Mandy Liz | Mandy Liz Photography
Founder of Mandy Liz Photography
Mandy Liz is the founder of Mandy Liz Photography, a lifestyle personal branding photographer and digital marketing consultant based in Nashville, TN.
The Accidental Beginning
Mandy's journey into entrepreneurship wasn't something she planned—it happened organically. After receiving a camera for Christmas, she tapped into a natural passion and creative gift. While working a full-time job, she started booking shoots on the side, slowly turning her hobby into income. Four years in, her “side hustle” began earning more than her 9-to-5. That’s when she made the leap—leaving corporate life behind to go all-in on her creative calling.
From Hobby to Career Crossroads
After four years of balancing corporate life with her growing business, Mandy reached a crossroads: stay on the traditional career path or take a risk and bet on herself. She chose the latter. With intention and grit, she built a photography business that has continued to evolve alongside her creativity and passion for serving other entrepreneurs.
Growth, Flexibility, and the Long Game
For Mandy, growth isn’t just about numbers. Yes, revenue, clients, and team size matter—but real success is building something that’s sustainable in every season of life. She knows she can’t control external forces like markets or pandemics. But she can control how she shows up, how she serves, and how she pivots. That kind of flexibility has become a cornerstone of her business—and the reason it continues to thrive.
“ Don’t keep putting out excuses, just do it.”
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I am Mandy Liz. I'm a brand photographer, a podcaster, an educator, and a digital shop owner. I have been doing photography for 10 years, but I went full-time five years ago, and my business has looked so different throughout the years. But the main consistency has been photography. I feel like, like a lot of other business owners, I had no intentions of starting a business.
It happened accidentally. I got a camera for Christmas one year and then realized that was a passion I had. That was a gift I had, but I was working a full-time job. I had no intentions of taking that camera and turning it into a business. Just slowly as you are tapping into a hobby, you start monetizing it.
And then that suddenly was something where it got to the point where it was surpassing my full-time job income. So I had to decide, am I going to stay on this corporate ladder, trying to further this career, or am I going to do something for myself and dive into this? And I went ahead and decided to quit my job.
And that was about four years into having it as a hobby. So it's a slow grind. It's not something that happens overnight, but just taking the time to grow that side hustle. I put enough time and investment into it that it was able to become my full-time job. So I have now been a full-time business owner for five years.
I just celebrated five years this week, and that to me is just so important, to be able to celebrate that milestone and remember that milestone. Because 10 years ago when I started with my camera, I never expected to be able to have the business that I have today. And to see so many different stages of this business and to see it go from just photography into education and digital shop sales and passive income and podcasting, into so many different streams that I never would've envisioned when I first got that camera 10 years ago.
I feel like running a business is a lot of trial and error. It took years to discover my brand, and I do feel like now I have an established brand, I have a personal brand, all of that, but it goes way beyond just branding and the logo and all of that. It really is at the core just trying to figure out: What am I good at? What am I, how can I serve people? What are the gifts that I have, and what makes me stand out? What makes me different from the competition?
When you're running a business, there's a lot of planning that you have to do and a lot of strategizing. You have to know how to grow your business.
When I think about growth as an entrepreneur, for me it obviously—you want to keep growing your revenue, you want to keep growing your clientele, you want to keep growing your team. There are all these different milestones or things that you can hit and check the box and make sure that you're on the right track.
But aside from that, growth for me is having a business that is sustainable through all the different stages of my life. We can't predict a market. We can't predict a pandemic. We’re not in control of the outside factors. I can only control the internal factors of my business, and that's gonna be me, that's gonna be my team, that's gonna be the services and the products that we offer.
That's gonna be my personal brand, my presence—all of that. I cannot control how an external market, how an external market reacts to my business. Flexibility is huge. When you're running a business, you have to be flexible and you have to be able to pivot, to think outside the box, and find ways to shift your offers.
Find ways to shift your business when those external factors hit. And you have to just find ways to be flexible and flow with that. Otherwise, you're never gonna get to where you want to be in five years’ time.
If you're aspiring to be an entrepreneur, my advice to you would be to just start the business, launch the product or service, and just do it.
Don't keep putting out excuses—just do it.
Why We Share These Stories
We believe that celebrating Tennessee’s entrepreneurs will inspire the next generation of bold thinkers, risk-takers, and community builders. Entrepreneurs don’t forget where they come from—and they carry the power to transform not just their businesses, but entire neighborhoods, towns, and local economies. See more entrepreneur stories from the Patton Foundation.
