In Conversation with Daniel Lev-er, the arty entrepreneur
We sat down for a chat with Daniel Lev-er, an entrepreneur with a strong background in art.
“The way I see it, moving ahead with Blockchain, we should focus less on how it may be applied to the art world but rather on how it may be used to solve the problems in the art world. This may seem like a minute distinction but I think it’s the key to improving some of the main issues in our ecosystem.” — Daniel Lev-er
To start off, tell us a little bit about yourself! Where do you come from? Please, also tell us about your academic and professional background and your interests.
I’m originally from Israel and recently moved to London, which is actually where it all began for me in a slightly serendipitous manner.
In 2013, I took a short course on ‘Art and its Markets’ at Sotheby’s here in London. After observing the preparations for an Impressionist and Modern auction sale, our class left but something inside urged me to stick around.
I stood in front of a Claude Monet that would later break the sale record, fixated on this marvelous painting. I was mulling the odds of ever owning such a masterpiece myself when the head of private sales Alex Platon walked up and asked what I thought of it. I barely knew Monet back then and I swallowed hard but Platon invited me to a collectors’ cocktail reception to meet someone from the Tiroche family, saying I might benefit from the connection.
He was right and that’s how my art career started. I returned to Israel and I gradually became the COO of the Tiroche Deleon Collection of Art Vantage while completing my bachelor’s degree in art history at Tel Aviv University.
While handling the logistics of the collection, I realize how incredibly complex it is to ship art. Coordinating between six warehouses in five countries revealed to me the global industry as a glorious mess of multiple moving parts, including artists, galleries, collectors, auction houses, shippers, insurers and logistics providers.
That’s how ArtRunners was conceived, to simplify shipping artwork around the world. I envisioned a marketplace that would tackle the nuts and bolts of logistics, take crating, customs and all the other things people dislike about the process and address them in one place. The point was to introduce transparency, cut costs and shift the power from providers to the clients.
I joined forces with co-founder Serge Tiroche and with an agile and customizable technology, we set out together to reinvent the industry. We folded after three years of operations but more of that later and why.
I’ve recently moved back to London with a new ambitious venture, creating alternative financial models backed by Blockchain technology to overcome the current challenges in the art market.
As a co-founder, what would you say is the biggest misconception about it as a career?
Tough one, since there are several… Ben Horowitz once said that “as a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours and cried.” He nailed it, that’s the reality of it and it is probably a good thing I wasn’t aware of this at the time…
There are many misconceptions. From the outside, everything seems glamorous, cool, doable, with success just around the corner. And the assumption that everyone will get your logic, share your enthusiasm and embrace your solution immediately. There are things out there that you can’t control, and the ‘if you build it, they will come’ doesn’t always work out. A great part of the appeal is the independence of decision, the freedom to call shots. But this carries a tremendous responsibility too, and this can be a burden. Just like you create something new from scratch, you’re really also creating yourself as a person too, learning new skills, learning from experience, succeeding and failing, finding and pushing your limits. As an entrepreneur, I have this constant internal debate with myself about what kind of life and career I want to lead. Running your own business is demanding, it comes with many challenges and difficulties. But at the same time, nothing comes easy in any field, and if you stick with the challenges long enough you grow as a person, entrepreneur, leader.
In your opinion, what is the major thing that emerging art markets lack or struggle with? And, are there any “simple” actions that we could start by taking to improve the situation?
I would say that a key problem is emerging market players’ difficulty in leveraging themselves and at the same time improving their day-to-day operations. Regarding galleries, in particular, the art might be great but they often lack the specialized business skills required to sustain themselves and grow as a viable and profitable business. The mid-level roles of sales, marketing and operations are often filled by non-professional employees in the sense that they specialize in art but not in operations, and this often snowballs into a major business problem. The good news is that there is, in fact, a simple solution, and this is exactly what my new venture is about, bringing more business oxygen into emerging and mid-level galleries. Once I complete the business plan, I’ll be more confident in sharing this new idea.
As a member of the start-up scene, do you have any ideas on what might be the next big trend?
Entrepreneurs are constantly bringing new ideas to the table. One of the latest innovations is Blockchain, which is now emerging beyond the financial world where it started and being applied in a wide range of other fields, indicating this tech is here to stay. Regarding the art world, Blockchain can be effective in two ways. First, in the pre-sale stage of identifying the owners of the artworks, tracking provenance and authenticity. Next is using it to “democratize” art investment, as the current ownership of high-performing artwork is fractional. The way I see it, moving ahead with Blockchain, we should focus less on how it may be applied to the art world but rather on how it may be used to solve the problems in the art world. This may seem like a minute distinction but I think it’s the key to improving some of the main issues in our ecosystem.
The last company you co-founded, ArtRunners, stopped its operations this year. Could you tell us a bit as to why this happened?
We set out to streamline the shipping process and make it smoother, more transparent and cheaper for all the players involved. It was a tech solution, a platform that offered a one-stop-shop marketplace. Looking back, I think we over-estimated the degree of automation that can be effectively introduced in a largely manual industry, and at the same time under-estimated the apprehension of industry players, who were more change-resistant that we anticipated. Potential partners weren’t quick to embrace the technology and we weren’t quick enough in just getting boots on the ground in the market with a contingency plan. We switched from B2C to B2B to target aggregators, mostly auction houses, with a customized online solution but didn’t succeed in onboarding anchor partners, so ultimately, we hit a wall. The bottom line is that businesses from top to bottom wanted a cheap, simple and reliable shipping solution, and we hadn’t introduced enough of a game-changer. At the end of the day, you can have the coolest platform but you can’t force people to use it. I’m still convinced that the art logistics market needs a solution but achieving sustainable profit with an automation-based solution will remain a challenge.
Last, but not least, who are your biggest influences when it comes to inspiration?
I’m very much inspired by successful founders in other industries. I’m keen on learning ideas and skills from people outside the art market because this broadens my perspectives and I think the only real way to succeed in bringing something new to the table is by taking a multidisciplinary approach and looking at your particular niche from a wide range of different perspectives. I think any entrepreneur seeking to implement a successful business plan absolutely needs to look around for inspiration, see what works for other entrepreneurs in other fields, pinch (in a good way!) their ideology and approach, and adapt it to the idea in question.
If I had to pick one specific influence, that would be Roei Deutsch, co-founder, and CEO of Jolt, which has innovated learning processes and spaces with a network of world-class instructors delivering lessons over two-way video. They’ve created a clever and super-effective way of enabling life-long learning by delivering customized and accessible learning. The business model and agile approach are very inspiring, and I also like how this enables people to continue learning, always, and at every point in life and career.
Check out Daniel’s LinkedIn
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