Sramana: Whom do you consider as your competitors? If Art.com is selling Picasso, they are not your competitor. Sean Broihier: Most of the artwork on our site is from living artists and photographers from all over the world. The images that Art.com are selling are supplied to them from large image libraries all over the
Sramana: What accounts for the success of some artists and the lack of success of others on FineArtAmerica? Sean Broihier: There is a disproportionate distribution of wealth because we do not have a huge bulk of buyers relative to artists. There are some artists who are making an enormous amount of money and some who
Sramana: How did you find the animator who has done your commercials? Sean Broihier: l lived in New York for a couple of years. I know a few people who run Internet-related businesses in New York. He did some animation work for them, and I saw it and loved it. I reached out to him
Sramana: In 2009 you did $1 million in revenue. How have you ramped since then? Sean Broihier: We crossed $5 million in revenue just two years later. Sramana: How have you built the business from a team perspective? How many employees do you have, and what functions do they serve? Sean Broihier: The entire company
By guest author Mridula Velagapudi As I wrote in a piece earlier, as a part of technology evolution, software development has evolved and matured a lot, and the present trends show that there is going to be a paradigm shift in the developers’ roles. The question is: are you ready yet? With Web 3.0, the exponential
Sramana: You rely on search engine optimization to provide a supply of customers through organic search. You rely on word of mouth to entice artists and photographers to sell their work through your site. Sean Broihier: I designed the entire site to be fully automated. It gives artists the sales and marketing tools they need
Sramana: What is the business model behind FineArtAmerica? Sean Broihier: The business model is to create a marketplace of buyers and sellers. We allow artist and photographers to upload their images to our site. We then offer them for sale as framed prints, stretched canvases, acrylic prints, greeting cards, and so on. We have a
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Sean Broihier is the CEO and founder of FineArtAmerica.com. After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in mechanical engineering, he worked at an engineering firm for 10 years. He started his first business, LocalAutomation.com, as an online marketplace for engineers in 2005. In