The company aims to keep team members happy with a suite of benefits that includes health, dental and vision insurance as well as life and disability coverage. Employees can easily navigate their options using Gusto, which makes the process of enrolling and managing benefits easier for everyone.
The virtual studio connects business to content providers, with shoots starting at $39 for a photo and $93 for video. Customers can build a shot list and make changes in real time.
Affordable
The platform allows brands to book a virtual content shoot entirely online for less than the price of stock photography. Merchants can then select the photos and videos they want and receive them in 24 hours, ready to use on their website and social media accounts. The process is easy and stress-free.
Customers can also opt-in for a lifestyle photo-shoot that will allow their product to be photographed in different settings such as kitchens, bedrooms, or living rooms. The company also offers engagement and maternity photo-shoots for couples or expecting mothers.
Giorgi says that last year, soona’s revenue grew 400% and that it is “on the path to becoming a female-founded unicorn.” In 2023, the company plans to triple its team in Minneapolis to about 90 employees and to add more engineering staff. The company will also increase its presence in Denver and Austin. It will focus on growing its e-commerce technology integrations, which will help it to grow its customer base.
Convenient
As the first decentralized studio in ecommerce, soona makes it simple for brands to plan and build their list of shots and refresh professional visuals cost-effectively. The platform closes the feedback loop on how well assets perform, bringing market reaction back into the creative process.
Customers can use the soona app to create a shoot, ship in their products using a prepaid label and then join their photographer live from a remote location during production. After the shoot, the photos and videos are returned within 24 hours. This saves ecommerce brands thousands of dollars and time.
Giorgi says that the company has found a great product-market fit with around 10,000 merchants, including Wild Earth, Lola Tampons and Birchbox, using the service. Most are $1 million to $5 million ecommerce and D2C brands that are growing quickly.
The company is also expanding its model services, which are one of the quickest-growing segments of its business. Soona uses Gusto, a full-service payroll provider, to provide its employees with a transparent and flexible way of getting paid.
Transparent
When it comes to e-commerce, quality product photos are crucial. They help attract customers and increase sales. However, the process of taking quality photos can be time-consuming and expensive.
Soona offers affordable professional photography packages that can help you improve your e-commerce business. The company also has a team of dedicated customer service representatives to help you get the best results from your shoot.
The company is expanding its studio operations in Minneapolis and Denver and plans to hire 60 new staff members. Most of these positions will be in creative roles, but the company also wants to expand its technical team.
The company is also adding a feature that allows merchants to track inventory at the studio level. This will enable the company to provide better services to its customers. For example, it will allow merchants to see when their products are ready and how long the session took. This feature will be especially helpful to small business owners who need to monitor inventory on a daily basis.
Efficient
With a strong focus on retaining experienced team members, soona makes it easy for employees to understand and access their benefits. This includes health, dental and vision coverage, as well as life insurance. In addition, soona offers a wide range of flexible and cost-effective payroll solutions.
The company uses Gusto’s modernized payroll solution to provide employees with flexible scheduling and transparency. This helps ensure that employees receive their pay in a timely manner. In addition, the Gusto platform allows soona to avoid costly off-cycle payroll fees.
While there are other businesses that allow merchants to ship in their products for remote photo and video shoots, many of them don’t offer the real-time experience that soona provides. This new funding will help the startup to expand its studio services and develop tools that help merchants identify gaps in their product-level content mix. It also aims to grow its marketplace of model services. This is one of the fastest-growing segments of the business.