--- title: Picturing the Way to a New Career description: Former consultant James Oliver found a way to fill a market void thanks to an HGTV show. Now he's running and managing his own business, WeMontage. authors: - name: Daniel Bortz url: https://money.com/author/daniel-bortz/ at_money_since: 2014 articles: 60 covers: - Career Advice - Business - Housing - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/DanielBortz - https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-bortz/ former_staff: true published: '2016-05-03T10:20:39.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T10:35:12.000Z' section: Career Advice tags: - Careers - entrepreneur - Management - Second Act - Small Business - startup word_count: 366 canonical: https://money.com/wemontage-james-oliver-second-act-career/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![photographer](https://img.money.com/2016/04/pac05_a.jpg?crop=0px%2C0px%2C2100px%2C1181px&quality=85) *James Oliver, 45, was a small business consultant. Now, he's the founder of WeMontage.* James Oliver can thank HGTV for his business idea. In June 2011 his wife, Ayana, called him upstairs to watch a couple decorating their living room. "They were hanging wallpaper that had a collage of their family photos," recalls Oliver, a father of twins. "They said anyone could do it, but I couldn't find how to do it anywhere." Oliver, a self-employed small-business strategist, saw an [opportunity](https://money.com/figure-out-big-idea-viable-business/). Without giving up his consulting work, Oliver found printing and distribution companies and created WeMontage's sample product: a photo collage printed on removable wallpaper. A friend introduced him to a web strategist who mapped out an online game plan in return for an equity stake. But building the website—supposedly a three-month project—took a full year and cost $35,000. "We were creating customized software that dealt with photo manipulation and generating high-resolution images that we could print," says Oliver, who depleted his liquid savings to [cover the launch.](https://money.com/small-business-funding-creative-startups/) ***Calculator:*** [What is my current cash flow?](http://test1.calcxml.com/calculators/embedCalcLoader?skn=570&calc=bud09) The delays strained the operation. Oliver didn't touch his retirement funds but took on $5,000 in credit card debt and a side job: "I was working at a department store for $10 an hour to make ends meet." Meanwhile, his co-founder was weighing a full-time job and needed an exit. Oliver persisted, though. In early 2013, after buying out his partner for $26,000—and with support from Ayana, who works in marketing—Oliver quit his other gigs and enrolled in a startup accelerator to [attract funding](https://money.com/how-to-get-a-small-business-grant/). At the end of the program, he raised $330,000 from its affiliated investors and redesigned the site to make ordering easier. [WeMontage.com](http://WeMontage.com) finally went live in August 2013. To target families, he took a booth at a conference for female bloggers. Sales hit $70,000 in 2014 and $95,000 in 2015, on products selling for $60 to $120. Because the printing itself is outsourced, ongoing costs are low—Oliver's time plus web hosting—but he paid $17,000 to revamp the site for mobile after realizing that users were uploading photos from phones. WeMontage isn't profitable yet, but Oliver has taken a salary the past two years and plans to hire one person this year. "As the business expands, it will help to have an extra pair of hands," he says. ![PAC_numbers](https://img.money.com/2016/04/pac_numbers.png) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/wemontage-james-oliver-second-act-career/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Career Advice", "item": "https://money.com/career-advice/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Self-Employment", "item": "https://money.com/self-employment/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Picturing the Way to a New Career" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/wemontage-james-oliver-second-act-career/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/wemontage-james-oliver-second-act-career/", "name": "Picturing the Way to a New Career", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-05-03T10:20:39.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/wemontage-james-oliver-second-act-career/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/wemontage-james-oliver-second-act-career/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T10:35:12.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Picturing the Way to a New Career", "articleSection": "Career Advice", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/04/pac05_a.jpg?crop=0px%2C0px%2C2100px%2C1181px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "PAC05_A" }, { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/04/pac_numbers.png", "width": 800, "height": 381 } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Daniel Bortz", "url": "https://money.com/author/daniel-bortz/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/daniel-bortz/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/05/Daniel-Bortz.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/DanielBortz", "https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-bortz/" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-05-03T10:20:39.000Z", "description": "Former consultant James Oliver found a way to fill a market void thanks to an HGTV show. 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