I was one of the original PetStarUSA photographers who invested over $10,000 with the company and ended up bankrupt thanks to the Petco photo shoot that was mismanaged by both Petco and PetStar.
The good news…
I still had some photography equipment and was able to make all of my money back thanks to several $5,000 weekends! Yes people like me lost money with Doc and Ren who started PetStar. What happens to you in life may be an accident… How you respond to it is not.
I went on to build a successful pet photography business despite the initial setbacks. When I noticed that Doc and Ren did not renew www.PetStarUSA.com I grabbed the domain for myself along with www.PetPhotoBiz.com
The old PetStarUSA by Doc and Ren is long gone. The new PetStarUSA is owned now by me… one of the original people to be burned by old “Doc”. Ren really had little to do with the business going south. He is still one of the best Pet Photographers in the world.
I know what it's like to lose almost everything and have your friends and family turn on you because of a bad business decision. When you are broke you find out who your true friends really are… (Thanks Ben and Andy without your help I may not have been able to bounce back)… but now I also know how it feels to win thanks to the grace of God, the support of a few good friends and meeting my Soul mate and lovely wife “Susha” who gave me reason to pack my photography gear and moved from the USA to Australia.
It's now my life mission to help business opportunity seekers and fellow photographers avoid being ripped off by all the less than honorable hucksters out there. Shortly after going broke thanks to the PetStar/Petco deal I bought a “How To Start A Pet Photography Business” report on eBay from www.mymommybiz.com/ideas/petphotography.html
The report sold for $12.99 and in my opinion was a total waste of money. At the same time I noticed that Ren from the old PetStar was hosting 3-day training workshops for want-a-be - pet photographers at $1,000.00 and because of seeing more people like myself being ripped off or overcharged I decided to do sometime about it. I still respect Ren. If he can get $1,000 for letting someone watch him in action that's great because he really is the best Pet Photography around… other than me of course.
So I wrote my own manual on how to make money with pet photography and because I started my photographic career back in 1986 I was able to incorporate all of my previous experience in to it. I worked for Jones and Presnell Studios as a traveling photographer. I photographed in all of the New England area K-mart stores in the 80's. I started photographing pets in 1989 at the West Side Mall in Edwardsville, PA doing the “Santa Paws” pictures during the holiday season for a local pet store. I also photographed for Sweeney's Church Directories, Portraits Inc, Trinity, Captured Memories Studios, National Studios and several other large and small photography fundraising outfits along with a in home photo service and the old contest companies including the big one in the States right now… Portrait America. I've seen it all… and over the years… I've learned what works and what doesn't when it comes to making money with a camera. In 1990 I started doing photographic business cards on video rental cases. I would walk into any video store and ask the manager or owner if they would like free VHS video cases to put their new movie releases into. In exchange for the free video cases the stores let me put Photographic business cards and ads on the cases. What a great profitable little advertising business! (This can still be done today with DVD cases) When someone rents a video they can't help but look at the case the movie rental comes in. And if the case has photo ads on it… they get noticed… and small business owners love to advertise this way because it targets local prospects and produces measurable results! That led to many other advertising adventures… all of which I've now decided to teach others. Thus the reason why I grabbed the PetStarUSA domain name and decided to write and sale reasonably priced “Operations Manuals” for both Pet Photography and Advertising and offer them on eBay under the user ID: EZPhotoProfit$
I both laugh and cry now when I see all of the other “Pet Photography” and advertising businesses being sold on eBay because 99% of it is pure bull hockey.
Offering real, useful, proven and workable photography and advertising business opportunities where you own the company and work for yourself is my little past time. My little way of helping others to avoid all the rip offs out there.
As my way of saying thanks for reading my story I have a free report I'd like to give you. It's entitled “How to make $180 a day with your digital camera” to receive it and other free reports of how to make money with photography and advertising just sign up for them by sending a email to: EZPhotoCash@SendFree.com