In the dynamic world of photography and technology, Andrew Fingerman stands out as a leader who seamlessly blends passion and strategy. With an impressive background that spans from political campaign management to senior product management at American Express, Andrew’s path to becoming the CEO of PhotoShelter is as fascinating as it is inspiring.
PhotoShelter, a top-rated image storage and delivery solution for photographers, allows users to share, store, and sell photos all in one convenient place. As CEO, Andrew is not only focused on growing the user base but also ensuring that members reap the full benefits of the service. We had the chance to chat with him about his professional journey, future visions for PhotoShelter, and his valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and creatives.
“Every piece of visual content takes a journey through an organization – it’s our job to make that journey less messy.” -Andrew Fingerman
Q: Andrew, could you start by telling us a bit about your journey to becoming the CEO of PhotoShelter? What inspired you to take this path?
Andrew: I’ve always been a lifelong marketer and always had a love and an appreciation for photography.
Way back, I was working at American Express and wanted to do something more entrepreneurial and something in the creative space. I found my way to PhotoShelter because they were looking for a head of marketing at the time. So, I joined to lead the marketing team when the company was in its early startup phase when we were only a photography website and storage provider strictly serving the individual photographer.
This was early on before the term “cloud” was well known and before people were taking digital photographs with really large files. Especially the pro photographers, they needed somewhere to not only store these photos but also deliver them to their clients when they needed them. So PhotoShelter was challenged with convincing photographers that their content should be stored online. We were dedicated to educating them about the benefits of having access to their content no matter where they are in the world at any time, as well as being able to seamlessly get content to your clients and collaborate with them using the same tool. Ultimately, having your entire archive in one single place, and fully accessible to you.
What I realized needed to happen was to market ourselves as thought leaders and educators in the space of professional photography. We were consistently publishing downloadable guides that everyone seemed to love and helping educate photographers about how to transform their businesses in this era of online marketing, and the emergence of search engine optimization and social media.
In the middle of 2012, I was offered the opportunity to become CEO of the company. The founders theoretically handed me the keys to the kingdom and said, “Now find additional ways to grow the company.”
This was a time when brands were literally tripping over themselves to make more content than ever before, so it was time to grow the company beyond serving individual photographers and reach those brands too. This was the birth of PhotoShelter for Brands.
Q: How has your personal passion for photography influenced your vision for PhotoShelter?
Andrew: I’ve always had a deep love for photography. I spent hours in the darkroom in high school. I sat with my dad at NY Giants and NY Yankees games (with a terrible camera) trying to capture photos of my favorite players. I was the editor and sports photographer for my high school newspaper.
In my early career as a marketer, I planned and commissioned many photo shoots, from PR for small-town political candidates to major commercial shoots for American Express products.
My love for photography and the visual storytellers behind the photographs was a huge driver that attracted me to the opportunity at PhotoShelter.
I often tell the photographers we work with – it’s a true gift to see the world through your eyes. And it fills me with deep pride to know that “if it’s happening in the world, you can be sure a PhotoShelter photographer is there capturing it.”
I love being around photographers – hearing their own stories about their adventures. And it’s this same passion that makes me want to help them – help them by removing painful, inefficient processes, enabling them to sleep well at night because their content is safe, and helping them operate more efficiently and swiftly. And by creating tools that let brands make the very best ROI out of the content they’re producing. I like to say “Every piece of visual content takes a journey through an organization – it’s our job to make that journey less messy.” So where there’s friction in creative teams’ workflow, I see that as an opportunity to innovate.
Q: PhotoShelter aims to transform how marketers and creatives work. Could you elaborate on how the platform facilitates this transformation?
Andrew: It really starts with getting organized, and the hygiene that’s necessary when storing, managing, and sharing visual assets. With PhotoShelter, marketers and creatives are able to consolidate their storage, collaboration, and content distribution tools into one centralized platform – with analytics built in to help prove its value.
We hear all the time about teams who struggle to get a handle on their content. Oftentimes, years and years of photos and videos are scattered across hard drives, hidden in folders, and generally mismanaged. Marketing leaders are getting texts and emails asking how or where to find specific files. Photographers are getting tons of photo requests from clients, sponsors, and team members and it’s taking up too much time to get the files to those who need them.
For years now, we’ve leaned into this solution-oriented mindset, iterating over time to continue transforming how marketers and creatives get work done. Among other goals, we aim to make it as easy as possible to limit those requests and cut down on various steps in a typical workflow.
More than dealing with time constraints and bottlenecks, it’s often difficult for these creatives and marketers to grow their brands without a seamless workflow in place to extend the life of their content. PhotoShelter makes all of that possible, and more.
Q: In a world hungry for authentic, high-quality content, what do you believe are the biggest challenges brands face in producing and delivering such content?
Andrew: The pressure to create more content is greater than ever before. We recently ran a survey, and 85% of marketing and creative professionals reported facing increasing pressures to produce content more rapidly.
In addition to that widespread push for increased output, it costs money to produce great content. Nearly 80% of those survey respondents said economic fluctuations have led to necessary pivots. So reducing expenses and optimizing budgets are top priority for many.
Oftentimes, you see a lot of duplication in organizations creating content that’s similar to what they already created before. Without an organized digital asset management system, teams are losing or misusing content, sharing off-brand visuals, and missing out on the opportunity to produce content more efficiently and effectively.
The speed of distribution is a huge challenge for brands, too. Our client at the Special Olympics told us, “News is now… It is certainly not news 24 hours later.” And that’s true for so many organizations across industries. If they miss the moment, and can’t share their stories in real time, then a lot of content goes to waste. That’s another big challenge that we tackle with our software.
Q: Can you explain how PhotoShelter addresses these challenges, particularly in terms of managing, storing, and distributing content?
Andrew: When it comes to managing a library of visual assets, making things easily searchable is one of the most important value drivers. At PhotoShelter, we’re big on metadata. That’s data about the data; think of it as the hidden labels attached to your digital files, including details like file name, creation date, keywords, copyright information, and more. The easier it is to add, edit, and keep that metadata attached to your files, the more organized and efficient you can be. We offer tons of customization and specific tools dedicated to metadata, and we even have AI solutions that automate this tagging process, making it even easier for marketers and creatives to locate and manage their files.
We take pride in protecting brands’ content too, as we currently store over 20 petabytes of data on our secure, geographically diverse servers around the world. Security is paramount for us because we know that whether you’re a small business, a Fortune 500 company, a pro sports team, or a healthcare brand, it’s important to protect your data. We don’t rely on third-party cloud storage solutions, and that allows us to keep things extra secure.
When it comes to distributing that content, we also have robust tools built for those challenges. In 2023, PhotoShelter acquired Socialie, allowing brands to activate the social channels of all their stakeholders through automated content distribution. This means they can better understand how social content is performing across partner channels, to exponentially expand their reach and drive more engagement. It’s a powerful piece of the puzzle, and we’re excited to be helping so many brands level up the way they share content.
Q: What are the unique features of PhotoShelter that distinguish it from other cloud storage and e-commerce platforms designed for photographers?
Andrew: Let’s look at it from the people point of view first. I think our team is unique, and while we may not be that same band of former pro photographers that we once were, there are creative individuals throughout the company who have experienced life through our customers’ eyes – whether that’s photographers, designers, marketers – they’ve all been in the customers’ shoes, including the people who are actually creating the product. There’s a strong collective belief in helping our customers approach their creative lives better.
Then comes the technology, and the fact that we have literally built this platform from scratch. We’re storing over 20 petabytes of customer content, and we did it with our own cloud platform that’s fine-tuned to do exactly what we need it to do and what our customers need it to do. That conveys the benefits of better performance, faster speeds and download times, and more flexibility with storage for our customers.
There are all kinds of benefits to operating our own platform and we can solve problems faster for customers than our competitors do thanks to our proprietary technology.
Additionally, we treat our customers’ files with uncompromised integrity. We will never reduce the quality of a file, we never strip out the metadata. All of the things that need to be present for a professional, industrial strength organization or pro creator are already things that have been considered and are at the heart of PhotoShelter, from the beginning. We treat your files the way you’d want them to be treated.
Q: Delivering content at the perfect time for peak engagement is crucial. How does PhotoShelter help marketers and creatives achieve this?
Andrew: PhotoShelter’s Real-Time Workflow helps thousands of creative teams distribute and share content in seconds. By connecting cameras directly to a PhotoShelter account through FTP (File Transfer Protocol), photographers can snap a photo and instantly send it to the cloud for their team to access from anywhere in the world.
This can be important for nearly any brand or individual looking to share content in real time, whether it’s live event coverage, behind-the-scenes content, or timely news. And it’s particularly special for those in the sports world. As an example, we work with the creative team at the New York Jets. Thanks to this real-time workflow, they are seeing a huge uptick in content creation and social media engagement (They saw their Instagram engagement grow 380% from the 2018 football season to the 2019 season because of a sped-up workflow and increased output). Photographers no longer need to step aside to pull cards, because they’re sent directly to the social team to sift through and push out before the timely moments pass.
Delivering content at the perfect moment is arguably even more important when it comes to the players, influencers, brand advocates, and other stakeholders who have their own fans and followers. With Socialie by PhotoShelter, distribution to these parties is automated with performance and engagement metrics tracked along the way.
This is changing the way brands strategize for social media, with an emphasis on tapping into the reach of their most active partners and advocates.
Q: Are there any upcoming features or innovations within PhotoShelter that you’re particularly excited about?
Andrew: We’re very excited to be working on a number of product updates. Right now, we’re rolling out a modern interface of the PhotoShelter Library. With that comes enhanced video metadata, improved upload and view options, and streamlined sharing and permission tools.
PhotoShelter’s suite of AI tools is always improving too, and we’re releasing PlayerID and LogoID. These are our own proprietary AI solutions built to automatically recognize and tag individual players and brand logos when photos are uploaded to PhotoShelter. That automated workflow will make it easier for teams to increase productivity and deliver quality content to sponsors, partners, athletes, and more.
We’re also looking forward to releasing more integrations with the tools everybody relies on for their workflows. And we continue to either innovate with technology or through acquisitions.
Q: Drawing from your extensive experience in marketing, product management, and now as a CEO, what advice would you offer to aspiring entrepreneurs in the tech and creative sectors?
Andrew: First, you need to pick a category that captures your passion – if you can’t get passionate about the customers, solving their problems… if they don’t fascinate you… if you don’t want to spend every extra minute you have listening to their stories… it’s not the right field. Because today, when you have a great idea, it can be super romantic to imagine the future and the everyday success of your business. But unicorns are few and far between, and the reality is you’ll spend many nights, weekends, and holidays jamming away at the hard stuff – the mundane tasks and not the sexy stuff – you’ll have to fire people you care about, but aren’t the right fit for the next chapter of your company… and across the span of your company’s growth path, you will question if you’re heading in the right direction and if it’s all worth it. Your family and friends probably will too.
So what do you have in those challenging moments? The love for the customer, the hole you’re filling, the industry, and your product.
Don’t get overly enamored with your idea. Think MVP. Don’t overbuild. Get market validation. Test and learn.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers about PhotoShelter, or any advice for photographers and creatives navigating the digital landscape today?
Andrew: Community is key. We’ve seen that time and time again as we connect with marketers and creatives across industries. The connections you make today can lead to abundant opportunities in the future. Community building is so important for creatives looking to grow.
One of our core values at PhotoShelter is that we help creative people thrive. We love empowering them to tell more stories. The more stories shared, the more opportunities to connect. And the cycle continues.
Final Thoughts
Andrew’s leadership at PhotoShelter exemplifies a deep commitment to empowering creatives through innovative technology and community support. His insights into the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and the importance of customer passion serve as invaluable guidance for those navigating the complexities of the digital landscape.
By continuously enhancing PhotoShelter’s offerings—such as real-time workflows and advanced AI tools—Andrew ensures that the platform remains an essential resource for photographers and marketers alike, fostering creativity and collaboration among industry professionals.
