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

Tiffani, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

If I could go back, I’d start sooner—not to avoid mistakes, but to make them earlier.

Starting young gave me time to fail, restart, and learn lessons I wish I’d known sooner. It’s like that scene in Ted Lasso where he’s underestimated at darts. He quotes Walt Whitman: “Be curious, not judgmental.” People judged me—the blonde, the girl, the “kid”—but curiosity was my superpower. I asked questions until I annoyed people, but I also uncovered answers no one else had.

Every time someone dismissed me, they handed me an opportunity. When the economy crashed or banks pulled the rug out, I adapted. When my Bolivian crew doubted a woman could lead, I outworked them. When Domino’s projected $5K weekly sales, I hit $17K. Curiosity beats assumptions every time.

Would earlier mistakes have hurt? Sure. But they’d also have taught me faster that resilience isn’t just surviving—it’s learning to thrive while everyone else is still underestimating you.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

The Story Behind the Lens

If I could go back, I’d start sooner—not to avoid mistakes, but to make them faster. That’s the first lesson life taught me when I became Domino’s youngest franchisee at 25, hitting $17K weeks when they predicted $5K. Then the economy crashed, and I learned the second lesson: Failure isn’t the end unless you let it be.

It started with the last photo I ever took of my mother. She never saw my stores rise or fall, but that image became proof—of her existence, and of how quickly moments disappear. When my marriage ended, leaving me with three kids to raise alone, I rebuilt from scratch: minimum wage jobs, corporate marketing at Google, mastering every technical skill I could. But something was missing.

The turning point came when I realized all that hard-won expertise—the Adobe Suite, email campaigns, analytics—could serve a deeper purpose. Now when I lift my camera, I’m not just taking photos. I’m fighting time.

At weddings, I chase unguarded laughs. In portraits, I wait for the exact second when someone’s real self shines through. Clients call my work art, but what they’re feeling is truth—because I’ve been where they are. The woman who lost everything. The mother racing against her children’s growing up. The survivor who had to relearn her worth.

What sets me apart isn’t just technical skill or a good eye—it’s knowing how fragile our stories are. My proudest moments? The divorced mother seeing herself as beautiful again. The groom transfixed by his grandmother’s tear. My own kids flipping through albums of their childhood.

This is why I do it. Not for perfect shots, but to say: “I see you. This moment? It’s worth keeping.” Because the right photograph outlasts everything.

Short. True. No regrets.

Have you ever had to pivot?

The Pivot That Gave Me Back My Time

The layoff email from Google hit in 2023. Just seven months into my $110K remote role—the one I’d been headhunted for—they decided to take everything “in-house.” My training manuals, my processes, all of it shipped overseas to someone making $14/hour.

For the first time in years, I had an unexpected gift: time. Time to help my middle child, who was struggling socially. Time to teach them how to answer the phone, hold conversations, find their voice. And time, finally, to bet on myself.

How I Got Here
Years earlier, fresh off becoming Domino’s youngest franchisee (and surviving its collapse), I’d been a stay-at-home mom with two kids when my marriage imploded. I caught my husband’s affair—he’s still with her today. The divorce left me with $3,000 from his 401(k). I spent half on a camera body. That was the first bet on myself.

Single motherhood meant office jobs, rigid schedules—waking at 4 AM to work remote shifts by 5, clocking out at 2 PM for soccer practice and parent drop-offs, sometimes eating dinner at 9 PM. Alone. No family support. Just the echo of my ex’s words: “Good luck with your little photography stuff. Too bad it’s a completely useless skill.”

I practiced in silence for years, hiding my work. Then came baby number three, seven years after the divorce. (He’s eight now; my oldest is 18.) Through it all, I kept shooting—not just photos, but my shot at something better.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The $300 Sink That Taught Me Everything

It started with the three-compartment sink—the moment I realized the whole game was rigged.

There I was, 29 years old, standing in my half-built second location with my plumber—a man who’d spent weeks calling me “sweetheart” while padding his invoices. He swore I needed a $5,000 commercial sink, the kind with all the bells and whistles. So I called him over to look at the $300 NSF-approved model I’d found myself and watched his face do this slow-motion collapse as he inspected it, realizing I wasn’t just some blonde kid playing restaurant owner but someone who’d actually read the specs.

That sink became my first real lesson in how the world works. The franchise had given me this thick construction binder they called “the bible,” except it might as well have been fiction—the “camel sand” paint color had been discontinued, half the approved vendors no longer existed, and the tile dimensions were wrong. Thank God I’d already built one location or I would’ve been cutting tiles blind.

Then came the bank. They’d approved my loan, then suddenly claimed I wasn’t in good standing—some nonsense about checks not clearing that evaporated when I walked across the street to their competitor. The branch manager there pulled up my records, then called them back right in front of me: “Her credit’s flawless. What exactly is the problem?” Turned out they were trying to back out of funding, and when that didn’t work, they split my loan into two pieces at 10.5% and 13.5% interest like financial vultures.

2008 hit like a sledgehammer. Gas prices spiked to $5 a gallon—our delivery drivers were practically sobbing at the pump. Bain Capital had bought Domino’s and the stock crashed from $17 to $2. Our mountain towns—Incline Village and Truckee—were emptying out as tourists vanished. I’d been smart enough to incorporate my Nevada business into California, saving thousands, but now it didn’t matter. My paid-off store in Incline Village and my struggling location in Truckee were both going under.

The day the Truckee landlord illegally locked me out of my own store—breaching our lease in the process—I knew it was over. My bankruptcy attorney actually called and recorded him admitting it. “Get away from me and learn how to do your job!” the attorney laughed before hanging up.

When I walked into that attorney’s office for my Chapter 7 consultation, I brought my mother-in-law Karen with me. She’d loaned me money, and I wanted complete transparency about where it had gone. The attorney—a kind man who became a bankruptcy lawyer after watching his entrepreneur father struggle—took one look at my story and offered me an $11/hour job on the spot. Karen nodded before I could answer. In an economy where jobs were disappearing faster than our Domino’s stock value, it was the only move left.

For ten years, I stayed far away from entrepreneurship, convinced the game was unwinnable. Then the universe gives you a big shove. I had worked until I landed a role as Director of Marketing Operations, I felt back on top earning 110K aa year. Then I got laid off, one day, months later, I was sitting in a salon chair getting a free haircut from a stylist who wanted headshots in exchange. She had these cheap blue contact lenses that made her look intense, she normally has the most beautiful natural green eyes. Halfway through rinsing my hair, she suddenly grabbed my face with both hands and said, “You’re a damn good photographer, you know that?”

And right then, I remembered the $300 sink. The bank manager’s voice on speakerphone. The way I’d fought for every inch of that failing business.

Turns out all those battles weren’t just losses—they were training. Now when a bride sees her wedding photos and starts crying because I captured the way her grandfather’s hands shook while tying his tie, or when an executive finally sees herself as the leader she truly is, I realize:

The system might have broken my business, but it never broke my ability to see what really matters. And that’s worth more than any franchise.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tiffani-lear.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sierragirlnv/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sierragirlnv/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffani-lear/

Image Credits

Photos taken by Tiffani Lear (Tiffani Lear Photography)