Scott Adams used to spend fall days surrounded by dozens of loud, fidgeting children, all waiting to have their school photographs taken.
He can still see those little ones, but now they reside in the many framed photographs that fill his office walls and tables.The sounds of laughing children have been replaced by ringing phones. And instead of standing behind a camera, Adams sits behind a desk, helping chart the fortunes of the Kiddie Kandids photo business he owns with Wayne Fox.
But when they started working together in 1980, Adams and Fox had no idea their partnership would transform them into entrepreneurs.
"We actually founded separate businesses," Adams said. "I had a school photography business, and he had a (photo) lab for finish work."
Adams was taking student pictures at about 45 schools, most in the Jordan district. He did some custom photography outside of his school business, and he asked Fox to do the lab work for those photos.
Fox, who was working as a studio photographer in Henefer, said that prompted him to consider doing more with his lab.
"In 1980, it was strictly a business relationship," Fox said. "I saw the cooperation as a way to make better money."
Fox upgraded his photo lab and, in 1982, he started printing Adams' school pictures as well as his custom items.
The two worked well together, and Adams said people always told him his school pictures were better than some studio portraits.
Adams said he tried to interact with and relate to children as he took their pictures. And he was willing to use different lighting effects and his own creativity to capture the best expressions.
"Our philosophy was, `Let's put on a show,' " Adams said.
That attitude led Fox and Adams in 1987 to buy the Kiddie Kandids studios located in four Utah malls.
"We saw potential," Fox said. "We wanted tostay in the same business but diversify our income stream."
After a year of figuring out how to translate their philosophy to the mall studios, Adams and Fox opened a couple more Kiddie Kandids stores. Then, in 1989, they opened two successful operations outside of Utah.
As those stores succeeded, the company's growth exploded, and Kiddie Kandids expanded to a 20-store chain within another couple years.
"That overextended us, as far as our resources to train, so we had a moratorium (on expansion) for a few years," Fox said.
The slowdown ended this year, when Kiddie Kandids remodeled several of its older stores and opened five new ones. A sixth was scheduled to open in Provo this week, giving the company eight stores in Utah and 18 more in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, California, Washington and Idaho.
All of the stores are in shopping centers except one in St. George, Fox said. And that fits with Kiddie Kandids' desire to attract families who have 1- or 2-year-old children and want their photos taken two or three times a year.
Fox said the average customer spends $50 to $55 on each trip to Kiddie Kandids, and that low price helps draw them back.
"Most moms want a history of their child . . .," Fox said. "We don't have this goal of getting $100 from every customer."
The approach has worked for Kiddie Kandids. Fox said the company continues to grow by an average of 15 to 20 percent each year.
"Kiddie Kandids, from the year before we bought it until now, is probably 20 to 30 times larger in sales," Fox said. "We have 15 stores now that individually do more in sales than all four did in 1986."
But managing the growing business has not always been easy. Fox and Adams are, after all, trained as photographers, and they said they have struggled at times with a business that employs 350 people and produced 6 million 8-by-10 photos last year.
"When we got into this business, we just worried about managing ourselves," Adams said. "You just kind of grow into it and learn as you go."
Fox and Adams said they often receive calls from people who want to franchise Kiddie Kandids and open stores in their parts of the country, but they are not ready to take that step.
"We don't want to grow to the point where we can't train people and get the quality product we want," Adams said.