Jerry Kennelly Of StockByte: "Failure Was Never An Option, You Work Your Ass Off To Meet Your Deadline"

Long Labour Day weekend and time to browse. The Sunday Business Post Online looks in Getting the picture at Jerry Kennelly of Stockbyte and the history and future of his company:

“I wanted to do something in photography, and I wanted to do something on an international scale,” he said. Both of Kennelly's ambitions have long since been realised. His company, Stockbyte, is now the fourth-largest supplier of royalty-free photographs in the world, behind global giants such as Getty and Corbis, the stock photo agency owned by Bill Gates. [...]

The firm, which employs 35 people, made an operating profit of more than €1 million in the year to the end of April 2004.Things have since moved on. “We have had serious growth since then, and the figures are now much more significant,’' Kennelly said. The Stockbyte business model is simple. The company takes thousands of generic images from around the world and sells them at high volume and low cost. The client pays for the photograph once and can then reproduce it as often as desired with no additional cost. Stockbyte has about 60,000 images on file. [...]

“They [publishers] were caught between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “That is where we got the idea for royalty-free photographs. It was a no-brainer to me that this was going to be a great business.” [...]

Kennelly knew he needed more finance if the firm was to shoot more pictures and generate more sales. He approached the main banks, who were not interested. There was no bricks and mortar involved. Thanks, but no thanks. But ACT Venture Capital in Dublin appreciated his idea, and took a 25 per cent stake in the firm in 1997 for €300,000 and a working capital loan of €600,000. [...]

“When you are into photography, it is like having a sense of art or of music. You are looking at a shot, figuring how you are going to take it, crafting it in your mind. “It is visual literacy. There is no compromise and there can't afford to be. Our success is down to our standards and the fact that our pictures are better than our rivals'. We refuse to compromise on our pictures. If that means renting a 747 aircraft for one picture, we will rent it. Simple as that.”

Kennelly and his team travel extensively building up their stock of photographs. A team of six recently returned from the US, where they were shooting for three months. In addition to the core Stockbyte team, the payroll for the shoot included an auxiliary staff of 20 and another 30 models each day. The company outsources its post-production operations to India and Hong Kong, but retains its creative process at its Tralee headquarters. [...]

Earlier this year Kennelly launched another company aimed at the lower end of the market, called Stockdisc. The pictures are not as sophisticated as those of Stockbyte, and sell for a lower price. Stockdisc now has a library of 15,000 images.

“We are debt-free and self sustaining, so we can move forward and look at other things. Stockbyte recently signed a partnership deal with Getty, under which its images will be available to Getty customers. The deal is likely to result in a huge sales uplift for Stockbyte, and has also fuelled rumours that the business will eventually be sold to Getty. “I suppose people would say that all right. But I want to keep the business while I am still adding sustainable value to it,” said Kennelly.

It´s a longer and well-written story, so continue here.

Regarding Stockdisc, the brand

was launched March 2005 targeting mid level users with aggressive CD price points. Stockdisc is already achieving substantial revenue streams and is now set to be another major player alongside Stockbyte. 15,000 images and 80 CD based image collections now shipping. 25,000 images and 120 titles shipping by September.

Research indicated a shortage of supply of contemporary images for this sector and since its launch in March has already has already achieved substantial revenue streams.

Between both brands (wholly owning all of their imagery), over 40,000 new images will be launched during 2005, making them the fastest growing stock creators globally. Stockbyte has been profitable since its launch in 1997 and in the past three years has achieved 50% year on year profit growth. Its 2005 figures will considerably exceed this performance. Stockbyte/Stockdisc is now the largest privately held royalty-free stock photog company by sales" (Link)

Kennelly is also a part of the Ernst & Young 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year Shortlist.

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[clarence walker]

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