Seun Babajide:
“This is the first online market that will ever exist exclusively to African photographers and with the plans already in motion, it will be a huge income generator and also create a lot of jobs for people in Africa. “

Oluwaseun Babajide, the CEO of SnapHubr, a brand new concept in photography marketing, has spoken on how he started the idea of building an app for African photographers to upload and sell photographs about events and so on.

Q:What motivated you to build a photography app?
A: One of the main purpose of Snaphubr.com is to create jobs for people in Africa, that is one of my main long and short term goals, and again, it is just a platform where people can upload and sell their images. It is the first time this is happening in Nigeria, it has never happened before.

What we are trying to create is the first ever event photography market place. For example, if you are having a wedding, sometimes, peoples’ pictures are taken and it gets lost, the owners never see it. The idea Snaphubr is selling is that the invitation card will read that all the pictures at this wedding is exclusive to Snaphubr.com so after the wedding, people can visit Snaphubr.com pick their preferred pictures, download it, pay for it and they get it immediately in their email and if they order for print, they get that within 14 days regardless of the location in the world.

Snaphubr

Q: Are you a photographer?
A: I am not a professional photographer, I am the guy who likes being photographed! I am the kind of person who you will see everywhere being lively, plus I take a lot of pictures. I have them everywhere, on Instagram and Facebook. Like I said earlier, the main purpose for creating this website is for job empowerment, not necessarily because I enjoy photography or am a professional photographer.

Q: Can you explain the process a little more?
A: It is very easy, the whole concept has been made very easy. Anyone can log on onto the website and upload bulk images which can be viewed all over the world. There are a lot of categories ranging from award ceremonies, weddings, to night clubs and so on.

Snaphubr2

All you have to do is to upload pictures under any category you want and publish, or you can set images privacy. Another purpose that the website serves is to sell these images to their respective owners. So if you set an image as private, a lot of people can see it, but they cannot buy it. Only the people with passwords can buy the image. Once you upload you publish, we already have set prices on all images. So we do the printing, shipping and what the photographers get is 45 percent of the images sold.

Q: Do you have competitors?
A: We have not had competitors, because we cater strictly for events. But in the space of e-commerce in general, we will have a bit of competition.

Q: How long will this application last?
A: I spent over two years working on this application. We have competent developers that are in charge of its upgrade and maintenance. This is a long term project and since Snabhubr launched, it has garnered positive reviews. We have had a lot of investors, LIKE…..

This is the first online market that will ever exist exclusively to African photographers and with the plans already in motion, it will be a huge income generator and also create a lot of jobs for people in Africa.

Q: How will you be able to measure the success of the app?
A: There are a lot of metrics in place. For instance, google analytics that will give us the demographic view will enable us to know the countries that use the site regularly.We willalso have the opportunity to know what the media has to say about the platform.

Q: Do you think Africa is ready for Snaphubr?
A: Yes. With the feedback we have gotten so far, with the partnership requests and with the interviews we have had I am confident that Africa is ready for this new invention.
This is also true as it is going to create jobs for Africans and empower the photographers by giving them value for their money, I have no doubt that people will embrace this.

*The interview was originally published by Venture Africa