From Photojournalists to Tech Founders: The LightRocket Story

Some businesses start in boardrooms. LightRocket was created through the lenses of two photojournalists who saw the industry changing before their eyes.

For co-founder Peter Charlesworth and myself, Yvan Cohen, photography wasn’t just a job; it was (and still is) our passion and identity. We’ve lived through the digital revolution in editorial photography, and saw firsthand how access to global audiences exploded, but competition became fiercer than ever. During this boom we saw fellow photographers struggling to get their work seen and valued, as an overwhelming flood of images took over the internet.

Instead of standing by, we decided to build something to help. What began as a small photo agency evolved into LightRocket; our platform designed to give photographers control over their work at an affordable price.

However, making the leap from journalists to tech founders wasn’t easy. In this interview, we share how our journey unfolded, the challenges we faced, and why, despite running a thriving tech company, we’ll always be photographers before anything else.

How LightRocket Was Born: Solving a Growing Industry Problem

What sparked the idea for your company? Was there a moment or experience that made you think, “This needs to exist”?

Our story is rooted in photojournalism. Both myself and fellow co-founder Peter Charlesworth are photojournalists. I still use the present tense here because though we rarely work in the field these days, we still see ourselves as photographers and we still identify strongly with, and have deep connections to, the world of editorial photography. And, yes, we do still take pictures.

It’s an identity which is clearly visible in the functionality, style, and ethos of our systems. Whenever we present LightRocket, we always explain that the motivation behind the creation of our company grew organically from our passion for media and images.

LightRocket actually started life as a photo agency, more than two decades ago.

Our initial idea was to create a first-generation digital agency that would become a place where Asia-based photographers could distribute their work to global publications. In those days it was called ‘OnAsia’.

The advent of digital photography (yes, Peter and I are old enough to remember the days before digital - back when a lost roll of film could break your heart) and the opportunities digital distribution presented, suddenly meant editors in major centres like New York, Paris, and London could instantly access content from anywhere. We imagined the dawn of a golden era, where photographers could gain wider visibility and distribution. Everyone was going to benefit…we thought.

The LightRocket platform showcasing photography portfolio websites

Without doubt, the digital age has transformed the landscape of editorial photography. It has levelled the field, making it possible for anyone, anywhere to publish their work online.

As a result, the market is much larger than it ever was. The number of photographers has grown immensely (without mentioning that everyone now has a picture-taking device in their pocket) and the volume of content has exploded, unfurling in a chaotic tidal wave of pictures across the internet.

The economic side effect of this has been that the demand for images has not kept pace with the ballooning supply, prompting a precipitous decline in the rates paid for imagery (and in some cases – think Pexels or UnSplash – great quality photography can now be downloaded and used for free).

It wasn’t long before the euphoria of creating an agency gave way to the harsh reality of competition. Huge players like Getty Images quickly consolidated vast swathes of content and drew many of the best photographers into their orbit, making it harder for small, somewhat idealistic, agencies like ours to survive.

It was this realisation, combined with the fact that we had always developed our own technological solutions to the challenges of managing an archive, ingesting content, and controlling distribution, which led us to a eureka moment - when we understood that we could deliver more value by providing software and services to photographers and archives owners than by simply representing their work as agents.

It was from this realisation that, in 2012 or so, the LightRocket and LightRocket Enterprise platforms were born.

Since then, we haven’t looked back. Our focus has been firmly on expanding, refining, and improving our systems.

For photographers, we’re focused on providing a secure platform where they can store, manage, distribute, and present their work. We see our offering as something akin to a professional camera that is available for an accessible consumer price. We absolutely understand what it’s like to try and earn a living in photography because we’ve lived it. As a result, we’ve always been focused on making our system and services as affordable as possible.

The beauty of what we’re doing, is that we know there are always ways to evolve and improve. Our Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, LightRocket Enterprise, is intensely driven by what we learn from collaborating with our clients.

It is the user who shapes our functionality, and allows us to create intuitive UI and efficient workflows; both of which make our platforms not only easy to use but which also mean that the efficiencies they deliver can result in real savings of time and money.

A slightly longer answer than I intended but there we go…

Get inspired by fellow photographers on LightRocket

Figuring Out Business While Loving Photography

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a founder, and how did you get through it?

I know this is going to sound odd, but one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced as a founder of LightRocket has been to remember to think more like a business and less like a government funded research body.

By this I mean, we’re very focused on and passionate about our platform. We’re always researching ways to develop and improve it. So much so that we probably pay too little attention to the challenges of marketing and sales – meaning we actually neglect the business side of our business.

All of which is to say, we’re proud to be extremely product-focused while recognising that we need to rise to the challenge of being better at marketing. As we like to say, we’re “the best, least known, best-value system out there.”

For those lucky enough to be using our system, however, our emphasis on continuous development and improvement is an advantage.

More generally, one of the most significant challenges for any founder of a software company is the need to keep up with the ever-changing technological landscape: hardware is evolving, processes are being refined, new code languages are being formulated and now AI is providing us with a slew of new opportunities. The challenge is to keep up and stay relevant. It’s fun and exciting, but it isn’t always easy.

See the editors' top picks on the LightRocket

The Best Part? Watching an Idea Turn into Something Real

What’s been the most surprising or rewarding part of building your company so far?

The most rewarding part of building a company is the on-going creative process. You start from an idea, you hone that idea and gradually it starts to take form – a name, a team, a mission and from those seeds a company emerges.

Also, seeing the dream of myself and fellow co-founder Peter Charlesworth, take shape has been extremely rewarding for us both. It has been, and probably always will be a rollercoaster, but the feeling of forward momentum is exhilarating.

Perhaps there is nothing more rewarding than knowing you have created something of value, that has a purpose and which is appreciated by users around the globe. In the grand scale of things, our endeavour is minute, but it’s satisfying nonetheless.

What Makes LightRocket Different? (Hint: We Actually Care)

If someone could take away one thing about your company and your journey, what would you want it to be?

I think it’s that we are a software company that is focused on the human side of technology. That means we’re devising solutions that correspond to real human needs but, more importantly, it means that we are focused on service.

It’s our focus on service that separates us from many of our competitors. And I mean service not just in a cold literal sense but in a warm personal way. When it comes to our enterprise DAM system, we have developed rewarding and long-lasting relationships with our clients. Where LightRocket is concerned, we make every effort to focus on the very human aspect of what we’re doing – writing stories for our blog (a bit like this) which are personal and thoughtful, answering enquiries promptly and providing help and support whenever we can.

Are You a Photographer Looking for More Control Over Your Work?

We built LightRocket to help photographers like you take charge of their images, archives, and careers.

Explore LightRocket today and see how we can help you grow.

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Written by Yvan Cohen | Yvan has been a photojournalist for over 30 years. He's a co-founder of LightRocket and continues to shoot photo and video projects around Southeast Asia.

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