Former Showpo GM launches new venture Damn Good Pic

Heather McIlvaine

13th Feb 2020

Alex Durkin, who served as second-in-command of online fashion brand Showpo for seven years, has launched a new venture that aims to teach people how to take better photos on their mobile phone.

Teaming up with American Instagram influencers Katie Betzing and Josh Brueckner, Durkin created Damn Good Pic, an online course offering tips and tricks for choosing the right lighting, angles and poses to garner more likes and follows on Instagram.

The $99 course is meant for anyone who’s interested in taking better photos, “whether they’re Gen Zs aspiring for Insta-fame status, small business owners looking to generate leads, or budding photographers who want to learn how to snap better photos”, according to Durkin.

The entrepreneur told Internet Retailing the new business builds on the skills she honed while working at Showpo.

“At Showpo, I taught a training course called ‘Creating good creative’ to teach the team the tried and tested methods for delivering high-performing creative,” she said.

“I can confidently say that the commercial success of your visual ads depends on the strength of your images, as well as paid media spend,” she said.

Almost half of the world’s population now uses social media, according to recent research from Hootsuite. They spend an average of two hours and 24 minutes on social media a day, which accounts for more than a third of their total internet time, according to the Digital 2020 report.

As consumers spend more time on social, the amount of advertising on these platforms is also rising. Facebook saw a 1 per cent increase in its advertising audience over the past quarter, Instagram saw a 6 per cent increase and Pinterest saw a 12 per cent increase.

Durkin said businesses that want to profitably scale today need to put their customer acquisition strategy front of mind.

“Whilst going viral organically on social might get you cheap acquisitions it’s often hard to maintain the momentum. Getting a converting paid media funnel (which often includes social advertising and tuning the actual website) that can scale on the other hand is gold,” she said.

“In my opinion, an organic social strategy, just like a PR strategy, is best as a support strategy, or an amplifier, not a core strategy for customer acquisition. You just can’t beat a well set up paid media funnel.”