Doing $5 Million A Year With Three Employees: FineArtAmerica CEO Sean Broihier (Part 7)

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 world. National Geographic sells all of their nature photography through Art.com. National Geographic also has an account through FineArtAmerica and sells images through us as well. The company that provides the stock images of Picasso and Monet to Art.com provides the same images to us as well. We do compete head to head with them on those images. On top of that, we have the added advantage of being a vibrant community for living artists.

Aside from Art.com, we compete against CafePress.com, not only against the artwork they sell on their site, but they bought Imagekind.com in 2008. That is a direct competitor to FineArtAmerica. There is a company called RedBubble out of Australia that has a similar business model. Zazzle sells artwork as well.

The big advantage I have against competitors like Art.com or CafePress is that their model is that they sell a product for a set price and they will offer to cut the artists a 15% commission, take it or leave it. In the case of a 24” by 36” print, Art.com will decide how much it will sell for. If they sell it for $30 they will cut the artists a 15% commission, which will be $4.50. It does not matter if it is an independent artist or Getty Images. That is all they offer. We allow the owner of the content to set whatever price they want. When I approached National Geographic, they were shocked that they could charge whatever they wanted for the images. They consider their images to be premium images, and we allow them free reign to set pricing as they please. As a result, big image libraries are signing up with us.

Sramana: Does anybody have a serious hold on the PPC and SEO terms that you are competing for?

Sean Broihier: In terms of PPC, I find that Art.com and their sister company AllPosters.com are primarily the ones who are active. The [market] is a free for all, and I like to think that we are doing a great job of being in the top three on all the terms.

Sramana: I love the story and how efficiently you are operating the business. You are creating value and generating money for artists all over the place. Great work.

Sean Broihier: Thank you. Every once in a while I get asked why we are so small and why we are not creating a ton of jobs. I use my North Carolina fulfillment center as an example to answer that type of question. I am not in that facility day in and day out, but there is a dedicated staff of people who fulfill FineArtAmerica orders day in, day out. They are not on our payroll, but we have essentially created those jobs. We send out thousands of payments to artists all over the world. Everybody gets to set exactly what they make, and that is what I like about our model. Our artists are happy, fulfillment centers are happy, and FineArtAmerica is happy.

Sramana: You have created an ecosystem that supports and awful lot of people. How many artist are making over $1,000 a month?

Sean Broihier: I would say that there are 50 people who make over $1,000 a month. We send out thousands of payments of less than $1,000 a month to artists.

Sramana: Great. This is a fantastic story; thank you for sharing it with me!

This segment is part 7 in the series : Doing $5 Million A Year With Three Employees: FineArtAmerica CEO Sean Broihier
1 2 3 4 5 6 7