Book a discovery callDiscovery
We kicked off work with a workshop to understand the problem, set the desired outcomes & align with the team. After interviews and workshops with the founders, we established their long team objectives: to build a business that gives everyone access to great art, and solves the problem of royalties for talented artists (because right now, they don’t get any)!
Then, we focused on solutions and started defining the landing page and onboarding. After coming up with tons of ideas on business models, pitching to artists, guilloche patterns and landing pages, we created an outline that combined all of those strands into a single prototype: a home page, a landing page for artists, and an onboarding process for patrons that explains the business model. The latter two in particular were exciting innovations that we could not wait to get started on.
🛠 Innovation #1 - A leaner business model
Kicky initially started with the idea of being able to rent any piece of art at different prices, depending on value. We had seen the appeal of that and after looking at the upsides and downsides and speaking to a few potential customers, we proposed a leaner and more familiar business model.
With our new proposal users were able to sign up to receive pre-selected "packages" of art in a given category and value range. We found that this approach scaled better with different customer sizes, from individual collectors to businesses, and made choice and inventory management easier. Win-win.
🛠 Innovation #2 - pitching to artists
The life of a fine artist isn’t easy. Few ever see any royalties or profits after they originally sell the painting. Lesser known artists rarely get paid for renting their work. It's a ‘free promotion’ after all. Luke and Brenton set out to change that. And to build a marketplace like Kicky, they need a lot of artists on their side, creating and lending new works regularly to Kicky customers. Supply and demand is the trickiest element of getting two-sided marketplaces like Kicky up and running. Getting enough artists on board, and aligning their expectations with the business model, was key. The story Kicky told to artists needed to be easy to understand and compelling.
Delivery
After the initial learnings and aligning on scope, the Lumi team worked heads-down on wireframing, creating story prototypes, designing the whole experience and writing the copy. We checked in daily with the founders and a small group of potential customers. This made sure that the design we delivered was instantly usable, understandable and really got the message across.
🤔 Learnings & summary
In a matter of a few weeks, we were able to understand Kicky’s team, values, business model and priorities, then help them mould their product and their story around it to deliver a beautiful website and onboarding, and enable them to launch a better, more successful business. In other words, we were able to:
- Mock up a new product direction & business model in record time and with limited resources
- Build on their brand and deliver a new visual style that captured their ambition and expressed the spirit behind the company
- Verify the new process flowed smoothly by getting regular feedback from the founders and potential customers
- Verify that our innovations in the patron business model and story told to artists were easy to understand, exciting and relevant, both to artists and patrons
- Create deliverables that were 100% relevant. Because we checked in with the founders and their customer base so regularly during the process, the delivery was informed directly by the founders' goals and Kicky's customers' needs.
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