We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alec Coutinho. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alec below.

Hi Alec, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

“Success” a very tall but also simple word. Through thick and thin it’s something I always think about, but the meaning is completely different for everyone.

My parents had taught me as a kid to always keep a good group of people around you. No drama, people that you can learn from and vice versa. Personally for me, having a group of likeminded people as always pushed me to do more. Not only with my career, but with sports, education, and so much more. So what do I think it takes to be “successful”? Be eager to learn, accountable, openminded, and positive.

Alec, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been into visual arts for as long as I can remember. When I would play video games as a kid I would exclusively make artificial scenarios in the photo mode and pretend that I was doing it in real life. It unintentionally made me really fall in love with the art of composition.

When I was 12 or so, my parents had bought me my first camera; a Kodak MD863. Simple point and shoot camera, it’s cherry red. Still have it present day, and use it all the time! I would take photos of cars passing by my parents house in other words “car spotting”, and then flowers and whatnot in the backyard as well.

I’m super into cars, it’s what I am passionate about. Almost everyone I know in life is because of that, it’s monumental for me. My mom would even tell me stories about me as an infant being able to tell what cars are what, and even tell her models. I swear I have a personality! As I progressed in school and made my way into high school, I saw that there were more people just like me. I would hang out with all the car dudes after school and take photos of their cars for fun with my Canon T3i. Countless of car meets, and many new friends later I was starting to make some money off of taking photos. Nothing crazy, but it was still rewarding that people wanted to pay money for my art. In the very beginning it definitely was not butterflies and rainbows, there were people that ghosted me 30 minutes before shoots, try to not pay me, the whole nine. Definitely character building moments, taught me a lot about patience.

College comes around, and I’m still doing my thing. My portfolio is more diverse – working with nightclubs in Providence, tons of small businesses and started to dabble with social media management for local automotive lifestyle brands like Beast Coast, and Illite.us. Everything I learned from the businesses I worked with then, I still use today and this was almost 7 years ago.

After college, I bounced around a little bit. Spent time in a ton of places, but one that really spoke to me was Atlanta. When 21 I visited for the first time, and really enjoyed what I had seen. When I turned 23, I moved there on a whim. Packed everything in my car with absolutely nothing guaranteed lined up. It was a really bonkers period of my life, had no idea what I was doing but I wanted to learn. I wanted to be uncomfortable. That sounds mad no? Because it is, but personally it was something I knew I needed. About a month in to living in ATL, I landed a position at Porsche Design as a Business Development intern. It was a very cool introduction to the professional world, but I knew big picture it was not what I wanted. I did become a contractor there, but eventually left because I needed to focus on my company.

I’m one year in on full-time freelance, and I can say I beat the statistics of a first year businesses. I’m still here, and staying pretty busy. I’m grateful for it, but definitely really proud of it. I want people to know, it was not easy. A lot of lessons and some growing pains, but I got through it. My core group of people is what I am most proud of. In my opinion, it is absolutely the most important thing to have people around you that inspire, call you out, grow with you, and check in on you.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

I’m really grateful for this, but it’s a mix of word of mouth and cold walking/outreach. I

Word of mouth is reliable, but you can’t count on it. Cold walking/outreach generates more clients for me, because I’m able to express myself verbally. Easier said than done for sure, but after you put yourself out there more and more it becomes easier to just talk to random people.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Just being me. I show my true colors from the jump. “See good, do good.”

Contact Info:

• Website: notfornothingproductions.co
• Instagram: @aleccoutinho @notfornothingproductions

Image Credits
Photo of me by @ashstonstan