Art in Isolation App proposal

Art in Isolation Summary

Our Mission: The Art in Isolation app will be a platform that connects artists, art lovers, and the arts community. The app will empower artists and other creatives through social media to gain digital followings, increase awareness of their work, and sell artwork.

Our Goal: To create a community in which artists can share their work and connect with patrons that want to buy it.

Summary: The “Art in Isolation” App will be the killer app to connect artists to art lovers and will create a digital community to support and showcase the visual arts. This app will build on the work already done by Instagram and other social media platforms,  but will be dedicated only to artists and the visual arts. There will be no posts on food, children, politics, or anything not related to art allowed on the Art in Isolation app. 

The “Art in Isolation” app will be an app-first product for use on smart devices and eventually a website. There will be three different types of profiles for users: artists, patrons, and galleries. Artist’s profiles will be for creators and the profile will allow artists to share their work and receive feedback. Artists can also be verified by “Art in Isolation” and will receive checkmarks next to their profiles. Verified artists will also be able to sell their work through “Art in Isolation”

Patron profiles will be for users that come to the community to enjoy artwork, leave feedback, give likes, and share the work of artists they follow. Similar to Twitter, patrons can share artists’ work on their own profiles and even create a “gallery” of their favorite artists’ work.. 

Gallery profiles will be for businesses to showcase their artists, sell artwork, and can run sponsored ads that display in the newsfeed.  

One major feature that will differentiate “Art in Isolation” from other social media platforms is the “Curated” section. Verified artists will be profiled by specially appointed “Curators” that are employed by Art in Isolation. These artists will be shown at the top of the newsfeed when users log on and will change every couple of hours.

Art in Isolation will monetize in two ways. First, by only allowing galleries and artists to purchase sponsored posts similar to Instagram. This way the only content users see on the app will be art. The frequency of these posts will be determined by user surveys to make sure they don’t experience too many of these ads. Second, Art in Isolation will facilitate the sale of artist’s artwork to patrons, becoming a marketplace for art. Art in Isolation will take a 10% cut of every sale.

Analysis of Market

Looking at Instagram, the social media platform has more than 1 billion users “https://www.oberlo.com/blog/instagram-stats-every-marketer-should-know”, with more than 500 million daily users. If “Art in Isolation” can just capture 0.1% of that audience, we would have a community of more than 1 million artists and patrons. Of that community, we would hope to have more than 200,000 of users to be artists, they will be able to provide content for the rest of the 800,000 patron community. 

To give a perspective on how popular artists are on Instagram, the artist with the largest following right now is Banksy with more than 10 million followers. Other visual artists that are popular on Instagram include American artist Brian Donnelly, known professionally as Kaws, who has 3.2 million followers while Japanese artist Takashi Murakami has 2 million+ followers. Chinese artist and dissident Ai Wei Wei has 602,000 followers.

A goal of Art in Isolation is to target artists with 500,000 to a million followers on Instagram to join our app. Artists like Olafur Eliasson and Martin Parr are at a popularity level where they still interact with followers and could bring their community of fans to the Art in Isolation app. 

Art in Isolation will work to encourage young and upcoming artists that have started or have become full-time artists to join in also. These are the creators that will fill the Art in Isolations app full of content and hopefully also bring in their loyal followers.

Hundreds of thousands of Instagram users are using the social media app to share and view art. Looking up hashtags, the #art has more than 732 million posts. #streetart has more than 52 million posts and #graffiti has been 46 million times. 

Since art and love of art is not dependent on borders or languages, we are looking for a global audience. There are no limits or restrictions on art or where it comes from so the Art in Isolation app will be available to all countries and smartphones. 

For Patrons, the Art in Isolation app will target the 15-35 demographic. These are the tastemakers and influencers we need to reach and have them join. This group is the most actively engaged group online and is also looking for new interesting content and work to share. Young adults are also the most likely to engage online with others and be open to buying artwork online.

N-Tier Architecture 

As this is a brand new app, Art in Isolation will be hiring a whole new management and staff.

Our top management structure including salaries (Bay Area cost of living):

1. CEO ($130,000)
2. CFO ($115,000)
3. CTO ($115,000)
4. Communications Director ($90,000)
5. Human Resources Director ($80,000)

Other Staffing Needs

1. App Developer ($80,000) 
2. Gallery Liaison ($65,000) 
3. Art Sales specialist ($60,000) 
4. Curator ($50,000)
5. Artist Verification agent ($45,000) 
6. Content reviewer ($45,000) 
7. Customer Service ($45,000)

First year budget estimate

Management: $530,000

Staffing: $390,000

Overhead: $50,000

Design Sprint: $75,000

Total: $995,000

User Experience

The Art in Isolation app will build on user interactions that many are already familiar with other social media apps. The user experience will be very similar to Instagram. But instead of business profiles that Instagram uses, Art in Isolation profiles will be divided into three categories: Artist, Patron, and Gallery 

Artist Profile Abilities

1. Create Content by uploading images
2. Share Content
3. Label Content using hashtags
4. Sell Physical Artwork
5. Become Verified 
6. Discover new artists and content 
7. Follow artists
8. Like Content
9. Send/Receive messages to and from artists and patrons

Patron Profile Abilities

1. Discover new artists and content 
2. Follow Artists
3. Like Content
4. Share Content
5. Label Content using Hashtags when sharing
6. Buy Physical content from artists
7. Create a personal wall of favorite of artwork 
8. Send/Receive messages to and from artists and patrons

Gallery Profile Abilities

1. Showcase artists and works
2. Sell Physical 
3. Sponsor content for news feeds
4. Become Verified
5. Follow artist
6. Like Content
7. Share Content
8. Send/Receive messages to and from artists and patrons

Also unlike patrons, Artist profiles will also have the ability to become verified by Art in Isolation. Art in Isolation will employ “artist verification agents”. Verifying artists will involve artists proving they are the creators behind their work. That could involve having artists link their previous work that’s been sold at galleries, artists sending in videos of them working on pieces, or other types of verification methods.

Gallery Profiles are businesses that can showcase artists and their work. Galleries will be able to also sponsor content that will show up in newsfeeds. 

As part of our “Curated” feature, Art in Isolation “Curators” will pick from verified artists some of their work and display it at the top of news feeds. These verified artists will receive extra exposure of their work and hopefully increased sales on their work.

N-Tier Management

The Art in Isolation app will be built from the ground as it is a new app and a database will be needed for the creation of users, content, and sales.

Content Database requirements:

-Name of work

-Name of Artist

-Date uploaded

-Location of work

-number of likes received

-number of shares received

User Database requirements: 

-User name 

-User Password

-Two-factor authentication 

-User email

-phone number

-Artist or Patron account

-Payment information (sales and payment)

Sales Database requirements: 

-Name of work

-Sale Price

-Buyer Shipping Address

-Seller Shipping address 

-Shipping info for seller

-Shipping method

Wireframes of app 

Newsfeed Artist Profile

Production Schedule 

Proposed Design Sprint Team 

1. Product Manager
2. Database Administrator
3. Software Engineer/App Developer
4. UI/UX lead
5. Marketing Manager
6. Publisher/curator
7. Producers 

Within a month, we hope to have a working app that will be available for user testing and engagement. The budget for the design sprint that ends with a working prototype will cost $60,000. (https://www.mindinventory.com/blog/cost-to-develop-app-like-instagram/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20the%20cost%20to,experience%20of%20the%20app%20developer.)

Pre-sprint/Define a Need

There is no social media platform out there that caters only to artists and the arts community.

Understand: 

Creating a new social media app from the ground up will take time and money. Finding a community that wants another social media app will also take marketing and promotion. Social media users are often fickle too. The art community is also one that needs to be convinced to join.

Visually Explore:

Should the app be very similar to Instagram and other social media apps? Does that make the experience easy to learn and use? How do we differentiate the Art in Isolation App from Instagram? Do we use different colors, swiping left or right instead of scrolling? 

Decide User Story:

Users need to easily be able to upload and view the artwork. There needs to be an infinite scroll of art to keep users engaged. They should also be able to send/receive notifications. Users also should be able to buy and sell artwork on the platform.

Build a Functional Prototype:

The software engineer/App developer will lead this part of the design sprint. We would hope to have a prototype within a month.

Validate Test Prototype with customers: 

Rolling out of the app will happen on Apple iPhones and Android smartphones. We hope to gain at least 10,000 users in the first month with 2,000 of them being artists. 

Product Assessment plan 

Our proposed assessment plan includes a pre-roll out survey of Instagram users and after launch weekly analysis of user engagement and sales.

Our analytics plan involves in-depth analysis of time users have spent on the app, click-through rates, engagement rates, and analyzing how much time users spend on individual posts.

Analytics will also be used to determine conversion rates on sales through artists and galleries.

Before implementation of the app, Art in Isolation will conduct a survey through social media, most likely Instagram to gauge the reception and interest of an artist and patron dedicated social media platform.  We will survey at least 10,000 Instagram users.

Questions include:

1. Do you follow any artists on Instagram?
   1. If so, how many artists do you follow?
2. Have you bought any artwork from artists on Instagram?
   1. If so, how much have you spent in the last year?
3. How much time a week do you spend looking at artist profiles?
4. Do you want a better way to connect to artists?
   1. If so, would you be willing to join another social media platform dedicated to artists?
5. Would you like to buy art directly from artists on a social media platform?

Three months into the launch of the Art in Isolation app, we will schedule another survey of users. This is to determine the success of the app and how well users are connecting to artists. Artists, patrons, and galleries will get different questions.

Artist Questions include: 

1. How many followers do you have?
2. How often do you check the Art in Isolation App? Weekly, Daily, Hourly?
3. Have you sold any artwork through the Art in Isolation App?
4. Have any patrons reached you by direct message?
5. How can we improve the Art in Isolation community?

Patron Questions include:

1. How many artists are you following?
2. How often do you check the Art in Isolation App? Weekly, Daily, Hourly?
3. Have you bought any artwork through the Art in Isolation App?
4. Have you reached out to any artists by direct message?

Gallery Questions include:

1. How many artists are in your gallery showcase?
2. Have you paid for any content?
3. Have you sold any artwork through the Art in Isolation App?
   1. How much have you sold?
4. How can we improve the Art in Isolation Community?

Monetization Opportunities 

Art in Isolation will be unlike other social media platforms in that all our ads will be sponsored by artists or galleries. This will make our newsfeeds entirely filled with art, even the ads.

Galleries can buy sponsored ads similar to the way Instagram has promoted content. 

Art in Isolation is predicting a CPM (cost per impression) of galleries paying $6.70 per 1,000 impressions. With our 1 million users, we estimate for 1% of them to visit daily equaling to 10,000+ user impressions a day. That would equate to more than $6,700 a day in ad revenue, estimating for the year $2,445,500 in annual ad revenue.

“Art in Isolation” will also provide artists the opportunity to sell their work directly on the app. “Art in Isolation” will take 10% of the sale for facilitating the sale. $2,00,000 in direct art sales would equal about $200,000 in revenue for Art in Isolation.