We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Gibbons a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

So some may say that it was happenstance. I like to say that God was speaking to me.

When I started David Allen Productions, it was merely by listening to what was occurring around me. I, at the time, was a real estate agent working in an office trying to figure things out. Because of my past experiences and my love of technology, I quickly became the go-to guy for anything tech related in the office.

One day, after helping an agent out with their computer, they asked me if I took photos of houses. They were looking for someone to do just that, but unfortunately at the time I did not and I stated such.

Just a few days later, I had a similar experience. I was helping a different agent out with their computer and afterward, they asked me the same question. This time my response was a little different. I told them no, but maybe I should start. That was when I had my first job as a photographer and the birth of David Allen Productions occurred.

I bought my first camera from Amazon. It is funny that today, a camera is a common object that I use almost daily but at the time it was such a foreign object to me that arrived in the mail. I quickly went down the Youtube rabbit hole of videos to try and learn everything I could about how to take photos of houses. I even stayed up late the night prior to my first shoot going over all the equipment and last-minute videos in fear of messing up the photoshoot the next day.

The first photoshoot went pretty smoothly. I then stayed up late into the night to edit the photos (again referencing Youtube) to make sure that they received them back the next day (the industry standard is next-day turnaround).

When the agent received them, they couldn’t stop raving about them and how they looked better than their previous photographer’s photos who had been taking photos for years. That cemented the idea that this was the path I should take.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is David Gibbons. Previous to opening up David Allen Productions, I was in the Military where I earned a Bronze Star with Valor while deployed to Iraq, I then started working at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida where I was awarded the coveted Legacy Award which is the highest honor given to a cast member, Imagineer, or employee. While working at Walt Disney World, I started to pursue my Bachelor’s degree (after being out of high school for almost 20 years!). I was able to finish my 4-year degree in 3 years graduating Magna Cum Laude while dating and marrying my wife (it was a whirlwind couple of years!). Shortly after, I then decided to put my degree to work and started David Allen Productions. David Allen is my first and middle name as a reminder to treat everyone as you would your own family because only my family calls me David Allen.

We are a real estate photography company that strives to be an extension of the agent’s marketing team to assist them in making the agent and the home that they are selling the star of the show! We do that by offering the highest quality photos, videos, aerials, and 3D tours while keeping the real estate agents and their homes at the forefront of the marketing efforts.

One of the things that sets us apart is our customer service. There are a lot of companies out there that can produce decent photos, but where they are lacking is the relationships that are built and the commitment to fantastic customer service. Through our relationships, we have had the opportunity to be published in magazines, entrusted with homes that are seen on television, helped families secure their investments in their vacation homes by enabling a higher average nightly rate, as well as help families quickly sell their homes for top dollar (due to the media provided) due to both happy and not as great situations that they are dealing with in their own life while treating them with compassion and understanding on what they are going through.

One of the things I stress (with myself and my 2 other photographers) is that when we walk into someone’s home, we have no idea what they are going through. The reason they are selling may be a death, divorce, birth, marriage, loss of job, promotion, or simply a business decision with an investment they made. We treat each home with dignity and like it was our own.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Luckily, the cost of entry is fairly low for this business. I do not require a lot of equipment or physical space. When I first started, I had sold a home as a real estate agent and I used my commission check to purchase the camera and needed equipment.

I was nervous to spend the money because that first check was not very much and it took over 6 months to earn it. It was about $1400 dollars and I was getting ready to spend almost $1000 of that on equipment on an endeavor I did not know if it would work or not. I took a leap of faith and bought the camera, tripod, memory cards, and a flash from Amazon. Since then, I have bootstrapped all my other purchases.

The next purchase I made, I used the funds that I had earned taking photos to get a drone. Again, another large purchase that I was not sure would take off (pun intended, 😁). I continued adding services and purchasing the needed equipment with money that I was earning along the way.

A little money from another venture was used to generate enough capital to put us in the position we are in today with multiple photographers and several pieces of equipment.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Just one of the many books that have influenced my thinking is The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. This book did not make sense to me the first time I read it. It was after speaking with some mentors that the previous readings began to make sense.

All of your employees do not have to be physically present. Meaning, it is ok to hire someone in a different part of the country or even a different country to help you grow your business. Unless it is a task that someone has to be physically present for (such as taking photos in my case), someone somewhere else can easily take on that role for you.

As your business grows, your time and your “hourly rate” becomes more valuable. You have to shift out of the employee mindset where you work in your business and into a business owner mindset where you work on your business. If your time is more valuable doing presentations or creating lasting business relationships but you are stuck doing the daily grind, the opportunity cost is too high and you need to hire someone to do that task whether they are physical or remote.

One of the first things that I learned to let go of was my editing. I would be at a photoshoot for let us say 2 hours, then I would have to go home and edit for another 2-3 hours. Every time I said yes to editing photos for a photoshoot, I was saying no to my family. No, I can not spend time with you right now. No, I can not help you with homework. No, I can not attend a function. Sometimes it was No, I cannot go to sleep right now, I will have to sleep later. When I learned that overseas editors can do just as good of a job as me or better, the money that was spent to have them edit for me was money that I gladly spent to be able to say “Yes” to all of those things. It has grown from there and I am looking to see (and i have done) what else I can outsource so that I am not the bottleneck in my company’s growth.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://DavidAllenProductions.com/
• Instagram: Instagram.com/DavidAllenProductions
• Facebook: Facebook.com/DavidAllenProductionsFL

Image Credits
All images belong to me.