Is this open for Canada based artists?
Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
81–90 of 235 posts
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#82Awesome
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#83One thing I've always been curious about with art in this price range ($500-5000) is the resale value. Say your tastes change and you'd like to get rid of one of these after a few years, how painful is it to sell? What are your chances of getting 50% of the purchase price? 90%? 150%?
A rent the runway for art would be an amazing idea. It would require a large deposit to cover the initial art piece but provide customers with a dynamic art collection almost similar to how museums have visiting exhibits. I'd be happy to work with someone on this.
The Seattle Art Museum does this. There's an attached/affiliated gallery that sells art, and also provides rentals, as long as you're also a member of SAM. It's 10% of the price to rent for 3 months, renewable once, and if you decide to purchase, half the rental amount goes towards the purchase price. I used it quite a bit when I first began collecting art.
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#84I like the idea of making art more accessible by spacing out the payment. Congratulations on the launch! I won't comment on the art for sale, because I think it is too much in the eye of the beholder but I will give some feedback on your website and concept. - Why fixed installments? Why not say "this piece costs 300$ buy now, or pay 10 installments of 35$ or 20x20$" (forget the numbers, just an example). - why are t…
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) rat…
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.
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#85Wow, 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
This is so cool – and so flattering!
Hard to say when we'll be hiring next, but let's talk: jf@artinres.com
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#86Hitting the back button after initial visit gives me a login prompt. That's pretty annoying... https://imgur.com/605DZMN
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.
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#87Congratulations, 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.
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#88Hi 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!
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#89Edit: 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 sl…
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…
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.! ;)
Re: Launch HN: Art in Res (YC W20) – Buy art directly from artists
#90Nice 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!