Hot Stuff

Children represent a big business opportunity when it comes to professional photography. Angela Carson, 36, chair of the children and family specialty advisory group of the Professional Photographers of Ameri-ca, knows plenty about this lucrative market. In the 12 years she has run Angela Carson Photography in Northville, Michigan, Carson has gone from photographing children as a sideline to concentrating on this niche market almost exclusively.

Industry watchers say a number of factors are driving the trend's growth: Australian photographer Anne Geddes, whose shots of cherubic babes have consumers desiring more original settings for Junior's photos, and the increased marketing of children's images.

Recording children's growth also translates into repeat business, says Jim Nichols, director of marketing for Candid Color Systems, the company that developed the Glamour Shots retail photography studios. Nichols' company recently entered the market with a children's concept-The Picture Park in Oklahoma City.

Industry newsletter Photofinishing News says birth-through-age-5 photography was a $1.1 billion market in 1996 and a $1.2 billion market in 1997. While the dominant players are chains like Olan Mills and Wal-Mart, small companies offering a unique touch are taking on these giants-and succeeding.

Juice Bars

Drink up, America. As an increasingly health-conscious nation sips away, the juice bar industry is ripening into the kind of entrepreneurial opportunity that's far more pulp than fiction. Put it this way: Juices and smoothies whipped up revenues in excess of $500 million last year. Juice bars have been hot for a while in areas like California, but there are still parts of the country where the juice market is wide open; franchising is often a good way to get in on the opportunity. Who can doubt there's a whole lot of blending going on? Certainly not the editors here at Entrepreneur-we first predicted the juice boom in 1994.

And definitely not 32-year-old Susan Hibbs, who founded Minneapolis-based Sola Squeeze two years ago. "We get everyone from teenagers to small kids coming in with their parents to executives and retired people," says Hibbs, explaining her three juice bars' wide appeal.

"What you're selling with a juice bar is convenience and health," observes Dan Titus of Juice Gallery, a Chino Hills, California, consulting firm specializing in juice bars. "The main thing driving [the popularity of juices and smoothies] is that they're a healthy meal replacement."

Well, yes . . . and no. Although many people consider smoothies bona fide meals, others think of the fruity, vitamin-enriched concoctions as either a dessert or an accompaniment to, say, a wrap or an energy bar. For its part, industry giant Jamba Juice stirred up plenty of attention by adding breads and soups to its menu last year.

Predicting the juice bar industry will hit the $1 billion mark in 2000, Juice Gallery's Titus is equally confident there's ample profit left to be squeezed out of the nation's love of smoothies. Especially ripe for the picking, it seems, is the great expanse of territory between the West and East coasts.

This article was originally published in the January 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Hot Stuff.