Arden ScottHiredArtist

Executive Summary

Recently graduated art students often struggle to find a job in the field they studied. They lack the professional network that comes with working in a field for a period of time as well as the professional networking tools that are available to other fields, such as LinkedIn. In addition, artists often spend a lot of their time posting their work on multiple online platforms in hopes of getting professional attention. This takes time away from creating art work. To solve this problem, the company Hired Artist was started. HiredArtist was founded in 2014 and offers professional connections to artists looking for work, simplifies the promotion platform and brings artists together from all types of artistic backgrounds

Business Concept

HiredArtist is a LinkedIn for artists. HiredArtist will provide artists with all of the tools for their professional needs. We will offer a portfolio tool for artists to show their work online. We will offer a networking tool for artists to find other artists within the same location as them or with the same interests as them. Additionally HiredArtist will offer a job board so that artists will be able to find relevant jobs.

Competitive Advantage

The greatest risks associated with our business today are our competitors. We can overcome these risks by attracting a varied group of first adopters from different medium backgrounds and by offering a professional place to network for artists. Our biggest recognized opportunity is the lack of a professional place for all types of artists online. In today’s job market online services and capabilities are expected for virtually every job field but the needs of artists have not been met.

Business Model

We will operate on a subscription service model. Users will be allowed up to five projects to their portfolio for free, unlimited networking connection and access the freelance job board without paying. A premium subscription would allow a user unlimited space for project in their portfolio as well as access to the permanent and freelance job boards. The premium subscription service would cost $7.99 a month.

Marketing Plan

During the first stage of marketing, art school students and recent graduates will be our target market. After cultivating this pool of talent, marketing efforts will move towards attracting large companies in need of creative talent. To reach art school students we will use social media, targeting artists platforms such as instagram and deviant art. We will also target certain large art schools by attending career fairs and other school events.

Management Team

The management team is led by and consists of Chief Executive Officer Arden Scott who founded the company in 2014 after working at the design and art start up company American Dream House. She is receiving her MS in Media Ventures from Boston University.

Exit Strategy

To exit, Hired Artist will look to be acquired. There are a few companies that could be interested in acquiring Hired Artist, but the ideal targets are LinkedIn, BeHance, SimplyHired and potentially art schools looking to assist their students. If LinkedIn were to acquire Hired Artist, they could dominate the professional networking space in all sectors including fine arts. They could also meet the needs of fine artists and attract new customers. BeHance would be interested in acquiring Hired Artist to increase their job board features and encourage more networking. Job networks such as Monster and SimplyHired would be interested in Hired Artist to attract a new set of users and covering a new job sector. I think art school could see the value in something Hired Artist because it would lead to networking opportunities for the school and create a better name for the school.

Revenue Streams

HiredArtist will have a variety of revenue streams. Using the models from similar sites, such as DeviantArt and LinkedIn, we will rely on a freemium model for users and job posters. We will also take a percentage of ticket sales made on our website for the events we advertise.

Customer Acquisition

Business ModelTo encourage artists to use HiredArtist we will start with a freemium model. Artist will have a set number of features for free, and for expanded features they must pay a small fee. The freemium model has been successfully implemented in our competitors sites, such as deviantArt and BeHance. This model allows users to use the site and see the features without a commitment . The idea being, if they like the

site, they will pay the fee to post additional projects and have more job opportunities.

Strategic PartnershipsIn addition, to encourage new users to join our site we will also create strategic partnerships to benefit both the user the company. For example, we could create a strategic partnership with store where these artists are already attending such as Blick, Utrect and Guitar Center. We will also reach out to local galleries, venues and performance spaces to give our users places to display their work. Finally we will create a strategic partnership with SpaceFinderLA, a unique LA company that find creative work and practice spaces for artists of all types. Differentiation

HiredArtist differentiates itself with a few key features. The incorporation of the events features encourages online and offline networking. This is more effective than just online networking. This is especially important to the field of artists, where person to person connections mean more than maybe in other fields.

Marketing

We will utilize both on and offline marketing, keeping our reach local to the LA area to start off with. Because we are targeting art schools, we will look at local radio and newspaper channels to reach those students. For digital marketing we will look to Hulu, Pandora and Spotify. Based on our demographic we believe our users will respond best to ads on these websites because they are already on them. Finally we will launch an influencer campaign using Instagram, YouTube and Vimeo. We will find influential talent in the area that use these mediums to promote themselves. We will offer them a free premium membership in exchange for the use of our hashtag (#HiredArtist), attendance to one of our events or promotion of our brand in their posts. The Market & Proof of Concept

We define our market as fine art professional networking and tool sites. This includes artistic social networking sites such as DeviantArt, Imgr and Behance. This also includes professional tool sites such as Wix, Squarespace and SoundCloud. This also includes professional networking sites like LinkedIn and professional arts websites like IMDBPro. HiredArtist spans a variety of industries and markets. The market that HiredArtist reaches is a combination of many pre-existing markets, so we estimate we will surpass the success of these existing markets after reaching critical mass of users.

Social Networking Art SitesSocial Networking Art Sites are websites where art is shared with the intention of communicating and sharing rather than professional networking. These are sites such as DeviantArt and Imgr.

DeviantArt is a visual art social networking site, founded in 2000. It is fee to use and currently has more than 14 million users. The company has a valuation of $19 million The site has roughly 155,000 art submissions daily and 2.4 million unique visitors posting 1.5 million comments daily. The company is expected to grow 60 percent this year. They profit from a freemium membership model with a premium membership costing ($4.95 per month) and a retail shop on the website. (All numbers taken from Source 1 in appendix)

Professional Tool SitesProfessional tool sites are websites like Squarespace, Wix and Soundcloud that allow artists to easily post their work with complete control over their platform. They are meant to provide a service. Squarespace is a professional tool site started in 2004. Squarespace received $78M in venture capital funding in 2014.Wix went public in 2013 and raised $123m with a market cap of $713m. (Numbers taken from Source 2 and 3 in appendix)

Professional Networking SitesProfessional Networking Sites are sites like IMDBPro or Behance. These are genre specific sites for professionals. IMDBPro serves people in the film and television industry. Behance is for visual digital artists, mostly designers and animators. It was founded in 2006. It was acquired by Adobe Systems in December of 2012. This site has a feature that allows users to create their own professional website, however it requires you to purchase an Adobe Creative Cloud membership. This can cost up to $50 a month depending on your membership. IMDBPro costs about $19.99. (Numbers taken from Sources 4 and 5)

Site Tools

On of HiredArtist’s differentiating features is the variety of tools given. The site will have different tools for the artist user and the recruiter user.

The ArtistThe Artist will have a self-curated portfolio page. This will feature a brief biography that the Artist will write about themselves. They will be able to upload a profile picture for their portfolio page. They will be able to tag information about themselves such as educational background, professional background, current location and artistic interest and skills. Each of these tags will serve as a way for other artists to find and connect with each other. For example, a photographer in Chicago may want to connect with a painter in Chicago or someone who they went to school with. They will be able to find these people using the tag system.

The free users will be able to upload five portfolio project. A project may be a series of photos, a few digital image, a short video clip, a mp3 or song file, an animation or a variety of other forms of art. The idea is to organize your work by theme to show variety. If you wish to show more than five projects you can purchase the premium

plan for $6.99 a month. The user will have to initially upload these files to our website and from there will be able to push them out on to a variety of social networking sites. Our site will have a multimedia uploader in order to ease the process of uploading ones work.

Free users will also have access to the part time job board. This will focus on one-time short-term paid jobs, such as a time slot to play at a venue for musicians, an acting role for a commercial or play or a commissioned art piece. If users wish to view long-term jobs or such as role in a movie, a residency for a venue for musicians or a full-time photographer position for a company they may purchase the premium model.

In addition to the job board and portfolio tool, artists will also have access to the events tool. This will allow them to create and post events within their network. It will also allow them to buy tickets to events through our website. With a premium membership, artists will get discounted event tickets.

The Recruiter/Job PosterFor recruiters and job posters there will also be a freemium model. For free job posters will be able to post up to three jobs per month for free. They will be able to see the artists full portfolio.

The premium model will allow recruiters unlimited job postings per month. With this they will also have discounted event tickets

Sources:1. Wang, Jennifer. "Innovator: DeviantART's Angelo Sotira." Entrepreneur. N.p.,

25 Jan. 2011. Web. 07 Aug. 2015.2. "Squarespace." CrunchBase. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Aug. 2015.3. "Wix." CrunchBase. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Aug. 2015.4. "Behance." CrunchBase. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Aug. 2015.5. "IMDbPro." CrunchBase. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Aug. 2015.