How One Man’s Need for Extra Cash Became a Totally Rad Company

In 2007, Doug Boutwell was a freelance wedding photographer who “just wanted some extra cash.” He became aware of Photoshop actions — editing shortcuts that can be saved and used repeatedly — as something he could sell.

Doug saw an opportunity and launched his first set.

To his surprise, the product took off and was a big success. Called the Totally Rad Action Mix, the name just stuck. It garnered word-of-mouth marketing and was featured in various blogs at the time. Recognizing he was onto something, Doug expanded.

Now, with four products in the line-up, Totally Rad makes photographers’ lives easier. Its mission is to create software that allows photographers to:

“Think less about the technology behind the tools they use and more about what they want to do and what they want to accomplish [with their photographs].”

As a one-man band, the business’ secret sauce is Doug’s ability to address his community’s pain points while running his business with sincerity.

Totally Rad’s Digital Products

Pro Retouch 2.0. Totally Rad’s best-selling product. This is a set of 30 Photoshop actions specifically designed around retouching skin for portrait photographers. PicTapGo. A photo editor for iOS that is the company's most powerful and robust app. Features include 137 stackable filters, intuitive crop and rotate tool, and reusable recipes. PixelSugar. A streamlined way to stack filters for photographers to get the look they want without using time-consuming tools on Mac. Replicome. A set of three products for Lightroom, with each product emulating a suite of different films — many of which have since been discontinued on Lightroom.

The Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

When we asked Doug about his marketing efforts, he shook his head, “Nothing. Almost entirely word-of-mouth. That’s my challenge this year.” He explained that as a solopreneur, it’s all-too-easy to chase the shiny thing.

For Doug, the shiny thing is his mobile app, PicTapGo. Although PicTapGo is Totally Rad’s most robust and powerful photo editor, it’s been difficult to break through in the highly competitive mobile space.

“The truth is, most of our money comes from professionals buying stuff on the desktop.” Doug has been a successful entrepreneur for 15 years. During that time, word-of-mouth marketing and newsletter blasts have been the most powerful marketing tools for his business.

This year, Doug says, his challenge is to improve various marketing channels, including updating his landing page, refining value propositions, and building up a sales funnel again.

“We had a couple bets not work out the way I wanted. We tried to pair down, largely because I put a lot of eggs in the mobile basket and that didn’t work out.” Totally Rad recently signed a publishing contract with a company to manage marketing for the mobile app, allowing Doug to refocus his energy.

While he may humbly state, “I suck at marketing,” this photographer-turned-software developer and proud father of two is adept at serving his community with products that de-complicate photo-editing for photographers.

Fighting Cynicism with Integrity

It’s not just the quality of the products that keeps Totally Rad in business: it’s Doug’s sincere desire to take care of the people who make him successful. During the 20-minute conversation, it became clear that Doug’s approach to business is abundantly genuine,

“I never wanted to be cynical about what we did. If you’re going to entrust us with your money and in exchange we’re going to provide you with this product — if it’s broken we’re going to fix it. If it doesn’t work, we’re going to bust our asses [to make it right].”

Doug’s policy is to make his customers happy or give them their money back. With a small group of diehard fans, he remarks that being sensitive to that is crucial for creating loyalty.

Yet it’s his desire to wake up in the morning and feel good about what he’s doing that motivates Doug to stand in his integrity. ”I feel good about the way we’ve treated our customers over the years, and I think they feel the same.”

Advice for Creator Entrepreneurs

When we asked Doug what advice he would give small business owners and side hustlers struggling to take off, he reflected on the experiences that have taught him the most:

1) Give yourself grace as an entrepreneur (and person)

“There’s been a lot of getting knocked down a peg,” explained Doug. “Maybe it would have happened in other arenas. But the wins and losses are much bigger when it’s your business. “The risks you take are bigger. The amount of money that evaporates when you spend money on building a product that fails.” He went on to say, “ I think [I’ve learned to] not hold myself to standards that I wouldn’t hold other people to and to recognize that ‘Yeah, you’re going to screw up. It’s okay. Life goes on.’

“There’s a lot of joy — even when things aren’t working out — if you don’t wrap up your entire identity in work.”

2) Be grateful, even if it’s for your daily cup of joe

“Years ago, I saw some Facebook ad for this [daily gratitude] journal — everyday you fill out the page. I did that for a while and realized, ‘okay, I like this.’ But what I really took away from it was: everyday, write down three things you’re grateful for. With the shifting events of the world, “I was having to really, really struggle to find things to write down to be happy about. Even though, materially, I recognize we are exceptionally privileged.” He noted that finding the smallest thing can be enough, “Uh, I'm thankful for this cup of coffee…it helps. It makes a big difference — being able to find even little stuff, and really be grateful for it, is important.”

3) Be willing to fail in order to succeed.

The main advice Doug has for aspiring creator’s is simple:

“Perfect is the enemy of the good. Just do things. Go.”

As an “analysis paralysis guy,” Doug advocates for sidelining perfectionism in favor of making things and putting them out into the world. “For people like me, just do it.”

At one point in his business, Doug had six or seven employees. Now it’s just him. But during our conversation, Doug reflected on missing the pressures of being a boss. “I felt like I had to be the person they expected me to be — who I totally wasn’t.”

Doug admits that there is a lot of anxiety wrapped up in operating that way, but it also pushed him to be better, “There was a scramble to go out and be smarter and more capable…I need to find a way to do that again: be beholden to someone’s impossible expectations of me.”

Totally Rad is “almost back in a startup place.” Doug was incredibly candid about what has and has not worked for his business over the years. But, whether by experience or natural inclination, Doug is skilled at handling foundational aspects of his business: his products solve pain points, he leads with integrity, and he’s willing to fail — which means he’s able to succeed.

Why Totally Rad Chose SendOwl

The vast majority of Totally Rad’s products are sold through the SendOwl platform. When he switched away from self-hosted carts, Doug was searching for a light-weight, customizable platform — and he didn’t need (or want to pay for) physical product ecommerce features.

“We just need hosted digital downloads and an easy, almost invisible integration with our website. SendOwl provided both of those.”

Doug appreciates that the SendOwl platform doesn’t require further integration. SendOwl handles all of his transactions and provides the records alongside analytics.

“It’s just enough. The price didn’t hurt either. I think it’s probably the best value of any [platform].”

Doug also remarked that SendOwl’s customer service has contributed to his loyalty, “You guys have been great every time I’ve had an opportunity or need to reach out beyond just the day-to-day usage of the platform. So thank you; good job.”

Try SendOwl For Free.