Hello my friends,
We need your support! Help us qualify for a $250,000 grant from Chase and LivingSocial. We need 250 votes to qualify for this grant! The deadline is June 30, 2012, so please vote now!
1. Go to www.missionsmallbusiness.com and click “Suppport”
2. Find our business “Venice Paparazzi” in the local listings and vote for us.
3. Please tell your friends to vote.
Every vote will get us closer to qualifying for $250,000 Grant from Chase and LivingSocial!
Also, if you see other Venice businesses that you like on the list, don’t forget to vote for them too. You can vote for as many businesses as you want. So, show your support for all local Venice businesses!
Thank you! Viva Venice!
Alex and Edizen Stowell
Venice Paparazzi
Office: 310.745.1064
www.venicepaparazzi.com
[email protected]
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Check out our application to this grant below to find out more about Venice Paparazzi and our team!
1. Tell us about your business; how successful is it and why is it unique?
Do not let the name fool you, we do not chase celebrities. Venice Paparazzi is a three part business. We have an event photography agency that offers photo booths, red carpet service, on the spot printing, and instant photo social media uploads. As well, we publish a visitors guide to Venice called the Venice Concierge List. Also, we are an online magazine dedicated to documenting life in Venice,CA. Venice Paparazzi started as a humble little photo key chain wagon on the Venice Boardwalk run by young husband and wife team Alex and Edizen Stowell. During our three years on the boardwalk and in the six years since, our passion for photography has grown into what is now our event coverage division and website, honing our skill set all the while. The Venice Concierge List is the result of realizing the need for a hard copy/online visitor’s guide to Venice that is informative and works in the interest of local merchants. In the beginning we shot for free. As we gained momentum, the word got out that VP has talented photographers. Over the years our client list has grown to include Sony, The City of West Hollywood, Clif Bar, Olay/Pantene, TriMega, Joie de Vivre hotels, Junior League of Los Angeles, Ralph’s grocery store, Gold’s gym, The Ski Channel and more. We are currently getting hired to shoot an average of three events per week! We have over 30 paid advertisers on our website and even more on the VCL print component.
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2. How is your business involved with the community you serve?
We go to events in Venice, take photos and then create online galleries where people can go to relive the event and download free photos. During the course of our six years in business we have amassed an archive of over 300,000 photos. So, we are in effect a historical archive/family photo album for Venice. We shoot an average of 150 events a year, providing free photos for the community. As well, our website has the most complete events calendar there is for Venice events. Community members send us their event details/flyers and we post them on our front page calendar, free of charge. This way when people come to our site for their free photos, they become aware of all the cool events going on around town. We also promote many local businesses. We have a section on the front page called “Local Deals.” This is where we give Venice merchants the chance to tell our readers about the best deal/promotion that their business has. Also, we send out a weekly email blast to over 5,000 Venice residents, notifying them of upcoming events, local business deals and that event photos from the last weeks events have been posted. So, the more Venice Paparazzi photographers shoot, the better local events are and the more money local businesses make. Pretty cool! In addition, Venice Paparazzi regularly donates red carpet and photo booth service to local causes and charities. Just this week we sponsored two red carpet photo booths, one at an event to preserve the Venice Poetry Walls and one at an event called the WAVE awards, which recognizes Venice teachers. Venice Paparazzi has received two Awards of Appreciation and a Certificate of Recognition from The City of Los Angeles, as well as the Abbot Kinney Spirit Award. In addition, VP’s Edizen is the co-founder of the Venice Art Crawl and is on the board of the Venice Chamber of Commerce, The Venice Media District and the Venice Art Crawl. We are widely recognized by locals as the original and most complete guide to Venice. Reflective of the communities endearment of Venice Paparazzi, VP’s head of photographer Edizen was recently immortalized by world famous muralist Rip Cronk in his giant work “The rebirth of Venus.” As well, she was nominated to receive the “person of the year” award from AOL’s Venice Patch website.
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3. What would a $250k grant mean to your business plan and how will you utilize the funds to ensure long-term growth and stability?
We would expand to meet the demand we are already seeing. We need to upgrade our equipment so we can take on larger events and expand the scope of our photo-booth/red carpet service. As well, we need to hire a full time assistant with photo editing skills. We could take on way more jobs if we had someone handling the post event photo editing and some of the basic day to day tasks such as posting community events to our calendar and creating our weekly email blast. Also, we need a website upgrade that would work in concert with an SEO push to increase the effectiveness of both our local business promotions and the visibility of our photography division.
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Right now the biggest challenge we have is meeting the demand for our services while maintaining the quality of product we are known for. Often times we get double booked for events or shoot events that require 4 or 5 photographers. It is imperative that those we hire to shoot represent us well. If we had more gear and some of time freed up, we could develop a deeper stable of photographers. That said, we like challenges as they always contain an opportunity. Together, Edizen and Alex can overcome any obstacles presented.
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5. Describe the talent on your team and how they make your business successful
The reason our event photography agency is successful is simple, we provide quality product. People love us because we capture the event and make them and their guests feel and look good. Sure we are high energy, non intrusive, cute and friendly. But the bottom line is that we know our cameras, we know how to adapt to different kinds of lighting/situations and we know how to get the shot. This comes from years of experience and a passion for photography. From the days when we did it all for free with a little Kodak 4.0 ’til now when we have an arsenal of Canon 5Ds and more work than we can handle, we have the same simple philosophy: take great pictures, keep the site PG rated site, and have fun! It makes for a great user experience and keeps people coming back. The Venice Concierge List is successful because it takes a great quantity of Venice insider information and makes it accessible to visitors. There is nothing else like it in Venice. The online magazine section of our site succeeds because people like free photos of themselves, we have the most complete events calendar for Venice, our site tells you how to save money at local businesses, and we publish articles that are of interest to our readers. Alex Stowell is the head writer and chief editor. It is worth mentioning that Alex sells his articles to other Venice websites including Venicebeach.com, where Venice Paparazzi is listed as the content provider.
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6. Additional relevant information you would like to share
We (Alex and Edizen) met at the Muscle Beach boxing gym in Venice in August 2000 and got married 6 months later.
We have second successful business called Kettlebell Boxing. It is a private training facility, located adjacent to Muscle Beach in Venice, that pairs the strength/conditioning component of kettle bells with technical boxing instruction.
As husband and wife and business partners we possess skill sets that compliment each other. From the onset of our relationship we have followed the “do what you love and the money will follow” model. And, I must say, it is working quite well.
We are business partners and soul mates for life. We have been learning and growing together in both our relationship and business.
Edizens holds a degree in Business Administration with a major in marketing from University of Windsor.
Alex Stowell has a B.A. in History from California State University Northridge
Edizen Stowell was a member of the Canadian National Boxing team, won women’s national amateur boxing championship, and earned the title of “best boxer” in the Finland tournament.
Alex Stowell is an R.K.C. strength and conditioning specialist and earned a scholarship to play Div. 1 football at University of New Mexico, and started every game of his career.
VOTE NOW and show your support for Venice Paparazzi!
We just need 250 votes to qualify for this grant! The deadline is June 30th. So vote now please!
1. Go to missionsmallbusiness.com and click “Support”
2. Find our business “Venice Paparazzi” in the local listings and vote for us
3. Please tell your friends and family to vote
Every vote will get us closer to qualifying for the $250,000 Grant from Chase andLivingSocial!
Again, thank you for your support!
Make your next event truly memorable! Hire Venice Paparazzi to be your event photographers. Visit HireVP.com for a list of services.
