Helping Artists and Patrons connect.
Details:
Category:Product
Client:Artfare
Time:Jun 2018 - Jan 2020
Artists and Patrons rarely have an opportunity to connect over art during a transaction. The Patron’s buying journey is often opaque and rarely favors either the Patron or the Artist. Artfare is a platform which seeks to empower both Patrons and Artists to connect over their shared passion for art. In my position as head of product at Archbolt, I helped product manage the execution of the entire Artfare platform, including the marketing site, responsive web experience, iOS application, admin portal, and the Artist Sign Up portal.
Building Artfare
My involvement began once the iOS platform was under development. I quickly identified features and stories which could be descoped to ensure a faster and smoother delivery. Additionally, I oversaw a proof-of-concept build around the augmented reality (AR) features. Throughout this process, there was a looming specter of feature bloat -- unfortunately the design team had not taken an MVP approach to this project, and therefore packed the app full of features that was not supported by user needs. This posed a challenge as quality assurance (QA) and automated testing became huge tasks which often slipped in favor of delivering on functionality. However, by maintaining an agile mindset and emphasizing the need for prioritization, I was able to work with both the dev team and Artfare to rein in scope. I also worked with the design team to rethink the onboarding scheme, the responsive web functionality, and overall Artist management.
Launching Artfare
Artfare launched in beta in November 2018, and was openly launched in January 2019. Within the first 60 days, Artfare grew to 1200+ users, 20% of which were daily active users. A whopping 90% of the users who downloaded the app finished the onboarding process, which is several standard deviations above the industry averages. People loved using the app as well -- we quickly garnered 8700+ Impressions and 2600+ Product Page Views, as well as over 5,000 AR previews!
Final Thoughts
Our team delivered a beta version of the app in four months, followed by a full release two months later. Artfare’s launch received strong positive feedback from both patrons and artists, with five figure transactions occurring through the platform. Artfare continues to grow and evolve their business model. I'm thankful for the opportunity to have been involved with their product, and look forward to watching their continued success!
