Business
Founder Friday with Madison Stefanis: making film photography fun – and sustainable
It’s always an interesting story when entrepreneurs find their successful business idea in areas they would never have expected. For 22-year-old Madison Stefanis, it was in photography.
Specifically, from a “clunky old SLR film camera” that she didn’t know how to use.
“I don’t come from a background in photography,” she admitted. “I used to shoot film for fun – it’s trendy and very popular (again) so I used to carry a disposable camera with me on weekends. Then one day, I decided to list the old film camera at home for sale on Facebook.”
Madison, a marketing and entrepreneurship major at RMIT University, knew she had stumbled into something good when the camera ended up selling for five times the amount she had listed it for.
“I always say to people that I come from a business background rather than photography. I came across the right niche and decided to give it a go,” she added. “Vintage film cameras are in low supply and high demand, which commands a high price point.”
However, it wasn’t long before 35mmCo, her vintage camera business, ran into supply issues from constantly running out.
The dilemma inspired The Reloader camera: small and compact like a disposable camera, but completely reusable.
“Customers were seeking a beginner-friendly camera at a lower price point, so I invested all of my savings ($50,000) into my first stock shipment of The Reloader at age 20. It took us 12 months to launch. I spent a lot of time focusing on the packaging design and how I could market shooting film as something easy and fun,” Madison explained.
For today’s iPhone generation, the product was an instant hit.
“We’re more forgiving of film photos because there’s usually only one image from a particular moment, rather than scrolling through hundreds of images on an iPhone in pursuit of the perfect photo,” she explained. “Plus, the developing process is exciting: you often forget what photos were taken on the camera so it’s super fun to receive your film and relive those memories.”
Building a sustainable business
Coming from a generation that is “very aware of the climate emergency we’re facing in the world”, Madison knew early on The Reloader was addressing the important issue of single-use plastic waste.
Not only was it reusable, it simplified the photography and developing process by only needing one AAA battery. After finishing the film roll (24 photos), customers could drop off or mail in the roll to a film developing lab.
“You can select whether you would prefer to receive the images as digital scans, physical prints, or both,” she explained. “Processing usually takes between one to three business days, depending on the independent lab. Digital copies of the images will be emailed or texted to your phone, and physical prints can be collected in-store or mailed to your address.”
Customer feedback so far, she says, has been fantastic.
“People love that the product is reusable so they don’t have to worry about purchasing single-use cameras once they have completed their roll of film. It’s a great product for beginners that want to learn about film photography.”
In the next year, she intends to lean more into sustainability at 35mmCo. Currently, its fulfillment centre partners with Ecologi to plant trees around Australia for every order sent from the warehouse.
They are also a corporate partner of the National Breast Cancer Foundation this October and will be donating $10 from every camera sold to help fund breast cancer research.
Madison observed, “Consumers expect businesses to implement sustainable practices. It’s no longer considered a good-will practice to operate sustainably – it’s an expectation for all organisations.”
READ MORE: Founder Friday with Sarah Neill: creating an online fashion community for women
Finding success as a young entrepreneur
In developing her own product at the age of 20 while her friends were “being young adults and experiencing the freedom that it brings”, Madison’s the first to admit that entrepreneurship has its isolating moments.
“The first 6 months in business were really lonely. I think all entrepreneurs experience this feeling at some stage, especially at my age,” she admitted. “Nobody in my family comes from a business background and I didn’t have anyone in my inner circle that could relate.”
She also launched 35mmCo during Melbourne’s lockdown, working all hours of the day on the business, and found it difficult to adjust when restrictions lifted.
“I was so used to spending all of my time working on the company! It’s hard to switch off when you’re always thinking about work,” she added.
Nevertheless, she eventually found her stride. In its first six months, 35mmCo turned over a million dollars in revenue and stayed on track to turn $2 million by the end of its first year.
Madison credits role models like her supportive mum, along with podcasts and inspirational founder stories, for continuing to fuel her passion for business.
“Australia has such an abundance of clever and successful entrepreneurs. There’s so much knowledge and value in learning from other people’s experiences and lessons,” she smiled.
Celebrating milestones
She got to observe firsthand the incredible community 35mmCo has created at their first birthday event in Sydney this week, marking one year in business.
“It was surreal to see a room filled with so many people that love and support the brand. The community we’ve built is incredible,” she described. “I’m lucky to be the same age as our customers – it allows us to really foster a strong connection with them and understand their needs and wants.”
The main focus for the next few years is on a range of new camera colours, fun accessories to accompany the camera, and moving the business into overseas markets.
“There are a number of major retailers where I love to see The Reloader stocked. We’re focusing on expanding our product range and transitioning into the lifestyle space. Shooting film encourages living in the moment and reliving your memories later – we would love to hold more events and activations to connect with our community.”
Any advice for other young entrepreneurs keen to start their own business?
“Be resilient and confident,” Madison affirmed. “Follow your ideas through to execution and don’t be discouraged by rejection. No dream is ever too big – if you believe in it, you can achieve it.”
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READ MORE: Founder Friday with Jacqui Bull: transforming Australia’s staffing market
Transport providers, businesses and governments on Saturday are rushing to get all their systems back online after long disruptions following a widespread technology outage.
The biggest continuing effect has been on air travel. Carriers canceled thousands of flights on Friday and now have many of their planes and crews in the wrong place, while airports facing continued problems with checking in and security.
At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, noting that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
Here’s the Latest:
Microsoft: 8.5 million devices on its Windows system were affected
Microsoft says 8.5 million devices running its Windows operating system were affected by a faulty cybersecurity update Friday that led to worldwide disruptions.
A Saturday blog post from Microsoft was the first estimate of the scope of the disruptions caused by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s software update.
“We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines,” said the blog post from Microsoft cybersecurity executive David Weston.
“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services.”
Weston said such a significant disturbance is rare but “demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem.” Windows is the dominant operating system for personal computers around the world.
Austrian doctors’ group calls for better data protection for patients
In Austria, a leading doctors organization said the global IT outage exposed the vulnerability of health systems reliant on digital systems.
“Yesterday’s incidents underscore how important it is for hospitals to have analogue backups” to safeguard patient care, Harald Mayer, vice president of the Austrian Chamber of Doctors, said in a statement on the organization’s website.
The organization called on governments to impose high standards in patient data protection and security and on health providers to train staff and put systems in place to manage crises.
“Happily, where there were problems, these were kept small and short-lived and many areas of care were unaffected” in Austria, Mayer said.
Germany warns of scams after major IT outage
BERLIN — The German government’s IT security agency says numerous companies are still struggling with the consequences of a far-reaching technology outage.
“Many business processes and procedures have been disturbed by the breakdown of computer systems,” the BSI agency said on its website.
But the agency also said Saturday that many impacted areas have returned to normal.
It warned that cybercriminals were trying to take advantage of the situation through phishing, fake websites and other scams and that “unofficial” software code was in circulation.
The agency said it was not yet clear how faulty code ended up in the CrowdStrike software update blamed for triggering the outage.
European airports appear to be close to normal
LONDON — Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow, said it is busy but operating normally on Saturday. The airport said in a statement that “all systems are back up and running and passengers are getting on with their journeys smoothly.“
Some 167 flights scheduled to depart from U.K. airports on Friday were canceled, while 171 flights due to land were axed.
Meanwhile, flights at Berlin Airport were departing on or close to schedule, German news agency dpa reported, citing an airport spokesman.
Nineteen flights took off in the early hours of Saturday after authorities exempted them from the usual ban on night flights.
On Friday, 150 of the 552 scheduled inbound and outbound flights at the airport were canceled over the IT outage, disrupting the plans of thousands of passengers at the start of the summer vacation season in the German capital.
German hospital slowly restoring its systems after widespread cancellations
BERLIN — The Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital in northern Germany, which on Friday canceled all elective surgery because of the global IT outage, said Saturday that it was gradually restoring its systems.
In a statement on its website, it forecast that operations at its two branches in Kiel and Luebeck would return to normal by Monday and that “elective surgery can take place as planned and our ambulances can return to service.”
Britain’s transport system still trying to get back on track
LONDON — Britain’s travel and transport industries are struggling to get back on schedule after the global security outage with airline passengers facing cancellations and delays on the first day of summer holidays for many school pupils.
Gatwick Airport said “a majority” of scheduled flights were expected to take off. Manchester Airport said passengers were being checked in manually and there could be last-minute cancellations.
The Port of Dover said it was seeing an influx of displaced air passengers, with hourlong waits to enter the port to catch ferries to France.
Meanwhile, Britain’s National Cyber Security Center warned people and businesses to be on the lookout for phishing attempts as “opportunistic malicious actors” try to take advantage of the outage.
The National Cyber Security Center’s former head, Ciaran Martin, said the worst of the crisis was over, “because the nature of the crisis is that it went very wrong very quickly. It was spotted quite quickly and essentially it was turned off.”
He told Sky News that some businesses would be able to get back to normal very quickly, but for sectors such as aviation it would take longer.
“If you’re in aviation, you’ve got people, planes and staffs all stranded in the wrong place… So we are looking at days. I’d be surprised if we’re looking at weeks.”
Germany airline expects most of its flights to run normally
BERLIN — Eurowings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, said it expected to return to “largely scheduled” flight operations on Saturday.
On Friday, the global IT outage had forced the airline to cancel about 20% of its flights, mostly on domestic routes. Passengers were asked to take trains instead.
“Online check-in, check-in at the airport, boarding processes, booking and rebooking flights are all possible again,” the airline said Saturday on X. “However, due to the considerable extent of the global IT disruption there may still be isolated disruptions” for passengers, it said.
Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates have canceled hundreds of flights
DALLAS — Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates canceled more than a quarter of their schedule on the East Coast by midafternoon Friday, aviation data provider Cirium said.
More than 1,100 flights for Delta and its affiliates have been canceled.
United and United Express had canceled more than 500 flights, or 12% of their schedule, and American Airlines’ network had canceled 450 flights, 7.5% of its schedule.
Southwest and Alaska do not use the CrowdStrike software that led to the global internet outages and had canceled fewer than a half-dozen flights each.
Portland, Oregon, mayor declares an emergency over the outage
PORTLAND, Ore. — Mayor Ted Wheeler declared an emergency Friday after more than half of the city’s computer systems were affected by the global internet outage.
Wheeler said during a news conference that while emergency services calls weren’t interrupted, dispatchers were having to manually track 911 calls with pen and paper for a few hours. He said 266 of the city’s 487 computer systems were affected.
Border crossings into the US are delayed
SAN DIEGO — People seeking to enter the U.S. from both the north and the south found that the border crossings were delayed by the internet outage.
The San Ysidro Port of Entry was gridlocked Friday morning with pedestrians waiting three hours to cross, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Even cars with people approved for a U.S. Customers and Border Protection “Trusted Traveler” program for low-risk passengers waited up to 90 minutes. The program, known as SENTRI, moves passengers more quickly through customs and passport control if they make an appointment for an interview and submit to a background check to travel through customs and passport control more quickly when they arrive in the U.S.
Meanwhile, at the U.S.-Canada border, Windsor Police reported long delays at the crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
U.S. filings for unemployment benefits rose again last week and appear to be settling consistently at a slightly higher though still healthy level that the Federal Reserve has been aiming for.
Jobless claims for the week ending July 13 rose by 20,000 to 243,000 from 223,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It’s the eighth straight week claims came in above 220,000. Before that stretch, claims had been below that number in all but three weeks so far in 2024.
Weekly unemployment claims are widely considered as representative of layoffs.
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark borrowing rate 11 times beginning in March of 2022 in an attempt to extinguish the four-decade high inflation that shook the economy after it rebounded from the COVID-19 recession of 2020. The Fed’s intention was to cool off a red-hot labor market and slow wage growth, which it says can fuel inflation.
AP AUDIO: More Americans apply for jobless benefits as layoffs settle at higher levels in recent weeks
AP correspondent Shelley Adler reports filings for unemployment benefits have risen.
“The Fed asked to see more evidence of a cooling economy, and for the most part, they’ve gotten it,” said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E-Trade. “Add today’s weekly jobless claims to the list of rate-cut-friendly data points.”
Few analysts expect the Fed to cut rates at its meeting later this month, however most are betting on a cut in September.
The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits rose after declining last week for the first time in 10 weeks. About 1.87 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits for the week of July 6, around 20,000 more than the previous week. That’s the most since November of 2021.
Continuing claims have been on the rise in recent months, suggesting that some Americans receiving unemployment benefits are finding it more challenging to land jobs.
And there have been job cuts in a range of sectors in recent months, from the agricultural manufacturer Deere, to media outlets like CNN, and elsewhere.
The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, rose by 1,000 to 234,750.
Strong consumer demand and a resilient labor market has helped to avert a recession that many economists forecast during the extended flurry of rate hikes. As inflation continues to ease, the Fed’s goal of a soft-landing — bringing down inflation without causing a recession and mass layoffs — appears within reach.
While the labor market remains historically healthy, recent government data suggest some weakening.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% in June, despite the fact that America’s employers added 206,000 jobs.
Job postings in May rose slightly to 8.1 million, however, April’s figure was revised lower to 7.9 million, the first reading below 8 million since February 2021.
Darden Restaurants is adding Tex-Mex to the menu.
The parent company of Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House and other chains, said Wednesday it’s buying Chuy’s for approximately $605 million.
Darden said it will acquire all outstanding shares of Chuy’s for $37.50 per share. Those shares closed at $25.27 apiece on Wednesday, then soared past $37 in after-hours trading once the deal was announced. Darden shares fell 1% in after-hours trading.
Darden said the boards of Darden and Chuy’s have unanimously approved the acquisition. The deal is expected to close later this year, if it’s approved by Chuy’s shareholders.
Chuy’s Holdings Inc. was founded in Austin, Texas, in 1982. It now operates 101 restaurants in 15 states and has 7,400 employees. It’s known for its eclectic decor and fresh food, including handmade tortillas and sauces.
Like Darden, Chuy’s owns and operates all of its restaurants. Darden President and CEO Rick Cardenas said Chuy’s is a differentiated brand with strong growth potential that will expand Darden’s dining options.
Darden, based in Orlando, Florida, operates more than 1,900 restaurants and has 190,000 employees. It also owns Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, The Capital Grille, Seasons 52, Eddie V’s and Bahama Breeze.
“Based on our criteria for adding a brand to the Darden portfolio, we believe Chuy’s is an excellent fit that supports our winning strategy,” Cardenas said in a statement.
Chuy’s Chairman, CEO and President Steven Hislop said the acquisition will accelerate Chuy’s business goals and expand the brand to more communities.
The deal comes as both restaurant companies have been struggling with a downturn in customer traffic due to consumer concerns about inflation.
In Darden’s fiscal fourth quarter, which ended May 26, same-store sales — or sales at restaurants open at least a year — were flat compared to the prior year. Chuy’s same-store sales were down 5% in its first quarter, which ended March 31.
Investment bank Jefferies downgraded shares for both restaurant chains earlier this month, saying they’re being squeezed by price promotions at fast-food chains like McDonald’s as well as at casual dining peers like Chili’s and Applebee’s.
