What is the 'high asymmetry' of an art business and why does it matter?

An art business today has ridiculously low operating costs compared to almost any other business—basically just website hosting and potentially some marketing expenses. This is dramatically different from 10, 20, or 30 years ago. The low-cost side means you should be able to keep the lights on indefinitely if you’re strategic. The high-upside side is that artists can now sell globally and scale to six or seven figures in revenue. This asymmetry—low cost, high upside—means if you can just cover your costs through any means (custom work, prints, merchandise, even a side job), you can stay in the game long enough to iterate, find what works, and potentially hit that high-upside outcome. This is why not quitting is so powerful in the art business specifically.

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Asked by general audience · Answered by Nick Friend · art-marketing-podcast · 2024-02-20