Glenwood photographer brings growing business to REV Pitch stage
Janna Selander has a simple explanation for how her photography business grew from two people to 10 in about a year and a half. “I’m a people pleaser,” Selander said. “If someone calls me and says, ‘Will you take my photos?’ and I can’t take their photos, it was stressing me out.” Selander, owner of J Selander Media, is one of five finalists who will present their businesses at REV Pitch 2026 on Thursday, Nov. 5, at PACE, where more than $21,000 in prize money is at stake. Tickets are $15 and are available at tsbank.com/rev.
The Glenwood, Iowa, business does portrait and real estate photography, with most of its work on the real estate side. When a home is listed for sale, the company shoots photos and video of the property, and it also produces Zillow tours, floor plans, headshots and branding videos for real estate agents. “We’re portrait photographers and real estate photographers, so we do a lot with the real estate side,” Selander said. A typical home shoot takes about an hour, depending on the size of the house, and longer when video is added.
Selander and her husband have been shooting photos since 2005, and they turned to real estate in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic kept people apart while the housing market boomed. The move came naturally because the family already had deep roots in the industry. Selander’s father was a real estate agent for more than 40 years, and her sister is an agent with NP Dodge. “It was a pretty easy transition for us,” Selander said. “Everybody knew who we were. They recognized our name with photos, and then with my dad and my sister being in the industry, I have a lot of connections.”
Demand soon outgrew what the couple could handle alone, and they hired their first employee in March 2025. The company now has 10 employees, four of them full time, including photographers, a full-time and a part-time assistant, a dedicated video editor and photo editors. The studio is in Omaha, but the work takes the staff across the region and as far as Lincoln. “We’re literally everywhere,” Selander said. “I can put 1,000 miles a week on my car.”
That growth is the heart of her pitch. Selander said the business has trained more people than it can equip, and she is asking for the tools to put them to work. “Our pitch is that we need more equipment,” she said. “We need more drones. We need more cameras. We need more gimbals.” More equipment would also let her place photographers closer to the homes they shoot, and she would like to add staff near Lincoln and in Shenandoah. “Right now we’re running all over the place,” Selander said. “If I could designate territories, that would make it a lot easier.”
REV Pitch is a first for the business. Selander said she has never entered a contest or applied for a grant, and every dollar invested in the company has been her own, so being named a finalist came as a welcome surprise. “It felt validating,” she said. “Wow, OK, maybe we are doing something special.” As for how large the business might eventually become, Selander said she doesn’t plan too far ahead. “Whatever happens happens,” she said.
Selander has had plenty else to plan for this month, with her daughter’s wedding set for Nov. 7, two days after the pitch. “It’s perfect timing,” she said. Her assistant has put in hours designing the presentation slides while Selander worked through the numbers, and the presentation will include one of the company’s videos made for a local real estate agent so the audience can see the work firsthand. Selander is scheduled to pitch third. She said the presentation is complete, though she plans to rehearse a few more times before Thursday. “I think it’s just a matter of me not falling off the stage,” Selander said, “and then we’re good.”
