Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Contreras.
Sandra, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started the company about two years ago. I studied Advertising at the Art Institute of San Diego and took a couple of Photography courses. I’ve always loved photography and started to do some photoshoots with friends for fun. My friends and I organized a Christmas Party and I thought it would be fun to have a photo booth but we didn’t have the budget for one, so I thought I have a camera, I’m sure I can YouTube “how to make a Photo Booth at home” and I did! The Photo Booth was a huge success, but I didn’t think it would go on from there. One of my friends from that party was getting married soon and asked me if she could rent my Photo Booth for one of her wedding events, that’s when I was ok… this could be something, why not I’ll do it! People loved it.
I started to do events here and there until I had an event almost every weekend. I came up with a name, started an Instagram, Facebook page and eventually a website.
The business started to grow very organically, at the end of the year, I was offered a chance to move to Mexico City but I didn’t know if I should go, the business was doing great and I didn’t want to just stop.
My younger sister offered to help me out with events in San Diego and Tijuana while I was gone, so I decided to move and take a booth with me. I thought why not? I’ll go for a month and if I don’t like it I’ll just move back. A year later, I’m still in Mexico City with five Photo Booths! My sister is now in charge of running Blink Booth in San Diego, Tijuana and Valle de Guadalupe. We have from 5-10 events a month and we are planning to expand to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon (Mexico) and Los Angeles in 2020.
I still can’t believe this actually became a real business! I LOVE MY JOB, love making people smile. 🙂
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Honestly, yes. I’ve been lucky! San Diego and Tijuana started as a fun thing for me to do on the weekends and get a little extra cash. All my friends were getting engaged or married and they all supported me and had a Blink Booth on a special day! That meant so much to me. And when I moved to Mexico City, doors opened very quickly, started to do one event after the other, I’m still learning. I do have struggles here and there, sometimes getting organized with events, having technical problems, etc., but every event is different and so fun!
I do have an amazing team! but If I am able to go with them to events I am always there!
Please tell us about Blink Booth.
Blink Booth is a modern digital, self-serve photo-booth for social and corporate events. Giving you the highest quality images, instant digital downloads and prints.
We are known for bringing the best service and highest quality photos to your events, we don’t do anything that other photo booths don’t do already, the difference is we do it with the best service we can possibly give our clients, we are always looking for the best quality props, best quality prints! Just giving that something EXTRA!
I am most proud of my team and how we’ve grown as a company! I still can believe I actually make a living out of this and I love it! And I think our clients can see that we do a lot of weddings, so I don’t take it for granted, that couples share and make us a part of the most important day of their lives! So, we go to these events with the best attitude and celebrate with them!
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I think that the only thing might be, putting more time in the beginning but honestly, I don’t think I would change anything because that is why I love doing it, because it just happened without forcing anything. So, if God keeps opening doors and continues to give us work, I will keep doing this.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blinkbooth.co
- Phone: 6198231249
- Email: helloblinkbooth@gmail.com
- Instagram: @blinkbooth
- Facebook: @theblinkbooth
Image Credit:
Blink Booth
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