Great Photos Make Great Listings, with Matt Schiller, CEO of Snappr
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Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car that many people love for its speed and style. The 2025 version has new features and improvements that make it even better.
Concept
million-dollar car
A million-dollar car is a very expensive car that costs at least one million dollars. These cars are usually special or rare and are often bought by wealthy collectors.
Company
Bring a Trailer
Bring a Trailer is a website where people can buy and sell special cars, like classic or rare ones, through online auctions. It helps connect buyers and sellers in the car community.
Car
Lucid Air
The Lucid Air is a fancy electric car that can go really far on a single charge. It's made by a company called Lucid Motors and is known for being high-tech and stylish, making it a big deal in the world of electric vehicles.
Car
Chevrolet Bel Air
The Chevrolet Bel Air is an old-school car that was very popular in the 1950s and 60s. It's known for its cool design and is often seen as a symbol of American car history, making it a favorite among classic car lovers.
Term
bench racer
A 'bench racer' is someone who talks a lot about cars and racing but doesn't actually race or work on cars themselves. They enjoy discussing the topics but aren't involved in the action.
LIVE
[Music]
The Bring a Trailer podcast.
Hello everybody and welcome back to the
Bring a Trailer podcast. Alex Porter
with you once again from Bring a Trailer
headquarters in San Francisco. Joined
again by Beck, our white glove manager.
Hey Beck.
>> Hey Alex, how are you doing?
>> And we have a special guest in the
studio today, which is so good because
normally we do these remotely. We have
Matt Schiller, founder and CEO of
Snapper. Snapper is a really impressive
and kind of unique and innovative
one-stop shop for on demand photos, for
on demand photo editing. And maybe a lot
of people don't know, they power the
Bring a Trailer Plus service. And so,
we've actually been wanting to do this
for a long time. Matt, thanks for not
only joining us on the podcast, but for
being here in person.
>> Thanks, Alex. It's great to be back in
your HQ.
>> Yeah, you've been here a few times,
right? And we were talking about when we
first moved into this building, seven or
so years ago was the first time you were
here.
>> Yeah. And I remember walking in the door
and not expecting what I saw, which is
like a lot of very cool cars surrounding
the desks. I think I spent most of my
time on that visit just looking at them.
>> We're going to go into the background of
Snapper a little bit, but were you guys
always headquartered in San Francisco?
Is this where you started the company?
>> For a couple of months, we were actually
in Sydney, Australia.
>> Oh, no kidding.
>> It's a very short period at the start of
the company, but very early on, we kind
of realized that we wanted to be a
global company and that we wanted to
base the company out of Silicon Valley.
We wanted to come and raise investment
and um so since the very very early days
of the company this has been our
headquarter here in San Francisco.
>> People are hearing your accent and they
probably understand why it started
there. But you lived here before, hadn't
you? In the United States.
>> Never lived. I I had um had visited um
and loved the place. Still do. I don't
think I'll ever leave. Um and but but
no, it was a baptism by fire. coming
here with a couple of month old company
with very little money and um starting
things from the ground up and uh you
know it was just two of us in the office
in those early days and um yeah now
we're um we're about 15 people in our
San Francisco office and about 250
people globally bigger than us Beck.
>> Well I was just wondering what was it
looking like when you came into the BAT
office? Were we considered like a big
catch? Were you already working in the
space pretty heavily? What was that sort
of dynamic like when you came to us? And
>> I'll be honest, I didn't know about
Bring a Trailer until uh one of our
sales folks kind of introduced me to the
company and said like, "Hey, I think
this could be like a really great fit
for Snap and we could grow together
because you guys were new uh we were new
and we've figured out some high scale
photography stuff together and kind of
like grew alongside each other which is
has been really cool." Like it's been a
really cool journey for both companies.
>> Snapper is our longest longest
partnership of anything. It was also our
big first real
>> it's so I mean we're going to dive into
the plus service and how important
Snapper is to that and like how badly it
was needed and how much it's needed in
this industry but actually don't think
I've asked you this before. Matt, are
you a photography guy? What led to you
being interested in starting a company
that provides on demand photos?
>> I think um I don't like to say that I'm
a pro photographer. I do
>> you might offend I'll also offend our
photographers who are much better
photographers than me. Um, but I like
it's always been a big interest of mine.
I always had a lot of photographer
friends back at college back when I
first had the idea for Snapper and they
kind of inspired the idea or one of them
in particular. And um, I still do
shoots. I do the occasional shoot on the
platform. In fact, just this last
Sunday, uh, sorry, Sunday before last,
wasn't an automotive shoot, but I did a
portrait shoot for a family in New York.
And so I, you know, every now and then I
get on the platform as the undercover
CEO as a photographer. Do you put a
disguise on?
>> It's actually really smart. I mean,
Randy is still, as you know, very
involved in the company. He's out there
commenting, dicing it up in the auctions
every day, and I think that's actually
super important. So, I'm really glad to
hear that you do that.
>> Um, I think my favorite thing about
having Bring a Trailer as a Snapper
enterprise customer is that I have an
excuse to scroll through Bring a Trailer
listings in the office that call it
work. Totally.
>> Honey, it's quality control.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what Randy
says, too.
I think maybe the move is to talk a
little bit about Plus itself. Beck,
maybe you want to set up a little intro
about what Plus is and how it works and
why Great Photos and Snapper are so
vital to us. And then uh we'd love to
grill you a little bit, Matt, about how
you've developed it on your end.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Matt and Snapper were
basically kind of crucial into around 7
years ago or so now was when probably
the biggest turning point in the
structure of how Bring a Trailer was
offering services came to be, which was
the day we went from essentially one
level of service to the
>> Good luck everybody.
>> Right. And uh really diversified a
spectrum of offerings for support to
people. And so that first one being
classic service that we still offer now.
I actually didn't have a name before. We
that was part of the reboot.
>> It was just it.
>> It was just it. This is what you did.
And it might have been, you know, it was
way more expensive back, was it 250 back
then?
>> It was at 1.250. It went down to 50
bucks for a brief period of time. That's
actually when I slipped in one of my
cars before.
>> That's right. Right before you started
working here. And then we went took it
up to 99.
>> Went back to 99. And that seemed to be
like the right level for sort of what
the assistance was. And then white glove
service was the sort of the top level of
that spectrum. And then right there in
the middle, some people call it your car
wash pricing. I would call it your Apple
computer pricing model is the sweet
spot. It's the thing that you're trying
to target people to go do uh for 429
photos and videos done and Snapper makes
it happen.
>> And the kind of key underpinning all
this, which both of you know, but is
important to reiterate every time I can
to our community and our audience, is
that good photos are the most important
thing to having a good, honest,
transparent, forthright auction
description. Right? It's it's the most
vital thing and in some ways it's the
most challenging thing for a customer to
do themselves. This includes me if
they're not handy with a camera.
>> Sure. And that's probably the most
important factor of Snapper is that
you've developed this network of
photographers who are essentially able
to fix that solution of providing a
Photoshop list that we've constructed
over experience with you as well with
you. Um what was that development like
of going from photographers who may not
necessarily have a automotive background
to all of a sudden developing that whole
rolodex of people who can work for you?
>> Yeah. In the earliest days of Snapper,
we didn't really touch automotive real
estate that much. It's actually
something that came like we got bigger
in like the next couple of years of the
company. The original vision for Snap
was very much on the consumer side. Like
we started off doing um
>> 2017 for the founding, right? So people
get an idea. Okay. Okay. Great. Um and
yeah, like doing stuff that help people
in their lives, but it was very early on
that we realized that the people who
need us even more than that are
businesses because um
>> whilst we add a lot of value for every
consumer shoot we do in kind of like
giving people like a memory that really
lasts that they can print out and put up
on the wall has just really cement like
a important moment in their lives or
whatever it is. in the lives of
businesses, it's kind of even more
pressing because sometimes like how a
business presents itself, how it
presents its products, its inventory, if
it's a marketplace, uh is like critical
to the lifeblood of a business. Like be
the difference between going out of
business and being a thriving company.
Um 100%.
>> And so over time, more and more of
Snapper's focus has shifted towards B2B
shoots. It's now about 75% of what we
do. Um,
>> and by consumer shoots, you're talking
like graduations, birthday parties, that
sort of thing.
>> Yeah. Family events. Yeah. And the
majority of what we do today is is also
enterprise. So, it's like companies like
Bring a Trailer with a big diverse,
constantly revolving inventory of stuff.
It might not just be in automotive, in
real estate, um, in e-commerce, uh, in
the food industry, uh, grocery industry.
Um, a lot of like the big used goods
marketplaces, they all use us to power
their photography. We're kind of one of
those brands that most people know us
for the I can book a photographer on
demand. It's a photographer in
everyone's pockets. Um, but
>> secretly you're powering all these other
including for us.
>> People are interacting with us in ways
they don't know.
>> Yeah. Well, part of what we want to do
here is pull back the curtain on that,
right? There's no reason people
shouldn't know that your company's doing
all this for bringing a trailer sellers.
The people who use you certainly know
that that's the case. You just mentioned
all these different enterprises that
you're supporting and they're all so
different. That's like got to be one of
the biggest challenges you guys face,
right? I mean, Beck was going to had a
whole question about it's so hard to
shoot a bring a trailer car. Like,
there's a very specific set of
requirements for that. And to get back
to Beck's question about like how do we
bring on automotive photographers and
how do we make sure that the people
turning up to capture people's prized
possessions and to make sure it's done
in an extremely thorough highquality and
authentic way like so I can answer that
briefly which is firstly we prevet all
the photographers on our platform. One
of our missions is to create as much
work for creators as as we possibly can.
And it's typically work that didn't
exist before. Like, you know, these
professional shoots weren't happening
before we came.
>> Well, there was so much friction to find
the person that only a small group of
people were getting sort of all that
work.
>> Exactly.
>> Yeah.
>> About like historically something like
one in 10 photographers who applied to
the platform make their way on like get
accepted and start doing start getting
shoots for us. We do vet photographers
on many dimensions, but one of the most
important is their portfolio. And we do
that at the level of specialty. So if
you're applying to Snapper, you might
apply to be a portrait photographer. Uh
you might apply to event photographer.
And to do that, you upload a portfolio
for each one. So if someone wants to
shoot automotive on Snapper, and we're
always looking for more automotive
photographers across the country, partly
because of you guys, we will vet their
automotive portfolio specifically. Um,
so generally speaking, photographers
have have already done that kind of work
before they're doing it.
>> Oh, they have. I would have guessed
that's the trickiest type of
photographer to hire. Automotive
photographers. Is that not the most
niche kind of thing you do?
>> It is one of the more niche ones. Um,
>> at the very minimum, we look for
photographers who have a portfolio in
kind of similar kind of of work. Um,
whether that be boats, real estate, or
like things that are more in the general
category, very different to like a baby
shoot or shoots and stuff like that. We
also vet on a whole lot of other
dimensions and we look for people who
will be like really good advocates for
the brand and we'll give end customers,
>> right? Because they're your face out
there in many ways, right?
>> Yeah. You're not out there. They're out
there.
>> Yeah. Well, sometimes Matt's out there
>> occasionally.
>> The automotive photographers, Alex, we
were talking about how many of them are
sort of coming out to you and are
interested. Is it hard to find them? Uh
we get applications for white glove for
people who want to do photography and
I'm often steering people to Snapper as
well. But what's I think unique with
automotive is that there's such a fan
base around cars that there's a lot of
people out there who kind of like the
idea of being an autographer, right?
Totally. It's fun. It's fun in the
spaces. They go to car shows and all of
a sudden they think, "Oh, I I could do
this, but maybe you can, maybe you
can't. That's why the taking photos for
fun on their own."
>> But on that consumer, Exactly. They're
taking for fun. They see it on their
Instagram. They see other people doing
it. Whereas for those consumerf facing
things, that's not necessarily, I think,
as common place. people aren't like look
at these other people's babies and you
know on their on their own Instagram
right so you get a lot of people who I
feel like think they can do it when you
say only one out of 10 are accepted I'm
actually not surprised at all that that
sounds pretty accurate as far as like
the people who can actually really pass
the test to get on to the next stage
>> yeah um a few things with that one I
think there's like one of the coolest
things about our photographer network is
the diversity and some people love doing
automotive shoots and some people love
doing different types of shoots so it's
a real mixed bag um if photographers
want to get into automotive, they can go
out and do like a practice shoot on
their own time and like build a
portfolio that way and then start doing
paid work. So, we do see a bit of that.
But yeah, I'd say like it's one of the
more fun types of shoots that we do in
part because the kind of cars we're
talking about here in Bring a Trailer
Teric like
>> it's not your average secondhand car
lot. That's for sure. I will also
mention when we work for big brands and
like our enterprises like you guys, big
marketplaces, it's not the photographer
editing the photos in the field like it
would be for a consumer shoot or like a
one-off shoot for a business. It's
actually Snapper in-house editing teams
and uh in-house editing tech that does
the editing in those cases. So the
product that the car seller gets and by
extension makes its way onto the bringer
trailer platform is a product of both a
really great photographer and really
great editing and editing in a way that
like it's very different for every
brand. Like the big thing that is
different about how we approach Bring a
Trailer and some other customers similar
to you guys. It's all about
authenticity.
>> 100%. Yeah. We don't want to touch
anything up. Yet
color. It's all about like perfect
imperfections. Like, hey, if there's a
scratch, it's not something we want to
airbrush. Uh, and that's not something
you want to not take a photo of, a clear
photo of it.
>> Yeah. That's that's like it's better for
everybody to like show the article that
we're photographing in its kind of
imperfect glory.
>> Of course. Of course. That's so
interesting and obviously an important
thing. Another tangential benefit for
BAT customers that your editing team
does is they organize the photo gallery,
which is something normally our staff
has to do and is quite painstaking. So
the fact that snapper shoots come in, it
actually makes things go faster for the
customer. It's probably something not
really known out there in the world.
It's actually makes the process go
faster, too.
>> But also, as a photographer, you don't
want to do that either. Like I actually
ended up eventually, I was a freelance
photojournalist for over a decade. Uh,
and I start most freelancers eventually
end up doing weddings because it's just
the only way you can.
>> That's the bread and butter. That's
where it all happens. And so, uh, you
get to a point where like, do I want to
go through the 3,000 images I just took
and edit the 300 or so, like, no, I want
to go out and do another shoot. And I
eventually got to a point where I was
outsourcing all of my editing as well.
And similarly, I it was a conversation.
you have a trust factor with which
whoever you outsourcing it with of
what's my style, what's my look, what
are my examples and that sort of thing
as well. It's actually pretty equivalent
to photo journalism. You're looking for
authenticity. You're not looking for
manipulation. Uh which is concerning
especially in today's day with AI
images. Has that been something that
people have like asked about or people
are curious about or just assume is
something you do or don't do? Is there
any concern about the manipulation
stuff?
>> I would say like different brands,
different purpose. Let's say like you're
a big food delivery app and if there was
like a photo of a dish about to go on an
app and it had,
>> you know, a bit of sauce slopping off
the plate, you might want AI or an
editing solution to kind of like clean
that up before it goes and that's like
legit. It's like it's not the
authenticity of what was actually
sitting there on the plate. But it's
kind of like
>> that can be fixed before it's going to
the customer. It's not lying to the
customer. Yeah. Whereas like with brands
like during a trailer, it's like part of
the spec that we would never really like
um manipulate pixels in that way. Um so
yeah, but and let's say a real estate
shoot where there's some kind of like
untidy cords in the background like
>> you know, you want that kind of stuff
cleaned up. So it's a real mix.
>> Yeah. That again plays into what we were
talking about earlier which is that like
you guys are providing pretty different
solutions for different customers.
>> Yeah. Which is fascinating. It's a lot
of commonality, but the big difference
is like what we call the brand
guidelines. Um, you know, there are some
brands that we've done hundreds of
thousands of shoots for and sitting
behind each and every shoot, whether
it's happening in, you know, Chicago or
the Bay Area, is the same set of brand
creative guidelines. And then our
photographers are all equipped with the
Snapper app. And so if they're doing a
shoot for Bring a Trailer, they're
carrying an iOS or Android app in
addition to their DSLR. And we have a
bring a trailer shot list that we
mutually created with you guys of like
right here are all the shots that we
think every bring a trailer listing
should have. And um so we give
photographers tools like that like handy
checklist to help them cuz not every
automotive shoot is the same. Of course.
Of course. And that's something we've
you talked about us growing up together.
We've had auctions for gosh what is it
now back 11 years and so we've had
Snapper for se so yeah the vast majority
of our auctions we've had Snapper around
for and we've both grown up together
we've learned all that stuff together
put those list you've probably been part
of putting some of those checklist
together back pre-white glove days you
must have been part of helping figure
that out right
>> sure I mean we had the all photos at
bringing.com emails come to me so it was
part of it early on is making that shot
list for it and I will say an
interactive photo shot list has been on
my like engineering wish
that internally is phenomenal because
I've been there on group photo shoots
for collections and such and we're
handing
off things manually and hoping that we
haven't missed anything. So for the
submission process for that
photographer, what's it look like after
a photo shoot? What are they doing? Are
they just sending it all off and Snapper
takes it from there?
>> The simplest way to think about it is
like you open our app. Typically the
photographers use a desktop app when it
comes to upload as opposed to mobile but
it can be done on mobile as well. And
>> uh if it's a bring a trailer shoot they
will just dump the raw straight off the
SD card, straight off the camera uh have
an uploader and then we ingest those
into
>> as a photographer.
>> I I used to shoot for the Giants here in
town and like the best thing ever was
that they gave me their memory card and
so when I was done with the shoot popped
it hand it over to them walked out of
the building. It was great. I think like
if you were say booking a let's say you
guys weren't an enterprise customer and
you were just like booking Christmas
>> it's like an individual party shoot for
the office or whatever um you'll be
using our self-service product and just
like a consumer might but but it's about
half consumer half kind of small
businesses or like more infrequent
business use cases the photographer will
typically be the one editing the photos
in those cases. So, generally speaking,
if it's a big enterprise and needs
consistency, there's brand guidelines,
we do the editing. If it's self-service,
pay as you go customer, uh the
photographer will do the editing in the
field, which is nice for the
photographers because some photographers
love doing the editing piece. Uh and
some would love like you to get it off
their plate completely. Uh working with
Snappy, they can kind of pick and choose
whether they they want to do more on the
enterprise side or on like the
self-service side of our business. and
they could dabble in a little bit of
editing and get it off their plate for
some stuff like automotive shoes.
>> We've evolved so much with Snapper. I
was thinking about this too, Matt and
Beck. Uh in the early days of auctions,
we would like beg people for 35 to 50
photos. Like it was hard to get that
much out. And one of the things we've
really evolved on is
>> this is probably true of all of your
customers, but like the general consumer
out there in the marketplace, Randy
always says this, is so educated. They
just want more. They want more data,
more info. So, we've evolved that. It's
common to have hundreds of photos on a
listing. And we've added video, which
has been another service. Are you doing
video for a lot of your other customers?
It's really important for us. And in the
early days, barely any auction listing
ever had a video on it.
>> It was totally it was a fancy one. And
now it's like almost kind of required
because you're buying a car site unseen.
Somebody wants to see it start up. They
want to see it shift. They want to see
it drive around.
>> Video is a really fast growing part of
our business.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> Uh it's not the majority of shoots yet
that that have it, but yeah, it it's
getting to that point. There's scope
creep with all these things that
>> all of it, right? People get used to a
product and now they want more. Give me
more.
>> I've had people with like brand new cars
and they're asking me, "Why are we doing
a cold engine start on my like 2025
911?" There's expectations now. Like it
doesn't really even matter whether or
not actually it is a true value ad.
>> The consumer wants it.
>> The consumer wants it and they see,
well, the last auction had it. Why
doesn't yours have it?
>> Expectations treadmill.
>> Yeah. Of course. Uh a question for you
guys like what percent of customers
roughly uh well buyers on the Bring a
Trailer platform would
>> buy the car without ever seeing it?
>> Oh, almost all of them. Yeah.
>> You mean literally not seeing it in
person?
>> 99.9%
of we actually like the reason we like
the way we designed the whole system is
to have the auctions be long enough so
that people can go. That's why they're a
week long is like the idea is like go
look at it. Like, you know, we kind of
thought early on like, oh, it's going to
be somebody roughly in the neighborhood
of the car that would buy it. And a lot
of people told us, "Oh, you're crazy. No
one's ever going to buy a million-
dollar car." Now, we sell a million
dollar car almost every week, and it's
always sight on scene.
>> Way that that would happen if Bring a
Trailer had the same number of photos
per listing as cars.com.
>> No, there's zero chance. And also
without the commenters like asking
questions and picking it apart, which is
the secret sauce, right? like when
they're asking questions. A lot of times
when you see a car
>> misses reserve by a big margin, it's cuz
the seller wasn't answering questions or
seemed not honest or didn't provide
photos of the people are like, "Hey, it
looks like it's a little rusty there.
Could you provide a photo?" No answer,
no photo. Like, you just tanked your
auction, dude. That's it. You know what
I mean? It's fascinating. And we've seen
that. Back to your original question. We
thought and we encourage we still
encourage people to go look at the cars
in person. Yeah. And it's kind of wild
that things have evolved into no, I'm
actually I have enough trust in this
platform and in this process and often
in a Snapper photo shoot to spend a
million dollars on a car that I've never
seen. But it's also
>> uh the results are real. I say this and
I don't think people believe me. Like we
have very few issues. Very few of our
sales fall apart. Like very very low and
very few complaints. There are people
who complain. There are people who
complain after they go see a car in
person and you know I mean like you know
old cars are old cars but it is crazy
where we are versus 10 11 years ago and
what people thought was possible. an
argument that you actually get a better
sense of what the car is.
>> Good preach photos then if you even did
see it in person
auction sometimes it can be overwhelming
>> but they also they just push it across
the block. You don't know if it starts.
There's no documents. There's no chance
to ask the seller a bunch of questions
for a week, right? So
>> you might be rushed is like that happens
all the time.
>> You might be drinking. You might be
pressured by the auction house. Like
there's all kinds of things that don't
exist on our platform.
>> Yeah. You can also drink well on VAT
though.
>> Well, that definitely that definitely
happens too. Uh but no, it's a great
question. Honestly, I would have presume
other people utilizing your services are
seeing the same thing, right? Like
people also buy houses site unseen now
for huge amounts of money or you know
other luxury goods that are sold at
auction or online and you just
>> take the company's word for it and you
know 10 years ago I don't think people
would have thought that that's where the
online economy would go but here it is.
Yeah, I'd say the majority of our
enterprise work is stuff that never gets
seen by the customer until they've until
post purchase
>> in some ways. That's like the the
confidence is what you guys are
providing.
>> Yeah, exactly. Trust, accuracy, and high
amount of detail.
>> Yep. That's the key. That's the key. Uh
Matt, you brought some stats for us that
I'd love to talk about. I said save it
for the pod. Could you hit us with this?
We're going to put you on the spot, too.
>> Yeah. You
>> You tell me where you want to go first.
>> Turn this into a quiz.
>> Yes. All right. Um, I'll go with the
larger, more aggressive number. How many
images, do you think,
>> and this is images that are not just
kind of like taken um, but but fully
edited through our service and fully
uploaded onto the bring a trailer
website. So, this is this is just for
plus plus listings since we've been
working together.
>> Oh, boy.
>> Hold on. Can somebody play the Jeopardy
music?
>> Uh, I'm going to guess
200.
>> It's going to go with a million.
>> No, it's more. It's gonna be four. I'm
gonna say the right number of
>> the right number of digits.
>> I'm gonna say four million.
>> God, this man is too good.
>> Well, cuz I'm thinking about 20,000
shoots and about 200 photos per
>> You're very close. It's uh it's 4.2
million.
>> Oh my god.
>> I promise I didn't cheat.
>> Over 32,000 shoots.
>> 32,000 shoots. Okay, that's that. Say I
would have been off on that. I would
have guessed 20 25,000. Wow.
>> I was going to guess around 40,000.
Yeah. And the tremendous number of
videos now too because we've had the
video service for twoish years,
something like that, maybe more.
>> Sounds like you doing videos.
>> Damn, I forgot to get that number.
>> We'll we'll we'll do an addendum later.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> A more random one would be how many
megabits or how many there's been
>> so freaking many. And think of the man
hours your team has spent on that too.
And that's why
>> Snapper actually we talk internally in
engineering frequently in pabytes these
days. Like that's that's the kind of
like
>> that's a thousand terabytes or is that
more than that?
>> Yeah. Go
crazy.
>> Um,
>> what's the term? I've never heard it
even before. Pabytes.
>> Maybe I'm saying it right. Is it pabytes
or pabytes?
>> It's one of the two, but it's like a
pita chip. Pa.
>> Wow. That's so crazy, man. Isn't that
wild? That's amazing.
>> Here's an easier question for you. Uh,
how many states have we done shoots in
in the in the in the US?
>> Oh, it's got to be 50. It's got to be
all 50.
>> It's all
>> How many counties? Oh gosh, there's 110
in California and I bet you've done
almost all those. I'm going to say five.
No, more than 500 probably
>> counties. I mean, if you think the
average is probably got to be around
what, 40 counties in a state or so?
>> No, California has 110.
>> Average for the entire country though.
>> 500. I'm going to say 500.
>> Apparently,
I should go and fact check this one, but
apparently it's 1,8.
That's like probably most of them.
>> Yeah. um probably getting towards almost
every county in the country.
>> That's amazing.
>> There are some counties that are
impossible to find photographers.
>> There's also some counties that probably
have no cars in them, right? Like you
get to some parts of northeastern
California and there's cars there, but
not many people sell them. There's
there's one county in California, I wish
I could remember what it was, that only
has 1,900 people in it. So there's like,
you know, there's some really small
ones. They're rural. They're not even
small necessarily. They just don't have
that many people.
>> The challenge is when they're a vacation
destination cuz you often have cars
there. Oh, at vacation houses, but you
don't have a network of photographers in
these spaces and the number of times
we've had to because we were able to put
someone put someone on a plane and fly
them out there. It's just insane how
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Hawaii is another tough one, too.
>> Got more stats, Matt.
>> Well, there was that um the study we did
recently.
>> Oh, I I definitely want to talk about
value proposition.
>> Yeah.
>> Shout out to Paul Cass and our colleague
who helped kind of compile all that. And
then to your data team. You guys have a
whole data team. You guys ripped through
those numbers. It was awesome, Matt.
Yeah. Um, this will probably be more
interesting stats for the listeners
because it might kind of like affect
people's decision about what to do with
an upcoming listing if they're a seller.
But,
>> and before you say this, let me just
preface this with uh, and I know this is
going to sound like a sales pitch, but
Snapper is like a remarkable value
proposition in my opinion. It's $4.29,
but that actually includes the $99
buyers fee, right, for a Snapper shoot.
So to get 150 photos edited
professionally by your team and videos
for that is like almost like crazy how
good the value proposition is.
>> Okay. So talk to us a little bit about
this the stats. If there's one way of
thinking with all of our enterprise
customers and our marketplaces and and
by extension their customers, uh whether
that be restaurants, Airbnb, homeowners
or any manner of different folks
engaging on a marketplace or on a
platform, everyone's thinking in terms
of ROI, like what is my ROI on investing
in visual content? And so
>> again, that's like your educated
consumer, right? Like that's what
they're thinking about. Yeah, totally.
I'm actually like kicking myself that we
didn't run the numbers on this years ago
because I'm sure they probably told a
very similar story. I've got the numbers
in front of me here. We went and looked
at 200,000 Bring a Trailer auction
listings and we kind of split them into
the ones um that were plus and the ones
that were classic. and we filtered to
the United States car sold in the last 3
years on bring a trailer that had
odometer readings under 300,000 miles
and present um were private sellers so
not dealers and actually sold. So
anything that didn't meet reserve we
excluded and we looked like creating
pairs basically it's like pairs of a
plus listing and a classic listing that
were very very similar. So exact same
make and model and year mileage within
10,000 miles of each other. Um, and then
we got down to 4,266
pairs, so of of 8 half th000 cars
basically. And we looked at, okay, what
was the average price of the plus
listing that had the pro photography
>> sale price? Y.
>> Yes. Average like final sale price and
and then compared that to the classic
ones. And what we found is that the ones
with pro photography sold for 2% higher.
Now, there's some other things here to
consider, which is like not only did it
increase the sale price, but actually
increase the probability to sell as well
when we did a separate analysis. But the
cool thing about that, at the price that
folks pay incremental, the $300 and
something dollars to to upgrade to the
plus listing, you you're making on
average an extra $1,100. So like it pays
for itself like three times over which
basically means that um you know for any
car over in the teens of of value or
more it's paid for itself like it's ROI
positive. So for the majority of
listings it it more than pays for
itself. And then you we're not even
accounting for like the time spent by
the seller to go and do these 75 very
specific shots on their own to upload it
themselves.
>> The mental anguish of having to do it.
Yeah. Totally. Totally. And there's
another thing too that's important to
know, which is a good lead image gets
people to click on your listings. That's
another thing that's not really measured
by this, although could somewhat be
measured by the fact that more of these
sell, right? That people are just
attracted to them because they have a
good-look lead image, which is a really
important thing on the site for getting
your car noticed.
>> I absolutely love that you did the study
because I literally get asked,
>> we've wanted this for years, too.
>> Every single day I get this question on
the phone, is it worth it? Uh, and it's
so impressive to see that it is
relatively low dollar. or I was doing
some math trying to figure it out. I
couldn't figure out the real equation I
need to do in order to figure out what
the number was in which 2% pays for
itself.
>> I think 16,000.
>> That's where I was getting to. Yeah.
Somewhere around the mid to high teens.
Uh and that doesn't come into the factor
that you mentioned, which is the value
of your time.
>> Yes.
>> And that is one that uh allows me to
sell white glove and
>> not wanting to bang your head against a
wall. Like I I don't think I'm going to
shock anyone by saying the number one
pain point for a seller is the photo
shoot. Like and it's the number one
thing that our team goes back and forth
with somebody on like they've taken some
photos like uh you missed four things
and like Snapper gets all that right.
>> It is a multi-hour investment of your
time no matter how many times you've
done it.
>> I don't know if you want to admit this
Matt but before we did this time study.
Dad actually went through our submission
process, so he knows how
>> and I didn't bring a trailer shoot
myself just to uh yeah, as a classic
bias. And without a DSLR, I went through
with an iPhone and pretended like, okay,
well, what's it like on the other side?
And kind of like, yeah, it took me hours
in in the photography business for a
living.
>> I mean, we we talked about it a little
bit when we first started chatting, but
like this is the whole reason our
partnership started, right? Just we knew
this was a pain point and we needed a a
partner to help people with it, right?
And since then, we've added a couple
other bolt-on services that help people
transact after the fact. And we have a
partnership with Carfax. You get a free
Carfax, but Snapper was the OG. And it's
the most important because photos are
the biggest pain point. And it's like so
many things with selling online. They're
the biggest pain point, and conversely,
the most important thing, right? It's
it's a really interesting set of
circumstances.
>> I'd be very interested to know what that
result would be if you did include
reserve not met auctions. Yeah. because
that might honestly be the factor was
that the the seller's presentation was
relatively poor.
>> Totally. You'd see the percent be a lot
more than 2%. We just wanted to be like
super.
>> We're trying to be as fair as we can as
fair as we can. Yeah. And be positive
about it, too.
>> And by the way, like just to be totally
fair, some private party sellers take
excellent photos, right? There are
people out there who are excellent with
the camera.
>> I tell people that they basically
probably shouldn't do their own photos
unless they have a professional
photographer relationship on retainer
who does automotive stuff, right?
Otherwise, like it doesn't really matter
how good you think you might be. I mean,
it's tough on an iPhone on your own.
>> Just let somebody else do it. And it's
amazing to have like a price point as to
what point it pays for itself. The
minimum bid increment.
>> You don't have to sell me. I'm totally
sold. Like, I I'm in. Hire a pro for
everything if you can, right? Again, you
know, all these amazing things that I
said about people being willing to buy
expensive cars online, sight unseen. The
converse to that is it's a lift. Like, I
we shouldn't lie about how hard it is to
do that well, right? to provide the
images and the story and the documents
and to provide the trust.
>> Yeah.
>> To get somebody to buy your car set on Z
online. That's a lot of work. So, if you
can offload it, it's in my opinion
always worth it.
>> Where is Snapper going next? We've been
having this great growth with us in
automotive. What other spaces for
photography is somewhere that you feel
like you can help uh improve?
>> We have about 20 different shoot types
that are offered through the platform.
On the enterprise side, some of the
biggest ones I mentioned earlier like
food, food and beverage, um, and
hospitality kind of more broadly,
hospitality and travel. Um, then we have
real estate, e-commerce. Um, automotive
is is up there.
>> Were you thinking about automotive when
you started it? Was that always a plan
or was that accidental?
>> I'll be honest, no.
>> Even though you are a little bit of a
car guy, you have an interesting car and
you're definitely a plane guy, which I
will be remiss if we don't talk about
for a second. We got another pilot in
the room here.
>> Oh, no way. Yeah.
>> Uh I do like things that get me from A
to B. For sure.
>> Uh-huh. Yeah, I know you do. Beck and I
were talking this camera guys and car
guys, airplane. It all goes together,
right? People who like kind of Yeah.
Yeah.
>> Boats.
>> I'm definitely in that category, too.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Locomotives, all
that kind of stuff. Sorry I cut you off,
Matt. You were going to talk about
opportunities for Snapper.
>> Yeah. Um well one piece of news just in
the last 7 days is that we just
announced our launch in in the EU. So we
are very much going global outside of
the automotive space. Some of the
interesting work that we've been doing
recently has been in the generative AI
space. It's like very not relevant to
the automotive space because of some of
the reasons that we talked about like
authenticity. It's all about capturing
this real world thing just like with the
event photography you do. there's not
really a a generative AI opportunity
there because capturing an event is all
about capturing the real thing what's
all um but in some areas that we work
there is an opportunity to do generative
AI work alongside photo shoots for
example for a restaurant that maybe have
a 50 item menu and let's say in a
typical photo shoot there's only enough
time and preparedness to go and prepare
maybe like 10 items on the menu until
people like this is a lot of wasted food
and a lot of time And then we can go
through with uh generative AI with some
cool techniques that we have to
authentically generate the rest of the
menu in the same style as the photo
shoot. So interesting. That's like one
example. We are working on similar kind
of stuff for lifestyle photography for
e-commerce customers. So you might go
and do a photo shoot of a product in a
light box or many of them. But then off
the back of that you might not have the
budget to go and do a like $10,000
lifestyle shoot for every product. uh
you can use generative AI to do an
alternative to that lifestyle shoot. So
it's like very complimentary to the work
that we do with traditional photography.
We're working on stuff in the real
estate space as well around virtual
staging with AI.
>> Oh yeah,
>> I have been tricked by virtual staging.
Surprisingly,
>> it still feels a little bit like it's in
its infancy, but I'm sure it's going to
get better quickly. But yeah, I've
noticed it too. And it's interesting. At
first I was like cuz I'm so bat coded
I'm like oh I don't like that. But the
interesting piece is a lot of times you
do like seeing a room both empty and
full and having to save the effort of
moving all the furniture in and out. You
just get it both ways.
>> Yeah. The the one thing that underlies
all of this for us is that we even with
our Gen AI products, we still have
creators in the loop.
when we set out to
create a network and traditional capture
we
wanted to distinguish ourselves in how
we approach Gen AI is that actually the
biggest value unlock with this stuff for
brands is when there is still a creator
in the loop because most geni solutions
in imagery at least never make their way
onto company websites cuz you're just
sitting there infuriated clicking
regenerate regenerate regenerate and not
getting something that's that's ever
useful. And so
>> our approach is vertical by vertical in
these other industries I mentioned uh
kind of creating a product for each
space that
>> is a one hit success. So it's like hey I
want a lifestyle image of these specs
here's my brand guidelines like here's
the photo from the photo shoot we did of
that product and
>> customer gets exactly what they want
every time because we have creators in
the loop.
>> Awesome. Bringing it back to BAT photo
shoots. You've had obviously a lot of
cars for us. I imagine some motorcycles.
Have we What have we had outside of that
spectrum? We've been talking about
planes. Have we done like a snapper
plane shoot?
>> I haven't listed that many planes. I do
know you guys ever listed planes.
>> A few. And it's usually something that's
like out of annual or it's like a
project kind of. We had an air coupe
project. You know what an air coupe is?
The little one that doesn't have rudder
pedals. They're supposedly unstallable.
>> Trainer.
>> Uh yeah. Yeah. The little twin tail.
They're really pretty. We've had a
couple like aerobatic planes. We had a
Satabria, I think. I can't remember. The
best one we ever had is we had a
Steerman, which is pretty sick. Yes.
>> From like the 40s.
>> Yeah. The World War II basic trainer
biplane with a huge radial on it. Um
>> I'd love to do more, but if you know
this already,
>> if I find out that you guys are are
sending us plane shoots, if there's any
>> You're going to be the 500 mile radius,
I'm going to
>> You might fly there.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go and do it.
>> Uh I would love to list more. As you
probably know, uh I I wish we could
conquer the space cuz like the aviation
market desperately needs Bring a
Trailer. The prices are all over the
place. Nobody's that serious about
selling. Most guys just keep flying
their plane and it's on controller for
like four years.
>> Perfect adjacency to your platform.
Totally.
>> It's almost even easier cuz they're all
located in just a few places. It's not
like you have to necessarily find all
these different, you know,
>> one of the reasons we don't do it is
like there are quite a few
aviation-minded people on staff, but
usually somebody reaches out to me or
Beck and they're like, "What am I
looking at?" You know what I mean? So,
then we have to explain the rules and
regulations are tough. So, we have to
explain is it annual like what's how
many hours are on the motor, how many
hours are on the airframe?
>> Maybe you need to have a subbrand. Bring
a pilot. Bring a wrench. Uh, bring a
license.
>> Bring a an A&P.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh, Beck, I don't know if I've told you
this, but Matt uh, flies around a lot in
my dream plane in a 182 RG.
>> Hey, fantastic.
>> Beck went to one of those colleges where
he got all of his ratings when he was
going to school. He didn't go, no, he
went to a better one. I I learned how to
fly Embry Riddle. He got a better one.
>> I went to University of Illinois.
got an aviation human factors degree
there. So I got commercial license which
I think you have got as well. Uh and
then did my instrument.
>> You were always up to twins though,
weren't you? Weren't
>> I was doing that sort of thing and
complex aircraft, that sort of stuff.
But a 182 is complex as well. So uh
yeah, you've got
>> a line just No, but once you put the
gear up, it's even more complex.
>> Prop on 182, right?
>> Absolutely. There you go. That's all you
need.
>> You've got a fancy prop, don't you? You
tell me you have something wild. You
have
>> Yeah, composite.
>> Yeah, that's right. One of those three
blade, right?
>> German composite props. Three blade.
Yeah. Which is a lot of prop for a 182.
>> Totally. I think the 182 RG was a
twoblade constant speed when it when
they were new, weren't they?
>> I think he might there might have been a
threeblade factory upgrade option for
like a Macaulay threeblade or something
like that. But yeah, two blade was
definitely the default.
>> And are you flying out of the Bay Area
here?
>> Yeah, out of Oakland.
>> Out of Oakland. Got it. I was always
saying Carlos, which is always tough
because you're under SFO airspace the
entire time. Well, technically Oakland
is too, I guess, but you've got to like
the routes you'd be sent is like fly
towards Mount Diablo for like 30 minutes
until you could like turn away and get
out of the
>> I only have like 80 hours and I haven't
been in a light plane in 17 years. And
so I'd be scared to fly here. You guys
are brave and you guys have a lot more
experience than me.
>> I My first flying was in the complete
opposite airspace, which is out in the
middle of the Australian outback. My
first lesson was when I was 15 years
old.
>> 152. Uh, no. It was actually Oh, the
name slips my mind, but one of those
like South African
>> Oh, interesting.
>> What's the brand? Like two-seater.
>> I know what you're talking about.
>> Trainer
>> tandem or sideby side
>> sling? I'm pretty sure.
>> They have a stick, don't they? Aren't
they stick? Yeah, that's what I thought.
>> Um, I think that's what it was.
>> I know what you're talking about.
>> Um,
>> but actually I got my private at St.
Carlos as well.
>> Oh, nice. At Bel Air.
>> Uh, no, at Fly Bay Area.
>> Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah, but I after
these lessons as a kid, I didn't
actually get my private license until
>> that was 2020.
>> That's me. I'm a pretender. I I'm kind
of this way with cars, too. I like to
talk about it more than I to actually do
it. They call it a bench racer with
cars. I don't know what you call it when
you're a bench pilot, but you're just
hanging around the hanger talking about
it all the time.
>> A hanger pilot, maybe. I mean, in your
guys work, I'm guessing it could be
super use because most car shows happen
to be, from what I've seen, next to an
airport.
>> They are. I mean, they're they're very
much connected, especially once you
start talking about a certain price
point. I mean, some car auctions happen
at airports.
>> Yes. And a tremendous number of our
photo shoots, and I bet those include
plenty of snapper shoots take place at
airport because, you know, especially if
you got a Cessna, a car under each wing
can fit under a highwing, right? So,
people have their tea hanger with a
Cessna and two cars.
>> There's lots of airplanes behind cars in
photo shoots. Everyone loves to try to
get those in there. It'd be hilarious if
the inverse were also true. If you've
got a plane that you're trying to
car in the background.
>> You know where we've had a couple shoots
done as Nosfield up in Nevada.
>> That is where I got asked to do my
landings in my private pilot exam.
>> It has a kind of a nasty crosswind,
doesn't it? That's what I've heard.
Yeah, I was really lucky on this
particular, but yeah, we were over uh S
Pablo Bay and the examiner cut the
engine on me and said, "All right, where
are you going to land?" And it was
Nosfield.
>> Great. Love it. actually touch or did he
pretend like
>> I think I think he cut it to half power.
The guy had to come in and do it like a
half power.
>> Oh gosh. I'm having flashbacks to my
instructor all the time cutting the
power on me all the time and then he
would, you know, he'd keep the engine
alive. He'd goose it every once in a
while cuz the motor would start to
stutter. Yeah. He didn't want to
actually lose the motor
>> on a twin engine. You can obviously shut
it all the way off and then you have to
learn how to fire it back up while mid
plane. How do
>> you do that? Leave tons of runner in
while you're doing
uh prop flat because you don't want the
drag cuz it'll it'll keep going on just
because of the wind pressure and so you
want it to get flat reduce all the drag
and that's honestly a multi-lic license
that's all you're really learning is
asymmetrical thrust
>> is what does a plane act like
oh yeah just completely pushing on it
yeah
>> like my tail dragger which got ground
looped eventually
>> next time we're going to do an all
aviation podcast I feel like the car
people listening I know they're done
they're done you got to do the whole
rest of the thing.
>> Uh, I've threatened it before, so maybe
we'll do it and invite you, Matt. Before
we break, what else should people know
about Snapper? What else should they
know about Plus? Obviously, we've given
it a hell of a plug. That again, sounds
like a sales pitch, but it's all honest
to goodness. Uh, we believe in this
very, very strongly and we appreciate
the years of partnership with Snapper
and look forward to many more. But what
else should they know about you or your
company, Matt?
>> Well, first of all, thanks for all the
kind words about the company. I think if
there's one thing that everyone should
know is it's like whether you're about
to list a car soon or not, everybody can
be a user of Snapper because we do so
much. It doesn't matter if it's for your
work, it doesn't matter if it's for your
personal life, there is something coming
up in the lives of everybody in the next
couple of months that we could play a
part in. And it's very easy to get
started with us because we don't just do
big enterprise stuff, shoots through API
like we do with Bring a Trailer. Uh you
can jump on our website and have a shoot
booked in 60 seconds for anything under
the sun. Uh car, real estate, personal
event, something for the family. And
it's pretty affordable. Like for under
200 bucks, uh you can get an entry-
level photo shoot with us. Uh that
includes editing. And every single one
of those has like a prevetted
photographer. He's probably a specialist
in whatever it is that you're looking
for. I'm guessing the listener base is
um probably from all over the world, but
just in case anyone's wondering like
where we're available. The United States
is our biggest market. Uh up until
recently, we're in the English speaking
world. So, United States, Canada,
Australia, obviously the UK, and a few
other places. But yeah, just recently,
if we've got anyone listening in from
the EU, we just launched basically
across almost the entire EU. We now in
um six languages as of a few weeks ago.
And yeah, give us a try. Awesome, Matt.
Congrats. Thanks for that. What a
responsible CEO. You hear that? What a
wonderful summation. Fantastic. Hey, we
appreciate you coming in, man. It's so
awesome to do this in person. Usually,
we're on the screen, so this makes it so
much better.
>> Yeah, I know. I definitely rather be
doing this than on another Zoom call.
Totally. Any parting shots from you,
Beck?
>> Uh, just thanks for coming in. Uh,
Snapper is actually, it's not my purview
at all, but I honestly sell it every day
because a lot of people who call in,
they're really just curious as to how to
solve this issue for them. And for some
of them, white glove isn't the answer.
And and plus service really is. And uh,
it's very, very, very tough to make a
case not for it.
>> Yeah, agreed. Well said. Well, thanks
Jents for doing this. Appreciate you.
And thanks to everyone for listening. As
always, please feel free to send
questions, concerns, complaints uh, to
Matts personally. No, I'm kidding. uh to
podcasttraer.com.
Thanks for listening and we'll catch you
next time.
>> Thanks, Alex.
[Music]
About this episode
Great photos are essential for successful car listings, and Matt Schiller, CEO of Snappr, shares insights on how his company enhances the Bring a Trailer platform. The discussion covers the evolution of Snappr, the importance of professional photography, and how it impacts auction outcomes. With a focus on authenticity, Snappr's network of vetted photographers ensures high-quality images that help sellers maximize their listings. The episode also touches on the growing role of video and the challenges of finding skilled automotive photographers.
Original notes
Alex and Beck sit down to catch up with Matt Schiller, CEO of Snapprβthe professional-photos-anywhere agency that supports our BaT Plus listing photography service. The Australian Bay Area transplant talks about starting the company in Sydney with no intention of moving into the automotive space; assures us that even CEOs have excuses for looking at BaT instead of working; reviews the importance of accurate and numerous photos for large purchases made over the internet; and goes into some very telling stats gleaned from Snappr's seven-year relationship with BaT (the numbers don't lie: better photos sell more cars for higher prices!).
The trio talk about the importance of keeping AI out of automotive sales photography, and also keeping a creator in the loop when using generative AI for non-automotive applications. All three are pilots at various levels, so fair warning: the tail(dragger) end of the conversation descends quickly into airplane madness.
Links for things mentioned in this episode:
37:10 ββAircraft and related auctions on BaT
Got suggestions for our next guest from the BaT community or One Year Garage episode? Let us know at [email protected]!
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