The Disruptors- ARTtwo50 Co-Founders;Patrick Coughlin and Ethan Appleby

1.What have been your greatest challenges as your company matures?

Our greatest challenge as we grow is focus and prioritization - we have so many ideas, features we want to add to our products, and tools we want to deliver to our artists that it becomes difficult to prioritize.  It's a vicious cycle, because the deeper we get into this and the bigger we grow, the more we want to change and the faster we want to move - but we love it and it gets us up early and keeps us up late everyday.

2.What aspect of visual Art do you see as being undervalued and do you have plans to pursue shedding light on it?

We believe the mass-produced big box store prints are over-valued and original artwork from emerging, local artists is undervalued.  But, that imbalance is due to both a real and perceived imbalance in accessibility.  Too many people who want to Be Original and can afford original art for their space shy away from it because shopping for original art in galleries, art fairs, or the current online space can be intimidating, expensive, and time-intensive.  It's so much easier now for people to buy art at the same place they buy their couch or carpet.  We want to change that - and our whole messaging, business model, and marketing plans are directed at that behavior and hopefully making the world a more artful place.

3.What specific accomplishments had you achieved in your career that made your skill set unique to ART two 50's success?

All four members of the founding team have experience solving hard problems before coming together for ARTtwo50.  Ethan worked to bring innovation and design-thinking to the Middle East, Patrick worked in strategy and policy for countering violent extremism, Win was building cutting edge health/medical apps, and Brandon was developing curriculum for the fledgling academic field of User Experience / User Interface.  But, we all have personal connections to the art world. Ethan's step-dad and sister are artists, Patrick's mom was the art-lady at his local Kansas City school and works at the Nelson Art Museum, Brandon's wife is an artist and art teacher, and Win (we joke) has dated the most artists in the SF area.

We see the fact that none of us have come directly from the art world as critical to our ability to innovate and think outside-the-box in the art world, but our personal connections to art and artists keep us grounded in the needs of our most important users: our artists.

4.In making Art more accessible what do you see your role making the technology or distribution models that make delivery better, faster, smarter, more efficient, or less expensive?

All of the above!  We want to use technology and new business models to change the way people buy and sell art.  That means everything - the way people discover art, the way people price art, and the way people share art.

5.What things do you not like to do as a company?

Talk to lawyers - kidding, sort of. If it were up to us, we'd just keep growing and innovating, but the nuts and bolts of running and building a company can't be ignored if we're going to win. 

6. If we were sitting at your office a year from now celebrating what a great year it's been for you in your role, what did you achieve together as a corporate culture/brand?

We have three pieces of our culture.

Be Original - We strive to be original in our thinking and our products.

Be Approachable - We strive to be approachable to both our artists and our buyers.  We thrive on feedback and will always put our ARTISTS FIRST.

Be Balanced - We strive to be balanced in the way we work - we work hard and we play hard - we can be serious and we can have fun - this is how we keep our team happy and completely engaged in our mission everyday.

At the end of 2014, we will be able to look back on the year and say we lived these three values to their fullest.  And, in so doing, we helped thousands of artists sell artwork and brought original artwork to customers across the country who otherwise wouldn't have discovered it. 

7.If you could engage your customers right now what would you like to learn from them?And what would you like them to know about how you view them?

We engage our customers everyday! It's a big part of our process. We still speak with every buyer and actively solicit feedback from our artist community.  We try to learn what both our artists and buyers liked/disliked about their experience and then we try to make it better.  No matter what their experience with us, we hope both artists and buyers know that we listen, we care, and we move fast in making changes.

8.How do you determine whether ideas are worth pursuing at ART two 50?

Annnnnnnd, we've come full circle! Wow, didn't even plan that. This is the challenge we pointed to in #1.  It's hard, because we feel like there is so much we want to do. We brainstorm, we test, we debate, but most importantly, we listen - we listen to our artists and we listen to our buyers - and then we make decisions and get busy building!

 

We would like to thank ARTtwo50 for sharing their thoughts with us on the Art space.Continued success to Patrck,Ethan and the ARTtwo50 team. Twitter Pinterest Blog Website Facebook