Problem

Nowadays, the art industry became very competitive. Newcomers struggle to make themselves noticed in this industry, many of them having to give up on their talents in orther to blend with the trending requirements.

Additionally, there are numerours event organizers interested in offering their customers the best experience and finding suitable live performers in a certain area for their needs is no easy task.

Solution

ArtistryHub offers a platform that connects local performers to event organizers in a seamless and reliable way.

Performers can showcase their real talents using the application's interface and are able to promote themselves through the application's rating system.

Organizers are able to identify local talents by viewing performers' profiles using suitable filters and, then, they can easily book them.

Customer Segments

On one hand, ArtistryHub offers performers means of promoting themselves and getting in contact with end clients.

On the other hand, organizers are able to book performers that suit their needs.

Competition

Key Advantages

Key Metrics

1. Application traffic
2. Registered users
3. Successful collaboration
4. Long-term retention
5. Data analytics
6. Revenue
7. Impact in the art industry

Cost Structure

1. Software development
2. Software infrastructure
3. Marketing
4. Cloud
5. Research on customer's needs
6. Data analysis

Revenue streams

1. Booking fees
2. Advertising
3. Premium accounts
4. Sponsored ads
5. Subscription options

Initial problem

The problem was observed in our very own team when Vlad, for his 18th birthday, wanted to book a DJ and a photographer. The photographer was easy to find, as he found him through a friend, but it was hard for him to find a DJ using platforms like Facebook and OLX. He eventually found a DJ, but the experience was more stressful than it was supposed to.

One of the main problems was that the availability of the artists was not posted on the platforms, so the only way to find it out was by calling them and losing loads of time. From the artists' perspective, advertising their talent on a platform like Facebook can be quite tricky, as there is a chance that they will not have enough reach to make themselves heard.

Initial solution

Our web application's purpose is to be the middleman between event organisers and live performers.

From the artists' perspective, the application will allow the users to promote themsleves by sharing audio recordings or video content of their previous performances.

On the other hand, by using our application, the event organisers can use the integrated calendar to select a date and a time slot and browse through all the available artists. When a certain artist has been selected, the organisers can check out the previous reviews and, if interested, they can get in touch using the contact info provided within the application.

Plan description

Because both the performers and the event organisers will use this application, we decided to create a Google Form that splits the problem in two different parts. Firstly, we needed to validate the problem of the event organisers, as it is hard for them to find emerging talents. Secondly, we needed to confirm that there is a problem with reach among performers.

Interviews - local photographer insights

We talked to a few artists in order to validate the problem from their point of view. One of the interviews we conducted was with a local photographer who described to us how the process of finding customers usually works for him, highlighting the ups and downs of this process and what can be improved in the future.

Although for him the existence of this kind of platform is not a copulsory requirment, because the number of events he has is already enough, the idea of using our platform in the future is still of interest to him, given the fact that the way he currently finds his customers - which is through referrals - might become unuseful.

Another important point he made was the fact that, for him, the most useful feature of such platform is the fact that the artists should be able to create their own presentation portofolios, in order to highlight their work.

All things taken into consideration, we discovered that some potential customers might be the local artists whose main difficulty is to create a network of clients for themselves and they need a means of becoming more known among their community. Furthermore, our idea seemed to be quite irrelevant for the well-established artists, whose schedule is already full. From the artists point of view, the main aim of our application is to help them gain some exposure.

Interviews - local business insights

We also needed to get validation with an event organizer, and so we got in contact with "La Librarie, Mon Cher", a local business in Pitești, also called "the teahouse" by the locals. Initially we presented ourselves by contacting them on their Facebook page and afterwards getting a face to face interview at the teahouse. This is where Mara helped me with answers to our questions, thus providing the necessary insights for validating the project.

Throughout their activity, they organized numerous events at the teahouse like concerts with different bands, some of them being made of ambitious high school students. Besides music they also organized different events focused around children like workshops, carol evening events and others with numerous talented artists like illustrators and handicraftsmen. Some of them are able to create art using simple objects like socks and rice, making this way snowmen and numerous other toys.

Because they usually get in contact with artists using recommendations from other people, they find a centralized application that offers a way to find the right person for an event to be very useful. They provided us with feedback regarding the application's features that they find very useful in order for this to be considered as a viable alternative. The most important one is the ability to view the artist's profile, this feature being vital as it gives the organizer all the necessary information regarding the artist's performance and experience. Besides, having an advanced filtering system for each artist category, a rather helpful and not disappointing review system for the entry level artists that should not punish a beginner artist in case of a bad performance, a calendar view for the artist's schedule and a fair payment system that give artists the possibility to put different prices based on the task's complexity are some of the most important features the platform should provide.

This interview provided us with new insights and findings, like the fact that there is a large variety of artists. Local businesses need artists for their events and the common means of collaboration between organizers and artists are not scalable and do not provide guidance in choosing the right artist for an event.

Interviews - music producer

We also needed to further understand the artists' views so we got in contact with Alex Dabulu, a DJ, music producer and sound engineer. We presented ourselves by contacting him on his Instagram page and getting the interview using the Instagram messaging application.

Throughout his activity he released numerous songs on his Spotify page and managed to also get live performances. He mostly uses Instagram and Spotify as his main ways of promoting himself, this being overall a great success.

Despite this, these methods of promoting come with downsides as well. For example, Instagram's algorithms are not completely fair with artists, because although an artist may have many real people following him, their posts visibility will be very low which in the end results in weaker engagement and overall a low exposure. Moreover, regarding live performances, some organizers may want a particular type of music in the case of music producers, and if you don't fit in that category it'd be less likely for you to get contacted by the organizers. Furthermore, it's very difficult to find events that need artists like you and therefore lots of research needs to be done, which is both time consuming and counterproductive.

He gave us lots of useful feedback and new insights that's going to help us further develop our platform. Some of the most important features are the ability to show your work through your profile, the ability to get in contact with the organizer, a review system that does not promote hatered so that artists are not defamed, the possibility to view events happening next to you so that an artist can promote himself and the ability to provide a price range for the artist's services.

This interview provided us with new insights and findings, like the fact that artists need the ability to find about existing events so that they can get in contact with organizers and that artists use numerous platforms for getting a better exposure, like Instagram, Spotify and others, so it is very useful to give them the possibility to promote whole portfolio.

Interviews - Overall Insights

Given all of the received feedback from the interviews, we have gathered some key findings that were not as clear before conducting the interviews.

Firstly, there are numerous artists, each with unique talents and abilities which the event organizers are looking for.

Secondly, we understood the impact a negative review might have on an artist's reputation so the review system should prevent non-constructive and hateful reviews.

Moreover, artists should be able to find organized events around them in order to get in contact with the organizers.

Finally, we found that experienced artists have their schedules already full and are less likely to need any more exposure, whereas entry-level artists have little exposure and therefore need better means of promoting themselves.

Organizers form

We created a form for event organizers that we shared on multiple platforms, including Whatsapp and Facebook groups. Unfortunately, our survey was not accepted on some of the groups, probably because it was considered spam.

However, we managed to receive 20 answers from event organizers, most of them being individuals. Also, there were more people that organized events than artists that completed the survey, which is expected, as the same artists take part in different events.

The event organizers mostly contacted DJs and photographers, but other kind of artists were contacted as well.

We can see that most artists are contacted through phone calls or messages on social media platforms. Also, most of the contacted artists are well known locally.

It seems that the event organizers either use social media platforms to meet and contact new artists or they don't use any app at all.

Also, the need for artists is not very frequent, while the most important factor taken into account when contacting them is the personal budget.

The most frequent shortcoming encountered when contacting artists seem to be the time of response or the lack of response from them, but other shortcomings were presented too. Also, if the event organizers are pleased with an artist's performance, they usually collaborate with them again in the future.

From the answers received, it looks like the ArtistryHub app would be well received, no matter if it would be a mobile or web app. Also, all of its main features would be appreciated.

Given all of the received answers from the event organizers, we identified a pattern that allowed us to see how useful the ArtistryHub app would be. Most of the organizers contact local artists from time to time, but they are not happy with their variety, availability and response time. They would like to use a web app where they can filter, review and contact artists, while seeing their availability for a specific time.

We strongly believe that we are ready to move to the customer validation stage, as we got enough answers to make a clear picture of the usual users.

Performers Form

Although the artists are our most important resources, it was harder to obtain information from them. Even if the number of answers is smaller, is enough to draw some conclusions.

We managed to receive 16 answers from perfomers, from different categories, most of them being photographers. This is in line with the wishes of the organizers.

It seems that the performers either use social media platforms to meet and contact new customers or they don't use any app at all.

Most artists prefer locations close to their home (in the same county). Using this information, we expected them to use local methods of promotion, mainly using former customers recomandations.

The limitation on local promotion brings brings dissatisfaction with the exposure they have in front of customers.

And also a small number of events.

Contrary to initial expectations, not all artists are dissatisfied with the exposure and implicitly with the number of events per month. However, there is opportunity for improvement by keeping the number of events but increasing their quality.

It can be seen that the most common methods of promotion are based on circles of friends. The problem with this type of promotion is that at the beginning of the road, it is very difficult to build the network. This can lead to limited visibility and low exposure.

Furthermore, the promo methods mentioned above have various problems, from lack of visibility to lack of features that would be needed.

All these problems leading to the main difficulty: concluding a collaboration with a client. Here appears the main opportunity for us: to improve the way of concluding the collaboration for artists. And this is also supported by the following answers.

From the answers received, it looks like the ArtistryHub app would be well received, no matter if it would be a mobile or web app. Also, all of its main features would be appreciated.

Given all of the received answers from the performers, we identified a pattern that allowed us to see how useful the ArtistryHub app would be. What we were able to find out from this form is that we should focus on artists at the beginning of the road, whom we will help to form a diverse network, which will offer them visibility and quality events. They would like to use an app where they can create a profile, search for opportunities and create their own network. Our goal should not be to stop them from leaving the platform, but to expand our network, so that it can be a real hub that can help any artist.

We strongly believe that we are ready to move to the customer validation stage, as we got enough answers to make a clear picture of the usual artist users.

Conclusions

Considering the responses that we got on the Google Form, which proved to be sufficient to observe a pattern, and the interviews that we conducted, we realised that there is an interest for this kind of application, but we still need to refine some of the initial aspects of our app. For instance, one of the new features, which was suggested in the Google Form, would be to allow the artists to browse through events that were posted by organisers, which is basically the opposite of our initial approach. This way, the artists and the organisers can contact eachother for future collaborations.

For instance, one of the new features, which was suggested in the Google Form, would be to allow the artists to browse through events that were posted by organisers, which is basically the opposite of our initial approach. This way, the artists and the organisers can contact eachother for future collaborations.

We, as a team, thought about the main purpose of the application and we concluded that it will probably benefit the entry level artists, because they need to maximise their exposure.

Landing Page

The landing page was created as a standalone web page and contains only two submission forms for either an artist or an event organizer. It is designed to showcase the main functionalities and the purpose of the platform.

Wireframes

The wireframes have been made using Figma. The ArtistryHub wireframes for event organizers can be found here and for artists here.

Event organizer

Artist

Interviews

We got 3 face-to-face interviews with potential users and asked them a set of questions in order to understand their problems and needs. The questions were split in two categories: for artists and for event organizers as follows:

Artist

1. Could you please tell us a bit about yourself?
2. Could you please give us some details about the events in which you usually perform?
3. What methods do you use in order to promote yourself and to get in contact with event organizers?
4. What are the difficulties you have experienced?
5. What would you need in order to get more exposure to the event organizers?

Event organizer

1. What types of artists do you usually need for an event?
2. What methods do you use in order to get in contact with the artists?
3. Do you often need to contact an aritst for your events?
4. What are the most important things you take into consideration when choosing an artist for an event?
5. What are the difficulties you have experienced?
6. What would you need in order to improve the experience of getting an artist for your events?

Artist

One-time event organiser

Owner of a business

User persona

Following the interviews and the meetings that we had, we decided to create three user personas: the artist and two types of event organisers, people who need an artist for one-time events, like birthdays, and owners of businesses, who need services offered by artists more often.

Artist

One-time event organiser

Owner of a business

User stories

Use cases

A use case diagram is a graphical depiction of a user's possible interactions with a system. A use case diagram shows various use cases and different types of users the system has and will often be accompanied by other types of diagrams as well.

The use case diagram for the organizers is presented below.

The use case diagram for the artists is presented below.

User flows

User flows, UX flows, or flowcharts, as they are sometimes called, are diagrams that display the complete path a user takes when using a product. The user flow lays out the user’s movement through the product, mapping out each and every step the user takes—from entry point right through to the final interaction.

The user flow diagram for the organizers is presented below.

The user flow diagram for the artists is presented below.

Wireframe updates

After we conducted the interviews with the different possible customers and showed them the wireframes created for the previous milestone, we realized that some things are not properly defined.

The first thing which needed some improvements was on the artists's profile page. Here, the calendar was initially laid at the bottom of the page, under the presentation videos provided by the artist. We decided to move this calendar on a separate view, so that the two functionalities can be split and the main focus on the first opening of an artist's page can remain on the previous performances and skills.

Another segment of the wireframe which should be modified was in the page where the artist can see the received event requests. This was a modification requested by one of our potential users which stated that there might be too many mouse clicks in order to accept or reject an received offer. We managed to keep the design neat and clean, moving the "Event details" button where the date and name of the event are printed and added the buttons for accepting and receiving the invitation to the list of events, as well. In this way, the list of requests works as a scrolable single-page where the expanding and minimizing of the event details is now supported.

Updated landing page

We've updated the landing page from the previous milestone in order to make it easier for potential customers to subscribe to our newsletter. The updated landing page can be found here.

Sharing the landing page

We shared the landing page with potential customers via WhatsApp groups. Besides, we shared with acquintances that might also be interested in our platform.

We plan to share our product with even more people on different platforms as well, like Facebook groups, Instagram or others.

Landing page analytics

We used Google Analytics to collect relevant data from our potential users, such as visits, clicks, subscribes.

As we can see from the report, we managed to get 58 views on our landing page from potential users with 14 subscribers.

Although these reports present some relevant information regarding our users retention, we could achieve even more by expanding our reach and integrating other data collection tools with our analytics platform.

We improved how we used Google Analytics the first time and managed to get some relevant insights about how our landing page reached to people.

In the last 90 days, we had 109 unique users.

From a lot of countries.

And, as it can be seen, most of them accesed our landing page from mobile.

We also used Hotjar in order to capture how our potential users use the landing page and what is their behaviour on the page. Most of them seemed interested as they tried to click on the images we had on the page.

Our target market

Our customers are split between artists and organizers which are business or individuals that are interested in booking artists for events.

According to the statistics, Bucharest hosts over 3400 restaurants, bars and cafes, with an annual business of EUR 562 million. Also, the capital is the cultural center of Romania with over 2298 artists. Therefore, Bucharest will be our starting point for our business.

Further plans involve extending our business across the whole country, since Romania has over 24 000 restaurants, bars and cafes with over 10 000 artists, including actors, dancers, musicians.

Competition

Our main competitors are the following:

1. OLX.ro offers you the opportunity to publish free ads for your city and its surroundings. You will easily find on OLX.ro interesting free ads from Bucharest , Ilfov and other cities in the country and you will be able to easily get in touch with those who published them. On OLX.ro you will find jobs, apartments and rooms for rent, used cars and mobile phones at low prices. If you want to sell something, you can easily add free ads. If you want to buy something here you will be able to find the products that interest you at lower prices than in any store.
2. On publi24.ro you can add free ads and find the best deals in Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara and other cities in the country. On our site you can find ads with used cars, apartments, houses, land or mobile phones at very good prices. You can post a free ad, very quickly, with whatever you want to sell.
3. fotografi-cameramani.ro: We thought it would be great to have in one place, a single page to guide future brides to choose their wedding photographer and videographer. Thus, the bride and groom can make the right decision in a short time.

Our main advantage over the previous competitors is our focus on artists specifically, while our competitors offer a wider range of services and it's more difficult for organizers to find the right artists for their events. As we can see from the following search result from olx, we see that the results do not match our expectations when trying to find a DJ for an event. The same issue exists for publi24.ro.

When it comes to fotografi-cameramani.ro, we see that they are specialised only for events photographers with a focus on weddings.

In the global market there is a focus on a freelance type of business with specialised platforms such as fiverr and upwork. Our main advantage over them is the fact that we aim for live performances.

Market share

Percentage of users from Romania^[1]:

1. OLX.ro 37.6%
2. publi24.ro 6.9%
3. fotografi-cameramani.ro N/A

Potential Market Share After Launch

Our projection has been made taking into account the number of event anouncements on our competitors' platforms. We see that on olx there are roughly 7000 announcements for weddings, baptism or general events, about 2000 on publi24 and 3000 on fotografi-cameramani.

Having gathered this data, we computed their market share as follows:

1. OLX.ro 58%
2. publi24.ro 25%
3. fotografi-cameramani.ro 16%

Taking into account our potential growth and market fluctuantions, we estimate the following market share results:

First year: 500 artists target
1. olx: 56%
2. Fotografi-cameramani: 24%
3. publi24.ro: 16%
4. AristyHub: 4%
Second year: 2000 artists target
5. olx: 50%
6. Fotografi-cameramani: 20%
7. publi24.ro: 15%
8. AristyHub: 15%
Third year: 3000 artists target
9. olx: 50%
10. Fotografi-cameramani: 19%
11. AristyHub: 19%
12. publi24.ro: 12%
Fourth year: 5000 artists target
13. olx: 45%
14. AristyHub: 30%
15. Fotografi-cameramani: 15%
16. publi24.ro: 10%
Fifth year: 7000 artists target
17. olx: 38%
18. AristyHub: 38%
19. Fotografi-cameramani: 14%
20. publi24.ro: 10%

Potential Market Value After Launch

The event organizing industry has recorded a total of EUR 43 million in the last year^[2].

We estimate that in the next 5 years, our maket value will be as follows:

First year
1. Market share: 4%
2. Market Value: EUR 1.72M
Second year
3. Market share: 15%
4. Market Value: EUR 7M
Third year
5. Market share: 19%
6. Market Value: EUR 9.17M
Fourth year
7. Market share: 30%
8. Market Value: EUR 13.5M
Fifth year
9. Market share: 38%
10. Market Value: EUR 20.34M

Taking into consideration the insights we obtained from the validation milestones, we decided that our MVP must have the following functionalities implemented to meet the preferences of as many users as possible:

Artists:

The possibility to sign up as an artist

The possibility to create a customizable profile

The possibility to show their portofolio

The possibility to get request from potential organizers

The possibility to apply to existing events

Online payment

Integration with Google Calendar (a way of flexible scheduling)

The possibility to communicate with organizers through a chat

Organizers:

The possibility to sign up as an organizer

The possibility to create an event with some specific details

The possibility to send a request to the artist they want for their event

The possibility to evaluate the artists

Online payment

The possibility to communicate with organizers through a chat

Before implementing these features, we split them into 2 categories in order to prioritize them: the ones mandatory for a first verison of our platform and improvements that can be added later.

In the following we will present the results we managed to achieve so far. We decided to focus on implementing a prototype, rather than an MVP, due to the short time. The main purpose of this was getting more validation from some potential users and deciding whether our solution goes in the right direction. Based on the feedback we got, we will improve the implementation and continue its validation. The MVP can be found here.

Prototype

Currently, our platform contains the following functionalities:

Sign Up

Sign In

View events

View applicants

Accept artists

Find artists

Request an artist for your event

Future steps towards MVP

We still have a lot of work to do, especially when it comes to the Back-End part of our platform.

Introducing the MVP to customers

At this point, the implementation of the web application did not contain a lot of functionalities, as seen in the MVP, so the expectation for the first sale were not so high. However, we decided to have a first overview of what the possible customers think about the current state.

Given the fact that the time was quite limited, we called for help for this milestone to a couple of friends which might be interested in organizing some private events. The website is an early prototype and further functionalities wil be added in a later release.

The feedback that we got from some of the users that accessed our website was expected, being that it is still unfinished and there are many features which are not developed yet.

User Feedback

The site is pretty easy to use, the user interface is friendly, but it does have some problems regarding to its functionality. When adding an event, you can't choose the time interval in which your event is taking place or slots for multiple artists. Also, the Details page for the artists does not give enough information.

The site currently does not have any more features than the existing platforms, but it seems nice that it is a site created solely for artists and event organisers. The basic functionality is here, but i would like to see more features in the future, like login based on existing accounts from other social media or google maps integration for the location of the events.

The final project presentation can be found below.

Finalise Fiki

Since we've used a planner for most of the milestones throughout this project during our scrum meetings, we added another card to keep track of the changes we thought necessary in order to achieve completeness and a nice flow for the reader.

We made the final changes and updated the fiki's source code accordingly, which can be found at https://github.com/ArtistryHub/ArtistryHub.