Fascinating Article On Faa

With just eight employees, Pixels now serves more than half a million artists and photographers and offers more than 15 million images for sale.

No wonder I am always busy ;)

Do you recognize the pillows? Abbie, have you asked for a raise? ;)

3. Our search engine takes 25-plus different factors into consideration when showing images to potential buyers. If you search for “sunset canvas prints” on our site, for example, our search algorithm will not only show you our best-selling images. It will also take into consideration how many times an image has been commented on, favorited, viewed, etc. So if you’re an artist and willing to put in a little time to promote yourself on social media, it’s possible to make your images quickly rise to the top of our search results based on that social activity.

What a great article! Sean looks exactly how I pictured him!

Thanks for sharing this article

"One of the best things I ever did as an entrepreneur was to NOT go to business school,"

The greatest leaps to success are about recognizing an opening and taking it in a smart and individual way
Sean did this and succeeded right off!

re #3 I keep saying it...dont i? I keep sayin' it

-

Yeah. What David said.

Great press!

I agree with David K. -

and what, exactly, did David K say?

DK didn't say anything. I didn't understand a post, asked a question, saw the answer right after and so withdrew the question. I was not being snarky or anything like that.

Nope I got your PM...... thank you LOL

Great article. I actually learned a good bit about my fav POD, FAA/Pixels. Nicely done.



---------------
~ Bill Swartwout Photography

Great Article.

"Teespring raised $50 million just two years ago and became a media darling as the future of e-commerce and the “T-shirt economy.” Just a few weeks ago, they laid off most of their staff." Sean in the article

Great article, Big Congrats to Sean.

He has been extremely smart about business with no prior major education. Just good instincts. Street smarts and hard work.

T Spring had my T's at one point. Went with Amazon for a while. It was meaningless as a business model with a huge number of employees.

The idea of scaling up, or chunking up, does not including hiring everyone under the sun.

I can not get far enough away from T Spring. JMO

Dave

Yes, a great article indeed!

I am sure glad that I got on board in 2009 shortly after I retired, as I was looking for a better way to display and sell my art, other than doing so in local coffee shops, businesses or the normal art and craft shows in my area.

Now my art has been sold to collectors in 49 of our 50 states, as well as in 10 other countries. I have learned so much from this site and the many talented artists over the years and I could have never made so many sales without Fine Art America / Pixels !

Thanks so much Sean and keep up the great work !

http://ScenesFromFarAndNear.com

“Independent. Together.”

dependence >> independence >> "interdependence".


DT thanks for a great read.

Dave

Awesome share. Thanks. I agree that it's the atmosphere here that keeps the artists hanging around. I love the discussions personally, and I love seeing so much creativity under a single 'roof.'

Outstanding!!!!

Impressive!

Ditto on All :)

Fantastic. Glad to read the article and all y'all's comments.

the only main thing i was surprised with was, he said he was from NJ. curious where though.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Excellent article!

Hmmm, this guy is very intelligent I think. Great Article.

Very impressive! It was so cool to learn about Sean and how he got the business going and also how he maintains it. He certainly is proof about the importance of allowing your head to follow your heart. It's all about passion.

Bravo Zulu to Sean and Family!

I liked this ""One of the best things I ever did as an entrepreneur was to NOT go to business school"

FAA is not mentioned until the very last part of the article. It's all about Pixels.

Interesting read. Thanks for the heads up.

Interesting. Artist invested company. 500,000 artists x $30 subscription fee = $15,000,000 alone. (Example numbers and yes, I know he didn't have this at the start) That's very smart in comparison to raising $50 million with investors or going public and having to answer to shareholders.

Thumbs up! Informative article.

We do not know what percentage are free accounts.

Dave

"We do not know what percentage are free accounts"

Just doing some spot checking I'm guessing the majority are not premium members.

Still, his business model is to be admired and looked upon by future entrepreneurs. The accomplishment by Sean and his team is amazing. Personally, I like seeing Pixels vs. Fine Art America as Pixels seems to attract all kinds where FAA, to me at least, sounds too specific. I would go to an e-commerce shop for different products with the name RB, S6, TL, Pixels. Only if I wanted some wall art would I go to a site called FAA. Wouldn't even be thinking of a Yoga mat, shirt or anything else from FAA, so I think it's smart that, as Glenn pointed out, the article focused on Pixels.

I've done research on competitors and sell on a couple he mentioned. TS/CP I have never been on. RB needs a UI overhaul and a new pricing structure, but it went public (and stock is falling fast even though the site is popular). It's all over the place whereas FAA/Pixels is streamlined. TL sells T-shirts and other products, but a few testers I bought were absolutely garbage. Shirts easily shrink and rip. TL, however, has one of the easiest interfaces I've seen.

I say, great article and it appears Pixels/FAA will only continue to get better. :)

"Still, his business model is to be admired and looked upon by future entrepreneurs. The accomplishment by Sean and his team is amazing."

I agree, Sean definitely did it the right way. The company I work for was boot strapped by the original founders over 40 years ago and is still going strong, (in spite of currently being run by MBA's lol).

Very interesting and Kudos to you, Sean....just a slight suggestion, maybe you can add one or two more programmers/coders to fix some of the ongoing problems. I'm sure FAA/you have the financial ability to do so....It can make FAA/Pixels even greater and more lucrative for you. And Abbie, I hope you are getting paid well for all the work you do. You deserve it!

Thanks for posting, very cool what Sean did with the company.

Maybe we need to re-think what we teach people in MBA programs. Investor financing is not free - and debt service can take a huge chunk out of a company's profit margin. If all a person with an MBA knows how to do is manage investment financing, there's something very wrong with this picture.

Kudos, Sean.............I'm proud of you. Here's how I see your great story, from another who was/is truly successful...............

“Success is most often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.”
― Coco Chanel

The pillows spell out "Fine Art America." Either Sean is being very clever or I have an overactive imagination.

___________
Susan Maxwell Schmidt
So-so Board Moderator and
Artist Extraordinaire

THANKS for posting! Love the article, shared a link on both my Pinterest and Facebook accounts.

** Mary Lee Dereske

www.maryleephoto.com

One of my favorite fast food joints only specializes in a few select items and they do it very well. Burgers, Fries, Sodas, Shakes, Coffee, Milk. Family owned and reasonably priced.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/lynsi-torres-in-n-out-burger_n_2614814.html

Very good article. It makes me proud to have picked the right POD soon after I started my online business in 2008.

Great Article, and happy to be Pixels / Fine Art America member!

I like especially this part:

"2. Having said that, our staff is constantly searching our site for undiscovered artists or individual works of art that we feel deserve more attention. We then promote our favorite artists and works of art through weekly newsletters, social media posts, online videos, online contests and more."

:-)

Dora Hathazi Mendes
Karavella Atelier

Not sure if there is "right" or "wrong" POD site. I guess there are some, but I'm glad you found the right one - for you.

For me, I'm sorry, but one of the ones he pointed out sells 5:1 for me over FAA/Pixels. The layoffs, restructuring, stock price... that hasn't shown in my sales history. I'm sure that company will be just fine. Exceptionally fine in the future.

Don't get me wrong, glad to be part of FAA too since 2014.