Hi - My Name is: Kate

Thank you to the organizers for bringing this event to fruition here in Jacksonville. Tomorrow I turn 41. In 2006, my husband and I started a small business - a photography company - mainly weddings and family portraits. Our first year of business had it's ups and downs, but we made more than we thought we would. I worked full time, was in the MBA program full time, and ran the business end of the business. My husband, the photographer, had graduated from Brooks Institute (one of the top photography schools in the world) with a 100K in student debt. In 2007, our company doubled revenue, and we expanded into additional photography avenues and projects. In 2008, I graduated with my MBA with a 3.98 GPA.

We we again looking at doubling our revenue in 2008, and according to month over month calculations (based on data from the previous year), we were... until September. We were coming back from a 3000 mile round trip by car (we had been hired to photograph an out of state wedding mid-country, then attended a family wedding on the opposite coast of where we lived). We heard about the stock market crash, and the subsequent fallout on our way home. When we got back, we got call after call from clients, telling us they could no longer afford to buy the photographs they had planned to order because their retirements and investments and bank accounts had been wiped clean. We sold pics at cost, we gave pics for free, we did what we could. You need to understand, we had the most amazing clients in the world. We also made 65% of our revenue for the year from late September to December, unfortunately we did not that year.

We lasted almost another year, cashed investments, retirement funds, sold our truck, and anything of value. It finally snowballed. We lost nearly everything, and moved half way across the country to live with my 85 y.o. mom. My husband got a job at a national photography chain, and it was starting to look up. My mom had to go into assisted living after a series of major health set backs. We sold our remaining car in order to pay for the move to the outskirts of Jacksonville, to live with my mother-in-law (who graciously offered us a place to stay). My husband was allowed to transfer to JAX with the company for which he worked. The company ended up closing studios all across America, and for the second time in 3 years, he was laid off (while running a full time biz, he also worked part-time at a national professional camera store from 2007-2008 - they also went belly up, and he was laid off). We easily worked 80 plus hours a week on our business and on part-time jobs. We invested, we started a business, we took out student loans, we worked our asses off, and we were doing pretty well, until... we weren't.

This is our story. This is our movement. We are the 99%.

Thanks for sharing! See you there.

This is why we are doing this.

So many unbelievable stories!