August 28, 2025 • 27 mins
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What happens when an entrepreneur with no background in photography or AI sees an opportunity in the headshot market? In this conversation, Ricardo Ghekiere, founder and CEO of BetterPic, reveals how he transformed a small startup he acquired for just $1 into a multimillion-dollar AI imaging company.
Ghekiere shares his remarkable journey of growth, from setting what he thought was an ambitious goal of $50,000 monthly revenue to actually reaching $114,000 monthly in just one year. This dramatic underestimation of the market reveals just how hungry consumers and businesses are for AI-powered imaging solutions that eliminate the hassle and expense of traditional photography.
Ghekiere also explains his newest venture, BetterStudio, which creates digital twins of real models for fashion brands. Unlike controversial fully AI-generated models, BetterStudio works with actual modeling agencies to digitize real people, allowing brands to dress and style them virtually for e-commerce and marketing campaigns. This approach not only preserves jobs in the modeling industry but also addresses ethical concerns about AI-generated people.
Particularly fascinating is Ghekiere's insight into identity ownership in the AI age: "You own your eyes. If the eyes change, the person changes, but if the eyes remain the same, that's you." This principle has helped shape how BetterPick approaches the creation and licensing of digital content in a rapidly evolving legal landscape.
The geographic differences in AI adoption also play a crucial role in BetterPic's strategy. Despite being based in Belgium, most of their headshot revenue comes from the United States, with Europe typically adopting AI technologies "two years later." For their fashion industry product, however, they've taken a "Europ
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Manning (00:02):
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Ricardo
Ghekiere, who's the founder andCEO of BetterPic, and Ricardo is
coming to us from Belgium.
Today, Ricardo, you've got someactual news.
I mean, not only are you astartup in the AI portrait space
, but you just got some funding.
Before we get into that, let'stalk about you and how you
(00:41):
started this company.
Ricardo Ghekiere (00:43):
Yeah, hi, and thank you for having me, by the
way, calling in from Belgium,where we have beautiful weather,
as usual.
But yeah, the company startedbefore me to be transparent, so
it was already started in July2023 by my co-founder and CTO
Miguel, 2023 by my co-founderand cto miguel, and then in
(01:10):
december 2023.
Uh, funnily enough, or justbefore that, I got a newsletter
from uh side projectors.
I've been following thiscompany for a while.
They basically announcecompanies for sale in which you
can acquire basically becauseI'm a horrible coding guy, like
I tried coding, it's bad.
So so I was like I'm nevergoing to be able to, like,
compete in this space.
I need to do something else.
So I saw it passing by and itwas AI headshots.
(01:31):
The company was for sale forabout 20,000 euros and I was
like, okay, you know, I stillgot that in my pocket, let's
have a look.
And you know, once I starteddigging deeper into the space, I
was like, hey, if thetechnology does, or says, does
(01:51):
what it says it does, which istaking professional headshots
for just a couple of selfies for30 bucks, this is massive.
It's a massive opportunity,right?
Because everybody in the worldat some point needs a headshot
and we all know the hassles ofgoing to a photographer trying
to dress up for ladies.
You have to do the makeup.
You know there's a heating lampin front of you.
Gary Pageau (02:07):
I did a photo shoot yesterday.
Ricardo Ghekiere (02:09):
That was like trying to not do this awkward
smile.
I was like, ok, I have no ideawhat I'm doing here.
I saw that.
I was like, wow, this could bea massive opportunity coming in.
I think I met Miguel.
He was in Spain, I was in Spain, we drove two hours to each
other.
We actually, you know, had agreat connection and from there
I just made an offer and said Iwant to purchase it for $1 and
(02:33):
see if you're up for it.
And of course, his firstreaction was like, hey, wait, I
said $220,000, not $1, basically.
So yeah, I just explained myphilosophy, saying hey, you know
what, if you join me and joinme as cto and I'll, you know,
lead the company, I'll make surethat your shares are worth a
lot more than the 20 000 eurosthat you're asking me today.
(02:54):
Uh, which I think, with thefundraising that we just did, is
that it's proven.
Gary Pageau (02:59):
I would say so what was your background before
getting into this?
Were you in the imagingindustry or were you more of a?
Ricardo Ghekiere (03:06):
Absolutely not .
Like every single business thatI found it.
I had no prior experience to it, so the first company I found
was renting out studentfurniture, so I failed.
Then I started a coffee bar.
I didn't even know how to makea cappuccino.
I had to teach myself onYouTube how to actually make a
proper cappuccino.
Basically, I launched cocktailboxes.
I knew nothing about cocktails,so that's why I was like, hey,
(03:29):
let's make a cocktail box.
So every single business that Iever started, I knew nothing
about the space and you know,back in the day I saw that as a
"h my God, I can't do this kindof thing.
Nowadays I see it as a massivecompetitive advantage, because
you're having this outside lookinto the space versus having
this very post-minded look islike this is how it's supposed
(03:50):
to be and it's always how it howit has been done, basically.
Gary Pageau (03:53):
So now I see there's a competitive advantage
growing up in that sense so didyou do any research into, uh
like the corporate headshotspace or was just an instinctual
gut level thing?
You saw that.
You know, you've been around.
You see everybody's got it ontheir home pages and on their
(04:14):
linkedin and all this, so theythink, oh, they need that was
that what came from or did youlike?
Do you know the the market issuch and such in europe for
headshots.
Ricardo Ghekiere (04:24):
Yeah, so I did two things right, or two major
things.
One is, of course, I call it inDutch they call it
boerderverstand, which isfarmer's brain, for some reason,
which translates very weirdlyif you put it that way, but it's
like gut instinct, you wouldalmost translate it.
It's like you have a gutinstinct of like, okay, just
basic calculation would saythere's, you know, that many
(04:45):
billion people in the world,there is that many people
graduating, applying for cvswhere you'll need a headshot for
you have linkedin being amassive platform.
So, you know, you don't have tobe a rocket scientist to think
about, okay, this is actually abig market in that sense.
And then, of course, the secondthing which we've done is, um,
I had a marketing agency up till, you know, two months ago,
(05:06):
which was recently sold, and soI had a marketing agency and
asked my people like okay, bythe way, I want you to research
this market.
I want you to do, uh, keywordresearch about how many people
are looking for this, how fastis this market growing?
Like, if ai headshots is about,I think back in the days, it was
2 000 people looking it forevery single month.
Before the year before, it waslike 200.
(05:27):
So it's like, okay, that's a10x.
And to give you an idea, todaythat's about 54,000 keyword
researches or keywords that arebeing triggered.
So I'm like, okay, wow, thismarket is growing, but it's
still very limited.
And if the technology says whatit does, it says I limited.
And if the technology says whatit does, it says I was like,
okay, that's great, then we havesomething that we can sell.
(05:49):
Uh, in that sense, so we did alot of research but not, you
know, we didn't hire a firm todo like market research about
what could this market be?
Gary Pageau (05:56):
in that sense, so how did your perception of the
market change?
Or did it from your initialresearch?
Did you think it was bigger,smaller, slower, faster moving?
Ricardo Ghekiere (06:09):
Or did you reaffirm what you already knew?
So I bought it the 1st ofDecember 2023.
And you know, I come from a,you know, leading teams of like
a hundred people and it's like Ineed to put some OKRs and some
goal settings.
It's like, okay, what's the bigambition that we want to do?
So we said, okay, 2024, we wantto hit 50,000 per month by the
(06:29):
end of the year.
And everybody's like, ah, you'recrazy, because we were doing
1.5K per month, right.
So we're like we're at 1.5K.
The big heavy goal is 50,000per month.
And then somewhere October 2024, uh, we're like, okay, we're
(06:51):
already hitting close to 70k.
This is crazy.
And so by december 2024, weactually hit around 114k uh goal
per month.
I was like, okay, I definitelyunderestimated this market way
too much and and so I was likeI'm not going to make the same
mistake for 2025.
I'm going to put the goal at 2million, 2 million yearly
revenue.
And I was like, oh, that wouldbe crazy.
(07:11):
And, to give you an idea, we'renow projected to do about 3
million and even more than that.
So it was like I underestimatedit again.
So maybe 2026 will be different.
Gary Pageau (07:23):
Well, that's great.
So before we get more into themarket, can you describe a
little bit about what BetterPickis and what the product
offerings are, Because you kindof have a couple things right.
Ricardo Ghekiere (07:34):
Yeah, so the first product we launched was
BetterPic, which is quitestraightforward product to you,
product you.
Instead of going to thephotographer back like you would
do back in the days, you cometo a website, you upload some
random selfies you have from yougoing to the bahamas or, uh, to
, you know, any location youwant, or you can take them on
the spot.
You give us about eight selfiesand within 30 minutes, we are
(07:56):
going to give you professionalheadshots back, around 60 or 220
that you're going to get back.
You select a few and that'sabout it.
That's a very simplisticproduct which is very hard to
manage, but it's a verysimplistic product to explain
mostly.
The second product we justrecently launched is the exact
same technology, but then for amuch larger market, which is the
(08:18):
fashion industry markets,because the fashion industry
market has the exact sameproblem as we've been trying to
solve for two years, which iswell, I've got this product now,
uh, but I'm waiting for myphotograph to come in.
It's quite a cost that a makeupartist needs to come in.
I need to book a model thatcomes in.
So we're just replacing theentire flow with real models
(08:39):
that we take digital twins from.
So that means like an aiversion of them, but from a real
person, and we're going toaddress them on the fly, so you
don't actually have to fly yourmodel in anymore to New York.
You can actually have thatperson digitally so far.
Gary Pageau (08:54):
So I think one of your competitors for that
product would be the AIgenerated people.
Right, there's a couple peopleout there who are doing that or
saying you don't have to havethat digital twin, we just
create it on the fly.
And if you want to adjust thefeatures and on the fly you can
do that.
What is the advantage of yourproduct versus going with a
generative AI route completely?
Ricardo Ghekiere (09:16):
100%.
So, by the way, we also do theAI generated.
So we do both, but our mainstrength and focus is on
translating real people, realmodels, into the digital world,
and so the advantage is thatactually came very clearly last
week when Vogue actuallylaunched in their paper version
(09:36):
they launched an AI model insidethe book, basically and the
whole world actually went crazy.
It was all over the news andeven into Belgium.
It was like going crazy.
And so we actually gotinterviewed through the media in
Belgium because of like whatthe hell is going on here?
And the whole world wasexploding and there was a huge
backlash against Vogue aroundthat.
(09:56):
And then suddenly brands werelike okay, we want the
efficiency of AI, but we don'twant the backlash of these
AI-generated models.
And so now we've got a hugeamount of influx of big
companies like, okay, we wantthis efficiency, but we want the
real models and we want tocompensate them in the real way,
basically.
So that's the advantage ofworking with us in that sense.
Gary Pageau (10:19):
Because that's an interesting point is, you know a
lot of people think of AI as a,you know, one-to-one
replacement for people or it'sgoing to, you know, drastically
eliminate jobs and you know itwill, obviously for certain
things, but it's certainly, youknow, for certain things that
are high profile fashion covers.
(10:40):
You know you wouldn't want tosee open up Vogue and have the
big fashion spread, have it allbe AI generated, but you know,
for a, for a catalog of peopleyou're just selling, you know,
shirts and things.
Ricardo Ghekiere (10:52):
It's just an e-commerce application that may
be an absolute appropriate 100percent, like for the that's the
best example I always give islike we have, so, funny enough,
our main investor, one of thelarger angels, is actually a
model agency.
So a model agency invests in usand she's digitizing the 2000
(11:13):
model that comes in, which isalways weird.
When she jumps on the call witha prospect that we have is like
but wait, we're, you're themodel agency owner and we're
talking to you, we're trying toget rid of you.
So it's a very funnyconversation, but uh well, I
don't know.
Gary Pageau (11:28):
I mean honestly I think the agency will will morph
into more of a technologybroker, probably oh, 100, 100.
Ricardo Ghekiere (11:37):
So this is the the funny part where, like now,
we're just collaborating withthe model agencies.
It's like, okay, they see themas like an add-on versus like a
threat, and that's also how wewant to be perceived is like
we're here to help the modelagencies and help the brands
actually push things forward.
And her best example, which Ialways remember, is every single
(11:58):
week there is a guy going fromBelgium to Berlin, flying in,
trying on 120 to 150 clothes onin about two hours window and
just goes on off, on off andhe's like he just gets rats
rashes on his skin because ofthat.
And I was like that's exactlywhat you don't want to be doing.
What you want to be doing ishaving these models create the
(12:21):
experiences, the events, all ofthese really cool stuff.
Not that I'm going to take offa swimming short every single
two minutes and getting rasheson my clothing.
Gary Pageau (12:30):
Sure, and also you know the face of that model can
actually become a digital assetthat they can monetize 100%.
Ricardo Ghekiere (12:40):
Yes, it's just like in the real world.
You book a model, you get thelicensing fee for about a year.
So all of that stuff is nowjust digitalized in our world.
Gary Pageau (12:52):
Because I think the appetite for images is only
going to increase.
So the logistics of flying thatperson from Belgium to Germany
or wherever is not going to beable to keep up with the demand
for images.
That's going to be happening100%.
Ricardo Ghekiere (13:08):
And we also have some clients.
That's like you know what, backin the days we had to choose
for certain products we will notdo images, and for certain
things we will not do images andfor certain things we will do
images um, and nowadays you canjust do the entire.
You know, you know entiree-commerce with images at scale
at you know a half of that cost,basically.
Gary Pageau (13:27):
And that's where it becomes interesting to to
operate now there might be someissues with the use of images.
Have you run into cases where amodel doesn't want their image
used with a certain product oranything like that?
How do they control that?
Ricardo Ghekiere (13:56):
exact same way as it is controlled in the real
world.
So in the real world, it's notthe model that chooses the
brands, it is the model agenciesthat handles that.
That's also why they're part ofthe fee in that sense.
So we're actually in directcontact with the model agencies
that then will associate thebrands and they already know
like, hey, you know, thisperson's not made for this brand
, so it's mostly the modelagency that know the exact same
workflow.
That's also why we collaboratewith them, not the models.
(14:18):
Well, we also collaborate withthe models to get the digital
twins, but it is actually ourcontracts is with the model
agencies in that sense.
And so the funny thing is, thelegal framework is a very tricky
one, and especially because ofEurope handling, and so we
actually had to work with a hugeamount of law firms, and now we
have these contracts in placeto run that playbook, because
(14:40):
it's a very touchy thing likewho owns the rights for how long
.
Exactly so we've actuallylegalized the entire thing, and
so when clients work with us,they know that they're working
in a legal framework that fitswith them.
Gary Pageau (14:52):
Because that is one of the things that you know, at
least in the US.
You know they've determinedthat AI doesn't can't own
anything, right.
So the question is, if you'reusing a composite image with,
you know, a digital twin, butyou're generating everything
else, or vice versa, how much ofthat is copyrightable or
ownable or trademarkable orwhatever the phrase you want to
(15:14):
use.
I don't know is the question.
Ricardo Ghekiere (15:17):
Actually, there is rules around that, and
one of the rules is that you ownyour eyes.
That is actually one of therules.
So if the eyes change, theperson changes, but if the eyes
remain the same, so it's youreyes, that's you basically.
So there are certain rules thatare attached to this, and this
is why I went through this wholelegal thing to discover.
(15:38):
This is that when the eyes isone of their bigger assets, that
is owned to you.
Basically, even in Denmarkright now, there's laws passing
by that you know that you arethe owner of you.
Gary Pageau (15:52):
I don't think you have that yet in the states, but
in denmark you actually havethese laws, and I believe these
laws will come a lot bigger ineurope over the coming months,
even so let's talk a little bitabout that the difference
between european sensibilitieswhen it relates to this and
north american sensibilitieswhen they came with us, because
north america is a little bitespecially the States, is a
(16:14):
little more of the Wild West inthis.
Whereas you know, the Europeancommunity is definitely a little
more cautious and a little morelegislative we'll use the word
for that.
So being based in Europe, doesthat give you an advantage, do
you think?
Ricardo Ghekiere (16:30):
I'll give you a backstory basically.
So when with BetterPic pick,currently our revenue is 90,
let's say, 85 is coming from thestates, five percent is like,
uh, canada and the uk andaustralia, and like maybe five
percent is european, basically,and it's very funny because
we're like, okay, is it justbecause we don't run campaigns
there or is it something else?
(16:50):
So we got the research andwe're looking at the keywords
that people type in, which is ai, hedgeholds, and then I kind of
map that across the globe andit just correlates exactly with
the amount of people looking forthat specific keywords towards
the revenue, basically, and it'sjust because ai is just much
more adopted in the states.
And then it kind of flies overto europe like two years later.
(17:13):
And then it even depends on thecountry.
We always, always make thejokes that America is five years
ahead in terms of AI, and thenit comes to like Holland and
France later on and the UK andthen Belgium is, like you know,
two years later.
So that's always the funny jokethat I always make.
And so that's exactly what'shappening on the AI Hatchels
(17:33):
thing.
Now for the second company,better Studio, we said we're
going European first, because ifyou can tackle Europe, you can
conquer the rest, not the otherway around.
If an American company wouldcome in, they would have to get
all these questions about OK,what about the legislation?
Have you thought about theBelgium legislation?
But in Belgium we have Frenchlegislation and Dutch
legislation.
(17:53):
So there's all these thingslike oh yeah, never mind, let me
stick to the States.
So we went first like Europeanfirst, legislation first, and
from there we're expanding.
Gary Pageau (18:08):
And you guys have better taste over there when it
comes to fashion, so that'sprobably a better place to start
.
Ricardo Ghekiere (18:10):
That is actually very true as well.
Don't want to shout anything,but it's just kind of proven
based on the amount of brandsthat are coming from Europe
versus the States.
Gary Pageau (18:23):
So let's talk a little bit about the funding
piece, because that's reallybeen the big news in the last
week or so is that you just gota big scene round.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat it took to get that into
place, the story you had to tellto convince folks that, hey,
this is not just another one ofthose kind of AI advancements
(18:44):
that you know?
It seems like there's a lot ofthose out there, right, that's
where the money is going in AIand people are just looking for
it 100%.
Ricardo Ghekiere (18:51):
So, funny enough, I tried raising around
one year ago exact timing oneyear ago and that was for the
product.
Better pick back in the days.
And still you know like, okay,I want to raise some funds with
it.
Um, this is, you know, this isneeded, this is the graph.
So I made the whole slide deckand, uh, I actually didn't
succeed.
So I was like, oh damn, it'slike everybody's just telling me
(19:16):
no, basically why was that?
Gary Pageau (19:18):
where did they just not see the market potential,
did they?
Or there's a thousand otherchoices, so why bother?
Or what was that?
So I?
Ricardo Ghekiere (19:23):
think there's two main reasons that we always
got, let's say, rejected on, andthe first one is this is a
one-time purchase, so you onlyget a one-time headshot seal.
It's a one-time purchase, soit's not recurring behavior, so
it's very unpredictable in thatsense.
And then the second thing is,like every investor always asks
but what about in five years?
(19:43):
Well, how will this business bein five years from time?
And what will chat gpt do ifyou can just upload a few images
there and get your headshotsthere, basically, so that was
the always the comeback that wegot, which is a very legitimate
question in that sense.
Yeah, and then, of course, whenwe started the second business,
which is very much b2b, hightickets, uh, working with these
(20:05):
bigger brands is like, okay,well, here you have something
recurring, you have somethingthat you can actually build a
long-term business with becauseyou're integrated into their
system.
So the moment we actually hadmore of the B2B layer to it,
that's when the investorsactually got excited about the
future that we're building,basically.
So hence where the funding isgoing to, because for BetterPic
(20:28):
we didn't need the funding.
We were growing every singlemonth, we were profitable, we
were fully bootstrapped, so wedidn't actually need the funding
for BetterPic, but we decidedjust to accelerate on the B2B
offerings.
Gary Pageau (20:41):
And how much did you have to give up in terms of
equity or whatever?
I know you don't have to gointo a straight percentage, but
did you have to have a boardformed?
Or what's the relationship withthe investors?
Ricardo Ghekiere (20:55):
Yeah, so it's all raised through safe notes in
that sense.
So we didn't have to like spenda lot of money on like a series
A and lawyers and all thatstuff.
It was just a safe note whichwe had to negotiate and that's
about it basically.
That's also why it went quitefast in that sense.
Gary Pageau (21:11):
So how did you select your investment partners?
What was the criteria you werelooking for?
Ricardo Ghekiere (21:19):
Yeah.
So we were looking for apartner that believed in a team
not the product in that sense,and so of course it's important
to understand what you'rebuilding and is it aligned with
the future.
But what I really liked is sowe got MOC Capital as the first
larger investor.
They invested about a millionand so they were like I just
(21:41):
believe in a team.
The guy even like one of theinvestors actually flew in into
Italy.
We were there with, like, thewhole team.
We do six months, every sixmonths we actually catch up.
Now we're going to Barcelonaand he flew in.
He spent a day with us just toget to know the team, understand
the dynamics, what werehappening, what we're building,
and the day after he actuallysaid, okay, this is the team
that's going to make it happen,basically.
(22:02):
So we were really lookingforward to somebody that said,
okay, I really believe in theteam that is going to happen and
the execution you'll see alongthe way you'll make pivots,
you'll make changes along theproduct.
You're like, okay, that doesn'twork, let's make something else
.
But he really believed in theteam and that's also why we
decided to first go with MOCCapital, because we could see
that they were really teamplayers.
(22:24):
They even like called five ofmy closest friends and
ex-colleagues to like say, hey,is this guy legit or not?
So you could really sense thatall the questions were pointed
towards how is this personreally versus?
What are they building in thatsense?
Gary Pageau (22:41):
Did you think your track record of having done some
prior businesses had a somesuccess, had some failure?
Do you think that helped you inbuilding a relationship with
the kind of investor you wanted?
Ricardo Ghekiere (22:56):
um, I would say yes, um, and not just from a
.
Hey, this is my track record,but your track record says a lot
about your personality, thatyou have at that moment, and so
you could tell that we just hada conversation about, okay,
failure, things that didn't gowell.
How do you adapt to that?
How do you crunch through likebad situations?
Um, having failure, that I thinkis a good thing uh, so I think
(23:20):
it really helped, and we alwaysI, my mother, is always like as
long as you don't give up, youcan't lose, and so that has
always been a cave, and theyalways see, like better pick as
like this overnight success.
It's like, hey, they went fromlike zero to like 3 million 18
months wow, crazy.
But I'm like this is like an 11year journey.
My first business was 11 yearsago and so there's no overnight
(23:45):
success here.
There's just like grinding andkeeping it going until you hit
the spot.
Basically, it's like going foroil, right.
It's like you know there's nolike let's dig here and see it's
a septic six.
You can just keep digging for11 years, you'll find something
so do you see better, pick withboth products do you see it as
an?
Gary Pageau (24:04):
ai company or as a imaging solutions company,
because I think that perspectivehelps bring you to the future
yeah, so I think there is.
Ricardo Ghekiere (24:17):
So we're an ai company in that sense or an AI
image company.
The reason why I'm saying notAI company and AI image company
is because we don't buildfoundational models Like there's
these foundational models likeChatGPT or you know Flux, like
there's all these foundationalmodels.
They cost millions.
We're not that.
We are what we call a baselayer.
(24:38):
On top of that, we're thinkingabout use cases Like okay, how
would a person use this?
What's the interface look likefor that?
So we're basically building ontop of these foundational models
with our tweaks.
Let's call it like that.
An example tweak could be hey,you know, these foundational
models don't think that when youshoot an e-commerce image and
the person wants to haveclothing all the way to the
(24:59):
bottom of the, so you don't seethe shoes a financial model
doesn't understand that, so weneed to build that into the
product.
Gary Pageau (25:05):
So these are like small tweak example that you
need to do to operate in thisscale because it's always, I
think, especially with whatyou're doing, the little things
that matter, right, if you'redoing, you know, if you're
inserting a head onto a sweaterlike that's got to be precisely
accurate.
Ricardo Ghekiere (25:24):
It's a little bit off.
Gary Pageau (25:26):
Oh, that's 100%.
Ricardo Ghekiere (25:28):
That's the biggest struggle of all these
foundational models.
Like in AI headshots, it's like, okay, the face needs to look
exactly like you, but if theclothing is a little bit off, it
doesn't matter.
In these AI headshots ai likephoto shoots every single detail
matters, like how many buttonsdo you have?
How does that button look like?
How does the fit look like?
It is crazy how that worldworks and I think that's I think
(25:51):
it's the hardest challenge I'veever worked on and a team has
ever worked on.
But it's such a grateful thingwhen your products that you shot
go online like we have someonline right now.
Gary Pageau (26:01):
It's like, oh, that was us great do you ever like
walk through a downtown and seesomething that your technology
has done, like on a, on a bus ora or a billboard, and go kind
of?
Ricardo Ghekiere (26:15):
you know, feel proud about that but have you
had the offline billboards?
Because most of the time theywere still like, not ai
generated.
I don't think we got to thatstage yet.
Um, I do see, like, if you goto reviews for better pick.
I love that because it's likepeople just say, hey, I did this
for my dad who didn't have ajob for five years and I was
(26:35):
building his cv and I got thesolution.
I was finally able to get aheadshot for them because it was
too expensive.
My country.
It's like that's the beautifulmoments.
We're like, hey, we're reallymaking an impact into the world
of people right.
Gary Pageau (26:48):
So if people are interested in checking out your
company, the better group is thecompany right and getting more
information about, uh, what itis you do.
Where can they go online tofind out?
Ricardo Ghekiere (27:00):
awesome, uh.
So yeah, for the AI headshots,definitely go to betterpic.
io.
That's where we do all the AIheadshots.
And then the second company iscalled betterstudioio is where
you can actually, you knowlaunch campaigns for your you
know fashion e-commerce brands.
Gary Pageau (27:17):
Awesome.
Well, thank you, Ricardo.
It's been great meeting you andtalking with you and kind of
picking your brain about AI andthe potential of it in the
photography and the fashionindustry, and looking forward to
hearing more.
Ricardo Ghekiere (27:30):
Thank you very much.
No worries, thank you very much, gary.
Have a beautiful day.
Erin Manning (27:34):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Ricardo
Ghekiere, who's the founder andCEO of BetterPic, and Ricardo is
coming to us from Belgium.
Today, Ricardo, you've got someactual news.
I mean, not only are you astartup in the AI portrait space
, but you just got some funding.
Before we get into that, let'stalk about you and how you
(00:41):
started this company.
Ricardo Ghekiere (00:43):
Yeah, hi, and thank you for having me, by the
way, calling in from Belgium,where we have beautiful weather,
as usual.
But yeah, the company startedbefore me to be transparent, so
it was already started in July2023 by my co-founder and CTO
Miguel, 2023 by my co-founderand cto miguel, and then in
(01:10):
december 2023.
Uh, funnily enough, or justbefore that, I got a newsletter
from uh side projectors.
I've been following thiscompany for a while.
They basically announcecompanies for sale in which you
can acquire basically becauseI'm a horrible coding guy, like
I tried coding, it's bad.
So so I was like I'm nevergoing to be able to, like,
compete in this space.
I need to do something else.
So I saw it passing by and itwas AI headshots.
(01:31):
The company was for sale forabout 20,000 euros and I was
like, okay, you know, I stillgot that in my pocket, let's
have a look.
And you know, once I starteddigging deeper into the space, I
was like, hey, if thetechnology does, or says, does
(01:51):
what it says it does, which istaking professional headshots
for just a couple of selfies for30 bucks, this is massive.
It's a massive opportunity,right?
Because everybody in the worldat some point needs a headshot
and we all know the hassles ofgoing to a photographer trying
to dress up for ladies.
You have to do the makeup.
You know there's a heating lampin front of you.
Gary Pageau (02:07):
I did a photo shoot yesterday.
Ricardo Ghekiere (02:09):
That was like trying to not do this awkward
smile.
I was like, ok, I have no ideawhat I'm doing here.
I saw that.
I was like, wow, this could bea massive opportunity coming in.
I think I met Miguel.
He was in Spain, I was in Spain, we drove two hours to each
other.
We actually, you know, had agreat connection and from there
I just made an offer and said Iwant to purchase it for $1 and
(02:33):
see if you're up for it.
And of course, his firstreaction was like, hey, wait, I
said $220,000, not $1, basically.
So yeah, I just explained myphilosophy, saying hey, you know
what, if you join me and joinme as cto and I'll, you know,
lead the company, I'll make surethat your shares are worth a
lot more than the 20 000 eurosthat you're asking me today.
(02:54):
Uh, which I think, with thefundraising that we just did, is
that it's proven.
Gary Pageau (02:59):
I would say so what was your background before
getting into this?
Were you in the imagingindustry or were you more of a?
Ricardo Ghekiere (03:06):
Absolutely not .
Like every single business thatI found it.
I had no prior experience to it, so the first company I found
was renting out studentfurniture, so I failed.
Then I started a coffee bar.
I didn't even know how to makea cappuccino.
I had to teach myself onYouTube how to actually make a
proper cappuccino.
Basically, I launched cocktailboxes.
I knew nothing about cocktails,so that's why I was like, hey,
(03:29):
let's make a cocktail box.
So every single business that Iever started, I knew nothing
about the space and you know,back in the day I saw that as a
"h my God, I can't do this kindof thing.
Nowadays I see it as a massivecompetitive advantage, because
you're having this outside lookinto the space versus having
this very post-minded look islike this is how it's supposed
(03:50):
to be and it's always how it howit has been done, basically.
Gary Pageau (03:53):
So now I see there's a competitive advantage
growing up in that sense so didyou do any research into, uh
like the corporate headshotspace or was just an instinctual
gut level thing?
You saw that.
You know, you've been around.
You see everybody's got it ontheir home pages and on their
(04:14):
linkedin and all this, so theythink, oh, they need that was
that what came from or did youlike?
Do you know the the market issuch and such in europe for
headshots.
Ricardo Ghekiere (04:24):
Yeah, so I did two things right, or two major
things.
One is, of course, I call it inDutch they call it
boerderverstand, which isfarmer's brain, for some reason,
which translates very weirdlyif you put it that way, but it's
like gut instinct, you wouldalmost translate it.
It's like you have a gutinstinct of like, okay, just
basic calculation would saythere's, you know, that many
(04:45):
billion people in the world,there is that many people
graduating, applying for cvswhere you'll need a headshot for
you have linkedin being amassive platform.
So, you know, you don't have tobe a rocket scientist to think
about, okay, this is actually abig market in that sense.
And then, of course, the secondthing which we've done is, um,
I had a marketing agency up till, you know, two months ago,
(05:06):
which was recently sold, and soI had a marketing agency and
asked my people like okay, bythe way, I want you to research
this market.
I want you to do, uh, keywordresearch about how many people
are looking for this, how fastis this market growing?
Like, if ai headshots is about,I think back in the days, it was
2 000 people looking it forevery single month.
Before the year before, it waslike 200.
(05:27):
So it's like, okay, that's a10x.
And to give you an idea, todaythat's about 54,000 keyword
researches or keywords that arebeing triggered.
So I'm like, okay, wow, thismarket is growing, but it's
still very limited.
And if the technology says whatit does, it says I limited.
And if the technology says whatit does, it says I was like,
okay, that's great, then we havesomething that we can sell.
(05:49):
Uh, in that sense, so we did alot of research but not, you
know, we didn't hire a firm todo like market research about
what could this market be?
Gary Pageau (05:56):
in that sense, so how did your perception of the
market change?
Or did it from your initialresearch?
Did you think it was bigger,smaller, slower, faster moving?
Ricardo Ghekiere (06:09):
Or did you reaffirm what you already knew?
So I bought it the 1st ofDecember 2023.
And you know, I come from a,you know, leading teams of like
a hundred people and it's like Ineed to put some OKRs and some
goal settings.
It's like, okay, what's the bigambition that we want to do?
So we said, okay, 2024, we wantto hit 50,000 per month by the
(06:29):
end of the year.
And everybody's like, ah, you'recrazy, because we were doing
1.5K per month, right.
So we're like we're at 1.5K.
The big heavy goal is 50,000per month.
And then somewhere October 2024, uh, we're like, okay, we're
(06:51):
already hitting close to 70k.
This is crazy.
And so by december 2024, weactually hit around 114k uh goal
per month.
I was like, okay, I definitelyunderestimated this market way
too much and and so I was likeI'm not going to make the same
mistake for 2025.
I'm going to put the goal at 2million, 2 million yearly
revenue.
And I was like, oh, that wouldbe crazy.
(07:11):
And, to give you an idea, we'renow projected to do about 3
million and even more than that.
So it was like I underestimatedit again.
So maybe 2026 will be different.
Gary Pageau (07:23):
Well, that's great.
So before we get more into themarket, can you describe a
little bit about what BetterPickis and what the product
offerings are, Because you kindof have a couple things right.
Ricardo Ghekiere (07:34):
Yeah, so the first product we launched was
BetterPic, which is quitestraightforward product to you,
product you.
Instead of going to thephotographer back like you would
do back in the days, you cometo a website, you upload some
random selfies you have from yougoing to the bahamas or, uh, to
, you know, any location youwant, or you can take them on
the spot.
You give us about eight selfiesand within 30 minutes, we are
(07:56):
going to give you professionalheadshots back, around 60 or 220
that you're going to get back.
You select a few and that'sabout it.
That's a very simplisticproduct which is very hard to
manage, but it's a verysimplistic product to explain
mostly.
The second product we justrecently launched is the exact
same technology, but then for amuch larger market, which is the
(08:18):
fashion industry markets,because the fashion industry
market has the exact sameproblem as we've been trying to
solve for two years, which iswell, I've got this product now,
uh, but I'm waiting for myphotograph to come in.
It's quite a cost that a makeupartist needs to come in.
I need to book a model thatcomes in.
So we're just replacing theentire flow with real models
(08:39):
that we take digital twins from.
So that means like an aiversion of them, but from a real
person, and we're going toaddress them on the fly, so you
don't actually have to fly yourmodel in anymore to New York.
You can actually have thatperson digitally so far.
Gary Pageau (08:54):
So I think one of your competitors for that
product would be the AIgenerated people.
Right, there's a couple peopleout there who are doing that or
saying you don't have to havethat digital twin, we just
create it on the fly.
And if you want to adjust thefeatures and on the fly you can
do that.
What is the advantage of yourproduct versus going with a
generative AI route completely?
Ricardo Ghekiere (09:16):
100%.
So, by the way, we also do theAI generated.
So we do both, but our mainstrength and focus is on
translating real people, realmodels, into the digital world,
and so the advantage is thatactually came very clearly last
week when Vogue actuallylaunched in their paper version
(09:36):
they launched an AI model insidethe book, basically and the
whole world actually went crazy.
It was all over the news andeven into Belgium.
It was like going crazy.
And so we actually gotinterviewed through the media in
Belgium because of like whatthe hell is going on here?
And the whole world wasexploding and there was a huge
backlash against Vogue aroundthat.
(09:56):
And then suddenly brands werelike okay, we want the
efficiency of AI, but we don'twant the backlash of these
AI-generated models.
And so now we've got a hugeamount of influx of big
companies like, okay, we wantthis efficiency, but we want the
real models and we want tocompensate them in the real way,
basically.
So that's the advantage ofworking with us in that sense.
Gary Pageau (10:19):
Because that's an interesting point is, you know a
lot of people think of AI as a,you know, one-to-one
replacement for people or it'sgoing to, you know, drastically
eliminate jobs and you know itwill, obviously for certain
things, but it's certainly, youknow, for certain things that
are high profile fashion covers.
(10:40):
You know you wouldn't want tosee open up Vogue and have the
big fashion spread, have it allbe AI generated, but you know,
for a, for a catalog of peopleyou're just selling, you know,
shirts and things.
Ricardo Ghekiere (10:52):
It's just an e-commerce application that may
be an absolute appropriate 100percent, like for the that's the
best example I always give islike we have, so, funny enough,
our main investor, one of thelarger angels, is actually a
model agency.
So a model agency invests in usand she's digitizing the 2000
(11:13):
model that comes in, which isalways weird.
When she jumps on the call witha prospect that we have is like
but wait, we're, you're themodel agency owner and we're
talking to you, we're trying toget rid of you.
So it's a very funnyconversation, but uh well, I
don't know.
Gary Pageau (11:28):
I mean honestly I think the agency will will morph
into more of a technologybroker, probably oh, 100, 100.
Ricardo Ghekiere (11:37):
So this is the the funny part where, like now,
we're just collaborating withthe model agencies.
It's like, okay, they see themas like an add-on versus like a
threat, and that's also how wewant to be perceived is like
we're here to help the modelagencies and help the brands
actually push things forward.
And her best example, which Ialways remember, is every single
(11:58):
week there is a guy going fromBelgium to Berlin, flying in,
trying on 120 to 150 clothes onin about two hours window and
just goes on off, on off andhe's like he just gets rats
rashes on his skin because ofthat.
And I was like that's exactlywhat you don't want to be doing.
What you want to be doing ishaving these models create the
(12:21):
experiences, the events, all ofthese really cool stuff.
Not that I'm going to take offa swimming short every single
two minutes and getting rasheson my clothing.
Gary Pageau (12:30):
Sure, and also you know the face of that model can
actually become a digital assetthat they can monetize 100%.
Ricardo Ghekiere (12:40):
Yes, it's just like in the real world.
You book a model, you get thelicensing fee for about a year.
So all of that stuff is nowjust digitalized in our world.
Gary Pageau (12:52):
Because I think the appetite for images is only
going to increase.
So the logistics of flying thatperson from Belgium to Germany
or wherever is not going to beable to keep up with the demand
for images.
That's going to be happening100%.
Ricardo Ghekiere (13:08):
And we also have some clients.
That's like you know what, backin the days we had to choose
for certain products we will notdo images, and for certain
things we will not do images andfor certain things we will do
images um, and nowadays you canjust do the entire.
You know, you know entiree-commerce with images at scale
at you know a half of that cost,basically.
Gary Pageau (13:27):
And that's where it becomes interesting to to
operate now there might be someissues with the use of images.
Have you run into cases where amodel doesn't want their image
used with a certain product oranything like that?
How do they control that?
Ricardo Ghekiere (13:56):
exact same way as it is controlled in the real
world.
So in the real world, it's notthe model that chooses the
brands, it is the model agenciesthat handles that.
That's also why they're part ofthe fee in that sense.
So we're actually in directcontact with the model agencies
that then will associate thebrands and they already know
like, hey, you know, thisperson's not made for this brand
, so it's mostly the modelagency that know the exact same
workflow.
That's also why we collaboratewith them, not the models.
(14:18):
Well, we also collaborate withthe models to get the digital
twins, but it is actually ourcontracts is with the model
agencies in that sense.
And so the funny thing is, thelegal framework is a very tricky
one, and especially because ofEurope handling, and so we
actually had to work with a hugeamount of law firms, and now we
have these contracts in placeto run that playbook, because
(14:40):
it's a very touchy thing likewho owns the rights for how long
.
Exactly so we've actuallylegalized the entire thing, and
so when clients work with us,they know that they're working
in a legal framework that fitswith them.
Gary Pageau (14:52):
Because that is one of the things that you know, at
least in the US.
You know they've determinedthat AI doesn't can't own
anything, right.
So the question is, if you'reusing a composite image with,
you know, a digital twin, butyou're generating everything
else, or vice versa, how much ofthat is copyrightable or
ownable or trademarkable orwhatever the phrase you want to
(15:14):
use.
I don't know is the question.
Ricardo Ghekiere (15:17):
Actually, there is rules around that, and
one of the rules is that you ownyour eyes.
That is actually one of therules.
So if the eyes change, theperson changes, but if the eyes
remain the same, so it's youreyes, that's you basically.
So there are certain rules thatare attached to this, and this
is why I went through this wholelegal thing to discover.
(15:38):
This is that when the eyes isone of their bigger assets, that
is owned to you.
Basically, even in Denmarkright now, there's laws passing
by that you know that you arethe owner of you.
Gary Pageau (15:52):
I don't think you have that yet in the states, but
in denmark you actually havethese laws, and I believe these
laws will come a lot bigger ineurope over the coming months,
even so let's talk a little bitabout that the difference
between european sensibilitieswhen it relates to this and
north american sensibilitieswhen they came with us, because
north america is a little bitespecially the States, is a
(16:14):
little more of the Wild West inthis.
Whereas you know, the Europeancommunity is definitely a little
more cautious and a little morelegislative we'll use the word
for that.
So being based in Europe, doesthat give you an advantage, do
you think?
Ricardo Ghekiere (16:30):
I'll give you a backstory basically.
So when with BetterPic pick,currently our revenue is 90,
let's say, 85 is coming from thestates, five percent is like,
uh, canada and the uk andaustralia, and like maybe five
percent is european, basically,and it's very funny because
we're like, okay, is it justbecause we don't run campaigns
there or is it something else?
(16:50):
So we got the research andwe're looking at the keywords
that people type in, which is ai, hedgeholds, and then I kind of
map that across the globe andit just correlates exactly with
the amount of people looking forthat specific keywords towards
the revenue, basically, and it'sjust because ai is just much
more adopted in the states.
And then it kind of flies overto europe like two years later.
(17:13):
And then it even depends on thecountry.
We always, always make thejokes that America is five years
ahead in terms of AI, and thenit comes to like Holland and
France later on and the UK andthen Belgium is, like you know,
two years later.
So that's always the funny jokethat I always make.
And so that's exactly what'shappening on the AI Hatchels
(17:33):
thing.
Now for the second company,better Studio, we said we're
going European first, because ifyou can tackle Europe, you can
conquer the rest, not the otherway around.
If an American company wouldcome in, they would have to get
all these questions about OK,what about the legislation?
Have you thought about theBelgium legislation?
But in Belgium we have Frenchlegislation and Dutch
legislation.
(17:53):
So there's all these thingslike oh yeah, never mind, let me
stick to the States.
So we went first like Europeanfirst, legislation first, and
from there we're expanding.
Gary Pageau (18:08):
And you guys have better taste over there when it
comes to fashion, so that'sprobably a better place to start
.
Ricardo Ghekiere (18:10):
That is actually very true as well.
Don't want to shout anything,but it's just kind of proven
based on the amount of brandsthat are coming from Europe
versus the States.
Gary Pageau (18:23):
So let's talk a little bit about the funding
piece, because that's reallybeen the big news in the last
week or so is that you just gota big scene round.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat it took to get that into
place, the story you had to tellto convince folks that, hey,
this is not just another one ofthose kind of AI advancements
(18:44):
that you know?
It seems like there's a lot ofthose out there, right, that's
where the money is going in AIand people are just looking for
it 100%.
Ricardo Ghekiere (18:51):
So, funny enough, I tried raising around
one year ago exact timing oneyear ago and that was for the
product.
Better pick back in the days.
And still you know like, okay,I want to raise some funds with
it.
Um, this is, you know, this isneeded, this is the graph.
So I made the whole slide deckand, uh, I actually didn't
succeed.
So I was like, oh damn, it'slike everybody's just telling me
(19:16):
no, basically why was that?
Gary Pageau (19:18):
where did they just not see the market potential,
did they?
Or there's a thousand otherchoices, so why bother?
Or what was that?
So I?
Ricardo Ghekiere (19:23):
think there's two main reasons that we always
got, let's say, rejected on, andthe first one is this is a
one-time purchase, so you onlyget a one-time headshot seal.
It's a one-time purchase, soit's not recurring behavior, so
it's very unpredictable in thatsense.
And then the second thing is,like every investor always asks
but what about in five years?
(19:43):
Well, how will this business bein five years from time?
And what will chat gpt do ifyou can just upload a few images
there and get your headshotsthere, basically, so that was
the always the comeback that wegot, which is a very legitimate
question in that sense.
Yeah, and then, of course, whenwe started the second business,
which is very much b2b, hightickets, uh, working with these
(20:05):
bigger brands is like, okay,well, here you have something
recurring, you have somethingthat you can actually build a
long-term business with becauseyou're integrated into their
system.
So the moment we actually hadmore of the B2B layer to it,
that's when the investorsactually got excited about the
future that we're building,basically.
So hence where the funding isgoing to, because for BetterPic
(20:28):
we didn't need the funding.
We were growing every singlemonth, we were profitable, we
were fully bootstrapped, so wedidn't actually need the funding
for BetterPic, but we decidedjust to accelerate on the B2B
offerings.
Gary Pageau (20:41):
And how much did you have to give up in terms of
equity or whatever?
I know you don't have to gointo a straight percentage, but
did you have to have a boardformed?
Or what's the relationship withthe investors?
Ricardo Ghekiere (20:55):
Yeah, so it's all raised through safe notes in
that sense.
So we didn't have to like spenda lot of money on like a series
A and lawyers and all thatstuff.
It was just a safe note whichwe had to negotiate and that's
about it basically.
That's also why it went quitefast in that sense.
Gary Pageau (21:11):
So how did you select your investment partners?
What was the criteria you werelooking for?
Ricardo Ghekiere (21:19):
Yeah.
So we were looking for apartner that believed in a team
not the product in that sense,and so of course it's important
to understand what you'rebuilding and is it aligned with
the future.
But what I really liked is sowe got MOC Capital as the first
larger investor.
They invested about a millionand so they were like I just
(21:41):
believe in a team.
The guy even like one of theinvestors actually flew in into
Italy.
We were there with, like, thewhole team.
We do six months, every sixmonths we actually catch up.
Now we're going to Barcelonaand he flew in.
He spent a day with us just toget to know the team, understand
the dynamics, what werehappening, what we're building,
and the day after he actuallysaid, okay, this is the team
that's going to make it happen,basically.
(22:02):
So we were really lookingforward to somebody that said,
okay, I really believe in theteam that is going to happen and
the execution you'll see alongthe way you'll make pivots,
you'll make changes along theproduct.
You're like, okay, that doesn'twork, let's make something else
.
But he really believed in theteam and that's also why we
decided to first go with MOCCapital, because we could see
that they were really teamplayers.
(22:24):
They even like called five ofmy closest friends and
ex-colleagues to like say, hey,is this guy legit or not?
So you could really sense thatall the questions were pointed
towards how is this personreally versus?
What are they building in thatsense?
Gary Pageau (22:41):
Did you think your track record of having done some
prior businesses had a somesuccess, had some failure?
Do you think that helped you inbuilding a relationship with
the kind of investor you wanted?
Ricardo Ghekiere (22:56):
um, I would say yes, um, and not just from a
.
Hey, this is my track record,but your track record says a lot
about your personality, thatyou have at that moment, and so
you could tell that we just hada conversation about, okay,
failure, things that didn't gowell.
How do you adapt to that?
How do you crunch through likebad situations?
Um, having failure, that I thinkis a good thing uh, so I think
(23:20):
it really helped, and we alwaysI, my mother, is always like as
long as you don't give up, youcan't lose, and so that has
always been a cave, and theyalways see, like better pick as
like this overnight success.
It's like, hey, they went fromlike zero to like 3 million 18
months wow, crazy.
But I'm like this is like an 11year journey.
My first business was 11 yearsago and so there's no overnight
(23:45):
success here.
There's just like grinding andkeeping it going until you hit
the spot.
Basically, it's like going foroil, right.
It's like you know there's nolike let's dig here and see it's
a septic six.
You can just keep digging for11 years, you'll find something
so do you see better, pick withboth products do you see it as
an?
Gary Pageau (24:04):
ai company or as a imaging solutions company,
because I think that perspectivehelps bring you to the future
yeah, so I think there is.
Ricardo Ghekiere (24:17):
So we're an ai company in that sense or an AI
image company.
The reason why I'm saying notAI company and AI image company
is because we don't buildfoundational models Like there's
these foundational models likeChatGPT or you know Flux, like
there's all these foundationalmodels.
They cost millions.
We're not that.
We are what we call a baselayer.
(24:38):
On top of that, we're thinkingabout use cases Like okay, how
would a person use this?
What's the interface look likefor that?
So we're basically building ontop of these foundational models
with our tweaks.
Let's call it like that.
An example tweak could be hey,you know, these foundational
models don't think that when youshoot an e-commerce image and
the person wants to haveclothing all the way to the
(24:59):
bottom of the, so you don't seethe shoes a financial model
doesn't understand that, so weneed to build that into the
product.
Gary Pageau (25:05):
So these are like small tweak example that you
need to do to operate in thisscale because it's always, I
think, especially with whatyou're doing, the little things
that matter, right, if you'redoing, you know, if you're
inserting a head onto a sweaterlike that's got to be precisely
accurate.
Ricardo Ghekiere (25:24):
It's a little bit off.
Gary Pageau (25:26):
Oh, that's 100%.
Ricardo Ghekiere (25:28):
That's the biggest struggle of all these
foundational models.
Like in AI headshots, it's like, okay, the face needs to look
exactly like you, but if theclothing is a little bit off, it
doesn't matter.
In these AI headshots ai likephoto shoots every single detail
matters, like how many buttonsdo you have?
How does that button look like?
How does the fit look like?
It is crazy how that worldworks and I think that's I think
(25:51):
it's the hardest challenge I'veever worked on and a team has
ever worked on.
But it's such a grateful thingwhen your products that you shot
go online like we have someonline right now.
Gary Pageau (26:01):
It's like, oh, that was us great do you ever like
walk through a downtown and seesomething that your technology
has done, like on a, on a bus ora or a billboard, and go kind
of?
Ricardo Ghekiere (26:15):
you know, feel proud about that but have you
had the offline billboards?
Because most of the time theywere still like, not ai
generated.
I don't think we got to thatstage yet.
Um, I do see, like, if you goto reviews for better pick.
I love that because it's likepeople just say, hey, I did this
for my dad who didn't have ajob for five years and I was
(26:35):
building his cv and I got thesolution.
I was finally able to get aheadshot for them because it was
too expensive.
My country.
It's like that's the beautifulmoments.
We're like, hey, we're reallymaking an impact into the world
of people right.
Gary Pageau (26:48):
So if people are interested in checking out your
company, the better group is thecompany right and getting more
information about, uh, what itis you do.
Where can they go online tofind out?
Ricardo Ghekiere (27:00):
awesome, uh.
So yeah, for the AI headshots,definitely go to betterpic.
io.
That's where we do all the AIheadshots.
And then the second company iscalled betterstudioio is where
you can actually, you knowlaunch campaigns for your you
know fashion e-commerce brands.
Gary Pageau (27:17):
Awesome.
Well, thank you, Ricardo.
It's been great meeting you andtalking with you and kind of
picking your brain about AI andthe potential of it in the
photography and the fashionindustry, and looking forward to
hearing more.
Ricardo Ghekiere (27:30):
Thank you very much.
No worries, thank you very much, gary.
Have a beautiful day.
Erin Manning (27:34):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
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