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NOT everybody is a photographer, and that's okay, until you find yourself in front of a magnificent sunset in New York City.
Founders of Travelshoot, Sarah Peace and Tim Jones, want to ensure that every moment of a vacation is not just documented, but beautifully documented.
The concept behind Travelshoot is an on-demand professional photographer who can show you around a foreign city and get magnificent photos of you at the same time.
This model is set to disrupt the travel-guide industry, by utilising the locals of popular destinations around the world. Think of Travelshoot as Air BnB but for professional photographers and guides.
The startup is now in 90 countries around the world, and is backed by Queensland Chief Entrepreneur Steve Baxter and Qantas.
Recently, the group has commenced commercial trails with both Qantas and Jetstar, which includes features on all of Qantas' destination pages, as well as being part of a Sunrise competition. The duo hope a successful commercial trail will progress to a full commercial outcome for the startup.
Tim Jones and his sister and co-founder Sarah Pearce were finalists in the Gold Coast Young Entrepreneur awards too, for the Hospitality and Tourism category.
Jones says the idea for Travelshoot came from a trip to New York City his sister went on.
"My sister [Sarah Pearce] went to New York with her partner, and one of our friends had started a photography business," says Tim Jones.
"Being new to New York, he reached out to Sarah and asked if she was interested in doing a photoshoot so he could add to his portfolio. He took her on a walking tour of Manhattan and got some photos along the way."
"When she got the photos, she thought they were amazing and thought surely someone was doing this as a service, connecting people with local photographers, taking them on a walking tour of the city and getting some amazing photos along the way and no one was!"
After doing some research into the viability of the business, Sarah decided to go onto 'My Shark Tank' a spinoff of Channel 10's Shark Tank program - and won her round, inspiring her to really take the concept global.
Following Travelshoot's appearance on My Shark Tank, the group partnered with big travel brands, like Flight Centre and Helloworld, to really give the business a much-needed boost.
More recently the brand has partnered with hotels such as the QT Hotels nationally and Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast. The brand has even been chosen to be part of Qantas' first accelerator program.
"Partnerships are hugely important," says Jones.
"Being a startup with only a handful of staff, the big difficulty for anyone in the travel space is figuring out how to get your message or your product out to a huge audience."
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