- When I first started pitching Artsy to galleries,
the immediate reaction was,
"Why would I ever associate my artists
with some 21-year-old, and
this random bit of technology that you built."
- This is Carter Cleveland, the founder of Artsy:
a multimillion dollar-company that helps anyone discover,
buy, and sell fine art online.
- So there's many ways to transform an industry—
and what worked for us was, instead of the
more-traditional, disruptive approach where
it's like trying to conquer a new territory,
what we said was,
"How can we actually work from
within an existing ecosystem?"
I would say a lot of my initial impetus
for Artsy really just came out of naivete.
It's almost like the knight wandering
into the dragon's lair and seeing all the corpses
of the slain knights that have like come before him.
- Here's a show about the stuff you need to know
to start and run a successful business.
These are lessons from real-life experience.
Welcome to "B-School."
- I grew up with this, just very familiar,
easy connection with art.
You know, growing up, my dad
would take me to art galleries,
but when I went to college
and started studying art history
and talking about art with more of my friends,
I realized that they felt disconnected from it.
Most people felt like, you know,
they weren't part of the art world.
You've got Netflix for film, you've got Spotify
for music, but there wasn't a single platform
that made all the world's art accessible to anyone.
And so I thought,
"Why couldn't art be the same way?"
Our approach was different.
I'd say the people who came before,
a lot of them focused on a pure disruption strategy.
They said, "Oh, look at these galleries.
Why don't we just cut them out?"
And I'd say the challenge
with that is it doesn't recognize
the fact that galleries
and these art businesses
actually add tremendous value.
Our approach was, instead of saying,
"Hey, let's replace these galleries."
We really said,
"Where is our unique value-add
in an existing ecosystem
that's already creating lots of value?"
When I first started pitching Artsy to galleries,
it was super hard.
They were kind of like, "You know, you're a nobody.
Why would I trust my artists with a nobody?"
What galleries really wanted to know, we realized, was,
“Is there already another more
established gallery on the platform?
Because I don't want to join
unless there's someone, you know,
more reputable than me
already there so I feel safe doing it.”
- So, how did you get in front of those big name galleries?
- First of all, we just went through our network.
My dad is an art writer,
so we pitched galleries that he had written for before.
I hired this guy who ultimately became my co-founder.
He actually came from a very senior gallery,
and so that helped us get them on board
and then that helped us get a few more
more-senior galleries on board—
but it was still very much pushing a boulder up a hill.
What really tipped the market for us was getting connected
to the top two galleries in the world,
Gagosian and Pace Galleries, and essentially pitching them
and saying, "Hey, you guys are the behemoths,
like the leaders of your industry.
We might be this small startup,
but we are strong technology people.
We understand the internet, and if you believe
that the internet is the future of your industry,
work with us,
and help us actually create that future together."
We actually got those galleries to come on,
not just as some of our first partners,
but also as investors and advisers in the platform.
Suddenly, all these other galleries that wouldn't
even take our phone calls
were asking to be on the platform.
So it really just kind of like tipped all these dominoes,
and suddenly Artsy became a place
that galleries were willing to really give us a chance.
- Today, Artsy is the leading marketplace
for art online, with over 4,000 gallery
and institutional partners in over a hundred countries,
and more than a hundred thousand
artists using the platform.
- I think one of the reasons why Artsy was successful
where a lot of other companies weren't,
is because we weren't coming in saying, you know,
"How can we make a buck?"
Our mission isn't:
"To take a dollar from you,
so there's a dollar for me."
It was, "How can we expand the overall market?
How can we make it more accessible so
more collectors can actually be a part of it
so that more artists can get paid?"
I would say,
only work on things that you feel
just deeply aligned with at a level
where if you were on your deathbed,
looking back at this moment,
you know without a doubt
that even if it failed and it doesn't advance your life
in any tangible, material way,
you just know this is
100% what I should be doing with my life.
People and partners and just the resources
of the Universe come to your aid
when you are fully aligned
with something that's in service of a greater good.