Key Takeaways

• Steve Bleisner built his photo booth company, Hey Okay, out of a side offering for his wedding photography business
• His dad's death coincided almost exactly with COVID lockdowns, which forced a business pivot that created two separate seven figure product lines
• Most photo booth businesses have little resale value because they're built around one person's relationships, not repeatable systems
• Steve bought Breeze software from its original founders after years of being a loyal user
• The plan for Breeze was never to make it the easiest software in the industry, but to make it more accessible without losing what makes it powerful

If you've spent any time in the photo booth industry, you've either used Breeze software, complained about Breeze software, or both. What most people don't know is the story behind who actually owns it now, and how a wedding photographer in Australia ended up shaping so much of what this industry looks like today.

Steve Bleisner is the founder of Hey Okay, formerly known as Photo Booth Guys, and he's spent over 16 years building, manufacturing, and eventually buying the software that runs a huge chunk of this industry. On a recent episode of Scaling Out Loud, he walked through the entire journey, and it's a masterclass in scaling a photo booth business through mistakes, pivots, and one of the hardest weeks of his life.

How Steve Bleisner Got Started in the Photo Booth Industry

Like a lot of founders in this space, Steve didn't set out to build a photo booth empire. He and his wife were wedding photographers looking for an add-on service. They also had one eye on the future.

"The problem with being a wedding photographer is that you have to be there," Steve explained. With a growing family, they wanted something that could eventually run without them physically present at every event.

Their first setup wasn't even a real photo booth. It was a camera on a tripod with a studio flash, no onsite printing, more like a mini studio shoot for wedding guests. Once they added printing, guests started expecting a full photo booth experience, and the ad hoc setup wasn't cutting it.

The First Photo Booth Build

Steve found a designer in Romania to create a 3D model of an enclosed photo booth. It was manufactured, but it turned out massive and difficult to set up. So they went back to the drawing board, aiming for something more portable that matched the vintage, hipster wedding aesthetic popular at the time.

That's how the Art Series was born, built from timber and brass, first by a guitar maker, and later by a fine furniture maker who took over production for several more batches.

Manufacturing Lessons: When the Aesthetic Doesn't Fit the Event

One story stands out. Steve's team booked the Art Series for a Microsoft conference. When he saw the setup photos, his heart dropped.

"This is the wrong product for this conference," he remembered thinking. A wooden, vintage-style booth looked completely out of place next to LED signage and modern tech branding.

That mismatch led to an aluminum version, then a black aluminum version, and eventually to a decision a lot of founders resist making: sometimes it's smarter to buy someone else's product instead of manufacturing your own. Steve's team started using Ventures from LA Photo Party, a booth he still calls one of the most thoughtfully designed products in the industry.

Key takeaway: Manufacturing sounds simple until you're the one doing it. As Steve put it, "People don't understand how hard manufacturing is to get the details right."

Two Seven Figure Businesses Born Out of Tragedy

This is the part of the conversation that stops you. Steve's dad passed away just days before COVID lockdowns hit Australia. At the same time, his warehouses across the country were losing access, revenue had been cut off completely, and he was consolidating everything into the smallest footprint he could manage, all while grieving.

In the middle of that chaos, Steve had a thought: there had to be some way to capture photos remotely. He started experimenting and eventually launched a virtual photo booth product before he'd even fully built it, betting he'd figure out the mechanics once demand showed up. It did. That product spun off into its own brand, Brandmatic, and took off through the first year or two of the pandemic.

Around the same time, a separate idea led to an audio guestbook product, inspired by an old rotary phone shelf design. That one also spun off as its own brand and, in Steve's words, "went absolutely nuts," becoming a seven figure business entirely on its own.

"Idle hands are the devil's workshop. During COVID I had lots of time on my hands, so I worked out a prototype within a week or so."

Both products eventually cooled off as bigger manufacturers, including Amazon sellers, entered the space. But the lesson Steve pulls from it applies far beyond COVID: sometimes your biggest opportunities come out of the worst timing imaginable.

Why "If You Saw It at the Expo, You Missed the Window"

One of the most useful frameworks Steve shared is about spotting trends before they're trends. His rule of thumb: if you've already seen a product at Photo Booth Expo, you've likely missed the best window to make real money from it.

"If you walk into the floor and you see one company selling something no one else is, that might be the thing that's going to be next," he said, "because they've seen something the rest of the industry hasn't."

His advice for spotting what's next: stop looking only at competitors. Look at fashion photography, interior design, and what major brands and agencies are doing with marketing. According to Steve, the photo booth industry rarely sets its own trends, it borrows and adapts them, often years after they've already proven out elsewhere. The glam bot is a good example. Industrial robots used for the same effect existed for two decades before anyone in this industry adapted one for events.

Scaling Beyond One City

Steve's approach to national scaling was refreshingly unglamorous. He built simple landing pages for major cities, "Sydney photo booth," "Melbourne photo booth," and saw what stuck. In the early days, that meant flying himself to cities where his company had zero local presence to personally work events, sometimes losing money just to honor a commitment.

He described more than one moment where a staff member canceled hours before an event and he found himself heading straight to the airport to cover the gig himself.

On White Labeling

Steve has never been a big fan of white labeling other companies to fill gaps. Part of it is control. Part of it is protecting what he considers his company's "secret sauce." He's clear that he's not against the practice for others, it's simply not been his approach.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Business Value

This is the section every founder in this space needs to sit with. Steve doesn't sugarcoat it: most photo booth businesses aren't worth much when it's time to sell.

"Historically, if you look at what photo booth companies sell for, it's generally never more than the sum of its parts at secondhand value," he explained.

His reasoning is straightforward. This industry runs on one-off transactions. Every wedding is a single booking, not a recurring contract. Without a strong base of repeatable, systemized relationships, think venues that consistently refer business, there's often nothing left to sell once the founder steps away, because the relationships were with the person, not the company.

Steve's counterpoint is worth noting too: if you're not planning to sell, and you can run lean without heavy overhead, being a solo operator making strong cash isn't a failure. It just requires an honest decision about what you're actually building toward.

Why Steve Bought Breeze

Steve had been a loyal Breeze user from nearly day one, even while testing other platforms along the way. He got to know the software's original founders, Chris and Sue, as a longtime customer, eventually helping with marketing before COVID interrupted that arrangement.

After the pandemic, Chris reached out. He was ready to retire and wanted Steve to take over the business. What followed was roughly a 12 month process of negotiating the deal and figuring out how to fund it.

Steve's reasoning for buying in came down to belief in the product and its large, loyal user base, built over 20 years, even as he acknowledged its steep learning curve and famously difficult user manual.

"If it's got a user base of this size and this dedicated, and they can love it in its current state, what could it be if we improve things?"

What's Changing at Breeze (Without Losing What Makes It Powerful)

Steve was clear that the plan was never to turn Breeze into the "easiest" software in the industry. Instead, the goal is making it significantly more accessible without changing the underlying product, mainly by improving how it's configured and onboarded.

He also pushed back gently on the industry's growing expectation of 24/7 hand holding from software companies. In his view, some of that culture has made operators less self sufficient, relying on support teams instead of learning to troubleshoot internally and teach their own staff.

Breeze at Illuminate Miami

Steve's company will be the title sponsor at the Illuminate Conference in Miami this October. He teased new AI powered features coming to Breeze that go beyond simple image generation trends, along with tools designed to help operators charge more by solving creative problems for clients rather than just delivering a standard booth setup.

FAQ

Who is Steve Bleisner? Steve Bleisner is the founder of Hey Okay (formerly Photo Booth Guys) and the current owner of Breeze photo booth software.

What is Breeze photo booth software? Breeze is a long-running, highly flexible photo booth software platform used by operators across weddings, corporate activations, and parties.

Why did Steve Bleisner buy Breeze? He was a longtime user who believed in the product's potential, and the original founders approached him about taking over as they prepared to retire.

What products came out of COVID for Steve's business? A virtual photo booth product (Brandmatic) and an audio guestbook brand, both of which became standalone seven figure businesses.

Why don't most photo booth businesses sell for much? Because they're typically built around one-off event bookings and founder relationships rather than repeatable, systemized revenue.

Does Steve believe in white labeling? Not for his own business. He prefers to keep control over systems and hasn't wanted to share his internal processes with outside companies.

What is Breeze changing this year? The focus is on making the platform easier to configure and onboard into, without changing the core product.

• Breeze: https://www.breezesoftware.com/ 
• Hey Okay: https://photobooth.co/
• Illuminate Conference (Miami, October 11-14, 2026) https://www.illuminatecreative.live/

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