Picture of Success

Bruce did.

Bruce lived in Calgary and loved design, photography and marketing. He’d assembled several thousand images on to a CD that he was hoping to sell .. when he was struck with a thought … a bad one … this was just not going to work.

At the time, marketers spent huge amounts of money buying stock photos … photos that they could be use on commercial projects … but it was expensive and difficult to manage.

That’s when Bruce suddenly had a good idea … why not create a cooperative to share photos with others online …. So that is what he did. He and his friends then started sharing their photos for free … that is until the hosting bill came in …. With pictures being data intensive and the monthly bill grew to $10,000 very quickly.

Bruce did not know how he was going to pay but then thought “why not ask his photo-sharing friends … who all said they’d pay a bit each …. Then Bruce realised he could easily pay everyone who had a photo that was used … And that’s when Bruce realized he had a great new business.

Soon others heard about Bruce’s site and membership grew.

Then investors came along and bought out the company for $50 million.

Today, the company Bruce started in Calgary is one of the world’s premier sites for accessing photos with millions of members and millions of photos … iStockPhoto.

iStockPhoto is a great idea … because doing what you love and helping others can make you the picture of success.