TouchTalent, a global community of creative people with users from 180 countries and a social reach of 13 Million has launched its business model with Professional Studios in August.
Launched in July 2012 with a public beta version, Touchtalent soon became preferred destination for global artist community gaining social reach of 13 Million. In last one year Touchtalent generated 7000 buying request, 2000 hiring request and 4 global online exhibition for its creative community. Users share their creativity (art) under 19 different categories including Graffiti, Painting, Photography, Sketching, Design, Nail Art, Music, Comics, Sculpting, Digital Art, Pop Art etc. Users can either put their work on fixed price or open it for bid, some of the artwork has even fetched bid as high as USD 9000.
Touchtalent’s user group includes professional artists, recreational artists, college going art students apart from art admirers. Total population of artists as per Touchtalent’s estimate is 140 Million, an artist on an average creates 56 artworks in a year, taking a cumulative number to around 8 billion artwork in a year.
We felt there is a huge business opportunity if we get the entire artwork online and display it in a structured format for art buyers, with this objective we launched Professional Studios for artists”, say Ankit Prasad, Co-Founder, Touchtalent.
While needs of recreational artist is feedback and appreciation, professional artists require advance features like online art gallery (shop), virtual studio, auction house, access to buyers and payment gateway services. These all have been packaged into a common service that Touchtalent calls Professional Studios. Users can upgrade their account to professional studios by simply subscribing to an annual package of USD 60. Interestingly, there are no other charges that users have to pay, not even commission on transactions, which is unusual in art community.
Launched on 1st August, 2013, Touchtalent has received a good response to Professional Studios. “Most of the subscribers are from Indian Subcontinent and South East Asia, as we are very popular in these countries, however, we are getting professional users from countries like France and even Brazil, reinforcing the belief that artist across nations need such services”, says Prasad.
Next, in the series of initiatives that Touchtalent plans to undertake is launch of Brand Pages in Nov 2013. Touchtalent has already got a confirmation from few brands to launch their brand pages in November.
Company manages to generate thirty percent of its operating cost from its existing subscriptions model and with the launch of Brand pages team is confident of breaking even within this financial year.
