December 2016 | Business View Magazine

32 33 “We have franchises in Canada; we just opened up Australia; we’ve got a franchisee in Dubai, Ireland, some in Mexico, Guate- mala, Peru, and Panama. It’s a business that works anywhere. The type of event you’re doing could be a little different depending on where you are, but anyplace that people gather for a social event of any kind, is a suitable event for us.” TapSnap photo booths allow guests to pose for pictures, use a touch screen to drag and drop digital props, switch out backgrounds, write messages, and add filters. Then, at the touch of a finger, they can email the photos to themselves or others, share their creations instantly to their Facebook and Twitter profiles, and even print out an unlimited number of 4” by 6” glossy prints on high quality photo paper. “We’ve gone from just being a photo booth company to being a platform for social media and photography for special events, where we have a whole suite of products,” McInnes boasts. While the company’s original focus was on social events – weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, etc.– TapSnap soon reached out to corporations. “We do more corporate events and they’re more lucrative for our franchisees, because they’re longer and there’s more services that we can offer that appeal to a cor- porate client - like branding the system in our software with the corporate client’s colors and logos and really making it a customized experience for that client,” says McInnes. Having so many franchises across the map certainly helps TapSnap respond to a company’s requests. “For example, if Coca Cola wants us to do an event, they don’t call us up and say, ‘Do you have a franchisee in Tampa that could do an event for us?’” he explains. “They just say, ‘We need you on this date for this many hours.’ And we can do it, because we have such a large franchise network.” While TapSnap’s reach is growing larger, McInnes says that some of its product offerings are actually down-sizing to ac- commodate the needs of the marketplace. “We’re coming out with a substantially smaller system for social events that are price sen- TAPSNAP sitive,” he avers. “We have products at a couple of different price points. If they’ve got the budget, we’ll get them the big system, but if they don’t, then we have something we can offer them that’s still a lot of fun, that captures great photos, but will cost less money.” Another plus of a smaller system is that it’s easier to transport. So, with our expertise and our ex- perience with DVD Kiosks and oth- er projects, we felt that we could come up with a much better photo booth; one that was connected with social media and had a more modern look and feel to it, with more modern features. Scott McinneS tApsnAp CEO preferred vendor n Towne Insurance www.towneinsurance.com “Our current TapSnap set-up requires an SUV, at least,” says McInnes. “If you want to carry multiple systems, most franchi- sees will have a minivan, at least. But, the new product that we’re coming out with, TapSnap Studio, is something where you can send an attendant to the event on their own and they can take their own vehicle and put it in the back seat, because it’s quite small. That’ll be coming out in the New Year. But we’re never going to put something in an event that doesn’t take terrific photos and isn’t a lot of fun,” he adds. Another TapSnap innovation is the TapSnap for Business line, which is made up of systems that are permanently set up in a client’s venue. “For example, we just installed a system for the Denver Broncos, and we did one, recently, for the Boston Red Sox,” McInnes relates. “These are ones that live in their stadiums and are all branded with the teams’ logos and colors and are designed to be more self-service. We’ll contin- ue to develop that and, eventually, we’ll be designing systems for amusement parks and tourist destinations. Right now, we’re not necessarily the right fit for tourist venues unless that venue is having a special event. Say, a museum will bring us in for a fundraiser. There’s value in having us there all day, every day, in some capacity, but it doesn’t make sense if we have to staff it. So, TapSnap for Business allows us to build systems that we would sell to these venues, to be there every hour of the day, every day that they’re open – custom systems for any type of destination where being there is the event – everything from aquariums to amusement parks, resort hotels, stadiums, where we will sell them a system through a franchisee.” McInnes also believes that TapSnap will continue to evolve as photo-sharing technologies advance. “For example, when we started, we were hooked into Picasa and Flickr for sharing photos,” he says. “We had Facebook on the machine and that was certainly popular, but Facebook’s really taken over as the predominant social media for photo-sharing. Five years from now, there could be something entirely new that hasn’t even been invented yet that’s the go-to platform for photos. If there is, we’ll integrate with that, as well. One of the nice things about being in this business is that we can continue to innovate and to piggyback off other companies’ innovations to create unique experiences at actual events.” Meanwhile, McInnes says that TapSnap will also contin- ue to seek out new franchisees who enjoy being at social events, have the ability to work nights and weekends, and are hard-working and motivated. “Dollar for dollar, there’s no better franchise opportunity in the United States,” he declares. “With a relatively small investment, our franchisees can go out and make real money. It takes some hard work, but it’s reasonable that they can expect a return on investment in relatively short order. And they’re going to have fun. We’re out there putting smiles on people’s faces.”