Building a Portfolio of Bootstrapped Businesses: Ryan Millman, CEO of Undigital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Was there a business model? Were you monetizing?

Ryan Millman: Yes. Initially, the business model was based on ad revenue – everything in 1999 was ad revenue-based. I figured out how to tie in with some APIs to one of the first digital photograph manufacturers. People could then order the photographs they were seeing. If there was an event, we’d create the digital files and caption it. When you order photographs, we’d send those out digitally to get manufactured and shipped to your house.

So we had both product sales. We had ad revenue and were charging to have photographers on-site at events at these various colleges. So on a weekend, we’d have fifty events. The library of the college was the only place that had free internet at the time, so I’d go there to upload and transfer the files.

It was very busy and exciting. I learned a lot. It wasn’t all that profitable. It wasn’t cashflow negative, but it wasn’t really setting the world on fire. I did that for several years until I pivoted that business to something that became much more profitable, which was taking those annual fraternity and sorority portraits that the first company that wouldn’t partner with me was doing and actually became the market leader in that space at 600 colleges across the country.

Sramana Mitra: I see. So you started direct relationships with these sororities and fraternities and started taking photos for them. And that was paid.

Ryan Millman: Yes, we’d take the pictures annually for every fraternity and sorority member. We’d create what’s called a composite, which is a collection of all those portraits on one big printed sheet. It gets framed and hung on the fraternity or sorority house wall. The parents then order copies of the portraits of their son or daughter.

When we did the first shoot, it was profitable right away. Over the years, we’ve scaled to every college in the country. It’s been a great company. Very early on, I had an early employee who was fantastic. Once we got that business working, I plugged him in to run that business so I could go on and start the next business.

Sramana Mitra: Does that company still go on? Or did you exit?

Ryan Millman: It still goes on today. It’s been a very successful business for us. I personally haven’t been involved with it for over 15 years. We’re still at every college doing annual fraternity and sorority pictures for each organization.

Sramana Mitra: And you still own that company?

Ryan Millman: Correct.

Sramana Mitra: What year did you leave that company’s day-to-day operations?

Ryan Millman: In 2004, as soon as the company was doing well, we had pivoted. We had been producing a lot of photographs and outsourcing it to other partners to manufacture all the different products. It made sense for us to start to insource. So, we bought a very expensive photo printer to bring it in house. We could now start our own business of manufacturing for other photographers across the country.

I started a company in 2004 called Nations Photo Lab. We were one of the fastest growing manufacturers of photo prints and products in the country. That business still exists today. We have hundreds of thousands of customers now, and that’s grown from a single printer to well over 100K square feet of manufacturing space in Maryland and Pennsylvania. We produce every type of photographic product from wedding albums to wall decor, holiday cards, and frame photo prints. We produce anything with a photograph on it for both consumers and high-end photographers, and we private label for a lot of major retailers as well.

Sramana Mitra: So the go-to-market strategies of these two businesses are very different, correct? What go-to-market strategy did you use for the first business? What is the go-to-market strategy for the second business?

Ryan Millman: For Greek Yearbook, as we had been known in the party picture space, we were the cool, hip company that came in. We had already cultivated the relationship specifically with fraternities and sororities all around the country. We had a lot of brand recognition.

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