Sponsor Highlight - Portfoliositez

Portfoliositez.com

Well, what can we say about these guys other than, "they frikking rock."

They are only in their 6th month of business, and already they have the photography industry talking. With their beautiful flash templates that are fully customizable, and 5 star customer service, this little company is going to grow really quick.

Why?

They are offering things no other template provider has; client mini sites....shopping carts...unlimited galleries...unlimited text...music...newsletter database...including hosting...a whopping $16 a month.

We were supper excited when they agreed to be a LUMU! sponsor. What does this mean for you guys? Well lets see, a free site, discounts, and more!

Portfoliositez is run solely by Jen and Jamie, two girls who, "realized there was not a truly cost-effective website solution for those who are just starting out or need to spend funds on other expenses such as new equipment."

Although it took some bribery, we had the honor of talking with Jen and Jamie, and this is what went down:


You guys seemed to have taken this industry by storm by providing a super low cost solution for professional photographers looking for websites. Did you guys think that portfoliositez.com would take off this fast?

Jen: We actually didn't expect it to take off this quickly. We are very grateful for all the support we've received from the photography community and are happy to say we are ahead of our 4 year business plan!
Jamie: Never in a million years! In fact the first month we kept on checking in with each other to make sure if we made absolutely no money we would each be okay to stick it out for at least two years. We haven’t had that conversation again.


So we know that you guys [Jen and Jamie] run the show. Do you really do all the work yourselves, or is work delegated to sub contracting designers?

Jen: We do absolutely everything ourselves from programming of the admin and templates to the designs, finances, and customer support... well that's not exactly true. We have recruited Jamie's husband, Tim, who is a computer and server guru (he works for NVIDIA), to help us with the very complex server related support. :-)
Jamie: We do do EVERYTHING! It gets a little crazy sometimes. Jen is the programming and design genius and I handle all the administrative stuff and occasionally I get to throw a design into the pile. ;-)


What do you guys like to do for fun, besides designing websites and such?

Jen: We both love photography! Jamie is a professional photographer and I have always loved taking pictures in my free time :-)
Jamie: Photography always has been our common denominator. Other than that we do all the normal hobbies. We both live in outdoorsy areas and summer time is all about camping! Jen of course lucks out in CO with all the great snow but in Northern California we aren’t doing to shabby this year.


Rumor has it that you responded to a photographer in distress in less than an hour on Christmas Eve, is this really true?

Jen: What can we say, customer satisfaction is important to us ;-)
Jamie: That one was all Jen, she is absolutely obsessed! She is right about customer service being very important to us but I don’t think anyone was expecting that much. =D


What are your goals for 2008? Any more tricks up your sleeves that we might know about?

Jen: Our shopping cart and advanced client system is our number 1 priority at the moment. After that we will be working on building up our template portfolio. Of course an underlying goal and challenge we enjoy taking on is trying to improve our product and services every step of the way. :-) We love that our clients have sent us recommendations on what features they would like to see so we can build out a photographers dream site!
Jamie: This year is going to be crazy! It would have to be to top last year and we are just getting started. =)