As an artist just starting to sell online, what mindset should I adopt?
Think of yourself as a startup. This perspective helps you understand that building an art business takes years of grinding, consistent effort, and patience. Like any startup, you need to do things that don’t scale—manual, hands-on work that gets your business off the ground. This means personal outreach, one-on-one relationship building, and scrappy tactics that you couldn’t maintain if you were already successful. Startups often need to pivot when something isn’t working, and the same applies to your art. The market will give you honest feedback, and you need to be willing to listen and adapt.
Asked by an artist starting their online business · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2017-06-12