Alex Goodwin, Mark Fleming, main photographer Mario Fabbri (left to right) and Colton Chorpenning (center) pose for a FestPix photo.

Co-founders Colton Chorpenning, Alex Goodwin, Adam Cardenas and Mark Fleming created FestPix in early 2014 as a means of providing free (yep, you read it right, free) photos to event goers of all kinds. As an event promoter and frequent patron, Chorpenning, a grad fresh out of CU Boulder, was noticing a lack of accessibility to all of those images you always see photographers running around snapping at concerts, festivals, marathons and the like.

“I would have tons of people asking me to post or send them photos from the event. A real hassle if you have ever done it. I also experienced as an event participant that I would have photographers take my picture and I would never be able to find those pictures”, Chorpenning explains.

So the young entrepreneur deliberated with friend and cohort Alex Goodwin, and decided to act. The team took the idea to Startup Weekend, a startup viability competition sponsored by Spark. After winning Startup Weekend, and connecting with Mark Fleming in March, the FestPix team hit the ground running. Within a month the new company had their first paying customer and the means to fund development through Beta stages and to grow FestPix into a viable, valuable business—all pretty remarkable feats for your first year in startup-land. Their current business partners include Finish Line, Car2Go, PopsSockets and Cndy Grnd.

FestPix’s main draw is this; the service is free for the user while providing a social media goldmine for the event promoter. As a subject of a FestPix photo your commitment simply involves going to an event, having a killer time and posing for a photog using the FestPix platform. The photographer will then send you a link where you can access, post and/or download your free photos. Pretty sweet deal, right? Event promoters, the companies involved in the events and venues then benefit from social media traffic generated by the posted images. FestPix has found a happy middle ground between the happiness of the user and the customer they are selling their product to.

After FestPix snaps your photo you’ll receive this text to view the results.

So what’s next for the men of FestPix? Growth and validation.

“Boulder is an incredible place for startups”,Chorpenning says. “Pretty much every day there is a different meet up hosted by one of the co-working spaces or tech companies on Pearl. These have been a great place to meet other like minded individuals.” Using the startup fervor in Boulder to stoke their progress, FestPix’s hoping to be accepted to participate in the Spring 2015 round of  BoomTown, a startup accelerator program. Aside from BoomTown, their next big step is to bring the technology out of Beta testing and into production of a product downloadable through app stores. Be on the lookout for FestPix next time you’re out on Pearl Street or jamming at a concert.

Alexandria Lemley