Creating Income Stream for Artists

After successfully using my research skills to get Canadian Permanent Residency without the need for paying immigration lawyers and launching a payment app from scratch, I set up a challenge to research a way of sustainable income stream for artists and makers.

Why artists and makers? I have produced artwork before, and have not managed to earn money from it. On the other hand, art has been a solid investment for collectors, where the prices of some artworks fetched millions of dollars. My goal was to create a system which guarantees a sustainable income for producers of artwork.

picture of makerEngine logo

Project Goals

Create a business which generates sustainable income for artists and creators of artwork.

Having worked in payment systems, I have witnessed how it generates revenue from users' spending and transactions. If users are not spending money, then business can't generate revenue.

For MakerEngine, I have decided to change the paradigm. The main product of MakerEngine would be income for artists, and the business would earn revenue by taking a cut of that income. So the more income MakerEngine generates, the more revenue it gets.

Another goal was to create a tech-enabled business without the need for building a platform from scratch. There are so many different apps for business and art trading, that the time was right for combining them all into one powerful solution.

Initial Research

I have conducted extensive secondary research of art market. Basic idea was to review the whole supply chain of art, from producers ( artists ), intermediaries ( galleries, traders, agents ) to consumers ( buyers and collectors )

I have also reviewed apps and software systems that enable trading of art.

The strategy was to use Shapr app and various art markets to find people that I can interview. Vancouver was the perfect location for this research.

Findings

After interviewing 12 artists, two curators and two collectors, attending workshops for artists ( I have managed to get in because I showed my previous artwork ) the following findings were made:

  • Artists spend around 50% of their working time on marketing, and they don't get paid for this effort

  • Artists sometimes end up dealing with the same buyer, dealer or a collector, without any knowledge that another artist may be dealing with them too.

  • Art grants look at the track record of artists, rather than their potential

  • There was no way to trace the re-selling of artwork. Even FBI struggled with this problem.

  • Art collectors don't know what good art is, and artists don't know what collectors like.

  • Online art market grew by 24% in 2015, and is continuously growing

  • For art dealers, galleries and auctions, buying work from living artists is a risk because the valuation of living artists' work can unexpectedly decrease

  • When artist doesn't have a history of selling at auctions, selling his/her work will be challenging. Buyers at auctions aim to bid for more well known works, while buyers at art shows tend to choose artwork emotionally. Emotional purchases are not always good investments, so collectors who purchase work emotionally at shows don't make a good investment.

Out of this research, two directions were generated:

- A system for tracing purchase and exchange of art between buyers

- Artists, art traders and collectors have to team up as one community or company. Traders and dealers have to be transparent about broadcasting potential art sales opportunities, to reduce the marketing workload for artists. More details are mentioned here

Brand Conceptualization

I have envisioned the brand to represent technical income generation through both its name and visuals.

design sketches
design sketches

Challenges

Numerous challenges were encountered during this project :

- Getting in contact with art appraisers, art grant facilitators and educators for information interviews is time consuming and requires going through several protocols
- Finding and getting in contact with art dealers is challenging
- Networking in Vancouver is more difficult than in any other place that I have visited
- Artist think that art trading for profit by people who haven't produced a work of art is immoral

Project Outcome and Conclusion

Although enormous opportunity exists to change and improve the art market, the completion of the ultimate goal of this project requires extraordinary leadership skills, which I have to develop over time.

In December 2018, I have reached out to the founder of MTArt agency about the project. I have made a decision that MTArt is a better solution for artists. It already has a network of collectors, and they invests in artists. There is no need for art traders to obtain leads and more collectors, because existing network of collectors has enough resources to finance members of MTArt agency.

MakerEngine was a side project. I was also working alongside 7stakes to create a better and cheaper way to reduce forgery and increase royalties income.