Practical CustDev: Unearthing your optimal business model

Practical CustDevUnearthing your optimal business model

Sean Tierney | sean@grid7.com

Make this stuff more real

Inspire to go learn

Start your canvas

Initial PremisesArtists aren’t marketers nor salespeople.

Galleries take huge commissions.

Believe there’s opportunity to apply lifecycle marketing concepts in the realm of the art world.

There are aggregation sites but nobody stepping up to work to represent the artists.

This effort will likely have a community component.

Want max alignment with artists. Put our money where our mouth is.

Sean moves to California

!

Splash page up & running.

Cards for FTVA gets us a list of 350

festival artists

Email blast to 350 festival

artists

Scrape dirs of Laguna-area

artists.

First CustDev interview with artist

Solid week of 3 interviews/day !!

Final interviews !!

Cohort finalized.

Announce participants

Start FB branding

campaign to Cust Audience

Let’s look at the data

Evolution of the model

Started as “Free seminar + $10k consulting giveaway”

“Pilot Program of Artiledge Selling System free for one lucky artist”

Commission-only single artist

Cohort of non-competitive artists commission-only

Other Lessons

FB as valid acquisition channel (13 leads for $50)

Irrational fears of piracy

Opportunity to reduce friction & remorse of purchase

Frustration not with galleries but festivals

Economy widely cited as the problem

Open QuestionsHow much can we actually move the needle?

What is the 80/20 for doing so?

Who constitutes the ideal candidate for us?

How to track offline sales?

How to partition our machinery from artists’?

How to systematize to a degree where it doesn’t require us?

Need a volunteer!