “authentic travel experiences,” “summer-themed cocktails,” “active families,” etc.) and they set a price and a deadline.
Then, photographers who’ve signed up on Snapwire receive notice of these challenges—and if they choose to, they can compete for the job by submitting shots.
The new "marketplace" paradigm being fostered by Snapwire is now being recognized by large incumbents such as Getty Images, Adobe, and Corbis, with whom Snapwire has signed partnership agreements.
With over 17 years in the stock photo licensing space, Chad is a domain expert.
Chad has worked for The Image Bank (acquired by Getty Images), ImageState, Adventure Photo & Film, and he co-founded Media Bakery, which had 10 million images under contract from supply lines like Getty Images and Corbis.
He attended University of California, Santa Barbara.
Ryan's an active photographer and leads product development and creative direction. He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder focusing on marketing and has worked for several startups.
Former CEO of Thomson Reuters and Reuters. Angel investor in CommonBond.
Founder of Shoedazzle, Co-founder of LegalZoom, Co-founder & CEO of Honest Co.
Angel Investor in successfully-exited companies such as Jotspot, Slide, Pluck and Varsity Group.
Former CEO of Linden Lab. Angel investor in consumer internet companies such as Twitter, Fab.com, appstore and Rally.com.