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How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Growing up, our mom loved taking photos during just about every moment you can think of, big and small. Learning how to ride a bike? Click. Falling off said bike? Click. Picking up a bouquet of flowers at Trader Joe’s? Click. Moving into our first college dorm room? Click. Sharing fried ice cream from our favorite Thai place for the thousandth time? Click, click, click. The list goes on, but you’ve probably lived through what we’re describing—it seems to be an almost universal childhood experience. Maybe even now you’re getting some flashbacks of endless shutter sounds and cheeks in pain from smiling for so long—maybe you’re remembering a phrase your family’s designated photographer would try to appease you with. For us, that infamous phrase our mom always told us was what we call the One Day phrase, some variation of the following: “One day, you’ll look back to this and think to yourself, ‘I wish I had taken the time to take a photo.’ Because it’s not about the moment today, it’s about the memory one day.” As you can probably imagine, as kids, we didn’t quite grasp the magnitude of what she was saying. But as time went on, we both grew to be the ones thinking of that One Day phrase for our own moments and our own friends and family.
Now, we thrive being the ones behind the camera—don’t tell our mom, but we love it just a teeny bit more than being in front of the camera. We are the ones who ask everyone to “stop and smile for a second!” The ones who—no matter how mundane a situation may seem—pull out our phones to capture the moment for the sake of the memory we see being made. There’s a captivating contrast between how fleeting life’s moments are and how perfectly a photo can capture them forever—our understanding of how meaningful that contrast is eventually sparked the process of turning our passion for photography into a craft. A few instruction manuals, a number of features at our high school’s art magazine, countless YouTube videos, and so many beautiful clients later, here we are.
From Rachel taking graduation photos for the first time because a friend needed a last-minute photographer—a favor that ultimately sparked the creation of pc: the davids— to Hannah taking photos for our first long-term brand partnership, our company has always been rooted in empowering the people, places, companies, and organizations that we love. As sisters born and raised in Austin, Texas, it feels so full-circle to be able to share the love of Jesus Christ and serve our neighbors by capturing their most meaningful moments in this beautiful city. We can’t wait to see where pc: the davids grows from here.
What does the average day look like for you now as an entrepreneur (especially compared to past jobs/days)?
pc: the davids began at a really special time in our lives: we were in that perfect sweet-spot of the one year of overlap we got to have in college as sisters with a 3-year age gap. Two years later, Rachel’s now in medical school and Hannah’s working as a digital marketer for a global brand. And as much as we look back at those hot, beautifully sunny days at UT, we’ve grown to love our routine now just as much. It goes something like this:
6-8AM – Wake up! Rachel tends to lean towards 6AM for hospital shifts and #saving #lives, and Hannah usually has a nice relaxed wake-up around 8AM. We are different in about a million different ways, but we’re both firm believers that the morning time is more than just getting ready with a wake-up playlist (which believe me, we curate very carefully), but it’s truly a time to prepare your mind and body for the day. We love to do a certain 12-minute stretch and spend some quiet time in prayer and reading the Bible before we get into our to-do list for the day. We’ve found this time to be so integral and impactful in keeping us grounded, and it’s grown to be one of our favorite parts of making every day a good day.
9AM - 5PM - “Work, work, work, work, work, work.” - wise words from Rihanna. So true. Timeless. And somewhere in there, a good old-fashioned HGW (Hot Girl Walk). Not a want, but a need!
5:30PM - 9:30PM - This is usually the beginning of our pc: the davids work day! This is when emails get checked and caught up on, our weekly to-do list gets updated, and galleries get edited and sent out. Living in Austin, this time frame is also when most of our sessions take place! A couple hours before sunset = the dream set-up for our work being effortlessly crafted around soft, natural-light tones. In other words, this is when the party happens :)
10PM – MIDNIGHT - It’s time for our nightly recreation of Chopped, except we’re the chefs and judges. In case you’re wondering, Hannah gets chopped every single time. Rachel should own Food Network at this point. We digress. It’s time for dinner & unwinding– either with a good book, or with a virtual sister-date-night (read: we watch the same show / movie and start at the #exact same time so Rachel in Galveston and Hannah in Austin can text reactions to each other through the whole thing). We love our life together & we feel so lucky to get to live it.
What are some of the top things you have learned so far?
Goodness. What a question. My mind immediately jumps to the well-loved Maya Angelou quote, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
One of the absolute top things we’ve learned is that it’s all about being authentically good people. As Christians, this idea of experiencing God’s love so deeply that you can’t help but overflow that same love to others is one that we sincerely live by. We are committed to being kind, intentional, and always always always encouraging.
I think something many people don’t realize is that photography is much more than simply spending an hour with someone and then delivering their photos. It truly is about creating a connection with people, from the first time they reach out to you, throughout their session, and even after you’ve gushed over their final gallery with them. It is always worth it to take the extra time and treat people as friends first, clients second. To spend the extra time asking about how their week has been, how their semester has been, how the kids have been for the past month, how life has been in this ever-changing city we get to live in called Austin. To not rush the process of simply delivering a product, but rather to take the time to make sure our clients feel seen, comfortable, and just as excited as we are to make something worth cherishing.
Who or what inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
Our ambition. It’s our biggest strength and one of our biggest similarities as otherwise wildly different sisters. Growing up, we’ve both always strived to be our best. We can think of countless times our parents have encouraged us with the words, “Bring your A game. Bring your 100%. Do your absolute, all-out best, and then be proud of whatever happens from that point. You did your part, and that’s the most important thing—even more than the outcome.” To this day, those are the words that replay in our heads in our biggest moments: grade school basketball games, huge exams, college admissions, and then, pc: the davids.
There was a pivotal moment when we recognized that our love for capturing the world through our unique perspective was something much more than just perpetually running out of storage on our phones (#being #real). From that point, we had one conversation, threw all our ideas into the notes app (again, #real), and decided to just go for it.
We asked: what’s the worst that could happen? Like, even if no one ever booked us and our brand-spankin-new IG stayed brand-spankin-new and never saw another follower? The answer was that we’d just keep on doing what we love: capturing life through our eyes. And the best that could happen? We could help people save moments into memories in the way we’d grown to appreciate so much, we could give back to causes we cared deeply about, and we could be the Indian-American women representation in the photography / media space that we never saw growing up. The thought of even having a chance of seeing our ambition turn into reality was enough to spur us into creating that first post.
What have been 1-2 of your proudest moments in creating your business?
Since its creation, pc: the davids has done some rollercoaster riding— we’re talking, many ups and downs. Amidst the whirlwind of the early days for our business, there are a number of moments we vividly remember that we stopped and looked at each other, like: wow, this is what we’d dreamed of. And we can tell you—these moments are what it’s all about.
From the beginning, we have been so proud of the diversity of our clients. As women of color, we know all too well the struggle of photographers or editors who may not know how to edit our photos and not often seeing people who look like us on screen, or in this case, photography. We strive to make everyone feel welcome and comfortable in a way that we would want to feel ourselves and for our loved ones. Hearing clients from so many different backgrounds share that they never thought that they would feel so comfortable and confident in front of a camera is the kind of affirmation that we’re doing it right. That, and seeing a photo of ours taken for one of the first couples we’d ever shot for show up in the form of a surprise Christmas card. One of those small but meaningful moments we’ll never forget.
Another OMG moment for us was being interviewed by Voyage Austin, a local magazine that had reached out to feature our journey as local creatives. As we started working with them, we soon found out that one of our clients had referred our name to them as an Austin business that they loved. For any small business owner, you know that a client going out of their way to talk you up is some of the highest praise you could receive, and we were so grateful. Having grown up in Austin being inspired by the companies and founders that helped us create pc: the davids to be what it is today, it was such an honor to be recognized and interviewed alongside those same inspirations—and to maybe even inspire someone like us!!
What’s the best advice you have received along your journey?
In the wise words of philosopher and girlboss Hannah Montana, it’s all about the climb. There have been blissful seasons of smooth sailing and there have been challenging seasons of rough waters along the way—an experience that anyone who has ever tried to achieve anything can relate to, which is a comforting reality in itself. Reflecting on who we are today as sisters and as co-founders, we cannot express enough how integral “The Climb” has been in shaping our work to be so meaningful and rewarding to us today.
First and foremost, as full-time students with detail-oriented personalities that strive for excellence, time is something that we could never have enough of. As our business has grown, some of the best advice we received was to take time to learn how to balance our ambition to expand as a business, while discerning when to say no for the sake of a healthy, sustainable workflow.
Secondly, another tip we received of a common challenge seen often with entrepreneurs working in the creative space—and especially with women—is the question of pricing. Based on this feedback, we spent countless hours on learning the ins and outs of packaging and pricing in the beginning of our journey and are intentional in continuing to look and reassess this as we grow and scale. Knowing your worth as a creative can be hard—many times not for any reason other than simply not knowing how to quantify the experience of something like a photoshoot. But especially as you’re just starting out, it can be really challenging to sustain a level of confidence in how you charge your clients. With this said, as we settled into our groove while intentionally reminding ourselves of what sets us apart, we were able to see our own value more clearly and thus design our packages in a way that would allow us to stand by our pricing with confidence in our worth.
About The Author:
Hannah David '22 and Rachel David '20
Founders of pc: the davids
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