Artist Hava Gurevich

Join Patrick as he interviews Hava, a dedicated artist and Art Storefronts customer, in this inspiring episode. Hava discusses her journey from dabbling in various forms of photography to becoming a full-time painter. She shares her experiences navigating the challenges and triumphs of building an art business, including leveraging social media, pivoting to new niches, and finding success with merchandise. Hava also opens up about the emotional and practical aspects of selling art, from the initial overwhelm to the thrill of her first sales. Tune in to learn valuable insights about treating art as a business and staying committed through the highs and lows.

Podcast Transcribe

Patrick Shanahan: All right, Patrick from Art Storefronts here, and today we're doing something a little bit different. We are starting in on a series of customer interviews, real artists that are out there trying to grow an art business. And I have an Art Storefronts customer and a dear friend at this point, Hava. To talk about her journey as an artist, what's working, what's not working, the origin story, the background. Maybe we'll get into some marketing tradecraft and just see where it goes. So Hava, really pleased to have you here and for letting me use your beautiful art as the background. And, uh, Why don't we start at the very top and give us like, just a little bit of an origin story, how you became to be an artist.

Hava Gurevich: Oh, I've always been interested in art, but when I was younger, my, my parents pushed me toward math and science and all that. So I didn't really have a chance to take it seriously until towards the end of my undergrad career and started in photography, tried to get into like commercial photography, fashion photography, journalism, a few things here and there, and then decided to go back to grad school. That wasn't working. And while I was in grad school, I switched to painting and I've been painting ever since. I never really stopped painting since grad school, but it's been more of a, sort of like a professional hobby, so to speak, until quite recently.

Patrick Shanahan: Awesome. And when you say quite recently, first of all, how long were you trying to sell your art and doing your thing before you joined Art Storefronts?

Hava Gurevich: Honestly, wasn't really even trying to sell my art. I'd had experience working in art galleries in Chicago and in Manhattan. And I know quite well what, how hard it is and how disheartening it is. So I knew that I didn't want to put myself through that and selling online. I had no, No clue how to even begin doing that. So I really wasn't, I had a few like local shows and maybe sold a couple of things locally, but that's about it until I found out they really, I wanted to, but I just had no idea how even to start.

Patrick Shanahan: And how many, how long ago did you join? How many years have you been on the platform?

Hava Gurevich: I joined in September of 2021. Just before Q4 started.

Patrick Shanahan: Look at how quickly the time flies. That's, yeah, that's amazing. It just goes so quickly. And what, what attracted you to us originally, just out of curiosity?

Hava Gurevich: So I was, I think I was primed for something like this because during the pandemic My day job came to a halt and I spent all day every day for months just making art and just daydreaming about like, how can I turn this into a real thing? Finally, I really, this is what I want to do. Uh, I've looked at marketplaces, Society6 and Redbubble and not what I wanted to do. Um, it's, I, I really, I just, I was searching, but didn't know what. And then I came across a Facebook ad for Art Storefront. And I just clicked to see what it was and clicked to get a demo and had to talk with my mom. Cause there was a bit of a financial investment up front. Uh, and she was like, are you sure? I said, no, this is exactly, this is like the universe just brought this to me at the exact perfect time. So yeah, didn't take me long to make a decision.

Patrick Shanahan: I love hearing that. I love hearing that. And, and talk to me about your first year, right? Because you've got a couple of years in here. I'd be really curious to hear one, your expectations of your first year and maybe even before that, how technology proficient were you when you joined and, and what that whole, because obviously we make you learn a bunch of new things and you've never done before. So I think we would love to hear that.

Hava Gurevich: Barely technology proficient, I built some website back in the day when they were easy to build. And I had, I had an active Facebook and a semi active Instagram where I was just posting, occasionally posting something that I was working on. So I had all the tools, I just didn't know how to use them. And I think the first. That first Q4, there was so much information that was coming in really fast and a little overwhelming, but also at the same time, it was just like a complete paradigm shift. I just realized that I've never really understood how to think about having a business, you know, especially online, but like having your own business, what it means to market yourself. I remember watching one of your presentations about, you know, Merch, like why it's important to have merch and understanding like why I should be doing the giveaway. Yeah. Or still like, why am I going to give something away? And less than a month in, just, I think I may have still been doing the giveaway. One of my friends from grad school. So like from over 25 years ago, contacted me and asked if he can commission a painting for his wife as a Christmas present. He has known I'm an artist for 25 years. So he has been following, like, He's seen my art, nothing else has changed, except for the fact that suddenly he realized that he can actually buy an art for me. And it sounds simple, but it's not because I've seen that over and over. I've sold art to friends I had from high school. My biggest customers are still people that I have known for a long time and I have never been shy about the fact that I make art. So it, it, it's this subtle, but really important. Which in how I present myself and I learned all that very quickly, but I was like a sponge. I was really just absorbing all this information and I, I don't think I missed any zoom calls. I just was, was there writing things down and just going into overdrive. And I had pretty decent results for that first quarter. In those first three months, I had, I made fail and a couple of them were to people like, I don't know who took all my work and that was just, that was an amazing feeling. It's like, that was an amazing feeling because they didn't need to butter me up. They didn't need to tell me like, Oh, we love your art. They don't know me. They don't, they actually did. And that was, that was amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. I love hearing that. And of course we should mention when she says Q4, Q4 just means the last three months of the year, but it's traditionally when more art is sold than at any other time throughout the year, you have Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the run up to Christmas, everything else. Yeah, I love hearing that and, and I feel like you really did take to the Zoom sessions and find that really valuable. And I'm always so blown away by the Zoom sessions, right? Because we'll have 200 400, whatever the number is. And the majority don't ask questions. The majority just listen, but stay there the whole time because there's so much that you can learn. Did you find that that leveled you up significantly just hearing what other people's struggles were?

Hava Gurevich: Yes. Yeah, yeah, very much. And the very, the first couple of Zooms that I watched actually. We're for people who were not signed up yet that you were leading. So, but you were talking a lot about Q4 is coming and the importance and all that and just it blew my mind. You know that it it is possible if you have the right tool. And if you, and if you treat it like a business. Exactly. Yeah, you have to treat it like a business. Which is hard, which is hard for artists. Like, it's hard for everybody. It's, you have to learn to be like, so many things out of your comfort zone.

Patrick Shanahan: So, you started off at the best time of the year, which is Q4. How would you describe your experience as like, all the way through year one? And I love, You know, I love so much that you got those wins in Q4 because what I always say is that even if they're not the biggest financial numbers, those sales fill up like our emotional reservoirs and that's the gas that keep us motivated and keep learning and keep doing this marketing stuff and keep trying to grow the business. So as year one wrapped, what was, what was your thought process on where the business was? What was happening? Were you super motivated, fired up, still learning? What was that like?

Hava Gurevich: All of the above. I don't know, but I would say I. Suddenly, I just have, had a million ideas about things I could try and do. I was seeing the success from Q4, like that early success was incredibly empowering because it showed me finally that yes, there is a market for money art, beyond like my mom. I, I participated in that beta test of the niche course, Brandon, and that was a real eye opener as well. And I work really hard. I think like I, I may have like overdone it that first year because I was trying to do everything and I was just living and breathing and sleeping the business. Just trying to figure out the best way to do that and just listening to everything, trying to read up all the different handbook. Not handbook, what do you call them? Yeah. Playbooks, yeah. The playbooks, yeah. Following the calendar, like making sure I'm doing everything. The posting the social media part. I, I remember being like really apprehensive about going live for the first time. Or even not like, even just recording myself saying, Hey, I'm having a giveaway. Or hey, I'm having a sale. Or hey, look at this stuff. Um, so the first sponsors. I'm just like all fidgety and like nervous and, but it, it got easier and the easier it got, the more I did them and the more I saw like how valuable they are. That aspect of it, which is the, I guess the biggest chunk of marketing is the social media presence. I would, I lean pretty heavily into, and I remember back in April, about 20, so two years ago in April. You gave a Zoom session about Reels and you said, you know, gotta start doing Reels because Instagram is like actively trying to compete with TikTok and they're gonna do Reels every day. And I just started doing that Reels every day. And I got really lucky with a couple of them. And suddenly my account started, my Instagram account started growing and it was like a snowball. Cause sometimes like just seeing all that happening, like seeing some success, like. It just, it's that fake it till you make it kind of thing. So it's just like, I look at my early presence on social media and my present now, and if I take a couple of steps back and I'm like, Well, who is this artist you're so successful on?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, and we should say, I can pull it up, you're up to 25, 000 followers on here. Beautiful bio, you even have a broadcast channel going on, because we haven't even thought about that, so good on ya. Um, you're all over this profile. You can't make it three or four images without seeing your beautiful face, which I bang the drum on incessantly. Yeah. Yeah, that was the revelation that first time when you said, you can't just have static images image because that people are scrolling and just looking at images, they don't like make that connection that it's an actual piece of art. And. It sounds so simple now, but it's not. And so I, the first time I posted the photo of myself holding a piece of art, it just got so much attention immediately. Yeah. And suddenly people were engaging with my art and as artists, it's hard being our own sales person. It's hard being like, it's hard. Um, you have to wear all, you have to wear all the hats. You're the sales person. You're the creator. You're the marketing. You're the tax person, customer service. And, and you have to be committed and you have to be a hundred percent in it. But at the same time, you have to have a little bit of distance. So you don't like, you don't take it personally when somebody just not their thing, that's a really hard one for artists.

Patrick Shanahan: You have to be thick skinned for sure. One thing you did mention, and I'd be curious to hear, we always get these questions about niche. Do I need to have the niche? I need to have a defined niche. I need to figure out what my niche is. And. I believe the answer to that question is it depends, it's not binary, it's not one works for everyone to have a niche or you don't at what point in time you mentioned that you went through the niche course that we have, at what point in time did in the journey, did you pivot from what you had been doing to the beta fish, which was like your first like big, I'd love to hear that story.

Hava Gurevich: Actually, I just. Started getting interested in the Betafish and made like the first couple of drawings right before the niche course started. And it was, I think it's, it was sometime in February and there was something on the calendar. I remember that said pivot. And I remember like being in one of the office hours and someone was talking about a pivot and I didn't understand what they're talking about. Like, why pivot? What does that even mean? And then when the niche course started, it just occurred to me like, wait a minute. This Betta fish thing is a niche. I have that. Let's see where it can go with it. And I think that the reason that it did go as far as did and continues is because I understood that it is a niche and treated it that way. So it's treated it that way. Meaning for me, meaning that I always keep my audience in mind of who, who it is that likes that kind of art. That's that was my Sasha. He's the one who started it all. Yeah, the Matryoshka doll version of the Veda thinks there and I knew I know you're Russian I had to throw and flex my Russian knowledge because I didn't know what a matryoshka doll is. It's dolls inside of the dolls. That's practically another one of my nieces, but I haven't had a I haven't had a chance to really explore how that worked. I leaned it and leaned heavily into that. My other My, my other art, which is like my botanical and more abstract art has been harder to pinpoint a niche. Yeah. It's been harder to pinpoint a niche because it just, it's either too general, I think, like who doesn't like flowers and when it's too general, it's competing with way too many things. But I, so that, I guess that's the thing that you're saying that it's not a binary. I'm doing pretty well with my other art. And I would say that the market for that, or like the audience for that is very diverse. And in fact, a lot of my Bettafish customers started, they bought my other, like, prints of my other art. So you guys, I have to just pick into that because it's a trend that I've witnessed with our customers year after year. And in many cases where it manifests itself, which is so wild is you were trying to sell a certain style. You weren't really getting very much traction on it. But you have that art and it's in the catalog, then you moved into something else and you started generating the sales with something else. And then all of a sudden those folks come back and they're buying the older catalog. And what I've learned at a tire scenario is this notion of the 50 50 in art sale is 50 percent you, your personality, who's holla, what makes her tick. And then the other 50 percent is the art. And I continue to hear that, that, that trending style. And it's just. It, it speaks to how important having different subject matter materials are. And that it also speaks to showing who you are, how important that is. It's unbelievable. Did you, so you're, you're coming up in your fourth year, right?

Hava Gurevich: Yeah. Third year.

Patrick Shanahan: Has it gotten easier every single solitary year after year?

Hava Gurevich: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially cause now I have co pilot which does a lot of that. Yeah, it frees me up, but yeah, it definitely does because I have the language, I have the terminology in a way that it's not just like textbook. It's not like a, just a definition of what a niche is, like I can pick it apart and say what it means to me, like what I think about finding the audience. If it's finding the audience that is going to respond to that particular artwork. Um, and so when I start something new or whenever I'm doing something, I'm constantly doing little project along the way for a while. I was doing like left hand drawings and ink drawings and what, whatever I'm doing, I'm always paying attention to who is responding to it when I post about it. And what they're saying. And in my head, trying to make connections, like, where can I take it from there? What kind of niche, is this a new niche? Or does this fit back into my, my larger body of work? And so it become a very second nature to me to, to think about my art in that way. Like, how can I take it this further? How can I take an image that, something that I know people like, but they're only buying months and tote bags. What can I do so that I can make more money from it? Like making smaller. Paintings that are more affordable. Is it painting it on a luxury item so that I can charge more for it? And the ideas keep coming, but the reason some of them get watered away and some of them I keep is because I have a pretty strong filter now of could work or if what I can visualize or have an idea of like, how can I can try to make this work, you know? And the social media, like, posting, I've not missed a day of real in two years.

Patrick Shanahan: Wow. You're good. That's something. Sometimes it's almost midnight. I'm like, Oh man, I need to post. Can I just do, I have not, I have not met one day. Of posting real. Your, yeah, your consistency is just absolutely crazy. And look, you have 25, 000 followers on Instagram as a result of it. Right? That that's just, that's a very high channel. ArtStore finds us at 70, 000 and you're already at 25, 000. You're going to surpass us if you keep on this clip, which is awesome. And I said, so people ask, what does that mean? Does it translate into a lot of sales? And it's not like a yes or no answer. Like I have sold one product. I, I have sold one original painting to someone who saw a reel and contacted me. And after I verified that it wasn't a scam, I sold an original painting. And I know that a lot of the people who found me on Instagram are now subscribers and they bought gifts during the holidays, but there's something else like having that consistent And the presence on Instagram that has, it's been validated because we have a following that kind of has gotten me other things. Like most recently I was contacted by a house and garden magazine, which is like, the gold stations are decorating and they do this campaign called the art edit, where they scout for artists. It's curated and it's by invitation. I did have to pay for it, like an advertorial, but when I thought about it for a minute, I asked Brandon and he's, yeah, I think you should do it. And the first issue came out and the day that I got the PDF from them of the page where I'm at, and I posted them to my Facebook page and it came out. I posted to my personal Facebook, I posted to my business Facebook. I have never gotten that much engagement on my business Facebook. Um, it was crazy. I have never, I, I didn't even know all these people paid attention. And the thing is that that was a week ago. And then the engagement is still fairly high because of that, because reverberate. But did you post it to Instagram too?

Hava Gurevich: I did. I posted it as a reel to Instagram as a story. Is it in here? Can we see it? Yeah. How far back? Oh, there it is. Boom. But on Instagram, it, cause I don't have the, I don't have the physical magazine yet. So when I have the physical magazine, I'm really going to do reels about it.

Patrick Shanahan: Oh, you have to. You, you know, while we're here and I give you a little tradecraft, like, I want to see a press section at the top in your story. Oh, okay. When, once you get all the rest of the assets, I would do it after today's. I would get, these are already formatted in story format. And. Just get all of this up and, and create a press section and call it press because this is, this is massive street credit. Yeah, I'm quite in love with it. When I say that the end of that first day, a friend of mine from college contacted me and commissioned an original painting for their home. Did that cover the entire painting?

Hava Gurevich: It covered like two months for us. Nice. Okay, nice. And we've been friends forever. It's not, I don't think it's an accident that it happened that day. So it's, so I've made, it's been a success already and it's not directly from Instagram, but it is because I wouldn't have known it wasn't because that's how they found you. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone always, everyone's always want to get into interior designers. I want to reach art publishers or I want to find the, like the collectors or whatever in it, or I want to get into a gallery and they're always like, how do you do that? How do you do that? How do you do that? And it breaks my heart to give the honest answer, but the honest answer is exactly what you just said. You don't find them. You don't get them. They find you. Yeah. They find you from doing exactly what you're doing, which is making a lot of noise. I want to ask two pointy questions. One, I would be very curious. What is your advice for Art Storefronts freshmen? They just got started on their first year. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice, if you like framing it that way, what would be your year one advice?

Hava Gurevich: I would say pace yourself, manage your expectations. I think it's important to be inspired by seeing other people's success, but don't, definitely don't try to compare yourself. Don't get down on yourself. If it's a slow, I think it's the advice that you guys give that it's a marathon. Like just see small changes, look from like, from month to month, from six months to six months, like what's changing, what's growing and don't obsess over the website, like the aesthetics of the website, it's going to change a million times. It's functional, focus on that, don't, don't upset on too many details, focus on the larger picture. I think the other thing is you might have something really amazing that happened really early on. I had a really huge commission last year. Winter you were, you know, like something extraordinary and for a couple of weeks, I was walking around with my head up in the sky thinking like, Oh, I've made it. Like it was, it was, it was a fluke. It was, that was the outlier. And looking back, I'm glad it happened obviously, but I'm also glad that things really slowed down after that and started to build up slowly again, because you don't want to build a capital on without a foundation. So to focus on. A foundation. The other thing I would say is just as uncomfortable as it is post the social media, put yourself out there. Don't, don't try to be something you're not just try to be the best version of yourself.

Patrick Shanahan: Which I love every bit of it. I especially love the, don't compare yourself to others. Everyone has the tendency to do that. And it's just, there's so many different variables and there's so many different ways. The only thing you can control is your output work and continuing to grow the entire business. One other question I wanted to ask, and thank you for that, that was great. One other question I wanted to ask is, do you know the number of new customers that you've acquired, like, in a year, and how much has that changed with you? Opening up your lineup, you have your originals, do you have merch, you have the Matryoshka dolls, right? Like you've got a pretty diverse lineup or price points. And for those that want to see, we'll include links to our website in the show notes so that you can check out or wherever you see the post. But how has that helped your new customer acquisition? Is that, or have those numbers grown year after year?

Hava Gurevich: Yes, they have. My number of customers is fill in the double digits. So it's, but I know for a fact that I, like last, after Christmas or I set down to write. These little, thank you for supporting my business, little postcards that I printed. Everybody who made a purchase, like however small and however big, and I made this long list and I need to get stamped and I, I had to get 65 stamped. So I had 65 individual customers and some of them, like I'd say, A third of them made more than one purchase that year, and some of them have been making purchases like twice regularly. It's not purchases, but still.

Patrick Shanahan: You've got collectors in there, that is a collector phenomenon, and that is like totally how it goes. And it's grown. I'm obsessed with that metric, personally, and for all of you guys at our storefronts, because I know the collector phenomenon is real. I know that upstream or downstream from that upstream, I guess I would say is that the easiest customer to get is actually the ones that you already have. Or easier to get someone to come back and purchase again than it is to get a new one. And you know, why we push this lineup notion so hard is if you didn't have the diverse lineup that you did, you probably would have been a normal artist and instead of 65, thank you cards at the end of the year, we would have been sending out six or seven or 10. And not excomplained in our business. Now, when you have a sale sometime this year, you're going to be emailing those 65, not six or seven. And it's like, what do you think is going to happen? Conversion rates are going to be what conversion rates are, and you're going to have that many more people seeing it. And that's how the business is built. Like I want you being at the end of the year this year, getting the real inputs to, right? Yeah. And then that's the slog of what it looks like in real life. But I think also you've had a full time day job and that's about to change.

Hava Gurevich: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what make it exciting. Tell us about that. Yeah. It's in the work. I'm slowly transitioning to focusing entirely on my, isn't it? I've been planning for this, just as a disclaimer, and my, my art business is not in a position to pay all my bills yet, but it has been, I've been in the black since middle of 2021, 22, 2020. So I've been, I, I made up my investments like very early on. And then. And it's like. I like to say, even if I just sat back and twiddled my thumb, I'm not going to lose money. Occasionally I will sell something. So everything, and that's not me, but everything that I do is an asset and, and I reinvest back into the business in ways like, like doing the ads for house and garden or paying for services like co pilot descriptions and so on. So I'm, I'm building a build business that is not making, not losing money. It's making a small profit of a year. They, the profit keep going up and, and it, and I'm in a position where I can take a couple of years to focus entirely on the business and I'm 200 percent certain. That it will, it will get there that I probably won't even need those two years. Like years four and years five or when they really start humming.

Patrick Shanahan: So you've got to, you've got to get through this year and that'll be three in the books. It's been a good year already. I think my profits and I only look at the profit. I don't try to calculate like what my profit margin per sale is because the profit is the company makes the profit, not me personally and the company. So if I look at. Profits from the company for the past, like January, February, March, three months, I is more than I, maybe not more than I did at all of 2022, but it's close and it's growing and I, can I just say one of the things that I really love to deconstruct backward and then, and I do that because it's, it's. When I heard you talk about how important it is to merchandise, I, it just, it blew my mind because I just, I've always, haven't in my mind, everything for a very long time, but it's always been like through like red bubble or whatever. And it was just, my mom would buy things to give as gifts and I would buy things to give as gifts, but it wasn't the business. And there was no like point in trying to make it into a business because, and the way I always thought about it, it's like a dollar per item that I sell. Like, why am I putting so much effort into it? But when it became my business, and the items are being bought on my website, and each item is a new subscriber and a new client, and so this thing happened, and I know it happened more than once. I know people who bought like mugs to give as gifts for Christmas or calendars. And then the person who got it came back and bought something as well. And the biggest one was in the summer of 22, I had an exhibition at the botanical gardens here in town.

Patrick Shanahan: And I, where do you live by the way?

Hava Gurevich: I'm in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Patrick Shanahan: Ann Arbor, Michigan. Okay. Awesome. So I spent weeks trying to get in touch with the manager of their gift shop. Playing like I would drive up there and he's here is he here and I finally got to see him and I brought with me Some mugs I brought with me some totes and some magnets and some cards because I wanted to show him in person Yeah, and he's okay. I'm gonna get but he bought some I I just had a very small mark This, they were going to sell them, but it wasn't consignment. Like he bought them for me to sell in their gift shop and they did really well. And later towards the end of the show, this woman came in and she bought a, she bought an original, but we were in the space together. I brought with me some samples of metal prints and some samples of acrylic prints because she wasn't sure what she wanted. Wanted an original or like a fancy print and all that. Um, she actually bought like one of my metal samples, just bought it from me, but she told me that the reason she came to see my show is because someone she knows saw the show, bought some cards from the gift shop and she got one of those cards as a birthday card. Wow. And she was like, Oh, who is this artist? And her friends, Oh, she's having a show at the botanical gardens and she came to see this doll and brought a painting all from. A postcard, not a greeting card, like that I made no money on originally. So just ads, their merch is just ads. And you realize that in the reason I rant so hard about this is because my entire career is a digital marketer. I've had to spend money on ads and I spend these money on ads and I really can only get your attention when you're on this thing or you're on your computer on a certain app, or maybe doing a Google search, but that's it. Can't get all those places. And an artist can't get to those places either. So when you have these merch, it will go places, hit no advertisement, no social posts can ever go. Yeah. It's hard. There's, there's no one way that works for everyone. Right. I firmly believe that there needs to be in an artist's lineup, something that is non wall art related. I don't know what it is because some people love merch, whatever, but your story is the perfect highlight of that. Yeah. That sale wouldn't have happened. Yeah. It gets better because now there's an expensive original in someone's house and now they're going to have a dinner party and now it's going to be like, wow, that thing really matches this sofa. Right. Where did you cut it? and then you get another one. And a lot of times. They don't tell you, you have to ask, Hey, where, how did you find me? But sometimes they won't tell you. And you realize that like traditional advertising is not really, doesn't really work for artists photographers. And in my experience, you know, it doesn't huge Facebook campaigns, huge Instagram campaigns, Google campaigns. I've never seen any artists. I wasted money on that too. Oh yeah. I've never seen, this is like the line I always give is that I've never seen an artist that started it. Keep going. Like I see people do it all the time. And then a month goes by and I'm like, where I haven't seen any of those ads. And he cleared it. And it doesn't matter what size artists they are. Dead artists, alive artists, estates. It just doesn't work. That's not how it does it. And it, and what most people do is they're like, okay, well then advertising doesn't work. No advertising works. It's your home and garden. Look at merch. Those are just, any business has to advertise. Even like the most famous story of the business that never advertised was Tesla, and even now they're advertising. We've got to, we've got to advertise, we've got to advertise. Yeah. Yeah. One of my beta fit person, she's also like a, a merchant, so she also like shares her products. She sells like stickers and stuff in the group. Huh. Yeah. And she, early on, she won one of my tote bags as a prize in the group and like her favorite tote bag. And she just messaged me a couple of days ago, she was at a craft show or something and she had that bag. And she got approached by three people asking about the bag. So it got her, it was great for her because then she could tell them what she does. But then she's, we're doing a craft show next month. They want to send me some bags. I'll put them in my booth. Yeah. You never know which one of those things is going to end up being a hit, but all of that is happening. As a result of you having this in your marketing arsenal, I find that so many artists get like frustrated and sit on the sidelines and then don't end up doing anything. And you realize it's like the luck. It's not dumb luck, right? I'm like dumb Vegas luck. It's, it's luck that happens as a result of you creating this outward energy. And then weird things come in and that's always how it works about always doing that out there. Amazing. Phenomenal story. And it, you have to, I guess the thing is, regardless of whether it's a 25 item or a 25, 000 item, you, as the artist, should treat it equally when you're showcasing it, I think. And just give it that same of respect and, Look at this tote bag! It's my tote bag! Like, that kind of thing. Cause if you're excited about it, it shows. If you are not, it, it shows if you think it's just like a cheap thing. Oh yeah, whatever. Or if you're like, look, isn't this better than anything else you can have your coffee in? The first year, that's actually something I now remembering. It may have been like during the first few months when I first got my first batch of mugs myself and when I was getting my first batch of tote bags as well. And I remember like one day I posted just a photo of myself with a mug saying like coffee tastes better with my this mug. And five friends. Bought that mug that day. Right. And then I got some new tote bags and I'm like, look at the new tote bags. I just got two friends bought that tool bag and then whenever they would send me pictures of them with their stuff and I would post it, someone else would buy something. It just was, it was happening so much that it was definitely a pattern. Yeah. It doesn't happen as often now because most of the people that I know already have something. You've gotta keep expanding things out from there. Yeah. Yeah. I. So many great takeaways and I love, I love that you're bought in and working as hard as you can, because it's hard to say it takes three to five years, right? But it really does take three to five years of grinding to have a serious business and pretty much any business is that way. It's like the famous quote that Steve Jobs says. And yet so many people hit those quitting points where things are low and things are not going the way they should and the sales aren't happening. You feel like you're doing the marketing and you kind of just, you're in that, you're in that state and then you stop. And then some period of time goes by and then the desire comes back and then you're like, okay, I'm at it again, you know, yeah, so I, I love that you're there. It's like playing the slot machines in a way and I'm not a gambler, but like my understanding of it is like you, you put coins and you hit the lever and you deliver coins. There's a point where you're just like, you walk away, you didn't win anything, and you walk away and the next person will put a quarter on everything. Yeah. Which was like, you, you have to keep doing it. If you commit to it, you have to keep doing it because you don't know if it's that one day that you didn't, 'cause you just gave up, was the day when a potential client actually was paying attention. And you just don't know when that kind of serendipity happens, so you just want to have a dare all the time.

Patrick Shanahan: So true. Yeah. Let me ask a random question. What is one thing and one thing only we can do to seriously improve art storefronts?

Hava Gurevich: Taylor asked me that. Yeah. Well, and I'm at a loss because I honestly don't have any, any criticism. Like it just, it keeps getting better. One thing, it's a peripheral thing. I get a lot out of the fake book group. It's amazing. Like being like post grad school, like not having, you know, you get used to having other peers around you and talking about your process or talking about stuff like that. And then in this case, especially since we're all artists and a little squeamish about being salesy and is this, does this sound too much, whatever. And it really helped to know you're not alone, like that, that you're all doing this at the same time and all that. So that peer group is really valuable, but it, it, what happens is those, most of those who have been there for a little while, have been with Arts Doorfront for a little while, are no longer there. And it's always like a new group of people. And so the conversations are always about like new things. And so there used to be a channel, you keep saying that there used to be, there used to be office hours with Omar when. We had a chance to talk about my new crazy idea. What do you think I should do with this? Or first couple of years, I say, definitely don't obsess over the small details. Don't obsess about how big your logo is or whatever, like things like that. That's not what anyone's going to see. But in, at this point where other things are running smoothly, this is when I want to like, fine tune things and refine things. And. And I feel like there's that support group for that is, isn't quite there, isn't quite there anymore, or isn't there. So that, I don't know how you go about doing that. I had a Zoom call on Sunday with the people who wanted me to show them how I did my gift shop. Like, no bulb from one person asking and then a bunch of other people, like, wanted to, to be on the call and, and the call ended up being like three hours and most of the people were like, fucking, I don't know. I forgot to record it, or I didn't, I thought it was a recording, but the thing that some of it was just me showing them something that I know how to do and they don't, but the other part of it was just comparing stories and comparing strategies and just like having a conversation about the artsy part of it, not the marketing part of it. So we would be wonderful if there was like a better space for those of us who like artsy chats. Yeah. Yeah. But that. I could grander steam things like that, but that would be like my wishlist. Like that would be, if there was that, then I really wouldn't have anything to say. We, we, yeah, we might need you to start this thing, actually.

Hava Gurevich: I will, I would be more than happy to start it. Because I get so much out of it myself, I've been working from home since 2009. So I'm always on my own and I'm okay with that. Oh, important to have the community. It's so important. And I love the sharing. That's, I'm just one of those people. If I figure something out, like I want to show it to everyone else. Even if we're kind of Russian efficient and kick sick. I love it. The Russian efficiency. I'll talk to the team and you're going to hear back on that in short order. Cause it, I will. We're growing and maturing to the point where the customer account is really getting out of control. And I think I know you're part of, yeah, part of what you had a couple of years ago, what's it's not even necessarily stretched in because we have a lot of employees, but it's like you, you had a product that was working when you had 8, 000 customers, it's not working while we have 14, 000 are not working as well. And that product needs to like evolve. And I think what we're realizing is we can't be the ones to lead it. We need our customers to lead it. And I think it'll be way more valuable. And we can figure out terms and everything else. I, I would be, where do I sign up? I would be honored. You already have, you've signed up. Taylor will be contacting you immediately. Well, have an awesome, so, I think Can I cue Elena some? Oh, yes, please. Okay, so, I don't know, maybe Taylor mentioned it as well. After Taylor gave that talk about having a must have item, which is to me is one of those things that I would say, once you have everything else figured out, this is where you can refine, this is where you can, and so I started painting on high end bags. Nice. And I, I did one and. What is it? What is, what is the bag cost to begin with? Oh, it's a coach bag. This one like when it was new. It was, it probably retailed for 500. So the, the ones that I have, like my mom gave me like three white coach bag. Nice. Great. For me, she's like the, she's a barometer of sorts. He's excited about something. Then I know there's something there because she is in some ways, like she doesn't love everything I do. A lot of it is a little too bright, too colorful and too busy for her. But the stuff of mine that she likes, she really likes, and I think she represents a demographic. A hundred percent. So, when she responded, it's strong enough that she wanted to go with me to like, T. J. Maxx and Marshalls, and we can find some more white guys. Yeah, yeah, I love that. There's like this whole trend about like upcycling, which brings with it its own diehard customer base that like, it's like that Patagonia vibe, right? Send your clothes back. We'll fix them. We'll closely things up. So I love that aspect of it. I think there's probably pretty good profit margin in those. Right. And there's great scarcity because you can't do hundreds of those. Right. Um, so I, I like it. I love it. And it's not wall art related. I'm, I'm on board. I really do. Um, I think like just in terms of the logistics, I don't have, I don't have thousands of dollars and to invest in like expensive bags to just paint on them. Yeah. But the thought of having someone send me their person. Bad player. Period two. So I'm still like, how do I, beyond like the first couple of things. I want you to do, I want you to do a live broadcast today where you hold up and you talk about the bag and you say, I need five Guinea pigs. Because I think this is going to be a new direction, I'm asking five of you ladies to come up with a bag that's in your closet that you used to love, that's probably had too many wears, and you're ready for me to tune it up and make it new again. And see what kind of bite you get. And I would do it today. I would literally do it. That's a really great idea. I did that to want to grab the cheap tote, and I just Started painting in 20 minutes. It took me that long just because it was needed to dry. Yeah, I posted here's a something new I'm like trying and a friend. I want it. Bought it. So I bought it. I'm not even finished with it Yeah, yeah, so basically you could probably charge you could probably charge two or three hundred dollars a bag, too. That's the idea Yeah, they send me your bag. Yeah first five who send me their bag. They get a free art on their bag I wouldn't do free, I would do some sort of reduced price, but see what I want you to test is, okay, I understand acquiring the bags at garage sales and thrift shops and, or potentially buying a new, there's a big upfront cost and all of that. And there is your time of having to go and track those things down. Now, I don't want to invest that time just yet. I would rather have the bags come to me and look at another stage of validation. Right? Have the five bags and show off all five bags and be able to do some merchandising and then say I'm thinking about making this a thing. Who else would be interested? And then get the waitlist going and then you can decide at what point do you want to take it to that next level. It's a great question. Okay. But I like it. I like it. And you could put some of those things in the shop for, yeah, I know ladies and gentlemen, bags are not inexpensive. Yeah, I haven't priced that, if it actually sells. I can go out and buy like four more bags. Boom. Yeah. But I would experiment with that. Does it make more sense for you to go and get the bags? Or does it make more sense to Because you could also make an argument, they'll try and find these bags on the cheap, right? Like, my wife, okay? God love her. Crushes Poshmark so hard, okay? Like, all of my children's stuff, okay? You know, they don't always get the color they want. Okay. But tough love, right? Buys all of their stuff. Like my kid's really into motorcycles, gets all of his stuff used. And there's a massive arbitrage in that. I'm talking like really extensive stuff that she gets real 10, 20, 30 percent of the dollar on a regular basis. Wow. Yeah. So, so that's an avenue and yeah, I think you could have something there, right? An additional revenue source, an additional revenue channel, and it could be fun. And then also too, if somebody wants their betta fish on their bag and charge 100 extra for that, especially if it only took you about an hour to do your time. This one is a vintage coach. I don't even know how much it's worth, but very cool. That's just super jazzy. Great sheen on it. And that'll last a long time too, right? Yeah. Yeah. If this bag is gonna survive the apocalypse, I think. Yeah, I love it. I got to encourage you on that. That's really encouraging to hear. It felt like it was like when I started the beta fish and then I heard Brandon talk about niche marketing. I was like, wait a minute. I think I just started doing that. And it's felt the same way. I just like started doing these cause I was in between projects and feeling a little burnt out. And I heard Taylor talk about this idea of having these must have items. And I was like, I have that. Yeah, you got it. You got it for sure. I love it. So you guys follow Hava on Instagram. You can see her handle down below to stay encouraged, to stay motivated. For just how much this woman's posting, how consistently she's posting, which is really honestly encouraging, inspiring. And if you're at 25, 000 followers and you're not even done with your third year, and where's this going to go? Where's this going to go? Hundreds of thousands of followers is the answer. And that's really impressive. Hava, you're on the track. You're on the coast. So thank you a ton for your time today for doing this interview. I hope everyone found this valuable and you will see links to Harvest Profile anywhere you see this posted. Hava, thanks again. Have a great rest of your day.