What does it mean to have an 'antifragile' art business versus a 'fragile' one?

A fragile art business is one that depends entirely on galleries and art shows—revenue sources you don’t control. When those channels disappeared overnight during 2020, those businesses got crushed. An antifragile business is built on channels you own and control: your own website, your own email list, your own audience, and the ability to sell direct to consumers. The warning signs were there for 15 years that online art sales were growing constantly, but many artists stayed in denial and ended up with fragile businesses. The lesson is to make sure you’re cultivating a sales channel where you own everything, so when disruption comes, you can weather it. Build the parts of your business that you control and that can’t be taken away by external circumstances.

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Asked by general teaching point · Answered by Nick and Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2021-03-25