How to start my own 3D Architectural Renderings company?

[archkre]

Can you people give any tips on how to start my own 3D Architectural Renderings company, please?

Thanks a lot

[3dterior]

Just start it and trust your instinct.

[Jonathan]

Maybe some background would help?

[datacrasher]

I would say if you don't have a website, get one up and running, go to youtube and put some videos up of the stuff you have made. put a link in the description also get a business site up on myspace and facebook put your website address there. get listed in dmoz build some backlinks to your sites. Put some backlinks from you're site to others sites.

 

Go to google webmaster setup an account. choose some keywords that your site is about. on the front page of your website tell people what you do and how much you charge for a model a drawing whatever you do per hour etc. Look at the signature on the bottom so you can get an idea but don't copy them make you're site you're own

 

Good luck

Tony

Update i would say "dmoz" is hard to get into once you're in there that will give you some traffic but it wont give all all you're traffic" so if you want to then you need to buy some taffic but be careful a lot of these sites are CONS if you want to do the none payment way then i would say that will take you forever

Edited January 28, 2012 by datacrasher

[Scott Schroeder]

A few tips:

1. You need to learn to love a hotdog and Mac and Cheese diet for a while. Unless you have other full time work to support the early days of your company. You may have to moonlight while you are getting your company up.

2. You have to learn to be a self promotion guru. Jobs won't come to you, you have to go out and get them.

3. Learn to accept failure, missed jobs, and non-response. If you let a missed job proposal, or a job proposal that doesn't get a client response, get to you, you will not make it. You have to remember that this isn't personal, it's business. You have to get very thick skin quickly.

4. It takes time. You are an unknown and many companies may be very hesitant to work with you. No company wants to be the first person to test you out. However, when you find success, no company will want to be the last. The struggle is getting that first company, then you'll see that jobs start to come in after that.

5. Learn the letter of the law about contracts. Buy a book, do something. Know what you can and cannot put and what to do in worst case scenarios.

6. Bid medium range, don't bid so low that you are going to starve yourself. You are going to compete against companies that will do the same render for pennies on the hour. You have to let those jobs and clients go. If a client would rather pay 25 cents for a crap render then you really don't want to work with that person anyways.

7. Think about outsourcing for a while, then break off on your own. Find a firm that maybe wants to do viz but doesn't want to do it in house.

8. Have patience.

[RyderSK]

Elvis, I like reading your inputs, it's no-nonsense useful tips from experience.

It's like the typical american motivation speech (in very good sense!) from CEOs to start-uppers ;- )

I wouldn't mind reading some comprehensive tips from you in similiar fashion David Wright once did for CGarchitects, those were great articles.

[frog_a_lot]

I may be wrong and this sounds harsh but, I think that if you just like making Arch Viz images but havn't had any time in the industry and Arch Viz is more of a hobby then think VERY hard about trying to start a company. Too many people do 3D for a hobby for a while and then think 'i dont like working for this person, im going get my 3D and make a 3D company'. Problem with this is that most of the time they havnt done the research and just think it is a case of making a website with pretty images and watching the work come rolling in.

 

If this is going to be your sole source of income, can you survive on only getting one job (2 -3 images) over a 3 month period? This may happen when you are starting up.

 

Do you know how to quote a job? How long does each part (lighting/modelling/rendering) take? What will you charge per hour to work out a quote?

 

If a client gave you a job tomorrow, can you say 100% that you can do it, have it rendered in 4 days and itwill cost them $xxxx

 

Do you know what to do if a client doesn't pay?

 

Have you thought about how many markups/changes the client gets?

 

Where are you going to find your clients? Where will you advertise and get your name out there?

 

Do you know architects etc?

 

Too many people these days do 3D as a hobby, do some nice work, maybe get a few freelance jobs and then think "im going to start up a company". Problem is most of the time they dont think it through, 6 months down the track they have gotten barely any or no work, have no money and have wasted a lot of time. All these things can be prevented by planning.

 

So all im saying is make sure you have planned it all out. Write a business plan, get others in the industry to look at it etc.

Arch Viz can be a very difficult industry to get started in and to do well in. Be prepared to go without work for periods of time and learn to accept that you wont get all jobs, clients wont be 100% happy all the time and can be rude etc, learn to accept disappointments.

 

Dont accept failure, because it is only failure if you get nothing out of your mistakes. Learn from them.

[AubreyM]

There was a post here with a seminar by Mike Monteiro that is a really good primer. It had some profanity in it so it may have been taken down, I searched but couldn't find it. Here is another link to it, it's well worth watching.

 

http://www.3dallusions.com/forums/running-studio/4592-mike-monteiro-f-ck-you-pay-me.html