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‘SweetEscape’ Connects photographers and users in world cities
Family time: Soccer player Irfan Bachdim and his family enjoy a vacation in Bali as shown in the app
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Family time: Soccer player Irfan Bachdim and his family enjoy a vacation in Bali as shown in the app.
With the success and prevalence of app-based transport and food delivery services, it also makes sense that next in line is photography.
SweetEscape is a service that matches local photographers with clients in over 400 cities around the world. This is certainly a timely business because for better or worse, picture-taking — and posting online — has become a major part of the holiday experience.
The Indonesian-based app very recently announced a partnership with printing service Printerous, so clients can print out pictures they take using the app’s service for an extra charge.
The way the app works is not unlike other app-based services — users book a date to take photos when and where they would like, and are immediately set up with a photographer.
For SweetEscape’s main market, this mostly means vacation photos. And since these trips are likely to be abroad, the app’s partnering photographer is likely to be a local — though surprisingly, being an Indonesian company, it also has plenty of photographers who are Indonesian living abroad. After all, for many photographers, living in tourist-heavy cities such as Paris, Tokyo or New York is a lucrative and visually advantageous step.
Last year, the app raised US$1 million through first-round funding coming from four well-known venture capital firms: East Ventures, Beenext, SkyStar Capital and GDP Venture.
“We are combining three of our passions: photography, technology and travel. We are committed to helping our clients make moments memorable, while at the same time generating income for the freelance photographer economy. We want to make professional photography easy and affordable for anyone around the world for any occasion,” said David Soong, the company’s CEO and cofounder.
Each SweetEscape session takes two hours, and clients can pick out 40 edited photos from the likely hundreds taken, at an extra cost.
The app’s success obviously relies heavily on its practicality. While many people now enjoy bringing along their own cameras and shooting their own memories — or simply think smartphone pics are good enough — the benefit of being able to just enjoy your holiday while someone else takes care of the photos is a strong incentive.
There is also another incentive of having someone familiar with whatever city they might be in, not only to show them around a bit, but also knowing photo spots that may be more unique that the usual tourist-heavy places.
Ignes Dea from SweetEscape said that ever since the app’s launch in 2016, they had grown from the initial focus of capturing holiday moments onto a broader palette, much to the company’s obvious delight.
“The demand from the Indonesian market has grown from just shooting holidays,” she says. “Local clients use our services to capture other moments such as family reunions in their hometown, graduations and birthdays. We have also expanded into the wedding industry, such as pre-wedding and honeymoon photography.” Those last two being a particularly long-lasting tradition in Indonesian weddings.
For the Indonesian market, Ignes said most of their sessions still revolved around couple holidays such as honeymoons and fire-rekindling trips.
“I am pretty confident that SweetEscape’s market in Indonesia will continue to grow thanks to our unique selling points, and our photographer network all around the world,” says David.
Not that it’s just Indonesians. The company is banking on growing into a global venture, and it’s clearly on its way to doing so.
“Now, 45 percent of our clients are international, so there’s a demand for a simple and easy way to get high quality photos. I think it is because of how user-friendly our app is — that has helped SweetEscape in a way because our clients, not only from Indonesia, can easily grasp how to use it,” David explains.
In its two-year history, Ignes said the app had grown its market by hiring local teams and establishing partnerships with local brands in other countries, with a focus on Southeast Asia (the Philippines and Thailand) and the broader region, with Ignez pointing out South Korea as a major market.
The challenge for SweetEscape in its growth is showcasing how it differs from other similar apps coming out, but most pointedly, how it assures its prospective clientele of the quality of its photographers.
“We curate our photographers extensively based on their portfolio and personality. We definitely put a focus on hiring only photographers who are experienced in capturing people and scenery,” David says.
The app has around 2,000 photographers signed up, but it also relies heavily on its in-house editing team to ensure there is consistency in its product, which Ignes describes as “happy and bright” pictures.
Emile Etienne, the company’s cofounder and COO is optimistic about the future while being realistic about what it must do to get there.
One of the biggest challenges while expanding to more countries, she said, was hiring the right team to scale in local markets as well as guarding the quality of photoshoots and editing the photos very fast.
“We are building the technology to help our team edit photos in a matter of hours or minutes. Our team has already built the most user-friendly photo booking app and we will continue to invest in IT to make the entire experience seamless for both our clients and our photographers.”
— Photos courtesy of SweetEscape
