Oodio - Working Towards Making Your Photos Picture Perfect
Ever wondered what makes your wedding photo album so beautiful? Hiring a professional photographer captures wonderful moments, and once they are compiled into an album, they are beautiful enough to be cherished for a lifetime. If you are under the impression that only the photographer is responsible for the way the images look in those picture perfect albums, you might be mistaken. Large amounts of work (that includes culling, post production of photos, storyboarding, etc.) go into an image before it is ready to be laid out in an album, post which it is printed and delivered. Oodio does exactly this.
Founded in early 2011, Oodio is a photo services company that works on the post production of photos, album design, and printing. Here’s our conversation with Akash Raman, Co-Founder and CEO of Oodio.
Less is More
Incidentally, Oodio is the only company in India that works solely on post-production of photos for professional wedding photographers. The company ties up with independent photographers across India and the US. These photographers outsource post production and design work to Oodio, who in turn claim to complete the work at a fraction of the cost and time that it would take the photographer to do. Akash shared that the need for this business came up when one of the co-founders realized that he received his album on the day of his anniversary. The team realized that it was pretty common for photographers to delay the delivery of clicked images and albums because the photographers didn’t have the bandwidth to provide an end to end photography service for a large group of clients.
Apart from addressing a burning need, Akash believes that Oodio is accepted widely in India as their design philosophy is very international and because of their focus on the “less is more” approach to design. Oodio’s albums are also sourced from the best printers in the US.
Initial Adoption
Akash reveals that competition in this market exists in the US, but their focus on quality and customer satisfaction coupled with an affordable price point is something that has been working for Oodio. In the early days of Oodio, the bar for recruitment wasn’t kept very high and Akash shared that this was one of their biggest learning – it is easy to teach software but not aesthetics. As a result, Oodio now only hires photographers and design students as its full-time employees.
As of today, Oodio claims to work with 100 photographers, including some of the best in India and USA and organizations such as Aporv and MakeMyTrip. The company has 6 active co-founders who are alumni of Harvard, Wharton, University of California(s), IIMC, & BITS Pilani based out of India and US, while their team of photo editors works from India.
Future Plans
India is known to spend an exorbitant amount of money on marriages and with this regard, Oodio’s solution is addressing a decent chunk of this large market. To increase the reach of their services, Oodio is looking to collaborate with more photographers in different domains like travel and product photography, and is also looking to work directly with brides/grooms and direct consumers too.
He also suggested a possible fundraiser which they would need to meet their ends as they scale.
Oodio’s photography services might be new to India, but the principles that make it work are the same as any other IT services company in India. Quality labour at cheaper rates has been India’s USP and Oodio is also capitalizing on it. However, services companies that have lasted over time are those which have been obsessive about the quality of work done. Akash has conveyed that this is one of their focus areas, and that the coming year or two will show how much of that focus will translated to quality work.
Visit Oodio for that picture perfect photo album
