Dispatches: Regent Square Couple Intertwines Independent Businesses

Beth and Sam Insalaco are partners in more ways than one.

In the past few months, the Regent Square couple has taken the leap from steady jobs to creating independent businesses that now merge and intersect on a weekly basis.

“My main goal is that I wanted to start locally in this neighborhood and get some of these small local businesses more up to speed as far as websites and social media,” Sam said. “Living here, I always look for more information and some of them do not have websites, period. I know how important that can be.”

Sam, a social media guru who also creates and builds websites, is building a client base with his own business, The Brew Room.

“It’s all about helping them to drive more business,” Sam said.

Beth, an emergency room nurse turned photographer, shoots weddings and more with her own business in images. While she lends photographic support to Sam’s website design, Sam is her own second photographer during wedding gigs.

“I just realized I had picked up photography as a hobby shortly after starting to work at the ER,” she said. “We moved here in 2007 and lived downtown at the time, and I was discovering all of these little art galleries, and that really inspired me.”

Frustrated with nursing, Beth needed a creative outlet and decided to buy a camera. She also took a class at Community College of Allegheny County to learn the technical side of the art form.

“I started taking hundreds of thousands of pictures and started getting business through coworkers who had kids and families and did a couple of weddings,” she said. “Then, I just started booking weddings.”

Last fall, she became a regular wedding photographer with Sam as her backup support. With a full portfolio, she is now focused on growing her business and enjoying the change from nursing to a more creative and less stressful profession.

“I haven’t really missed nursing so much,” she said. “I used to work 12-hour shifts and with wedding photography, it’s a full day non-stop, staying focused with some stress here and there, but everyone is happy, and I get to be creative.”

As a nurse, she dreaded weekend shifts. But in her new life as a photographer, she loves every minute of the weekend wedding work—so does Sam.

“I get paid every Saturday to go to a party,” he said with a laugh. “It’s really fun.”

Before he started The Brew Room, Sam worked at Brunner advertising as a project manager, creating websites, global apps, social media and more. He also has been from two different jobs in the past few years. The decision to create an independent business had several components.

“Some of it was family related and also I think I am more of a person that doesn’t want to work for a large company,” he said. “I get more satisfaction from helping smaller businesses and helping local things grow—being able to see my actual results.”

While he was excited to start his own venture, he also noted there was a hint of nervousness as he and his wife made the decision in both of their lives at the same time.

“We were essentially quitting our jobs and starting something new but we figured, we don’t have a kid, so let’s do it now and see what happens,” he said. “It was also exciting and a little bit of an adrenaline rush.”

Sam has gained clients through previous contacts he made at other jobs when they realized he was starting his own business. He also redesigned the website for free to help build his local portfolio. The Regent Square business now has the tools to manage the site, create newsletters and adding a video component.

Other businesses he currently is working with include SmartOps, Skin Center and Chromastics.

“What I enjoy most is being able to talk directly with a client and being able to express what I think is the right way to do things and how I think I can help them the best,” he said. “It’s about figuring out what works instead of explaining it to my boss, who will explain it to their boss and so on.”

Also—he simply loves helping local businesses.

“It’s what I want to do and it’s working out well so far,” he said. “Working directly with owners of a company and helping them to build their business is why I started this.”

For more information on Beth Insalaco Photography, visit www.bethinsalaco.com. For more information on The Brew Room, visit www.thebrewroom.com or e-mail sam@thebrewroom.com.