[ibimage==23917==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]Pixuru, a free app for ordering photo artwork directly from smartphones, launched last week and has had over 2,000 downloads since. The app, founded by professional photography printer Adam Fried, allows users to order high-quality photo prints on materials ranging from canvas to metal or wood and receive them in less than a week.
With 43 million iPhones sold nationwide last year, there’s no doubt that the increasing number of smartphone photographers in the country will serve as a practically limitless potential customer base for Pixuru. With an Android launch planned for this summer, Fried said he is hoping for Pixuru to gain as much traction as possible before the holiday season.
Not only does Pixuru facilitate the mobile ordering of photo artwork, but the company prides itself on extremely large wall prints, such as the 25 by 5 foot print of the Merchandise Mart originally taken on the iPhone 5. The photograph, which is currently the largest print from a smartphone in the world, will be displayed at Techweek this June.
This idea of large-scale wall photos was the impetus of Pixuru only six months ago.
“Last year, I took a picture on my iPhone and edited it on my iPhone,” Fried said. “I said ‘Okay, it looks pretty good, but I wonder how big I can print this.’”
Now, Fried has developed a patent-pending process that prints smartphone pictures at an extremely high quality anywhere from a 6 by 6 inch print (for $20) to a 16 by 20 inch print (for $55).
With six employees based out of Chicago, printing facilities in Ohio and social media outsourced to Chicago’s social marketing agency SocialKaty, Pixuru is a fairly lean company. The revenue model of Pixuru is simple, Fried said: “We produce revenue from Day 1. We are based on real sales and real profit.”
