Made in Tarrant: Couple finds focus with pictures enterprise, neighborhood help 

Business editor Bob Francis spoke with Rachel and Danny Duran about their enterprise. 

Forget Me Not Pictures is owned by Rachel and Danny Duran, who’ve been offering pictures providers to the world for over 15 years. Their portfolio of pictures and video providers contains weddings, household portraits, youngsters/senior portraits, and small companies. 

Forget Me Not Pictures

Contact data:

Location: 2726 Lipscomb St. , Fort Worth 76110 

Phone: 682-233-0631 

Website: forgetmenotpictures.net

Email: [email protected]

Bob Francis: Why don’t we begin at first? How did you get into pictures? 

Rachel Duran: Danny and I had been each photographers on our personal. He had his personal firm and I had my very own. 

Over the years, we developed a friendship. We had this frequent curiosity in pictures and, quick ahead, we are actually married and have a son. We mixed each of our companies and we created Forget Me Not Pictures. We obtained our LLC and integrated two years in the past. Braver Together helped us facilitate that. We labored with their Braver Business Academy that we’re a part of, and we’re grateful for that. 

We’ve grown. My husband was working full time for a pictures firm, doing college pictures. He left that job and we began to focus primarily on our private enterprise, Forget Me Not Pictures. Starting this yr, round March, we actually invested in our new web site, and we obtained all the pieces working and did SEO and such. We employed a video advertising and marketing group. We created a customized advert and we began working adverts on Meta. We’ve simply actually seen a distinction within the traction we’ve had. We’ve obtained much more bookings over the previous six to eight months.

Everything’s been quick observe. We’re maintaining with shopper emails. We simply obtained an inquiry this morning to do a marriage subsequent March. Like any enterprise, we’re simply attempting to remain busy. 

Francis: How did every one in every of you get began in pictures?

Rachel: I took a pictures class in highschool at North Crowley. That’s once they nonetheless had darkish rooms. I fell in love with the processing a part of movie. That was the primary time I ever actually used knowledgeable digicam. I had borrowed one in every of my aunt’s previous cameras, that’s the place I fell in love with pictures.

I obtained my first official digicam again in 2011 once I had my daughter, and he or she was my first actual topic. I obtained actually good at it.

My accomplice on the time was like, “Hey, why don’t you do this for money?” 

So I simply went to the Woodshed Smokehouse off University Drive and there was a dwell band enjoying. I had my digicam with me and I took images of them as a result of I wished to follow with my new digicam. The band approached me afterwards and requested if I wished to take images of them for actual. I used to be like, “Sure.” That was truly my first paying gig. They paid me $75. I used to be like, “Oh, so this is how it works.”

I began out doing native band pictures at first, after which I began doing households. And my enterprise grew largely phrase of mouth at first. I didn’t have an internet site. I believe I began a Facebook web page years down the road. It wasn’t till my husband and I collaborated with Forget Me Not Pictures that we actually began to market and attempt to attain out for extra leads.

Danny Duran: I began pictures in school. I used to be simply looking for a job. The solely job obtainable at Tarleton State was as campus photographer. I had by no means actually achieved pictures earlier than, however they gave me a digicam, despatched me out. My first task was capturing some Buddhist monks from Tibet who had been touring, doing their chants. I simply fell in love with it. They despatched me to such a singular occasion. I obtained to speak to the monks. They sat down with me, taught me meditate, after which I watched their present, and it was simply such an incredible expertise. Then, I obtained paid for it! So I used to be hooked ever since then.

That was form of my first introduction. My first main shopper that made me love pictures was working for Operation Rock the Troops. They had been doing Fashion Rocks excursions for exhibits for the troops. I used to be employed as their photographer and videographer, and that was one in every of my first main gigs. That launched me to a bunch of bands, after which these bands began getting married, and so they requested me to begin doing their weddings.

Then I met any person from the Dallas Observer at a kind of occasions, and I began working for the Observer and it’s simply form of been snowballing from there. 

It’s been an awesome enterprise to begin this enterprise with my spouse. We had been freelancing off our personal names. And so after we got here collectively, we wished to create one thing extra. So hopefully, in the future we may handle our firm and ship out different photographers. We wish to be not simply Danny Duran.com or Rachel Eubanks pictures.com, we wished one thing extra that we may develop. So we selected to make the LLC. 

Francis: And you may have a studio, proper? 

Rachel: It’s a coworking house, LaunchBox Collective on the southside. We workplace out of there and lease the studio. 

Francis: Do you do largely pictures or video or each? 

Rachel: Photography appears to be our principal work, however we do video as nicely.

Francis: What’s the primary a part of your small business? 

Rachel: Weddings are our principal enterprise and what we attempt to give attention to. But we additionally do household classes, seniors and small companies. 

Francis: How did you get related with Braver Together? 

Rachel: I used to be working with Score, doing a mentorship on the time, and I got here throughout a hyperlink about this group that helps minorities discover assets. Being Hispanic, I reached out. Whitnee Boyd was there on the time, and he or she mentioned, “Can you come to a meeting?” I confirmed up and was blown away on the neighborhood and the closeness and the help. 

As quickly as I walked within the door, they had been doing enterprise courses on balancing your books or one thing. Then they’d an A&M regulation college instructor there speaking about contracts. I simply thought it was so cool to get all these folks in a single place. That was our first introduction to Braver Together and we simply stored on going again. 

Francis: You additionally obtained concerned at TCU? 

Rachel: Last yr, there was this sign-up alternative to work with the TCU Neeley School of Business. We didn’t actually know what it was going to ivolve. We signed up by way of Braver Together and we obtained chosen. We confirmed up and had been launched to a classroom filled with enterprise college students. We gave our introduction together with 5 different companies. The college students, after we did our introductions, obtained to decide on which companies they wished to work for, and so we obtained three college students for about eight weeks. 

They helped us construct our first web site. They created advertising and marketing issues, like our first QR code. They did so many neat issues for us at first and that was earlier than we had our LLC. That was our first time being chosen for this TCU program.

This yr, they’re doing a first-generation enterprise homeowners cohort, and so they opened it as much as us to use. We simply obtained an e mail saying that we’ve been chosen to be part of this new program. This one is 16 weeks lengthy, and it’s the identical form of concept. We’re going to get a gaggle of scholars who will work carefully with us and assist us obtain any targets that we’ve happening for the time being.

Francis: And you’ve labored with Texas A&M regulation college as nicely? 

Rachel: Danny went to a Braver Together assembly and there was an A&M regulation professor there. That was in the course of the time after we had been attempting to ascertain our LLC, so we wanted some steerage. We went on the A&M wait checklist. That wait checklist was in all probability a few yr lengthy, so throughout that point, with Braver Together’s assist, we had been in a position to go forward and type our LLC.

A&M referred to as us just a few weeks in the past saying, “We’re ready to help you guys.” We advised them we already obtained our LLC. But, we’re truly wanting to begin this new nonprofit referred to as Portraits with a Purpose. It’s going to give attention to giving Ok by way of Twelfth-grade college students of veterans and households free pictures to have a good time their milestones. That’s occurring proper now. Texas A&M Legal Clinic is at the moment serving to us type and get all of our paperwork with a view to file our 501(c)3 proper now. We simply despatched out the invitation to ask board members. We invited Dr. (Whitnee) Boyd and Dr. Shawn Lassiter of Braver Together. That’s our present undertaking that we’re engaged on.

Francis: Any recommendation for different entrepreneurs on the market? 

Rachel: I assume my largest takeaway, particularly speaking about Braver Together, is being an energetic a part of your neighborhood. Through the type, gracious acts of Braver Together — they sponsored our membership to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and others — we’ve a yr membership with the chambers. So each Coffee Connects, each completely satisfied hour that we are able to get to attend, whether or not it’s each of us or simply one in every of us, we attempt to. The purpose is we meet different enterprise homeowners. We’ve truly collaborated with some totally different companies by way of assembly them at these occasions. 

I really feel like networking and creating an awesome help system is admittedly vital in rising your small business since you want mates far and wide that may aid you. You want folks you possibly can ask questions of, bounce concepts off of. Creating that community of individuals and being part of your neighborhood is so vital. 

Bob Francis is enterprise editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at [email protected]. News choices are made independently of our board members and monetary supporters. Read extra about our editorial independence coverage right here.

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