Ken Skelton

A Developing Business

Creativity and a commitment to serve the urban community characterize the seemingly diverse pursuits of entrepreneur Ken Skelton. A visual artist, he was one of the first African Americans to win a spot in the Indianapolis Art Center Regional competition. He also won an award for his cable television public-affairs program "From the Hip." Although Skelton recognized early on the difficulties of making a living through his artistic endeavors, he didn't give up trying.

Sometimes he's taken full-time jobs. He was once newsroom manager of the Indianapolis Recorder, a weekly newspaper serving the city's African-American community. More recently, he administered a food reimbursement program for the Day Nursery Association's Child and Adult Care Food Program. But even then, Skelton found time for entrepreneurial work as a Web-site designer, event photographer and publisher of the Indy Outlook, an online newspaper.

It was one of his participants in the food program, Stephanie Tudor, who told him about Business Ownership Initiative of Indiana and its Business Beginnings course. The most important thing he learned in the course, he says, was that succeeding in his own business was "doable." He also found the course helpful in terms of financial management. "I realized all the different places my money would go and raised the question of when I would get paid by customers," Skelton says.

Now the Indianapolis native is focused on his new small business, Just Ducky Portraits. A part-time job at the Marion County Juvenile Detention Center, working evenings monitoring family visits, leaves his daytimes free to pursue his childcare photography and market his business. "I love networking," says Skelton. "You'll falter if you don't have a good network."

Because the childcare field consists predominantly of women, Skelton observes, he particularly enjoys being able to present the youngsters with a male role model. The fact that he can talk like a duck makes him just that much more engaging — and able to elicit natural expressions in his portrait subjects.

Since his high-priced competitors cater primarily to larger childcare centers, Skelton has found a market in smaller groups served by home childcare providers. By keeping his overhead low, he is able to provide high-quality photography at a price that is affordable for his customers. Using his talents as a photographer to provide a previously unavailable product at an affordable price, Skelton may have found the long-sought secret to combining creative work and service to the community with making a living.