anyone heard of perfocal.com?

Murfy · 06-12-2015, 01:36 PM

I had a post or two on my instagram pictures and they have a website, but you need to sign up to look at anything. It seems like a database of photographers for hire? I see no reviews or descriptions online

Rockdoctor · 06-12-2015, 01:47 PM

I stopped at "There are so many amazing photographers out there willing to work for a reasonable price" on their ABOUT page.

Murfy · 06-12-2015, 03:40 PM

Originally posted by Rockdoctor

I stopped at "There are so many amazing photographers out there willing to work for a reasonable price" on their ABOUT page.

I can't even figure out where they are based, what country. It also says "Be one of the first! Leave us your email and we will let you know when we go live!"

But they have an active instagram page so I was trying to figure out where the photos are coming from?

I have not intention of joining, just curious

rawr · 06-12-2015, 05:02 PM

5 seconds in Google:

https://angel.co/perfocal

WeddingDaily - INTERVIEW: Tony Xu, founder of Perfocal

https://www.facebook.com/perfocal

https://twitter.com/perfocal

They are a micro start-up based in Manchester in the UK.

I would still be sceptical of them. Any company that isn't upfront about basic stuff like their contact details should be treated with suspicion.

Murfy · 06-12-2015, 05:46 PM

Originally posted by rawr

5 seconds in Google:

https://angel.co/perfocal

WeddingDaily - INTERVIEW: Tony Xu, founder of Perfocal

https://www.facebook.com/perfocal

https://twitter.com/perfocal

They are a micro start-up based in Manchester in the UK.

I would still be sceptical of them. Any company that isn't upfront about basic stuff like their contact details should be treated with suspicion.

well, thank you, my google search didn't bring up any of those links, so apparently google searching is slightly different even after a second search. no matter...those links are about as informative as the website. was hoping someone had more direct knowledge.

ops no I stand corrected , sorry , I found this in one article
"So far on Instagram (@perfocal_official) we’ve obtained nearly 8,000 followers, received over 100,000 likes, and over 10,000 photos uploaded by our photographer followers were hashtagged #perfocal. "

I was curious why they are actively tagging photos and people if they have so many to choose from already. anyway, just something that I was curious about.

rawr · 06-12-2015, 06:47 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by Murfy

I was curious why they are actively tagging photos and people if they have so many to choose from already. anyway, just something that I was curious about.

I forecast a short lifespan for them. I can't see why anyone would bother using them (their 'value proposition' ).

Tony_Perfocal · 06-28-2015, 02:56 PM

Hi guys

It's kind of surprising and actually a pleasure to see people talking about your own business, either good or bad...you feel like you're really doing something :P
Having that said, I'm the founder of Perfocal, Tony Xu, as @rawr has already dug up....

@rawr was right, we're a micro-startup at a very early stage. We were based in Manchester before, but recently we just moved to London to join a startup accelerator MassChallenge (the world's biggest startup accelerating programme actually, see masschallenge.org). We're still at very early stage and I'm really sorry that the product is not ready to launch yet. But we're definitely a real company lol. And we've always been upfront about our contact details actually (you can easily message us on the landing page or find our email: hello@perfocal.com) and even though we don't have a customer manager yet, we reply every single email received.

The vision of the company is to create a better and different marketplace for all photographers including quality amateurs, helping them get paid jobs and manage jobs more easily. Also for the clients we hope we're making the process of finding the best suit photographer more convenient.

As a photographer, if you already get loads of high-pay jobs without much worry about promoting yourself, that's good. But the thing is there're still many photographers don't have a good way to get known by potential customers (mostly in medium-end market that customers don't necessarily hire a top-end pro but not satisfied by phone selfies), and many clients struggle in finding their perfect photographer. At Perfocal we'll match availability, price range, categories and locations for the two sides so both of them save some time. Simply think it as "Airbnb or Uber for photographers". "Reasonable prices" never means cheap, photographers can charge the amount they want as long as they're good enough.

Sorry again, we really should have had something operating out there but the development process wasn't as smooth as we thought. Good news is we're looking to privately test a beta version very soon (very likely in late July or early August this year). We're also busy raising investment to ensure a high-quality public launch. Although we're not launched yet, we think being active on social media is a good way to get some traction as well as obtain potential users. Please note that we never tag the others' photos on Instagram. Those pictures were hashtagged by those photographers so we're able to find them. We select some best ones to feature on our own page. Actually the newest number is just below 30,000 pics are tagged #perfocal now by photography lovers form all around the world.

It'll be really great to know what you guys think about Perfocal. Feel free to tell me anything. Thank you guys!!

Best wishes
Tony

Tony_Perfocal · 06-28-2015, 03:01 PM

Originally posted by Tony_Perfocal

Hi guys

It's kind of surprising and actually a pleasure to see people talking about your own business, either good or bad...you feel like you're really doing something :P
Having that said, I'm the founder of Perfocal, Tony Xu, as @rawr has already dug up....

@rawr was right, we're a micro-startup at a very early stage. We were based in Manchester before, but recently we just moved to London to join a startup accelerator MassChallenge (the world's biggest startup accelerating programme actually, see masschallenge.org). We're still at very early stage and I'm really sorry that the product is not ready to launch yet. But we're definitely a real company lol. And we've always been upfront about our contact details actually (you can easily message us on the landing page or find our email: hello@perfocal.com) and even though we don't have a customer manager yet, we reply every single email received.

The vision of the company is to create a better and different marketplace for all photographers including quality amateurs, helping them get paid jobs and manage jobs more easily. Also for the clients we hope we're making the process of finding the best suit photographer more convenient.

As a photographer, if you already get loads of high-pay jobs without much worry about promoting yourself, that's good. But the thing is there're still many photographers don't have a good way to get known by potential customers (mostly in medium-end market that customers don't necessarily hire a top-end pro but not satisfied by phone selfies), and many clients struggle in finding their perfect photographer. At Perfocal we'll match availability, price range, categories and locations for the two sides so both of them save some time. Simply think it as "Airbnb or Uber for photographers". "Reasonable prices" never means cheap, photographers can charge the amount they want as long as they're good enough.

Sorry again, we really should have had something operating out there but the development process wasn't as smooth as we thought. Good news is we're looking to privately test a beta version very soon (very likely in late July or early August this year). We're also busy raising investment to ensure a high-quality public launch. Although we're not launched yet, we think being active on social media is a good way to get some traction as well as obtain potential users. Please note that we never tag the others' photos on Instagram. Those pictures were hashtagged by those photographers so we're able to find them. We select some best ones to feature on our own page. Actually the newest number is just below 30,000 pics are tagged #perfocal now by photography lovers form all around the world.

It'll be really great to know what you guys think about Perfocal. Feel free to tell me anything. Thank you guys!!

Best wishes
Tony

and by the way I'm a pentax fan too! I did registered this fresh account to reply but actually I've been on the forum for a couple of years (although rarely post stuff). I owned several Pextax cameras, and still have a Pentax LX film SLR. Now waiting for the Pentax full-frame!

Murfy · 06-28-2015, 04:29 PM

thanks for the explanation. My interest in not signing up lies more with my experience (and lack of), so that is why I wasn't interested in joining at this point. I was also curious how it would expand to the US, sometimes I see sites similar to this that start in a city and don't expand much further than a certain radius around that city. Thanks for the explanation and I hope everything works out with the site.

Tony_Perfocal · 06-28-2015, 05:26 PM

Originally posted by Murfy

thanks for the explanation. My interest in not signing up lies more with my experience (and lack of), so that is why I wasn't interested in joining at this point. I was also curious how it would expand to the US, sometimes I see sites similar to this that start in a city and don't expand much further than a certain radius around that city. Thanks for the explanation and I hope everything works out with the site.

Hi thanks!@Murfy

We would initially start in the UK but expanding to overseas is always on the plan.

In the US there's a site called smartshoot.com.They're doing something similar and have been pretty successful. However we're still quite different from them as they target on professionals and Perfocal focus a bit more on medium-end market and semi-pro photographers.

06-12-2015, 01:36 PM	#1
Murfy Veteran Member Join Date: May 2014 Photos: Gallery Posts: 803	anyone heard of perfocal.com? I had a post or two on my instagram pictures and they have a website, but you need to sign up to look at anything. It seems like a database of photographers for hire? I see no reviews or descriptions online

06-12-2015, 05:46 PM	#5
Murfy Veteran Member Join Date: May 2014 Photos: Gallery Posts: 803 Original Poster	Originally posted by rawr 5 seconds in Google: https://angel.co/perfocal WeddingDaily - INTERVIEW: Tony Xu, founder of Perfocal https://www.facebook.com/perfocal https://twitter.com/perfocal They are a micro start-up based in Manchester in the UK. I would still be sceptical of them. Any company that isn't upfront about basic stuff like their contact details should be treated with suspicion. well, thank you, my google search didn't bring up any of those links, so apparently google searching is slightly different even after a second search. no matter...those links are about as informative as the website. was hoping someone had more direct knowledge. ops no I stand corrected , sorry , I found this in one article "So far on Instagram (@perfocal_official) we’ve obtained nearly 8,000 followers, received over 100,000 likes, and over 10,000 photos uploaded by our photographer followers were hashtagged #perfocal. " I was curious why they are actively tagging photos and people if they have so many to choose from already. anyway, just something that I was curious about. Last edited by Murfy; 06-12-2015 at 06:14 PM.

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06-12-2015, 01:47 PM	#2
Rockdoctor Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Western Canada Posts: 199	I stopped at "There are so many amazing photographers out there willing to work for a reasonable price" on their ABOUT page.

06-12-2015, 03:40 PM	#3
Murfy Veteran Member Join Date: May 2014 Photos: Gallery Posts: 803 Original Poster	Originally posted by Rockdoctor I stopped at "There are so many amazing photographers out there willing to work for a reasonable price" on their ABOUT page. I can't even figure out where they are based, what country. It also says "Be one of the first! Leave us your email and we will let you know when we go live!" But they have an active instagram page so I was trying to figure out where the photos are coming from? I have not intention of joining, just curious

06-12-2015, 05:02 PM	#4
rawr Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 11,913	5 seconds in Google: https://angel.co/perfocal WeddingDaily - INTERVIEW: Tony Xu, founder of Perfocal https://www.facebook.com/perfocal https://twitter.com/perfocal They are a micro start-up based in Manchester in the UK. I would still be sceptical of them. Any company that isn't upfront about basic stuff like their contact details should be treated with suspicion.

06-12-2015, 06:47 PM - 1 Like	#6
rawr Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 11,913	Originally posted by Murfy I was curious why they are actively tagging photos and people if they have so many to choose from already. anyway, just something that I was curious about. I forecast a short lifespan for them. I can't see why anyone would bother using them (their 'value proposition' ).

06-28-2015, 02:56 PM	#7
Tony_Perfocal New Member Join Date: Jun 2015 Posts: 3	Hi guys It's kind of surprising and actually a pleasure to see people talking about your own business, either good or bad...you feel like you're really doing something :P Having that said, I'm the founder of Perfocal, Tony Xu, as @rawr has already dug up.... @rawr was right, we're a micro-startup at a very early stage. We were based in Manchester before, but recently we just moved to London to join a startup accelerator MassChallenge (the world's biggest startup accelerating programme actually, see masschallenge.org). We're still at very early stage and I'm really sorry that the product is not ready to launch yet. But we're definitely a real company lol. And we've always been upfront about our contact details actually (you can easily message us on the landing page or find our email: hello@perfocal.com) and even though we don't have a customer manager yet, we reply every single email received. The vision of the company is to create a better and different marketplace for all photographers including quality amateurs, helping them get paid jobs and manage jobs more easily. Also for the clients we hope we're making the process of finding the best suit photographer more convenient. As a photographer, if you already get loads of high-pay jobs without much worry about promoting yourself, that's good. But the thing is there're still many photographers don't have a good way to get known by potential customers (mostly in medium-end market that customers don't necessarily hire a top-end pro but not satisfied by phone selfies), and many clients struggle in finding their perfect photographer. At Perfocal we'll match availability, price range, categories and locations for the two sides so both of them save some time. Simply think it as "Airbnb or Uber for photographers". "Reasonable prices" never means cheap, photographers can charge the amount they want as long as they're good enough. Sorry again, we really should have had something operating out there but the development process wasn't as smooth as we thought. Good news is we're looking to privately test a beta version very soon (very likely in late July or early August this year). We're also busy raising investment to ensure a high-quality public launch. Although we're not launched yet, we think being active on social media is a good way to get some traction as well as obtain potential users. Please note that we never tag the others' photos on Instagram. Those pictures were hashtagged by those photographers so we're able to find them. We select some best ones to feature on our own page. Actually the newest number is just below 30,000 pics are tagged #perfocal now by photography lovers form all around the world. It'll be really great to know what you guys think about Perfocal. Feel free to tell me anything. Thank you guys!! Best wishes Tony

06-28-2015, 03:01 PM	#8
Tony_Perfocal New Member Join Date: Jun 2015 Posts: 3	Originally posted by Tony_Perfocal Hi guys It's kind of surprising and actually a pleasure to see people talking about your own business, either good or bad...you feel like you're really doing something :P Having that said, I'm the founder of Perfocal, Tony Xu, as @rawr has already dug up.... @rawr was right, we're a micro-startup at a very early stage. We were based in Manchester before, but recently we just moved to London to join a startup accelerator MassChallenge (the world's biggest startup accelerating programme actually, see masschallenge.org). We're still at very early stage and I'm really sorry that the product is not ready to launch yet. But we're definitely a real company lol. And we've always been upfront about our contact details actually (you can easily message us on the landing page or find our email: hello@perfocal.com) and even though we don't have a customer manager yet, we reply every single email received. The vision of the company is to create a better and different marketplace for all photographers including quality amateurs, helping them get paid jobs and manage jobs more easily. Also for the clients we hope we're making the process of finding the best suit photographer more convenient. As a photographer, if you already get loads of high-pay jobs without much worry about promoting yourself, that's good. But the thing is there're still many photographers don't have a good way to get known by potential customers (mostly in medium-end market that customers don't necessarily hire a top-end pro but not satisfied by phone selfies), and many clients struggle in finding their perfect photographer. At Perfocal we'll match availability, price range, categories and locations for the two sides so both of them save some time. Simply think it as "Airbnb or Uber for photographers". "Reasonable prices" never means cheap, photographers can charge the amount they want as long as they're good enough. Sorry again, we really should have had something operating out there but the development process wasn't as smooth as we thought. Good news is we're looking to privately test a beta version very soon (very likely in late July or early August this year). We're also busy raising investment to ensure a high-quality public launch. Although we're not launched yet, we think being active on social media is a good way to get some traction as well as obtain potential users. Please note that we never tag the others' photos on Instagram. Those pictures were hashtagged by those photographers so we're able to find them. We select some best ones to feature on our own page. Actually the newest number is just below 30,000 pics are tagged #perfocal now by photography lovers form all around the world. It'll be really great to know what you guys think about Perfocal. Feel free to tell me anything. Thank you guys!! Best wishes Tony and by the way I'm a pentax fan too! I did registered this fresh account to reply but actually I've been on the forum for a couple of years (although rarely post stuff). I owned several Pextax cameras, and still have a Pentax LX film SLR. Now waiting for the Pentax full-frame!

06-28-2015, 04:29 PM	#9
Murfy Veteran Member Join Date: May 2014 Photos: Gallery Posts: 803 Original Poster	thanks for the explanation. My interest in not signing up lies more with my experience (and lack of), so that is why I wasn't interested in joining at this point. I was also curious how it would expand to the US, sometimes I see sites similar to this that start in a city and don't expand much further than a certain radius around that city. Thanks for the explanation and I hope everything works out with the site.

06-28-2015, 05:26 PM	#10
Tony_Perfocal New Member Join Date: Jun 2015 Posts: 3	Originally posted by Murfy thanks for the explanation. My interest in not signing up lies more with my experience (and lack of), so that is why I wasn't interested in joining at this point. I was also curious how it would expand to the US, sometimes I see sites similar to this that start in a city and don't expand much further than a certain radius around that city. Thanks for the explanation and I hope everything works out with the site. Hi thanks!@Murfy We would initially start in the UK but expanding to overseas is always on the plan. In the US there's a site called smartshoot.com.They're doing something similar and have been pretty successful. However we're still quite different from them as they target on professionals and Perfocal focus a bit more on medium-end market and semi-pro photographers.