Been in the photo booth industry for nearly 10 years and generate $400k annually (set to do over half a mil by 2024) in the wedding and events space. I don’t feel like I am the expert by any means in business or entrepreneurship, but I’ve built a couple successful companies on a small scale, and have an MBA, so maybe I can contribute to your success. AMA!
Bootstrapped it all. Lots of different vendors (my Amazon bills are outrageous at times). Mobibooth, minbooth (boothactive), and orcavue are main equipment providers I use.
I’m in the phoenix area now but was established in Tucson for majority of business. Now we service nationwide with partners in major cities around US.
I just started marketing (website, facebook page, trying to share with friends/family, yelp, thumbtack, anything that would work for leads back then). Funnily enough the first ever wedding I attended, was one where I was hired to work. I had no idea what the ceremony, reception, etc where and was googling the whole thing trying to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about. Fake it till you make it.
Congrats on your success, thanks for the detailed response.