Founding a Curated Art Marketplace

The gap I saw

This started with my own apartment. I was trying to find original art for my walls and it was surprisingly hard to find anything that was both affordable and original. There were hundreds of Instagram accounts selling everything from great work to junk, with no real way to filter, and it felt like the genuinely good artists were getting buried in the noise. I wanted to build something that fixed that for both sides.

From an Instagram account to a business

It began as an Instagram account where I shared art I liked. As it picked up a following, I started talking to artists and found that many were selling through third parties taking up to 50% in commission. At the same time I looked at competitors like Konst.se and NOA Gallery and noticed the opposite problem: huge catalogs that overwhelmed casual buyers who just wanted something nice for their home.

The hard call: stay small on purpose

The obvious move was to list as much art as possible. I deliberately didn't. The whole point was curation, so I kept the catalog small and guided, even though that meant slower growth and turning work away. A casual buyer doesn't want a thousand options, they want a few good ones and a bit of confidence they're choosing well.

Designing for the buyer

Instagram analytics told me the audience skewed female, 25 to 44, so I designed a clean, guided experience aimed at that buyer rather than at art-world insiders. I designed in Sketch and built the whole thing in Webflow, so I could go from concept to a live, responsive product myself.

How it did

• Broke even about 10 months after launch, on organic social growth and some targeted ads.
• A curated roster of 10 artists, on a 20% commission instead of the up-to-50% they were used to.
• Grew to around 600 followers from the original Instagram audience.

My role

Solo founder. I did the research, the design, the Webflow build, the SEO, the social media, and the day-to-day operations myself. No co-founder, no team.

Why I wound it down

Hemkonst worked, but running an entire business solo, the design and the marketing and the operations, alongside a full-time job, was simply too much to sustain. I made the call to shut it down and focus on my career at Påmind. I'm still proud of it: it proved a curated, accessible platform could connect good artists with new buyers and stand on its own feet.