A few weeks ago, we discovered the start-up Coogee and fell in love with it.
How did Coogee get started?
After studying business law and working for 8 years as an executive producer in an audiovisual production company, Béatrice Billard decided to travel the world. She left Paris in October 2013 for a 6-month journey through South America, Polynesia, Australia and Southeast Asia.
During this trip, Béatrice learned a great deal about herself, others and life in general. Many things were confirmed: the importance of giving oneself the means to realize one’s dreams, the fact that action is the main driving force in life, that material possessions don’t make you happier, and finally that freedom is the greatest wealth we’ve ever had.
“Thanks to this experience I discovered that my personal fulfillment came first and foremost from constantly stepping out of my comfort zone, and this has become a real driving force.”
In South America, many of her fellow travellers were captivated by her photos. Some even gave her their e-mail addresses so that she could send them her photos.
During this trip, she also made a stopover of over a month in Sydney, Australia, and set down her bags in Coogee, one of the districts of the Australian capital. She fell in love with its magnificent beach, small cafés and art galleries. In search of photo exhibitions, she entered a small gallery nearby, exhibiting shots of beaches, ocean, surfers and sunsets. She immediately fell in love with 5 photos, which she bought on the spot.
Back in France, having left everything behind, she wondered about her future and decided it was time to try her hand at something she loved and knew how to do! Photography was the obvious choice. She’d like to be able to do something with the photos she’s taken over the years and done nothing with… Because it’s not her job, and she doesn’t have the time to share them other than on social networks! To be able to exhibit them somewhere would be great, to put them in the spotlight and, if possible, make a profit from them… and after all, why not!
“It was at this point that the idea of a photo gallery came to me. I had to offer people like me, and as many others as possible, the opportunity to share and showcase their most beautiful photos, and to earn extra income from them. And what could be better than the Web, the world’s largest gallery, to serve as a showcase for these thousands of unused photos?” says Béatrice Billard, founder and CEO of Coogee.
Béatrice Billard decided to embark on this new adventure.
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- Paris de nuit Bleu blanc Rouge
From Coogee beach to coogee.io
In September 2014, she launched a market study that confirmed that there was no solution for selling your own photos as simply and quickly as what she had in mind. The study also confirmed the general public’s growing infatuation with photos. On the one hand, as an interior design object; on the other, as a hobby or true passion, thanks to the emergence of new, increasingly high-performance and affordable connected cameras.
“I’ve always loved learning, and I’m extremely curious about things and about other people. Over the past 2 years, I’ve never stopped asking myself questions about this market, training myself in business creation, and meeting other entrepreneurs to share their experiences, draw inspiration from best practices, but also learn more about the pitfalls to avoid. So far, Coogee has been a wonderful experience, a learning gas pedal on every level!”
What is Coogee?
Coogee is a “web-gallery”: the 1st website to offer everyone, and especially those whose profession is not photography, the opportunity to offer their photo(s) for sale free of charge and earn a significant “bonus” income. You don’t need to be a professional photographer, as the aim is to promote images, not people. What’s more, Coogee lets you decorate your home with rare, high-quality objects at affordable prices.
What are the advantages of Coogee for sellers?
For photo sellers, Coogee is the ideal platform for getting your photos seen and sold by as many people as possible, simply and free of charge.
It’s all turnkey! All you have to do is send your photo via the form on the site, and if it’s accepted, Coogee takes care of everything: publishing the photo on the site in the various sales formats, highlighting it, promoting it, selling and shipping it, and finally paying the author when it’s sold. Coogee is also currently the platform that pays the most to the photographer in the decorative art photography market. The average photographer’s share is €23 per photo.
What are the advantages of Coogee for buyers?
For a buyer, Coogee combines 4 fundamental criteria: the artistic quality of the photos, the professional quality of the prints and media, the rarity of the products sold and, last but not least, their price.
In fact – and this is also a special feature of the site – each photo is produced in a limited edition of 30 copies only, in all formats and media. These are virtually unique shots that you won’t find in your neighbor’s shop.
Each photo is edited by a professional laboratory to guarantee “gallery quality”.
The photos have been carefully selected with an artistic eye to fulfil the mission: to decorate your walls with taste while offering something for every taste!
Last but not least, prices are affordable and you can give your apartment a makeover without breaking the bank.
“When it comes to photography, I believe it’s important to express emotion. I’m particularly fond of Oscar Wilde’s quote “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Whether or not you’re a professional isn’t important – it’s the image and the emotion it evokes that count! It was also important to add value to the photos by considerably limiting the number of editions. When you buy a photo on Coogee, you can say to yourself: only 29 other people in the world admire this photo like I do every morning”.
What next?
The next step for Coogee will be to find new investors to continue developing the site and further improve the user experience, whether buyer or seller.
New features to come include the Coogee application to create more interaction between buyers and sellers.
Finally, in the longer term, the aim would be to open a physical point of sale, as these objects are all the more appealing when seen in person.
“Coogee’s primary ambition is to bring exceptional photos stored on a computer, external hard drive or in the cloud to life by sharing them with as many people as possible, but I’d also like Coogee to quickly become a talent spotter. For me, it’s also an innovation that’s helping to democratize the purchase of fine art photos on the Internet and on cell phones.”
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