The FilledFrame Story
FilledFrame was founded on two simple ideas:
- Selling prints should be easy
- Photographers should never have to pay to sell their work
While the idea is straightforward – our path was less so…
We started with an app that leveraged photographer’s Instagram pages to expedite creating a gallery. Pulling content directly from social media not only streamlined process, it also drastically reduced hosting costs. A lower cost structure allowed us to offer our service on commission only, in a space where most companies were charging hefty monthly fees.
We recruited some great photographers, set up our first galleries, and were off!
Our results were not great.
We iterated our galleries, significantly improving the user experience, and still not great.
The problem was not converting visitors into buyers, the problem was driving traffic.
We needed to pivot. There as an obvious option – give in, join the club, and start selling the dream and make money off of (instead of for) photographers – exactly the opposite of why we got into this in the first place. I had left my previous company due to unethical practices on the part of the CEO, so I was certainly not going to start taking advantage of customers now.
Instead, we waited.
In the fall of 2024, I noticed that a friend had launched a new website. It looked great. The site did an amazing job of showcasing his photography and videography. What it did not do was offer prints for sale. Surely there should be a way for people to purchase his work, but he had already made a conscious decision to create a portfolio site instead of a gallery.
That is when I had an epiphany. Galleries suck. It is not that our galleries sucked, it is that galleries in general suck as a way for individual photographers to sell their art.
The issue is traffic. No matter how much search engine optimization (SEO) you do, a single-photographer gallery is never going to outrank mass-market retailers on Google.
Where personal galleries are able to drive traffic – as we could clearly see from our own data – is from social media.
Unfortunately, relying on social media to drive traffic creates its own problems. You have a potential customer, looking at an image they want to purchase – and you are telling them to go somewhere else - How does that make sense?
Even worse, photographers almost never include all of the images they post in their galleries (since creating listings is a lot of work). So, not only are they telling customers to go somewhere else, what the customer is looking for might not even be there.
The solution - meet people where they are.
If someone sees a photo they want to purchase on social media – they should be able to purchase it without leaving the app.
The same goes for portfolio sites.
THAT was the pivot. A platform-agnostic service to provide quotes for fine-art prints any (and every) where photographers are showcasing their work. All photographers need to do is let their audience know quotes are available, and from there it is as simple as a customer hitting the Share button to get a quote for that piece right into their DMs. No share button? No problem - text, email, or message us the URL and we will reply with a quote.
We already had created some of the best-looking listings out there – and had pioneered the process of generating listings from social media posts alone (we get the full-resolution image after an order is placed).
Now we are ready to revolutionize the way prints are sold - we would love you to join us. If you are looking to sell your own photography in the easiest (and best) way possible, join our beta test - otherwise you can follow our journey on our socials.