Backstory: Over the weekend Julia and I went exploring a random neighborhood in Baltimore. We came across this awesome art studio: https://www.justinwinkel.com/.

We talked to the owner and he talked about how a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico inspired him to open his art gallery. He explained how Santa Fe is known for it's art scene, block after block of residential homes turned into art studios. It would take days to visit all of these, then it hit me...

The Idea: An online marketplace for high end art studios.

Deep Dive: Niche down into high end art studios and focus the artist. The site would center around the artist allowing them to connect with their potential clients. There would be sections for their bio, videos, testimonials with clients and third party verified reviews.

Focusing on the artist and building community centered features would separate this startup from other stores like etsy, ebay, society6, etc. This type of marketplace would be exclusive and you would vet artists to ensure a high caliber of art.

As with all two-sided marketplaces you have to pick one side to tackle first. I would go after artists to sign up for the service first. You could entice them with a free account for the first year and have them featured on the main page periodically.

Given you are selling high ticket items, the sale will most likely not go through the site. You may offer an escrow service for a fee or at scale you can charge artists a monthly fee.

Validation: I would validate this by getting 10 local artists in your area to agree to signup and keep their account updated before attempting to build this. From talking with local artists you may find even more features to make it appealing for artists.

Monetization: As mentioned above, you could offer an escrow service to facilitate the sale. At scale you could also charge a monthly fee for artists. Once you gain enough followers you could sell ad space on emails or featured locations on the website.

P.S. Over the weekend, I emailed a few of you that were attempting some of these ideas. Has anyone else built a startup from one of these ideas? If so, email me and I'll send out your progress so everyone can see and it will give you some visitors!