Aussie couple's business idea turned $1,000 into $5 million: 'Profitable from day one'
Like most couples, Adelaide-based Carla and Warwick Groves had a professional photographer at their wedding to snap all the obligatory moments. But after the confetti settled and they’d got their beautiful photos in an album a friend sent a pic she’d snapped of the couple on the dance floor.
“She printed it for me and I still have it in a frame today. I wouldn’t have it if she hadn’t thought to send it to me,” Carla told Yahoo Finance, saying it’s her favourite photo from their special day.
It started her thinking and over the next few years as they completed the wedding circuit, Carla kept noticing a picture predicament.
A $1,000 investment
At every wedding they went to (50 plus) Carla saw that despite the hundreds of photos people took, there was no easy way to share them. Not everybody was connected on the same social media platforms or in the same WhatsApp groups.
An idea for a photo sharing platform for guests to upload all their shots in high resolution was born and in 2021 the couple started working on it.
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“Warwick has a maths and computer engineering background and was working in big tech and I was in marketing and communications so we were fortunate to have the right mix of skills between us,” Carla, 39, from Adelaide, said.
By 2021 they also had two young daughters so it was a juggle with jobs and family life but they invested $1,000 into the project and in June 2022 were ready to launch what they called GuestPix.
Profit from day one
“There was no big launch, we ran a few ads and turned it on to see what happened. It was profitable from day one,” Carla said. “By October we had 800 orders for that month and we realised we’d got something. Warwick quit his corporate job to focus on it full time.”
GuestPix offered different packages depending on guest numbers and whether you wanted video included too.
The host was given a QR code to distribute to guests and they could upload their shots in high res without having to complete any annoying registration or download an app.
“We launched with a minimum viable product, tested obsessively, refined based on real user feedback, and reinvested every single dollar into improving the experience,” Carla said. “That bootstrapped, hands-on approach allowed us to move fast, stay close to our users, and build something that genuinely solved a problem.”
