Daniel’s GoPhoto conquers the USA

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Building a Dream. In this podcast, I'm exploring the personal stories of 12 Dutch tech titans who relentlessly scale their tech businesses. My name is Leopold, and I'm the host of this podcast. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Daniel Duivestein, the founder of GoPhoto.

He has an incredible journey of turning a one-man paparazzi business into a SaaS company, supplying a state-of-the-art attraction platform that sells millions of photos in the USA every year. The COVID crisis nearly killed his business, but he came back stronger than ever. He's a challenger of established companies like Kodak and Pomfom and just closed a massive investment and joint venture deal with a top-five USA-based entertainment company.

So, welcome Daniel. How are you this morning?

Thank you, Leo, for this incredible introduction. Yeah, was it a proper introduction or how would you like to introduce yourself?

Well, a little more humble than this, but I'm thankful that you see it that way.

Before we start, I'd like to propose a couple of dilemmas.

Happy clients or happy employees? Happy employees, of course.

Detailed plan or improvisation? Improvisation.

Organized or chaotic? Chaotic.

Team player or loner? Team player.

Would you rather be poor but respected or filthy rich with a bad reputation? Poor and respected.

Easily distracted or hyper-focused? Easily distracted.

Competing with someone or with yourself? With myself.

The USA or the Netherlands? USA.

10 million in the bank and an 80-hour work week, or no business success but full-time available for your kids? Full-time available for my kids.

Would you rather donate money to a charity helping animals or a charity curing a disease? Ooh, hard one. Curing a disease.

No climate change or no antisemitism? Climate change.

Have you ever had any anti-Semitic behavior when doing business? No, not during business.

Sometimes there are jokes about being Jewish, but I don't think it's antisemitism.

Has being Jewish helped you in a positive way in business? Absolutely. The Jewish community is very open to doing business together.

In what kind of environment did you grow up? I grew up in a nice environment. My dad was an entrepreneur. He started small but became successful. He wouldn't allow us pocket money but doubled everything we earned. My first job was delivering newspapers.

Why did you become a paparazzi? It's a long story. I started as an intern at a men's magazine, then moved to making videos for a showbiz magazine. I noticed I could earn more with photos than videos.

At what age was that? 23. I bought a camera and started taking photos of celebrities.

Why did you invest your first money in a BMW? Not a smart investment, but when you're 25, it feels good.

What drove you to do business? My dad's influence. He always said working for a boss is failure. Creating your own product is more valuable than a big salary.

Was it always your dream to have your own business? Yes, my dream. Seeing my dad's success inspired me.

What problem does GoPhoto solve? We provide a hardware and software system for the entertainment industry, allowing theme parks to handle their own photo systems.

How did you get your first clients? I had contacts with Coca Cola and Heineken and pitched the idea of branded photos at events.

Why did you pivot to the entertainment industry? Events are short-term. We moved to theme parks for a more scalable model.

What were the toughest challenges along the way? COVID was a big hit. We went from over a million in revenue to zero overnight.

How did you survive? We went back to the drawing board, re-evaluated our technology, and came back stronger.

How did you keep your team motivated? By sharing discussions with new big clients and focusing on building a better product.

What made GoPhoto so successful after COVID? We created our own hardware and made the system as seamless as possible with less human interaction.

Are you obsessed with your product? Yes, I focus on improving based on feedback.

What was your motivation to move to the USA? The American dream. The entertainment industry in the US is huge.

How did you get into the US market? A US attraction found us through our website and reached out.

What was your journey to secure funding from a top-five player in the entertainment industry? Talking about our dreams and goals, and finding a strategic partner.

What's your process for making risky decisions? Trusting my gut feeling.

What has your company given you? The biggest highs and the lowest lows. It's all about living at the end of your comfort zone.

What has been your favorite moment in the company's growth? Scaling the team and getting experienced people on board.

Do you have a mentor? My dad. His advice about time is invaluable.

What's your personal definition of success? Buying time to spend with family and friends.

Your definition of success for GoPhoto? Being the benchmark in the industry.

What are your three biggest mistakes? Not investing money wisely, not creating buffers, and seeing failure as a part of becoming successful.

What would be your best advice to our listeners? Patience. Things take time.

Thank you, Daniel, for sharing your journey. In the next episode, I'll have a new inspiring guest from the SaaS industry. Thank you for listening and have a great day.