[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) - Buy art directly fr...
___________________________________________________________________
Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) - Buy art directly from artists
Hi HN, I'm John Friel, cofounder of Art in Res
(https://artinres.com). Art in Res is an online marketplace where
painters sell their art directly to buyers, instead of needing to
work with an art gallery. I studied art and moved to New York in
2008 dreaming of making it as an artist. It wasn't easy. I lived in
a maybe-legal warehouse space that doubled as a poorly-ventilated
art studio. My first day job was stocking shelves at Trader Joe's,
which covered my rent and groceries but, at New York prices, not
much else. My best friend in NYC had a side hustle making artist
websites by hacking them out on top of WordPress. He was great at
it. Through that side-hustle, he got approached to make an online
store for a small business. Shopify wasn't wasn't widely known back
then and he needed help. So he proposed to me: "Hey John, I know
you have a nerdy side. Do you think you could learn to program and
we could make the website together?" I told him "No way! That's
crazy! It would take me years to learn to program!" But he said
"Look, there's this new thing called Ruby on Rails. At least just
Google that before you say 'no'". So I did a Rails tutorial and
thought "Hmm, maybe I _could_ do this." We accepted the gig and
I've been a happy coder ever since. (We did _not_ ship the site on
time.) I'm all in on coding now, but most of my artist friends are
still making art, and still working day jobs. Their studios are
full of amazing paintings that barely anyone gets to see. And for
every one of my friends there are a thousand other artists out
there, cranking out amazing work and not selling it because they
don't have galleries selling it for them. A couple years ago, my
cofounder John (we're both named John) told me that he had bought a
painting from an artist he'd met. He couldn't believe how great the
paintings were, how cool the artist was, how the artists' studio
was this cool warehouse space that was overflowing with unsold
paintings. He knew me as a programmer - but wasn't I a painter
before that? He had the idea that we could put our experiences
together and make a website where people could buy art from all the
amazing but not-famous artists around them. We started Art in Res
as a nights-and-weekends project. We found lots of people who liked
the idea of buying art - but we also realized that most people who
aren't hardcore art collectors think that paying over $100 for a
painting is hard to swallow. The thing is though, that paintings
are made by hand, often painstakingly over long periods of time,
and so they don't benefit from the economics of scale that create
the prices that modern consumers expect. We resolve that by having
our buyers purchase art on _installment plans_, where each payment
results in a payment to the artist. In normal circumstances,
revenue for artists tends to be spiky and unpredictable. Once an
artist on Art in Res gets a couple installment plans going, they
have a nice, predictable revenue stream. And a buyer who is
purchasing this way gets to live with a unique, hand-made painting
for ~$30-60 per month. It works really well for both parties.
We're working on Art in Res full-time now and our team has grown to
5 people (all creatives in some capacity or another.) We're John,
Dan, Noni, Emily and me. We think art should be affordable and
artists should get paid. There's so much amazing art out there,
collecting dust in studios. It deserves to find loving homes. <3
Thanks so much, and we can't wait to hear your thoughts! - PS -
I've been lurking HN for close to a decade and this is thrilling
for me!
Author : JohnFriel
Score : 278 points
Date : 2020-04-09 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago)
| koevet wrote:
| Great idea and execution. I love art and I buy once in a while
| from galleries, but I'm often turned down by the steep prices.
| Any plan to expand to Europe?
| enrichp wrote:
| okey
| vector_spaces wrote:
| My main qualm is the hijacking of the browser back button. I
| despise when sites do this, and I know I'm not alone.
|
| Other than that the design is excellent. I like that you list
| SKUs on the main page and that there isn't a lot of cruft or
| excessive negative space.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| Totally with you on this. It's super annoying! We're working on
| a fix.
| danmchugh wrote:
| We have shipped a fix for this now. Apologies for the
| frustration it caused.
| milofeynman wrote:
| When I look for art I almost exclusively look for watercolor (or
| a specific style of realistic western oil). Some more filters
| based on medium would be useful.
| ARothfusz wrote:
| I really enjoyed making combinations on the filters to see what
| (I thought) unlikely combinations existed, and I was happy with
| what I found (e.g. minimal organic, architecture face). Does the
| artist apply the labels? Or is classification part of your
| curation? In any case, nice work. I hope your market finds you!
| danmchugh wrote:
| I'm happy you liked combining the filters, I'm always
| pleasantly surprised what I discover when I use them. Currently
| we process and tag all of the artworks as part of our curation.
|
| Curation is a very important aspect of helping people find
| things that resonate. We have more things in our roadmap to
| keep improving this for people, and for artists to provide more
| details about their work.
| sherlock_h wrote:
| Cool idea. I wish if I send links to friends (via iMessages,
| Whatsapp, FB) that the link preview populates with the images of
| the page in question and not a general image. For the artist
| page, I would like it to show an image from the artist and for
| the link of an individual painting I would like it to show the
| painting in question
| [deleted]
| colejoh wrote:
| This is really awesome! Love browsing the artists and seeing
| their different styles.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| At this stage of the Art Market evolution, I applaud anything,
| that's not churning out pretty pictures from "art" farms in the
| third world (no offence here, pure economics, someone's just
| using low quality of life in these countries).
| dbcurtis wrote:
| I love what you are trying to do. My family has a few artists in
| it (none full-time enough to pay the rent) so I have a visceral
| understanding of the passion that drives your idea.
|
| After looking at several paintings, I found it difficult to get
| excited about any of them. Not because I didn't like them, but
| the web site just doesn't give the art presence. I mainly looked
| at oils and acrylics, and I could not get any idea of the
| brushwork, the texture. I just could not connect with any of them
| across the intertubes.
|
| So I love the idea, but to me it seems the challenge you face is
| how to present the art. Sorry I don't really have any great
| suggestions -- more views of each piece that allow for examining
| the technique? More careful lighting of the photos in a way the
| best complements the art? It is a big challenge and I don't have
| any great ideas.
|
| But there is something about being there -- we have all seen
| Munch's "The Scream" or Van Gogh's "Starry Night" a zillion times
| on the internet, on mouse pads, in cartoon parodies -- but
| actually standing in front of those paintings is an experience
| from another world. I want to get as close to that experience as
| I can when I look at your artist's works.
|
| I think you need to up the curation somehow -- maybe some
| comments from the artist about the piece, or some very close
| images of exciting details.
|
| Very sincerely best of luck, I hope you succeed for your artists.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I also agree that the images matter a lot. All the photographs
| of paintings are taken against the same coloured wall. I don't
| see why that shouldn't be the background of the website too. I
| think it would make it look like there's more space between the
| paintings.
|
| I think if I were choosing something I liked, I'd want to just
| look at the pictures first (a gallery I suppose) without much
| distraction. On my screen there's a load of search controls
| taking up a third of my screen (but maybe other people have a
| better idea of what they're looking for).
|
| It's probably also worthwhile trying to make the images work
| with the wide gamut displays that are starting to become more
| common (mainly on various apple products) as they will
| magically just look a bit better/more colourful.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| > So I love the idea, but to me it seems the challenge you face
| is how to present the art. Sorry I don't really have any great
| suggestions -- more views of each piece that allow for
| examining the technique? More careful lighting of the photos in
| a way the best complements the art? It is a big challenge and I
| don't have any great ideas.
|
| I agree with you on this! We're planning to roll out detail
| shots and installation shots soon, and I think those will go a
| long way to helping viewers get a sense for the IRL presence of
| certain works.
|
| Also, while we don't have a concrete plan for it yet, it's
| clear that some artists need help photographing their work.
|
| > Very sincerely best of luck, I hope you succeed for your
| artists.
|
| Thank you!
| lukevp wrote:
| John,
|
| I think this is a great idea! This is probably not a core
| competency in your platform, but I can imagine a lot of
| artists don't have a resource to get decent photos taken (
| not good camera, or understanding of composition, etc). Would
| there be some way to partner with local photographers to have
| them come out using your platform to either connect or maybe
| even pay for it? For example, $50 for the trip out and to set
| up if within 30 miles, and then $20 per piece to digitize it
| with multiple angles and staging?
|
| Either way, good luck with the platform and I've passed it
| along to my wife, who is an artist.
| blast wrote:
| That reminds me of how the biggest thing that Airbnb did for
| growth in the early days was offer to send hosts a
| professional photographer to make their flat look more
| appealing. I bet you could do something similar.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| > Also, while we don't have a concrete plan for it yet, it's
| clear that some artists need help photographing their work.
|
| Absolutely. Photography is it's own media, with it's own
| techniques to master. I doubt many painters are going to have
| the necessary lighting equipment and the know-how to use it.
| Not that they couldn't -- it's just not their media. Some
| assistance from a specialist would help a great deal.
| ethanappleby wrote:
| John, this is an industry with a huge graveyard of failed
| startups doing the same thing. And the only ones left - Artsy,
| just went through a huge firing and recapping and I wouldnt give
| them long. Leaf group is trying to get rid of Saatchi in a fire
| sale and ArtFinder is barely break even with a team less than a
| dozen and making money from charging artists.
|
| So given this idea does not seem different than the many before
| (and far from the 10x YC talks about when the needed improvement
| of a product to win a space), what am I missing?
|
| Is there an underlying technology, unique community angle, or do
| you believe the timing wasnt before from the time of Artix to
| 2019 but 2020 is the year.
|
| I love artists and design, and am shocked this has not happened
| yet, so Im rooting for you.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| > I love artists and design, and am shocked this has not
| happened yet, so Im rooting for you.
|
| I really appreciate it! And I appreciate the thoughtfulness of
| your questions.
|
| One aspect is that we're not business people looking at this
| problem in a cold, analytic light: we care about the wellbeing
| of artists and the joy that people get from having art in their
| homes. I know from my experience as an artist that most artists
| are suspicious of new businesses - but we've found a way to
| work with artists where they really trust us. We do more for
| our artists than just provide a self-service tool for them to
| list commodities and get some sales - we coach them on selling;
| we help them build community with other artists; we're building
| new features to fit their workflows; and we'll even hop on the
| phone with them and let them vent to us about life as an
| artist, haha.
|
| Artsy seems like a great platform, but we're mostly targeting a
| different type of buyer than they seem to be. We're also
| working with artists directly, rather than through their
| galleries. So, despite both being online art marketplaces, I
| think it's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison between us
| and them.
|
| Regarding the rest of the startup graveyard, when we talk to
| our users on the buyer side of our marketplace, they haven't
| heard of things like Saatchi, or even Artsy, in many cases. So
| I think that, to a significant degree, the mental category of
| "place to buy art online" is still open, at least for people
| who aren't already experienced art collectors.
|
| So I think in our case the answer is timing + obsessive
| attention to our users.
| kamilszybalski wrote:
| I can't help but acknowledge how accurate this comment is, this
| is a damn hard industry.
|
| Here's all I'll add; you should really think about what problem
| you are solving and why. Is it true that artists don't sell art
| because buyers can't find it? Or is it rather that buyers are
| very specific about why, and from who, they buy art when they
| buy it?
|
| One of the most important things successful artists do is
| market themselves well, even the "best" artist won't sell art
| without an audience and a brand, period. Perhaps instead of
| creating a marketplace you can create tools to help artists
| market themselves and build that audience, GL to you and the
| team.
| jcmontx wrote:
| I like the concept. It looks like, though, your business is not
| art but financing. Very interesting twist.
|
| Do you charge a fixed fee or a %?
| JohnFriel wrote:
| We take a percentage. For a given sale, 70% goes to the artist
| and 30% goes to the platform.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| That's a pretty large cut. What stops a user from just
| messaging the artist directly and buying the work from them
| directly for a lower price?
| ChefboyOG wrote:
| This is a pretty common pushback on marketplaces in
| general, but in my experience working on several, this only
| happens in specific situations. I doubt it would be much of
| a problem for Art in Res, namely because:
|
| 1. With higher price points, the security and financial
| services of the platform become more valuable. Installment
| payments, for instance, would likely be beyond the
| abilities of many artists to orchestrate. The platform also
| likely provides some guarantee on the buyer side that all
| that money won't go missing and that the product will be
| delivered as expected.
|
| 2. The platform will usually have some language in their
| agreement that makes off-platform contracts with people you
| discovered in-platform punishable. If you've ever used a
| hiring platform like Hired or A-List, you'll know that
| these fees are persuasive.
|
| With cheaper platforms like UpWork, I'm sure this kind of
| thing is common, but on more expensive market places it
| isn't as pervasive as one might think.
| [deleted]
| a_c wrote:
| Art has a long history of patronage, e.g. from da vinci to
| Jasper Johns. So it didn't come as a surprise to me
| gangstertim wrote:
| Congrats on your launch! The site looks great--and it strikes a
| chord with me, because I'm working on an art marketplace as well
| (albeit for prints, not originals). Given we have adjacent, not
| competitive platforms, let me know if you'd ever like to do some
| co-marketing! Our product is www.vsual.co
|
| A few things I noticed when looking at your site: - I like the
| detail views you have on your pieces, but a the higher
| resolution, you may want to consider a watermark--and it's
| possible it will help with artist trust, as well. - The "Apply as
| an Artist" link is kind of buried. It took me a while to find it.
| Might be worth moving that up, if getting more artists on board
| is a primary goal? - As a buyer, I'm still interested in the
| total price, and it's a little hard to comparison shop when both
| the base price and period for works are different - I actually
| really like the "message artist" functionality. That's a great
| touch! I'm sure artists appreciate it too
| changdizzle wrote:
| Checked out the site - looks awesome! Is there any way to
| filter? It's cool at first glance looking through the whole
| selection on the site but could see it getting tedious the 2nd
| time+.
| gangstertim wrote:
| Thanks Changdizzle! There are a few ways to filter--you can
| filter by medium by clicking the "Photography" "3D" or
| "Illustration" boxes, or you can filter by artist by going to
| the Shops page in the top nav. Or, you can search prints for
| tags. Did you have something else in mind?
| changdizzle wrote:
| I'm thinking more orientation / ratio - for example, right
| now the wall behind my couch in the living room is bare and
| I would love a landscape print for it. On VSUAL I have to
| manually scroll through to see the ones that have that
| orientation. This is something that Art in Res has on their
| search function.
| philfrasty wrote:
| Is this US only? Didn't find any mention on this in the FAQ or
| signup page.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| It's US only for now, but once we figure out shipping and taxes
| we're excited to open up internationally.
| [deleted]
| davidajackson wrote:
| Cool but have to do math in my head while reading the page
| initially, can you add total price.
|
| Idea: sell some AI generated art for charity.
| paul_milovanov wrote:
| Question for founder: who takes on credit risk, the artist or Art
| in Res? Who does buyer credit check and determines interest rate?
| What does "responsible for damages" mean?
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Very cool. I'd love to see this extended to photography. good
| luck!
| brandnamehq wrote:
| What happens if a customer stops making monthly payments?
|
| Does the financing model work by offloading all risk to the
| artist?
|
| Are there some protections?
| JohnFriel wrote:
| We take on the risk (it's one of the main reasons for our
| commission). If someone stops paying, either they send their
| artwork back to the artist or, in the worst case scenario, we
| pay the artist their full cut at a loss to us.
| duxup wrote:
| I like to go to the local art institute's sale for students.
|
| I've found some amazing things there for ~$50 to $100.
|
| Personally I would find it hard to spend a great deal more than
| that based on a web view. The difference between 'meh' for me and
| 'amazing' is very subtle / really shines when you see it in
| person.
|
| Still a great idea.
| danmchugh wrote:
| We agree, displaying art on a website is very different to
| seeing it in-person.
|
| It's hard to replace seeing something in-person but we would
| love to bring some of that experience to our site. We are
| currently working on ways to display this better and give more
| context for the art.
| jes5199 wrote:
| etsy but expensive
| elymar wrote:
| This is a great idea! I've browsed for quite a bit now. My only
| suggestion is that the thumbnails are a bit small, so it's hard
| to see the image without clicking on it.
| thecupisblue wrote:
| Oh wow!
|
| I can't thank you enough for this - as an artist it's something I
| personally want and I know many of my friends need - would love
| it if you'd put the artist application button somewhere more
| visible, people are gonna look for it.
|
| This makes me jittery, I hope I fell ready to submit an
| application soon.
|
| Any chance you expand beyond paintings?
|
| Thank you and keep up the great work!
| danmchugh wrote:
| We'll take a look at making the link more visible, agree it's a
| little less prominent right now.
|
| We're excited to move into more types of art other than
| paintings. We currently have a small number of sculptures on
| the site, and have been taking baby steps towards other types
| such as limited prints.
|
| Whenever you're ready to submit an application we would love to
| read it!
| mstade wrote:
| I love this idea and I'm sure you'll figure out the pricing stuff
| eventually. I have to admit the whole focus on price kind of
| throws me off a bit. Whenever I go looking for pretty things, be
| it art or furniture or decorative objects I rarely start by
| looking at the price - I look at the thing itself and if it
| strikes a nerve then I figure out things like "can I afford
| this?"
|
| To that end, I'd like a view where the focus is the art itself.
| Not who made it, not what it costs, not even the name of the
| piece. Let me discover that as I go, show me full screen pictures
| I can swipe through on my screen, and tap or click to learn more
| about the piece. Make the art the focus and put everything else
| in the background, Not even showing it till I'm interested in
| learning more. That's what I love about going to galleries - the
| art takes center stage and if you want to learn more there's a
| tiny sign next to it, and if you want more still you talk to
| whoever works there but the art comes first. I feel like your
| site is trying a bit too hard to make a sale. I absolutely agree
| that artists should be paid for their art, and I'm happy to pay
| for art that I care for, but ultimately I just want pretty
| things. Show me the pretty things first, then let's talk business
| when I find something I like. I'm sorry if this comes off as too
| callous!
|
| Also - and this is probably a really difficult problem to solve -
| I don't really know what I'm looking for in art. I just know some
| things I like, but probably not all. I love Monet and other
| impressionist painters, but I also love old Japanese woodblock
| prints like the great wave. I'm also a huge fan of cubism and I
| can't get enough of art nouveau. I'm not a huge fan of abstract
| art, but I like some. I love evocative photography, especially in
| black and white. I feel like maybe my taste profile fits a multi-
| spoke radar chart, where each data point is a relative preference
| rather than a binary I like this or that type tick box filter.
| I'm not exactly sure what I mean by all this, just that your
| search does nothing to help me, and I'm probably not gonna spend
| too much time looking at page after page of stuff that may or may
| not be interesting to me. I would 100% subscribe to a feed that
| fits my profile though, and especially so if it's smart enough to
| also understand other types of art I don't know about, but
| perhaps might fit my profile anyway. I guess what I'm saying is,
| if your site could be my personalized art dealer, there's a good
| chance I'll spend more money then I probably should.
| jes5199 wrote:
| _wow_ those paintings are bland
| tjwds wrote:
| Through friends, I've become a little acquainted with the art
| industry and how collections happen and get shown in the most
| general terms.
|
| I feel like Etsy used to be a place where individual creators
| created things... and now it's mostly used by industry
| professionals with a specific vibe or aesthetic feel.
|
| Is the thing that distinguishes Art in Res from something like
| Artsy that you're buying directly from the artist? How do you all
| plan to deal with, for example, galleries that might want to use
| or abuse this platform?
| lazzlazzlazz wrote:
| Very cool project -- the site is gorgeous. I've long thought
| there should be a way to expand artists' reach outside the
| expensive, laborious, and dated gallery system, while preserving
| the dignity, quality, and price of the work.
|
| I'd love to understand the differences between Art in Res and
| Saatchi Art.
| californical wrote:
| This is a neat idea -- getting financing for art would feel
| really strange for a lot of people visiting an art gallery. Your
| site makes the idea more approachable!
|
| Personally, I'd prefer to see a "total cost" comparison of the
| purchase price vs financing rather than calculate it in my head
| anyways, but I'm not sure if that would discourage sales at all
| for other people.
|
| Quick semi-thought-out idea: you could have a "buy it now" price
| that is higher than the financing price, and indicate that
| customers will save 5% by financing, for example. This would add
| some more transparency, and maybe even make people feel
| psychologically more into the idea of the payment plan. You said
| one of your goals included creating a revenue stream for artists
| to normalize their income a bit, so I thought this might help
| incentivize that even more, while still giving the option to
| purchase outright (some people will never want to finance).
| Personally, I try to never finance anything. Probably still
| wouldn't for 10% off. But for 20% off I would be much more
| tempted to finance rather than buy outright
| owenversteeg wrote:
| One thing I've always been curious about with art in this price
| range ($500-5000) is the resale value. Say your tastes change and
| you'd like to get rid of one of these after a few years, how
| painful is it to sell? What are your chances of getting 50% of
| the purchase price? 90%? 150%?
| theK wrote:
| I had taken a look at the affordable art market about a decade
| ago. What I found out was that "art as an investment" is either
|
| 1. About art normal people can't afford
|
| 2. A full time speculation job
|
| Unfortunately neither of those worked for me. I don't know if
| things have changed in the last years, it seems that there are
| a couple more platforms around nowadays. I can go into detail
| about all that stuff but my personal takeaway was to completely
| ignore investment value in art until the price tags get close
| to seven figures. And yes, I still am a couple orders of
| magnitude away from that last price tag. I also don't care,
| whatever art I own I am happy with and if I fall out of love
| with one piece I usually just gift it somewhere. On that last
| part, there are also usually some good opportunities to give
| art away for a good cause. Such auctions happen from time to
| time. I can imagine though that other people have had
| considerably different experiences with affordable art than
| mine :-)
|
| Note: art in the above is meant to be paintings and sculptures,
| never bought anything else.
| jedieaston wrote:
| What would be neat for this kind of service is a way to sell
| the piece back, either to the artist or to the service. If they
| knew you bought it from the site they'd know it was authentic.
|
| Is a Gazelle-style site for art a thing, that's not eBay? I
| don't know that you'd want to get rid of art you bought very
| often, but if you move and it doesn't fit with the new
| aesthetic, you might want to swap it for something more on
| point.
| orky56 wrote:
| A rent the runway for art would be an amazing idea. It would
| require a large deposit to cover the initial art piece but
| provide customers with a dynamic art collection almost similar
| to how museums have visiting exhibits. I'd be happy to work
| with someone on this.
| bcbrown wrote:
| The Seattle Art Museum does this. There's an
| attached/affiliated gallery that sells art, and also provides
| rentals, as long as you're also a member of SAM. It's 10% of
| the price to rent for 3 months, renewable once, and if you
| decide to purchase, half the rental amount goes towards the
| purchase price. I used it quite a bit when I first began
| collecting art.
| werber wrote:
| I read Liz Phair's book earlier this year, and Oberlin does
| (or perhaps did) do that for students, for something like 20
| bucks a year in the 80s for UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS, crazy.
| hello_asdf wrote:
| Looks great, what's the advantage over SaatchiArt? Is it just a
| competing service?
|
| Couple things that I'd like to have:
|
| 1. Filter by full pricing
|
| 2. Filter by canvas / wood / etc.
|
| 3. Filter by oil / acrylic / etc.
| bing_dai wrote:
| Congratulations, John! What a great initiative. I am in the
| artistic community (classical music) as well, so it's very
| inspiring to see you launching a project for the community.
|
| I have a suggestion and a question.
|
| Suggestion: your site does not have an About page of some sort to
| talk about the story behind the creation of the company and the
| experience of the co-founders. You have truly remarkable story,
| as I read in this post. So please include it to your site!
|
| Question: I am curious about how COVID-19 has impacted the art
| community? My classical musician friends are certainly suffering
| financially and mentally because all of the concerts are
| suspended. I wonder how are artists doing in the pandemic.
|
| Thank you and keep up with the great work!! Wishing you all the
| success.
| baby_wipe wrote:
| Very cool, but too expensive for me.
| joering2 wrote:
| Inability to hit back button is a killer to me. Instantly got
| into panic mode and scared to visit again :(
| danmchugh wrote:
| Thanks for highlighting this bug. Sorry it made you panic!
| We're adding it to our bug-fix queue as high priority.
| danmchugh wrote:
| We've shipped a fix for this bug now. Thanks again for
| letting us know about it. Hopefully you can continue browsing
| un-hindered!
| [deleted]
| ksj2114 wrote:
| Awesome idea and execution. Congrats :)
| stereo wrote:
| How do you make sure the buyers will keep paying even after
| receiving the artwork? You don't keep the money in escrow or
| anything like that, do you?
|
| Is there a way, as a buyer, to figure out how much shipping would
| cost?
| JohnFriel wrote:
| If someone stops paying, they're required to return their
| artwork (we even used to frame the relationship as a "rental").
| In the case of a truly bad actor that stops paying and goes
| MIA, we make sure the artist gets paid, even if it's a loss for
| us.
|
| For now, we charge a flat price for domestic shipping (with two
| tiers based on parcel size.) A near/medium-term goal is to
| integrate with shipping APIs for more nuanced shipping prices.
| superhuzza wrote:
| Be careful with insurance as they may consider this voluntary
| parting as opposed to theft if someone refuses to pay and
| refuses to return the painting
| pavlov wrote:
| I like it, and will definitely come back to see new works over
| time. I occassionally buy art and enjoy browsing the well-known
| auction sites for thrills (you never know if the next lot is a
| masterpiece or overpriced trash).
|
| A few suggestions:
|
| 1) Structured artist bios. Right now it's all over the place:
| some of your artists have a single paragraph, some a wall of text
| listing everything they ever did and attended.
|
| As a buyer, I'm looking for the usual reassuring signals: this
| artist went to school X, exhibited at gallery Y that I've heard
| about, and their work was purchased for collection Z that sounds
| fancy... Maybe make it easier for artists to highlight those and
| even search by those criteria?
|
| 2) Generated preview images showing size of the work next to a
| human. I think Sotheby's uses these on their site. It's super
| helpful to be able to see the work on a simulated gallery wall
| next to a person.
|
| If you need a beta tester, I'd be happy to help. My email is in
| the profile.
| werber wrote:
| I'm struggling between considering these home decor or investment
| pieces. It doesn't seem like any (that I've checked) are coming
| up on artnet, so when you say unknown do you mean like even to
| the art world? Also when filtering for large items in getting
| things as small as 6x8".
| jvln wrote:
| That is an interesting question. I would like to buy a nice
| painting or a sculpture but how can I distinguish a piece that
| is worth considering.
| Tarrosion wrote:
| I like this idea! Any plans to expand to types of art which are
| not paintings? e.g. I love colorful geometric glass art, and to
| the extent I collect art [I have definitely noticed the "I should
| buy some art" urge growing as my age and salary grow], that's
| where I expect to spend my dollars.
| smhinsey wrote:
| I'm fine buying prints or other similar things online but with
| original art, you need to see it in context and detail. I would
| love some sort of pseudo-VR style experience to actually get a
| sense for texture and depth. For example, this one taken at
| random* is almost $5k and on my 4k laptop screen the zoomed in
| version isn't particularly crisp and I only have the one fixed
| zoom level. I can imagine paying in that ballpark for art but not
| under these circumstances. I can appreciate that there might be
| issues with having too high res an image available, etc., but
| still... Maybe you could mitigate this with similar return
| policies to the online mattress places. As is, the risk of
| spending a lot and ending up with something that isn't quite what
| you expect is just too high for the big ticket items.
|
| * https://artinres.com/artworks/rebecca-kaufman-pre-experience
| csomar wrote:
| - I don't really care much about the Covid-19 relief. If you are
| donating then good for you and for helping the community. But I
| do _actually_ avoid websites /services that try to advertise
| donations as a selling point. I can donate myself if I want to.
|
| - Also, do not penalize artists who do not want to donate to
| Covid-19. That's their business. They might be giving more,
| through other ways, to the community. They might be tight with
| money. Whatever. But the way the website is presenting it is that
| these guys are the _generous guys_.
|
| - I don't know how New York is but this photo is NSFW and
| probably not so for families:
| https://artinres.com/artworks/marika-wagle-day-13-2020 You might
| want to have a filter for that.
| gergles wrote:
| In addition to being NSFW, it's also a print, and I would be
| annoyed if I got it and didn't realize that. I think it's very
| easy to skip the line that says "limited edition print"
| especially given the material description being the original
| materials.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| This is a great catch! Thank you for pointing that out.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| > - I don't really care much about the Covid-19 relief. If you
| are donating then good for you and for helping the community.
| But I do actually avoid websites/services that try to advertise
| donations as a selling point. I can donate myself if I want to.
| > - Also, do not penalize artists who do not want to donate to
| Covid-19. That's their business. They might be giving more,
| through other ways, to the community. They might be tight with
| money. Whatever. But the way the website is presenting it is
| that these guys are the generous guys.
|
| More than anything else, we rolled out the 'COVID-19 support'
| features because of what our artists were telling us. We got
| flooded by artists telling us that they wanted to use their art
| sales to raise money for COVID-19 relief. But we also knew that
| many artists are tight on cash, so we said "instead of
| sacrificing _your_ cut, let us give _our_ cut, and you can keep
| yours during this insane time. " The last thing we wanted was
| to penalize anyone.
|
| > - I don't know how New York is but this photo is NSFW and
| probably not so for families:
| https://artinres.com/artworks/marika-wagle-day-13-2020 You
| might want to have a filter for that.
|
| You're right! It's time for us to implement filtering based on
| sensitive content.
| 101008 wrote:
| Hi John. I don't buy or sell art, but I am a book collector, so
| this touches me tangential because I participate in a lot of
| auctions (auction houses, often, they sell all tpyes of art in
| the same auction, including books).
|
| I loved your website, and I would find myself using it or sharing
| it with friends if I would be in the US. By the way, I will check
| your job openings from time to time because this is one of the
| startups that I would be passionate to work on! Kudos and best of
| luck!
| rodonn wrote:
| I really like the idea and your implementation. One request: I
| wish I could search for art by artists who are women or
| underrepresented minorities.
| cheriot wrote:
| Since we're all commenting on the price display, I'd be really
| curious about my own behavior if it was not visible on the
| gallery view.
|
| (I really want to find a less expensive one that I like)
| leephillips wrote:
| Do you have any interest in brokering digital art, as well?
| (Great idea and well executed, by the way.)
| pinky1417 wrote:
| I hope the won't-pay-$100-for-a-painting (or $100 per
| installment) crowd is large enough to make your business
| worthwhile. It'd be amazing to simultaneously fund new artists,
| bring regular Joes/Janes into the art world, and have a
| sustainable business at the same time.
|
| But that little MBA demon on my shoulder is whispering that
| targeting low willingness-to-spend consumers will result in, at
| best, strongly limiting growth and, at worst, a perpetually money
| losing business. I'm just speculating since I don't know your
| financials, so if you're already in the black, my apologies. If
| you're both in the black _and_ don't care about growth, apologies
| again.
|
| But assuming you want to grow and/or aspire to be profitable,
| you'll either need to grow the size of the art market (hard) or
| sell to wealthier (or at least, people who spend more of their
| money on art) consumers (less hard). Social proof is a huge
| factor for buyers of substantial art, to the point that a handful
| of people/galleries/etc get to define what constitutes great -
| and therefore very expensive - art (there was a great Adam Ruins
| Everything episode on this
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dw5kme5Q_Yo). My mom is very involved
| with the main art museum in my city, going on trips with other
| benefactors to buy art for the museum. She also buys art herself
| - not crazy expensive super known pieces like Damien Hurst's
| shark, but still high-end pieces from up-and-coming artists (to
| put it another way, she buys pieces that aren't in the $1
| million+ range). She uses her own sensibilities primarily, but to
| find the art itself and ensure the price she's paying isn't for a
| dumpster, she relies on people in the art world.
|
| So, I'm just suggesting you consider two characters of art
| consumers: (1) social proof drives their decisions and (2) there
| are often wealthier. Your creative juices might find something
| really innovative for the social proof component; I don't have
| any specific suggestions at the moment. But on (2), consider
| targeting people in between Steven A Cohen (bought Hurst's shark
| for $8-$12 million) and the <$100 art buyer. Given the success
| (until recently) of Restoration Hardware, I believe you could
| find people willing to pay $1,000-$10,000 for art. People pay
| thousands of dollars for a sofa, why not the art that's on
| display in their homes? You could imagine quite a few
| professional, internet savvy DINCs (dual income no children) in
| their 30s or 40s being interested in having a substantial art
| piece. They may be intimidated by galleries and not know what to
| select. Just something to think about to boost your margins.
| tigerlily wrote:
| Hi John, any plans to expand outside the USA?
| bcbrown wrote:
| Nice launch! Here's some feedback:
|
| At first I found it hard to find the "next" arrow at the bottom.
| After scrolling through the first page, I gave up trying to find
| the next arrow and moved on to looking at the filters. Because
| all the text was greyed out, at first I thought they were
| unavailable, like perhaps you have to first sign up for an
| account before you can use the filters.
|
| I would have liked the "size" filters to be multiple-selection; I
| wanted to see all medium and large art, but couldn't select both.
|
| One suggestion: add the ability for some people to create
| curations. I know I'm not going to like a majority of the art
| that's listed, so being able to find a couple people with similar
| taste and browsing their selections would make it more likely I'd
| stay more engaged with the platform.
|
| But perhaps I'm just not the target audience, too. I'm an art
| collector with a couple dozen pieces, in the $X00 to $X000 range.
| I prefer galleries to online marketplaces, because the curation
| provides real value to me; I consistently patronize the couple of
| galleries that match my preferences, and the limited selection in
| each exhibition reduces decision fatigue while providing reasons
| to come back consistently over time.
|
| Good luck!
| JohnFriel wrote:
| > At first I found it hard to find the "next" arrow at the
| bottom. After scrolling through the first page, I gave up
| trying to find the next arrow and moved on to looking at the
| filters. Because all the text was greyed out, at first I
| thought they were unavailable, like perhaps you have to first
| sign up for an account before you can use the filters. > I
| would have liked the "size" filters to be multiple-selection; I
| wanted to see all medium and large art, but couldn't select
| both.
|
| Thank you, this is super helpful! We'll find a way to make it
| more clear that those UI components are there and should be
| used.
|
| > One suggestion: add the ability for some people to create
| curations. I know I'm not going to like a majority of the art
| that's listed, so being able to find a couple people with
| similar taste and browsing their selections would make it more
| likely I'd stay more engaged with the platform.
|
| This is in the works!
|
| > But perhaps I'm just not the target audience, too. I'm an art
| collector with a couple dozen pieces, in the $X00 to $X000
| range. I prefer galleries to online marketplaces, because the
| curation provides real value to me; I consistently patronize
| the couple of galleries that match my preferences, and the
| limited selection in each exhibition reduces decision fatigue
| while providing reasons to come back consistently over time.
|
| You seem like the target audience to me! This is insightful and
| helpful feedback and I'd love to talk more if you want:
| jf@artinres.com
| Kique wrote:
| Love the site, and honestly not unreasonable prices compared to
| galleries in my area (Chicago). Love the banana for scale
| feature!
| itronitron wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what 'take' and 'total payout' are, and how
| they relate to each other and the total price of an artwork?
| TenJack wrote:
| This is cool! One small UI recommendation would be to make the
| pagination (1 of 92) in the bottom right bigger and more
| prominent. I almost couldn't find it.
| danmchugh wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestion. We'll definitely add it to our
| considerations. Just curious, were you on computer or mobile
| device?
| kleinishere wrote:
| Tech stack question -
|
| Incredible website that is both feature rich and succinct to the
| content. As far as marketplaces go, there are some known
| platforms (e.g. ShareTribe) and payment options (e.g. Stripe
| Connect) - did you all "build" from the ground up or "buy" in
| putting this together?
| JohnFriel wrote:
| Thank you! We're makers, so we built it.
|
| Here's the stack:
|
| - React & redux on the front end
|
| - Rails on the back end
|
| - Postgres & redis for persistence
|
| - Stripe (including Connect) for payments
|
| (edited for line breaks)
| kleinishere wrote:
| The bespoke nature shines through in all the best ways.
| Thanks!
| RickS wrote:
| Edit: huge props to the team for shipping a fix for this in
| minutes.
|
| ---
|
| I want to love this idea, but I struggle to get past the lack of
| full price when browsing. It says "$48 * 24 months" and expects
| me to intuit that the product costs $1152.
|
| Or rather, I worry that it expects me _not_ to intuit that.
| Breaking the absolute price into a series of less frightening
| numbers to obscure the magnitude of a purchase feels slimy when
| cell phone carriers use it to trick people into buying new
| iPhones for "cheap". This seems like the same tactic. Especially
| since the payback periods vary between paintings, so you can't
| even compare apples to apples in terms of monthly dollar cost.
|
| It's okay that paintings are expensive. It's less okay to
| undermine people's ability to reason about the cost of things.
| [deleted]
| JohnFriel wrote:
| Edit: Roger that, we're showing the full price now.
|
| --
|
| This is super helpful, thank you! The last thing we want to do
| is to deceive people.
|
| There's a lot of information we want to convey in those little
| artwork thumbnails and we've been struggling with how to cram
| it all in. We thought that two prices in that small space would
| be confusing -- but I think you're right that it was a mistake
| and we need to find a way to work it in.
| RickS wrote:
| Wow. Seriously impressive turnaround time, and thanks for
| listening!
| rhizome wrote:
| I'd take a cue from pretty much every other retail business
| who does financing. "Low-cost financing available" in some
| general place, then on each tile just have "(or as low as
| $X/mo)" or something like that. When I look at it now, it's
| apparent that the the totals are different between up-front
| and financed prices, which makes me think I need to break out
| a calculator, which tells me there's about a 10% finance
| charge, which then makes me second-thought the purchase in
| general. K.I.S.S.! ;)
| KerryJones wrote:
| Kudos to the quick switch! Can see full prices now
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| Please add this to the search as well. Searching by monthly
| price is nearly useless. I want to search by price and then
| decide how I want to divide up my payments. Searching for
| say, under $50 is really frustrating because I see things
| priced $1000 and $100 mixed in together. Most people do have
| a budget.
| danenania wrote:
| "I want to love this idea, but I struggle to get past the lack
| of full price when browsing. It says "$48 * 24 months" and
| expects me to intuit that the product costs $1152."
|
| This seems like kind of a nitpick when lots of expensive things
| (not just cell phone plans) are priced this way. Apartment
| leases, car leases, internet/cable service, and insurance all
| come to mind. Saas subscriptions also commonly frame pricing in
| per month/per user terms (even for annual plans) and leave it
| to the buyer to figure out the total cost that entails. As long
| as it's clear that the price is a monthly installment and not a
| total, which does seem to be the case for Art in Res, I don't
| see a problem.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| sushisource wrote:
| Not to mention the fact that I suspect most people interested
| in purchasing fine art aren't exactly the type who care to
| finance the purchase.
| cpach wrote:
| You could be right! But if AiR is right they might be able to
| prove that there is actually demand for financing in this
| context.
| ForrestN wrote:
| I think part of their idea is that the sometimes-alienating
| "fine art" distinction, and the expectations around pricing
| that go with it, is keeping available art from people who
| would get a lot of pleasure from living with it. I think
| there's a type who thinks fine art isn't for them but will be
| shocked and pleased to be able to get a real, individually
| made art work for such a low monthly cost.
| simonrobb wrote:
| I mean, anecdotal data ra ra ra, but this is _super_
| appealing to me, and I 'll probably be making my first art
| purchase >$500 as a result.
| thiggy wrote:
| Used to work in an art gallery. Lots of people finance art.
| hhs wrote:
| This is amazing!
|
| Have you thought about adding details about what materials the
| artists used besides noting the basic supplies like "canvas" and
| "oil stick"?
|
| As a buyer, some may be interested specifically on what colour
| name / brand of materials the artists used. And if ambitious, why
| they used those items over others?
| danmchugh wrote:
| This is a great idea. It's definitely something we will look
| into. I love the idea of being able to explore more of these
| details in detail.
| hhs wrote:
| Thanks for the update. Might be an interesting
| differentiating factor - always wondered why galleries like
| White Cube to auction sites like Christie's lacked that
| granularity.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| Very cool, but I'd like to see the difference between the monthly
| and one-time total payments. The scale of the art is also
| difficult to perceive. Everything looks the same size and you
| have to look at the numbers on the bottom to see the size, but
| it's still hard to capture at a glance. I know there's probably
| some strategy to get highly normalized images of the art, but
| it's not very immersive.
|
| Otherwise, good luck with the project; I love the concept!
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Overall, I like the selection and I hope it goes well. It is
| genuinely hard to find something good that won't break your
| budget anywhere else. I am not sure if it was intended by filters
| on left side are grayed out for me ( took a while before I
| realized I could change them anyway ). Good luck!
|
| edit: side note/question. Any plans for including sculptures?
| kaybe wrote:
| Oooh, I just assumed one of my plugins had broken it and didn't
| even care to try.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| Thank you! This is great feedback. The filters are lower
| contrast because we want the attention to stay on the art. But
| they might be _too_ low-contrast and introduce usability
| problems.
|
| We love sculpture and we're really excited to have it on the
| site. Sculpture is tricky, though, because shipping is usually
| more expensive and it's trickier to pack sculptures in a way
| that keeps them safe. That said, we're gradually rolling it
| out. We have a tiny number of sculptures on the site right now
| and we're going to add more as we get more confident in
| shipping them.
| couchdb_ouchdb wrote:
| I love when you press the 'Show Size' button it puts a picture of
| a banana on the painting for comparison.
| danmchugh wrote:
| We love it too. We hope to have some more ways for you to
| visualize the art in the near future that provide more context.
| pletsch wrote:
| The site looks great, love the scale feature! What's your target
| demographic? I could see interior designers/companies who stage
| houses being a huge market for you.
| acomjean wrote:
| I like the site. I've been helping with Somerville Open Studios
| and we struggle to make a nice browser art listing for our 350
| member artists. We came up with "Itineraries" of studios to
| visit. (Or struggle to get some of our artists in larger studio
| buildings to upload there art).
|
| We have canceled our open studios event for May. We're always
| looking for ways to help our Artist's sell (being a non-profit we
| don't have the resources to broker the transactions.)
|
| If you don't mind I have questions: Do the artists have their own
| portal? Is the art Currated? Are you handling delivery and
| payments?
| caiobegotti wrote:
| Congrats on the launch, folks! It looks really nice and I loved
| the idea! The first thing I thought was "hey, maybe NOW this is
| an incentive to put my paintings somewhere trustworthy and see if
| it's commercially viable" regarding the stuff I do with acrylic
| and spatulas but then the whole artist application page felt...
| very unwelcoming... is it only for "real" artists with detailed
| portfolios and studio addresses? I didn't want to leave the
| application page feeling I'll be only allowed in Etsy-like places
| and be happy about it.
| ForrestN wrote:
| I've had the pleasure of purchasing a work via Art in Res and
| seeing the platform develop, and I can't wait to watch it
| continue to grow. Both sides of this market place--artists with
| serious art practices but no commercial gallery representation,
| people who love art but can't afford to buy from galleries--will
| get so much out of being connected to each other.
|
| If you haven't ever lived with art made by people who care deeply
| about making it, I suggest you set down $30 and try it! You'll be
| surprised how much it can enrich your life.
| simonrobb wrote:
| Spectacular! Well done on shipping a product/service which I've
| wanted for a long time. In particular the financing option will
| enable me to take the leap into the world of fine art for the
| first time.
| protonimitate wrote:
| The selection of work seems pretty high quality, but I'm curious
| - how does the artist/art selection process work?
|
| I come from a fine arts background and have always had issues
| with the contemporary art scene for it's artist to
| curator/gallery process. In general, social status and popularity
| seem to be the main currency for getting great art visible to the
| public.
|
| I would love to see a service like this that enables more
| "undiscovered" high quality work to be shown, and for more
| unrecognized artists to get paid for what they love, but at the
| same time opening it up too all work could lower the overall
| quality of the available work.
|
| Curation is hard - what system do you have in place for it?
| cpach wrote:
| Very good question. A quite tough challenge but probably not
| impossible.
|
| IMO, bad curation is something that is very apparent on sites
| like Etsy and Redbubble. So I do believe it's worth it to try
| to find a good system for it.
| queercode wrote:
| a lil bit of website feedback: on route change, please scroll the
| page to the top.
|
| if i scroll to the end of the home page, then go to "how it
| works", i'd expect not to be at the end of that page.
|
| love it, though!
| danmchugh wrote:
| Great find. I'm adding it to our bug-queue now. Thanks so much,
| I'm glad you like it despite our glitches!
| elorant wrote:
| This could work well for companies that could lease art for
| exhibiting it in their offices. The artist gains recognition and
| a steady income, the company raises their prestige and can change
| artwork every couple of years, and everyone is happy. It has been
| tried before and failed, I hope you guys make it.
| [deleted]
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| Why is there an application process for artists? I have some art
| but I doubt I would be accepted because there are loads of more
| famous and highly credentialed artists in my area.
| danmchugh wrote:
| Great question. We have an application process for a few
| reasons:
|
| 1. Because curation is important to us
|
| 2. So we can learn about the artist and how best to help them
|
| 3. So we can take time to help onboard artists and show them
| how best to make use of Art in Res
|
| We built Art in Res so that anyone can apply, and we take our
| time to consider every application.
| TaylorGood wrote:
| Is there somewhere on the website to express interest in becoming
| a featured artist?
| cdubzzz wrote:
| Hitting the back button after initial visit gives me a login
| prompt. That's pretty annoying...
|
| https://imgur.com/605DZMN
| JohnFriel wrote:
| 100% agree this is annoying. We're working on a fix.
| rhizome wrote:
| At least on the front page, the site does a self-reload which
| breaks the back button. This isn't merely annoying, or a dark
| pattern...it's just plain obnoxious and something I thought was
| left back in the "stickiness" 2000s.
|
| That a login page is tacked onto this is a new twist though,
| I'll hand them that.
| danmchugh wrote:
| Thanks for bringing this bug to our attention. I'll make sure
| this is added to the top of our bug-fix queue.
|
| Were you a guest user or logged in when this happened?
| cdubzzz wrote:
| Guest -- just a first arrival from HN.
| danmchugh wrote:
| Just shipped a fix for this. Sorry for the frustration in
| the meantime. Again, thanks so much for highlighting the
| bug.
| cdubzzz wrote:
| Confirmed fixed. Thanks!
| itcrowd wrote:
| I like the idea of making art more accessible by spacing out the
| payment. Congratulations on the launch!
|
| I won't comment on the art for sale, because I think it is too
| much in the eye of the beholder but I will give some feedback on
| your website and concept.
|
| - Why fixed installments? Why not say "this piece costs 300$ buy
| now, or pay 10 installments of 35$ or 20x20$" (forget the
| numbers, just an example).
|
| - why are there so few pictures of the work? If I buy a piece of
| art I want to look at it from all angles, get up close, see the
| structure, see it from far, see the frame etc.
|
| - since _you_ got excited from seeing artists ' workspace, why
| not show them to us? Why not show those cool warehouses/storage
| containers/houses where the art is piled floor to ceiling?
|
| - When I click on an artist's bio, the last thing I want to see
| is a full-bleed picture of his face. I want to see where he
| works, how he is inspired or how this piece was formed.
|
| - out of curiosity: how did you come up with the 30/70 split
| between fees/artist's check? How do the artists respond? Have you
| had anyone say the fees are too high?
| my_green_book wrote:
| The cut is too high for the platform. I guess you take this
| number from Google/Apple store's commission.
|
| The difference is software on Google's store has infinite
| leverage and takes almost 0 to scale sales. Every piece of art
| takes lots of work and cannot scale in the same way. Art works
| do not scale like software.
|
| With this cut, I feel your platform is taking advantage of
| artists (they do not know where to sell) rather than helping
| them.
|
| Even auction commission is only between 12 & 25%.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| The relevant comparator is SaatchiArt online, which takes a
| 35% cut.
| solomonb wrote:
| I worked in the art world for years. First as a studio
| assistant, then as an art prep for large galleries, then
| eventually I ran my own art fabrication business with a few
| employees.
|
| A good gallery--emphasis on good--does a lot more then simply
| sell art to the highest bidder. They strategically place
| artists into 'important' collections, work with museum
| curators to bring the artists into a more critical narrative,
| get the artist into group shows and fairs internationally to
| contextualize the artist in a current scene or trend, collude
| with art critiques and magazines, and generally help to
| promote the artist's career over the long term.
|
| All of this sounds somewhat silly outside the art world, but
| you have to remember that this is a very particular industry
| based around historicizing high-brow cultural production.
| When a good collector buys a painting, they are doing more
| then just buying a physical object they like. They are
| throwing their own clout behind the artist and saying "I
| think what this person is doing is important and I stand
| behind it."
|
| All of this is done with the intention of increasing the
| profile of the artist which benefits--each in their own way--
| gallery, the artist, and the collector over the long term.
|
| As far as the sales split between gallery and artist,
| standard split is roughly 50% with some variance around
| material expenses and whatnot.
|
| Note, everything I am saying is the sort of ideal story and
| there are a lot of bad actors in the business. In reality I
| find the art world rather gross and the premises it is built
| upon to be deeply flawed.
| danmchugh wrote:
| We spent a considerable amount of time deciding this split,
| and consulted with many of our artists on what they felt was
| fair.
|
| While the customer facing portion of the website appears like
| a more traditional marketplace, our artist facing website
| contains tools for artists, and we do more than just list
| their art, we help them get better at selling, help them
| promote and market their art, and we provide support wherever
| needed.
|
| We are artist centric first and foremost, and always heavily
| consider and consult our artists point of view.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| Early on, when Art in Res was just an idea, we played with a
| model where we took zero commission and monetized other ways.
| But, when we talked to our artists about it, they were
| skeptical and would ask "but how will you make money?"
|
| I hear you that, when looked at in a certain light, it might
| seems high - but we work closely with our artists and they
| seem to all like that our incentives are aligned. Plus, we do
| our best to use that 30% in ways that benefit them, e.g. by
| guaranteeing that they get paid if someone absconds with
| their work without paying it all the way off.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I live in a village in NM filled with artists. I continue to
| be surprised to hear the stories of how their galleries take
| 40% or more. I'm even more suprised that they are happy with
| this, but the general rule seems to be that they are happy
| because the gallery they use now increased their annual
| revenue by more than 100%.
| ForrestN wrote:
| I don't see the relevance of app stores to the sale of
| artworks...?
|
| Auctions take a small cut because they are _resellers_ of
| art. The artist doesn 't get paid when a work sells at
| auction, the previous owner does.
|
| Art is usually sold by galleries, and the standard cut there
| is 50%. On top of that, artist and gallery often share
| discounts, so a work that is sold for a 20% discount means
| the artist will only see 40% of the total price. For artists,
| this will be a pleasant surprise rather than a steep expense.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| > - Why fixed installments? Why not say "this piece costs 300$
| buy now, or pay 10 installments of 35$ or 20x20$" (forget the
| numbers, just an example).
|
| We're considering adding more options like that. The only
| reason we haven't so far is that we're weighing it against
| overwhelming people with too many options and also other
| features we want to implement.
|
| > - why are there so few pictures of the work? If I buy a piece
| of art I want to look at it from all angles, get up close, see
| the structure, see it from far, see the frame etc.
|
| I totally agree with you on this. This is actually one of the
| features we want to add before adding additional installment
| options.
|
| > - since you got excited from seeing artists' workspace, why
| not show them to us? Why not show those cool warehouses/storage
| containers/houses where the art is piled floor to ceiling? > -
| When I click on an artist's bio, the last thing I want to see
| is a full-bleed picture of his face. I want to see where he
| works, how he is inspired or how this piece was formed.
|
| Again, I couldn't agree more. For the time being, we've been
| getting our photos from the artists themselves and they tend to
| have better portraits of themselves than shots of them visible
| in their studios.
|
| - out of curiosity: how did you come up with the 30/70 split
| between fees/artist's check? How do the artists respond? Have
| you had anyone say the fees are too high?
|
| Traditional brick-and-mortar galleries take a 50% cut so we're
| taking significantly less than that. We also 'insure' the art
| ourselves: if someone stops paying and the artwork can't be
| reclaimed, we pay the artist their full cut anyway, even if
| it's a loss to us.
| itcrowd wrote:
| Thank you for the extensive reply :)
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Someone in YC made Artix! (I kid)
| enrichp wrote:
| good one
| benatkin wrote:
| Short enough to copy and paste. Here it is, from
| http://paulgraham.com/bronze.html
|
| # The Artix Phase
|
| We should have expected this. It's very common for a group of
| founders to go through one lame idea before realizing that a
| startup has to make something people will pay for. In fact, we
| ourselves did.
|
| Viaweb wasn't the first startup Robert Morris and I started. In
| January 1995, we and a couple friends started a company called
| Artix. The plan was to put art galleries on the Web. In
| retrospect, I wonder how we could have wasted our time on
| anything so stupid. Galleries are not especially excited about
| being on the Web even now, ten years later. They don't want to
| have their stock visible to any random visitor, like an antique
| store. [2]
|
| Besides which, art dealers are the most technophobic people on
| earth. They didn't become art dealers after a difficult choice
| between that and a career in the hard sciences. Most of them
| had never seen the Web before we came to tell them why they
| should be on it. Some didn't even have computers. It doesn't do
| justice to the situation to describe it as a hard sell; we soon
| sank to building sites for free, and it was hard to convince
| galleries even to do that.
|
| Gradually it dawned on us that instead of trying to make Web
| sites for people who didn't want them, we could make sites for
| people who did. In fact, software that would let people who
| wanted sites make their own. So we ditched Artix and started a
| new company, Viaweb, to make software for building online
| stores. That one succeeded.
|
| We're in good company here. Microsoft was not the first company
| Paul Allen and Bill Gates started either. The first was called
| Traf-o-data. It does not seem to have done as well as Micro-
| soft.
|
| In Robert's defense, he was skeptical about Artix. I dragged
| him into it. [3] But there were moments when he was optimistic.
| And if we, who were 29 and 30 at the time, could get excited
| about such a thoroughly boneheaded idea, we should not be
| surprised that hackers aged 21 or 22 are pitching us ideas with
| little hope of making money.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| What's that?
| travisjungroth wrote:
| The failed startup Paul Graham did before the one that took
| off. It was putting art galleries online. Obviously you're
| different, but it was close enough to make me laugh. Someone
| replied to me with the story.
| dang wrote:
| Looks like you've made the first Artix reference on HN in 7
| years:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&q
| u...
|
| (The name has since been used for a Linux distro and a FPGA
| board, but HN Search supports omitting terms.)
|
| A revived link to the site made pg go "Holy shit." in 2007.
| That doesn't happen often either:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46411
|
| Whilst searching, I ran across another Artix ("In 2002 I
| created the original AdventureQuest"). Also cool!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21245308
| travisjungroth wrote:
| That's nuts. I would have taken 50 to 1 odds that it
| wasn't that long.
|
| To me, this proves that HN isn't really full of pg
| fanboys. It's like knowing the flop album an artist
| released before their first hit.
| alphagrep12345 wrote:
| Probably a noob question - but how do I know that I'm not being
| overcharged? As a matter of fact, how do I even know what's the
| right price for a piece of artwork?
|
| May be a long term thing, but I also think you should focus on
| expanding and growing your market size. Create blog posts, and
| videos on art, artists, art appreciation and advertize them.
| Educate audiance and get more people interested in it. That might
| percolate to making your business bigger.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| Not a noob question! It's a deep and interesting question. :)
|
| Pricing art is harder than pricing most other things since
| artworks are, by definition, non-fungible / unique. This makes
| it hard for there to be a "correct" price. For the most part,
| we address this by letting our artists set their own prices
| (they have more information than we do.) Other factors that
| play in are the cost of materials and labor (often hundreds of
| dollars per painting) and the potential for the artwork to go
| up in price some day, like a stock.
| danmchugh wrote:
| > - May be a long term thing, but I also think you should focus
| on expanding and growing your market size. Create blog posts,
| and videos on art, artists, art appreciation and advertize
| them. Educate audiance and get more people interested in it.
| That might percolate to making your business bigger.
|
| I love all of these suggestions! We're currently working on a
| content strategy that will cover a lot of the topics you
| mentioned. I agree there's a piece of education that is needed,
| especially in understanding the process of artists, why things
| cost what they do, we plan on doing more in-depth interviews,
| and hopefully videos that can convey a lot more information.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| I don't see eBay or Amazon educating anyone about fakes on
| their platform.
| codingdave wrote:
| This is a good idea - not 100% original, but the installments is
| a new spin, so I wish you well on the effort.
|
| But - let us suppose this does take off and you end up with a
| large community of artists and buyers. How do you plan on letting
| artists get seen in what is now a crowded space? Many of your
| competitors frustrate artists because it becomes about marketing
| just to get visibility on the sites. Or it turns into a curated
| site, which puts the artists right back where they are with the
| galleries.
|
| Any plans for how to scale this while avoiding such problems?
| siegfried-en wrote:
| Love the idea! Just some small feedback on your website: When I
| try to go back from your website, it keeps asking me to login.
| It's probably due to the fact that it automatically sends me to
| the /artworks page and when I try to go back it sends me to the /
| one, triggering the login popup. Anyway, good luck!
| danmchugh wrote:
| Thanks for letting us know about this bug. We just shipped a
| fix for it. Hopefully you won't be interrupted while browsing
| now :)
| BossingAround wrote:
| I really love the idea. I'd use it if this included artists from
| Europe (purely due to shipping costs that is, not that I have
| anything against US artists of course).
|
| Maybe in the future, you could expand into the EU market..?
| danmchugh wrote:
| We see a lot of great artists from the EU, and other parts of
| the world (I'm from Europe!) As soon as we figure out
| international shipping and taxes we're excited to start
| onboarding artists in those regions.
| masahiko wrote:
| whats your business model? margins are slim and one would assume
| repeat purchases will be few?
| DenisM wrote:
| Are you interested in resellers? Like, retail chains?
|
| Also, no contact information on your site. Boo.
| ad31mar wrote:
| Wow, as an artist and founder of a similar initiative [0], I have
| to admit you've absolutely nailed it with Art in Res. Have you
| got any job openings? :)
|
| [0] https://binnedart.com
| JohnFriel wrote:
| This is so cool - and so flattering!
|
| Hard to say when we'll be hiring next, but let's talk:
| jf@artinres.com
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I couldn't find a search anywhere, wanted to see if I could find
| some fanart for some of my favorite horror games like Bloodborne
| or Dark Souls. I hope you add it soon, I've been looking for a
| place to buy stuff like this.
| coldpie wrote:
| I'd be surprised to see video game stuff pop up here, but you
| may want to check out Fangamer.com and iam8bit.com .
| danmchugh wrote:
| I would personally love to see more video game inspired art,
| there are so many great styles we're yet to have applications
| for as we're still a relatively new site. We carefully
| consider all styles of art when artists apply.
|
| If you are interested we have an artist on the site currently
| that is influenced by video games:
| https://artinres.com/artists/lee-mora
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| I get paying artists in monthly installments, but I have zero
| interest in doing that as a consumer. Art is a luxury good and
| those that can afford it are trained to avoid financing things
| they don't need. I would charge the users the full upfront cost
| and pay artists in monthly installments. Maybe instead of taking
| a cut off the profits you can invest the money that hasn't been
| distributed to the artist yet like RobinHood.
| earlyriser wrote:
| Is this open for Canada based artists?
| aswihart wrote:
| Congrats on the launch! Beautiful site. I'd like more info about
| how you ship the art before buying. I found your FAQ after a
| little digging, but it didn't really give me comfort that you
| ship using a method that is particularly suited to fine art.
| Also, I noticed a few listings say that they come framed. For
| these I'd want to see the frame, they vary so much in style and
| size.
| Rauchg wrote:
| Awesome
| sherlock_h wrote:
| This is
| hlmencken wrote:
| I really am not a fan of showing a price and then only finding
| out after clicking into a piece of work that that price is not
| the price of the art but of some monthly payment. On top of that
| not showing the [?] between the monthly payment price and the all
| at once price clearly is really maddening. Overall I'm ok with
| the site and the idea but the pricing structure and display seems
| to be designed to trick people.
| [deleted]
| orky56 wrote:
| One quick way to clean up the whole site is to have a toggle to
| show prices as upfront or in installments. This way you remove
| the noise and cater to your target demographic. UI becomes
| cleaner and both demographics feels like the experience is
| adjusted for them.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| I love that idea!
| mabermoske wrote:
| Right on the main page under each piece it says "$XX - X
| months"... I feel like that's pretty up front.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| The meaning of this wasn't immediately clear to me. The
| listing is months old? The artwork room thet many months to
| make? It's only available for that long? Using "for" rather
| than a dash would be more clear.
| JohnFriel wrote:
| Oh wow, thank you, this is really, really helpful to know!
|
| We're so used to the paying-in-installments piece that we must
| have gotten blind to the fact that people seeing it for the
| first time would think it's the _total_ price.
|
| Same thing with the delta - it's always 1 / 24 of the final
| price (you pay the artwork off over two years), with a minimum
| monthly price of $30 (for the artist's sake.) Put differently,
| if ( fullPrice / 24 ) > 30 monthlyPrice = fullPrice /
| 24 else monthlyPrice = 30 end
|
| (edited for line breaks)
| idrisser wrote:
| Really nice website, best of luck in the launch!
| JohnFriel wrote:
| Thank you!
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-04-09 23:00 UTC)