Today we’d like to introduce you to Marianna Curran.
Hi Marianna, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have always been both business-minded and creative, and for a long time I thought those two parts of me lived in separate worlds.
I went to graduate school at Cornell University for Hotel Administration and spent the early part of my career working with my family in our suburban restaurants. I loved the energy of hospitality. I loved building something, serving people, solving problems, and creating experiences. But after I had two young children, I realized something very practical. Running restaurants often requires a wife, and I did not have one of those.
I still wanted to work. I still wanted to build a business. But I needed something that fit my life as a mother and still allowed me to use my creativity.
That is how I found my way into memorykeeping.
At first, I helped people with their photos and scrapbooks. I loved helping families take boxes of pictures and turn them into something meaningful. Over time, scrapbooks became digital photo books, and today I coach people on how to create beautiful books more easily. But underneath all of that was something bigger than making pretty pages.
I realized I had a problem with my own pictures.
Like so many people, I had photos and slides in boxes, flip albums, and scattered places. My mother had our growing-up pictures, and I have siblings. The question became very real to me: how do all of us have access to the same family memories?
You cannot divide a childhood fairly into separate boxes. All the children are in the same photos. The stories belong to everyone.
The answer was not to split the memories up. The answer was to digitize them, organize them, and put them in one safe place where everyone could have access.
That realization changed the direction of my business.
Today, through She Knows Fotos, I help people save their photos, videos, documents, and memories in a permanent digital home designed to be passed on to the next generation. I partner with a trusted digital preservation platform that allows families to protect their memories in one secure place, share them with the people they choose, and preserve the stories that go with them.
The goal is not just to store pictures. It is to protect the relationships, history, and meaning connected to those pictures. A photo without the story behind it loses something. My work is to help people save both.
Most people I meet have some version of the same problem. Their phones are full. Their computers are full. Their old videos are on formats they can no longer watch. Their printed photos are in bins, basements, closets, or attics. They worry about what will happen if a device breaks, if a parent passes away, if there is a flood or fire, or if no one knows the stories behind the pictures.
I help them gather those memories from all the places they are scattered, digitize what needs to be preserved, organize everything in a way that makes sense, and then actually enjoy those memories again.
That last part matters to me. I do not want people to just save their photos and forget about them. I want them to share albums, tell stories, make photo books, create gifts, and help their children and grandchildren know where they came from.
One of the things that matters to me is that this is not typical cloud storage. Most people are used to paying monthly for space on a phone or in a cloud account, but that does not necessarily solve the long-term legacy problem. I wanted a solution that was built for permanence, not just convenience.
The permanent digital home I help my clients create is designed to protect photos, videos, and documents beyond their lifetime. It is supported by a dedicated preservation fund, which gives families confidence that their memories are not just saved for today, but protected for the people who come next.
As technology has changed, my business has grown with it. Facial recognition now helps organize large collections by people, which is especially powerful for families and genealogists. New tools are making it easier to organize by location, people, dates, and objects. But the purpose has stayed the same. Technology should help us protect the human story, not replace it.
A big part of my work is with families and genealogy clients. Every year, I attend RootsTech in Salt Lake City, the largest family history conference in the world. The people there already understand the value of legacy. They care deeply about preserving family history, stories, documents, and photographs, so the work I do is a natural fit.
I have also branched out beyond individual families. I work with businesses, schools, sports teams, organizations, and groups that have important photo and video collections they want to protect. Any organization with history has memories worth preserving.
Another meaningful part of my business is helping other entrepreneurs do similar work. I train and partner with organizers, photographers, genealogy professionals, wealth managers, and others who serve clients with legacy needs. Many people already have trusted relationships with families who need this kind of help, and I love showing them how memory preservation can become a natural extension of the work they already do.
When I look back, I can see that this business gave me exactly what I was looking for in the beginning. It allowed me to be creative, work with people, build something of my own, and still be present for my family.
But it became much more than that.
It became a mission to help people stop putting off something that really matters. Because photos are not just pictures. They are proof of a life lived. They are the people we love, the places we have been, the stories we do not want forgotten, and the legacy we leave behind.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The struggles along the way were real, but they were not always dramatic.
In the early years, one of my biggest challenges was learning how to work from home with young children around. I wanted to be present for my family, but I also wanted to build something meaningful. That required discipline, flexibility, and a lot of patience. Home-based businesses can look easy from the outside, but it takes real structure to treat your work seriously when your laundry, your children, your dinner, and your business are all under the same roof.
Now my children are grown and out of the house, and my work rhythm is very different. I go to work every day in my own home office. The only people I need to feed on a daily basis are myself and my husband. Until recently, I also had a beloved dog who made sure I remembered to take breaks. Life changes, and the business has had to change with it.
Another major challenge came when the company I originally worked with closed. That could have been the end of the road, but it forced me to step back and realize that I had built more than a business connected to one company. I had built relationships, knowledge, experience, and trust. I had the tools I needed to continue through She Knows Fotos, and eventually I found the right national partner to support the bigger vision I had for helping people protect their photos, videos, documents, and memories.
I have always had a strong work ethic, so showing up every day has never been the hard part for me. Even during COVID, I got dressed and put on makeup every day because I wanted to be ready to meet with a client on Zoom at any moment. That routine helped me stay grounded and professional during a very uncertain time.
The ongoing challenge in any small business is finding new clients. I am very fortunate that most of my clients come through referrals. After 28 years, I have worked with thousands of people, and I am deeply grateful for that. But referrals still have to be earned. Every client experience matters.
Over the years, I have had husbands jokingly say, “Oh, so you’re the photo lady,” when they meet me. And honestly, I take that as a compliment. I have become known for helping people with something they know is important but often feel overwhelmed by.
The biggest challenge is helping people take action before something happens. People know their photos matter. They know their old videos, family documents, and phone pictures are vulnerable. But it is easy to put it off. My job is to gently help them move from worry to action, one step at a time.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
She Knows Fotos is a photo and memory preservation business, but what I really do is help people finally make sense of all the photos, videos, documents, and stories they have been meaning to deal with.
Some clients come to me with boxes of printed photos, old albums, slides, VHS tapes, or inherited family collections. Others come to me with thousands of pictures on their phones and no real system for finding or enjoying them. Some people want to do the work themselves but need guidance. Others want me to do the organizing, digitizing, and creating for them. I offer both.
I specialize in helping people create a private, secure, and shareable digital home for their memories. That means their photos, videos, and documents are protected in one place, but they can still be shared with the people they choose. More importantly, that digital home can be passed on to the next generation. In some cases, I am already working with that next generation, helping children and grandchildren understand and preserve the family stories that came before them.
What sets my business apart is that I do not offer just one service. I help people through the whole process. I help them digitize old media, organize their collections, preserve important documents, create photo books, build slideshows and montages, and share memories with family. I have created memory boards for funeral services, books for schools and sports teams, legacy books for families and businesses, and photo books that tell the story of weddings, travel, childhoods, anniversaries, and family history.
I especially love creating wedding photo books and travel photo books. Those are joyful projects because they allow people to relive a meaningful time in their lives and turn it into something beautiful and lasting. I also create books for clients who simply do not have the time, patience, or interest to do it themselves.
At the same time, I love teaching people how to create their own photo books. I train clients on easy-to-use design software and show them how to make books that are simple, fast, and beautiful. They do not have to be naturally creative. Sometimes the goal is not to create a masterpiece. Sometimes the goal is simply to get the memories out of the phone, off the computer, and into a form that can be enjoyed.
I also host retreats several times a year where people can step away from their normal responsibilities and spend focused time working on their own photos and stories. Memorykeeping can feel overwhelming when you are alone at home staring at years of pictures. But when people work together, it becomes more enjoyable, more manageable, and often much more meaningful.
Another area of my work is helping large families preserve shared legacies. I have worked with families where multiple siblings, children, and grandchildren all need access to the same photos, videos, and stories. Rather than splitting the memories into separate boxes or separate hard drives, we create one organized digital home that the family can share. Everyone can have access to the full collection, and each person can add their own memories and stories.
I also work with schools, sports teams, businesses, and organizations that want to preserve their history. For schools, that might mean creating a memory book that goes beyond a traditional yearbook. For sports teams, it might be an end-of-season book that captures the full experience and gives parents access to the photos. For businesses and organizations, it might be preserving decades of history in a storybook format so their legacy is not lost.
Technology is also making this work more powerful. Facial recognition already helps organize large photo collections by people, and auto-organizing tools are expected to make the process even easier by helping sort photos by people, places, dates, and objects. I am excited about that because many people want their memories organized, but they need the process to feel less overwhelming.
One of the parts of my business I am most proud of is helping other men and women build similar careers. I train and partner with organizers, photographers, genealogy professionals, wealth managers, and others who serve clients with legacy needs. Many of them already have trusted relationships with families who need this kind of help, and I enjoy showing them how memory preservation can become a natural extension of the work they already do.
Brand-wise, I am proud that She Knows Fotos is known for trust, patience, creativity, and practical help. I have been doing this work for 28 years, and most of my business comes through referrals. That means a great deal to me.
But personally, the work that means the most is what I have done for my own family. I have preserved my children’s stories, their childhoods, and the memories that shaped our family. Someday, when they have children of their own, they will be able to share those stories and pictures with them. My hope is that they will not only inherit the memories, but also the desire to keep telling the stories and continue the legacy with their own families.
That is what I want people to know about She Knows Fotos. I help people save what matters, organize it, enjoy it, and pass it on.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite childhood memories are really tied to one place: Longport, New Jersey.
I spent every summer of my life at the Jersey Shore, and those summers shaped me in so many ways. There were always families sharing a house, children running in and out, long days on the beach, sand everywhere, swimming in the ocean, making new friends, and building friendships that have lasted my whole life. Some of the people I met during those summers are still my friends today.
As I got older, the shore also became the place where I learned how to work.
During my college summer breaks, my siblings and I ran a small coffee shop in a condominum complex that we rented for $1! We were young, around 13, 14, and 17, and we had very little day-to-day direction. My father owned several restaurants in suburban Philadelphia, but he let us figure out a great deal on our own. Eventually, we expanded to two coffee shops during the summer season.
We ordered the food, cooked the food, served the customers, wrote menus, handled billing, promoted the business, and even catered parties. It was hard work, but it was also incredibly satisfying. We were three industrious kids without a boss, learning in real time how to run something.
Looking back, I think that experience created three entrepreneurs. My siblings and I all went on to build our own businesses. None of us followed a traditional path of simply working for someone else. We learned early that if you were willing to work hard, solve problems, and take responsibility, you could create something of your own.
That is why Longport means so much to me. It holds my childhood, my friendships, my earliest lessons in business, and now my family memories as an adult.
I still go to the same home at the Jersey Shore. Now my children come to visit me there, and I am blessed to still bring my 98-year-old mother with me when I can. She still enjoys the shore, and that feels like a gift.
So when I think about my favorite childhood memory, it is not one single moment. It is the rhythm of those summers: the beach, the work, the friendships, the family, and the feeling of growing up in a place that continues to be part of my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sheknowsfotos.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forever_marianna/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SheKnowsFotos/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariannacurran/
