How is starting an art business like starting a restaurant?

Imagine two people starting taco shops. One writes a business plan, gets a bank loan, signs a two-year lease, buys equipment, hires staff, decorates, creates menus, and then opens. The other makes 30-50 tacos and goes to a busy location at lunchtime to sell them for $2 each, testing the market immediately. The second person finds out in hours whether their product works - they see if people buy, if they want more, if they finish the samples. Meanwhile, the first person hasn’t even gotten out of the bank yet. The same applies to art - get your product and test it immediately rather than investing heavily before validating demand. You might be a great artist, but if people don’t buy that subject matter, you can pivot to something else quickly.

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Asked by an artist considering how to start · Answered by Nick · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-10-01