3 Kids & A Camera
Co-founded a photography print business, coded its website and online payment system, and took "Best Business" at the Seattle Acton Children's Business Fair with $2,000+ in profit — the most profitable business at the fair.
- Entrepreneurship
- Web Dev
- Payments
- Photography
Three of us sold canvas prints of our own photography at the Seattle Acton Children’s Business Fair. We took “Best Business” and finished as the fair’s most profitable, at $2,000+.
The technical half
I built the website and the online payment system. That’s the part that made the difference: a one-day fair is a hard cap on revenue if the only way to buy is to be standing there with cash. A storefront that takes payment removes the cap — people who liked a print but weren’t ready to carry one home could still buy, and so could people who never came to the fair at all.
Wiring up payments meant dealing with a real checkout flow, real money, and the fact that a bug isn’t a failed test — it’s a customer who paid and got nothing.
The prints
Wispy Sunset (the best seller) · Australian Autumn · Butterfly · Serene Pond · Palette · Tide · Bamboo Grove · Blossom · Splash
Looking back
This is the earliest thing on the site, and it’s the first time I noticed that the software was the lever. The photography was the product; the checkout page was why the product sold. That framing — find the thing that removes the constraint — is how I’ve approached most projects since.
Related: photography.