#390: Penelope Sonder (Chief Operating Officer of NALA) (pt. 2 of 2)

Today we released part one of our interview with Penelope Sonder. She’s the Chief Operating Officer of the art tech company NALA. It’s an acronym for the networked artistic learning algorithm that matches artists with buyers and designers. 

Penelope has nearly 20 years in the fine art industry, and prior to NALA, she was a self-employed art advisor and held various positions in galleries in the UK and Germany. 

Artists of all types will be impressed with the innovative ways NALA is connecting artists with buyers from around the world! https://nala.art/home

Transcript

Welcome And What NALA Is

Announcer 0:18

Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast, Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion, and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent, or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts, Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.

Andy Heise 1:01

Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise.

Nick Petrella 1:04

And I'm Nick Petrella. Today we're speaking with Penelope Sonder. She's the chief operating officer of the art tech company NALA. It's an acronym for the networked artistic learning algorithm that matches artists with buyers and designers. Penelope has nearly 20 years in the fine art industry, and prior to NALA, she was a self-employed art advisor and held various positions in galleries in the UK and Germany. We'll link to NALA in the show notes so you can see their collections, read more about their venture, and sign up for their newsletter. Penelope, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Penelope Sonder 1:39

Thank you so much for having me.

Artists Meet Buyers Without Gatekeepers

Andy Heise 1:42

Speaking of the interaction between buyer and seller, I'm just sitting here thinking, does the artist know who is buying their work through the platform or is that anonymous?

Penelope Sonder 1:51

No, they know. We don't get involved in this at all. When you match, you can chat with them openly. Um and you can meet up, you can become friends, you can um do whatever you like. We are no gatekeepers.

Andy Heise 2:07

Well, and that's that's sort of my that's that that's where this qu where my where my head was going with this is once that once that connection is made, why do they need you anymore? I mean, from the artist side, they want to make more connections, but if I'm just looking to buy a piece of art or I don't know, uh you know it I mean the the the in and I honestly believe in any sort of business there is a danger when it when you are a connector, right?

Penelope Sonder 2:29

Um but ultimately uh yes, if you have if you build a long-standing collector uh relationship on Nala uh and they regularly buy from you, you will eventually, you know, maybe go offline. Um and um in the end of the day, that's that's absolutely fine. Like we really would like to have the artwork on the platform because you know, the more art on on our platform, the better our algorithm lines. Um, and um, and you know, the more data we have, the better for for the recommendations. But we since we don't charge any sales commission, it is no uh damage to our business if they uh continue buying offline.

Andy Heise 3:11

Are you seeing repeat purchases from buyers?

Penelope Sonder 3:14

Yes.

Andy Heise 3:15

Yeah, I would imagine that's common.

Penelope Sonder 3:17

Um we yeah, it is usually, I mean, people once they like an artist and they like what they do, they tend to um come back and look at the new uh body of work. Sometimes, especially younger artists, they completely switch up their style. Right. And then um, and then they might lose uh lose some, you know, gain some. It's it's always a bit of a gamble, but the more established artists that have their own signature signature style, they definitely have repeat bias.

Nick Petrella 3:45

Yeah.

Andy Heise 3:56

You know, I mean, so well, and I suppose it's probably like like any platform, you've got a bunch of people that are on there, but very small percentage are actually buying, and then a very small percentage of that are repeat customers. You know, it's that it's that whole you have to I mean, it's the whole spectrum. Yeah.

Penelope Sonder 4:13

It it is it is very nice to see for us that the the the engagement, right? The fact that it is not just about matching and then you know keep you know keep going through the algorithm just because you know we this is all data science. We need to see how people interact. Is it all about the swipe? Is it about the kick? That's right, or is it about the connection, or is it solely about purchasing? Um, and um the the main interaction that we see is connecting, swiping, connecting, and then the buying comes often much later. Um but the fact that people come back and the fact that people do communicate that is a huge win um that we were hoping uh to achieve and and we do.

Nick Petrella 4:58

Yeah. And it's not like you're inventorying this, right?

Penelope Sonder 5:03

No.

Andy Heise 5:05

Inventory work, yeah. You don't have to store in. Yeah, exactly. So yeah. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could make a connection with your Uber driver before you actually decide whether or not you're gonna get a ride with them?

Penelope Sonder 5:18

Oh, I don't think so.

Nick Petrella 5:19

I wouldn't I I wouldn't have the time to do that.

Andy Heise 5:22

Yeah. No, it's uh well it's it again, it comes, it comes back. Well, it we'll talk about that here in a second. But it's like, what do you what are people what are people actually buying when they're buying art, right? Yeah.

Nick Petrella 5:34

So

Interior Designers Need Speedy Art Sourcing

Nick Petrella 5:35

interior designers. I thought it was interesting on the site, and you just mentioned here you work with interior designers. How has that response been from that particular community?

Penelope Sonder 5:45

Very good. Um, we did have some previous information before we built out the platform. So this was our recent, um, our latest uh addition to our user group, um, about uh a quarter ago where we officially launched uh uh interior designer dashboard. Oh when I used to be a um uh director of of different galleries, um the reality of my day today was that I sold most of my stock to interior designers. Now I had lunch with them often and they kept telling me about how they were out of time, how they need to source so many artworks, and the budget is too small, and they obviously need more discounts from me than I could give them. And it was always the same thing, right? So I identified um this very obvious problem for uh a market that that has potential, but it's not streamlined at all. So with NALA, there was a huge opportunity to build something that actually fits the interior designer and not the gallerist. So now that we don't have the gallerist, um that, you know, because in the end of the day, even a gallery has a very small inventory compared to what one interior designer needs to source for multiple different um projects. So um that's how we um we got into you know talking to a lot of interior designers. What are actually your needs? What are the main issues? It's mainly time, it's genuinely finding something that fits a room, that is not another print series that the other hotel next door has and so on. So um, and we could cater to that. We have the all of these original artworks, we have um cultural storylines, we have artists from from all over, right? So it's not just um a visual match and uh budget match that we can provide, but we can also help them tell stories to really elevate their interior um project and to save a lot of time. So you can search so specifically on the interior design dashboard that you might find what you need in minutes. So that's a huge uh a huge improvement for that part of their sourcing work.

Nick Petrella 7:57

And plus the interior designers, they could have their customers go to the site as well, find things they like.

Penelope Sonder 8:04

Absolutely.

Andy Heise 8:06

Well, and that's what that's why I was are we talking interior designers for like, you know, Nick hires an interior designer, or are we talking more interior design from like a commercial uh aspect?

Penelope Sonder 8:16

Anything. Um anything really. We partnered with the uh BIID, which is the British Institute Um of Interior Designers. And um they really um their members are a huge mix of anything from um individual freelance interior designers to uh commercial agencies. And um the um the the agencies and individuals that we have, it's it's a wide array of um monthly needs, um, search styles, locations, and so on. But um, but we we um anticipated this. So we built it in a manner that it really, really fits um their workflow. And also, I mean, you can even create room mockups of your actual project with the artwork from Nala in it. You can make it a presentation, all takes two minutes, send it to your client. So it's all streamlined in a manner that um it it it really serves any

What Counts As Art And Shipping

Penelope Sonder 9:12

yeah.

Nick Petrella 9:12

I just quick follow-up question. I don't what I I didn't even look into this, but is this only uh uh paintings or is it sculpture, glass blowing?

Penelope Sonder 9:23

It is any physical um already created piece of art. Meaning no digital art. I mean, digital art could be part of your process if the the work is um ultimately physical and already created. Yeah um, but um yeah, anything really, if it's shippable. We had a few cases where um that was difficult.

Andy Heise 9:49

Oh, I want to hear about one of those.

Penelope Sonder 9:51

Way too big. Like public installation type art, or we we actually um we uh had a uh an artwork at a uh uh in one of our physical exhibitions that was a beautiful glass-blown sculpture by an artist called Stella Kron. And um, she um has uh sand and and ants actually living within the sculpture, and they shaped the sculpture um for her, basically, or with her. And uh it was an amazing piece uh during the show. Obviously, the the ants were released and they were native to um the um the place where we uh exhibited it, but then it had to be shipped back, and um there were a lot of questions.

Andy Heise 10:37

Yeah, a lot of questions, I can imagine. Yeah, that's great. Um, and so you just um in your earlier response to to Nick's question about interior design is you you started to touch on uh my next question, uh, which is so you've got you know Nala as a platform has c artists as customers, you have collectors or buyers, uh art lovers, enthusiasts as by as a customer base, and now you've sort of niche down into the interior design industry as well. How do you so how does NALA balance the needs of those things? Like we I just heard you like so you basically built out some specialized tools for interior designers, but the average art collector, or is that who we're talking about, or were you a little more little more well-versed art collector? And then artists, you know, you said you have a range of artists, people who are just kind of getting started to more successful artists. How do you meet the needs of of all of those different interest areas?

Penelope Sonder 11:35

Yeah, it it really took some time to build it out from the beginning, and we we started um slowly by really looking at artists and their direct individual bias and then extend it, right? And um in the end of the day, interior designers are an extension of art lovers on the app. Um, we just eliminated the the um game gamification. We added professional tools that help them to do quickly what they need to do, and um, and just made sure that the artists get all of the information and can give the output that they need to present their art in the best way. And then when it comes to the buyer side, our both of our uh buyer groups have slightly different needs, and all of that is built into our design UI, UX to make sure that um it really caters to your, you know, the fun little swipe on the app, um, the workflow for the for the designer that is sitting at work during working hours, and the artist that just wants to get feedback on their work that they're uploading, how they can do it better, what is maybe missing, um, and how to in general get a better um get more independent in how to sell their work. And we're providing more and more tools for artists um to to learn about this.

Andy Heise 13:01

And so the you mentioned earlier the shipping piece is just between the buyer and the the seller. So you you don't have you say thank you very much, you facilitate the transaction and they figure out the rest.

Penelope Sonder 13:12

Yeah, we work together with Ata.io. Um, it's an amazing company that uh facilitates uh shipping for online sales um in the art world and um it makes our life much easier, it is um secure, it's um insured, and it makes the um you know global uh art shipping process very simple.

Andy Heise 13:34

Got it. So when an artist agrees to sell something on your platform, they're also agreeing to use that shipping service.

Penelope Sonder 13:41

Yes. So um once they upload their artwork, it all they need to do is put in their um their studio address and their retail price and everything else is facilitated.

Nick Petrella 13:52

Right. Uh

Swiping Past Intimidation With Taste Profiles

Nick Petrella 13:55

this is what I alluded to earlier, my my question about art being intimidated. You know, fine art and classical music, it can be intimidating to people, especially people new to those particular arts. Do you find that the information from the art views, those swipes, do you think that that mitigates buyer fear, or do you address that in other ways?

Penelope Sonder 14:18

I think that the swiping actually helps a lot to take this this fear away, just because um you by reacting intuitively to artwork, you you don't need to have any um previous knowledge, right? You don't need to, no one is telling you this is good or you just chose something bad or you don't know what you're talking about. This actually now indicates you have a bad taste. All of this, um all of this is uh exactly, all of this is uh taken out of the equation. So um whereas I don't think that swiping through app will ever replace seeing art in the flash. This is all about getting an intuitive understanding, especially when you're new to the journey. I think um it is very interesting to go. We we have a little section on the app that um is called taste profile. So based on your actions, it will explain to you what your taste actually is, how that would be coined in the art market. So you start to learn with with um with the app what you actually like. And for more experienced users, um they might see what they're maybe pivoting towards, what's new, how it's changing. And so so it is um a very personal way of actually understanding what your taste is outside of any influence, which is interesting for me as well.

Nick Petrella 15:37

Yeah. How you grow, change.

Penelope Sonder 15:42

Digress, anything can happen.

Andy Heise 15:46

Are the the images that they're swiping on, are those actual artwork by artists that are on the platform? So that if they were so if they were to see one like, oh, I actually like this one, they could dig into it deeper.

Penelope Sonder 15:56

Yes, they can. So you can swipe on it and then either match uh with the artist directly, you can look at more information, and um it's all there.

Andy Heise 16:06

But there must be a preliminary like onboarding, like do you like this or this or this or this or this? And then it'll start making recommendations, or how does that how's that from a user from a buyer user standpoint? Yeah.

Penelope Sonder 16:17

We have a little onboarding. So for the app side of things, we have a little onboarding process where we ask some very simple questions about what they think they like, and then uh we show some images um what what that might entail. And it's it's fairly quickly. You'll you go through that in in two minutes, and then um and then you might like something completely different, but it at least gives us a kickstart of okay, where do we start with you?

Andy Heise 16:44

Yeah, I'm just I'm you know, I think what people say and what they do, I think are often two different, very different things. So I'm wondering, like, is that a is that taken into account somehow on the algorithm? You just like throw a random one in there, like, are you sure you don't like this one? Because we think we think, we think based on our data that you are would like this one, but you're telling me you don't like it.

Penelope Sonder 17:03

So we don't want to get judgmental, so we would never say that, right?

Andy Heise 17:06

Well, I of course you wouldn't say it, but that's what that's what it's that's that's that's human speak for what the algorithm is doing.

Penelope Sonder 17:13

Yeah, yes, but we do exactly that. So there's always the odd um, oh, where's this sculpture coming from? Or oh, I didn't say I like um animal portraits, but um you might find it, you know. Um and it might because it's not all about um the subject matter, for example. So most people categorize first by subject matter if they don't know styles. So but the subject matter is not a taste direction. So you might like a landscape in all kinds of um beautiful British grey tones. Um and then the next image is an elephant, right? This is a very crass example, and it will probably be a lot smoother on the app, but um but but this is why it feels versatile and still in tune with what you're what what direction you gave intuitively.

Nick Petrella 18:06

So does it count the amount of time that you're on? Okay, okay, so this is what I was wondering. Is Andy asked his question. Somebody's commenting. I am frequently distracted. So imagine that I'm looking and all of a sudden there's a stick figure of a cat on my phone, and I walk away to go talk to somebody, and that's been sitting there for however long I've been talking. Does that mean for the next week I'm gonna be getting stick figures of animals?

Penelope Sonder 18:39

It it could happen, but we're also speeding up our um algorithm to be um quite uh touchy, meaning that if you liked one thing, you might see more of it. If you don't interact with it more, it will scale back again. Okay. So this is something that we'll see in a quite a lot of algorithm work um on different platforms, and it is for exact that for exactly the reason that you just described, helpful to do. So no, you won't be stuck with a stick cats.

Nick Petrella 19:06

Okay. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because there is probably a subset of the population that enjoys that.

Penelope Sonder 19:12

Probably.

Andy Heise 19:14

Parents. Yeah, they're they're kids. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of kids, I actually um we we named our first child using a swipe left, swipe right type of app for names. Um I didn't know that. So yeah, Tech9. Oh lordy. Uh that's a right. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. Um I don't remember. Kent uh Kinder? I know that that's also like a candy, but it's uh yeah, it's a German word for child. Yeah, yeah. I um but I think they left the E off, like kind of like Kinder. Oh, cool. You know what I mean? K-I-N-D-R. I don't remember. I might be wrong, I might be making that up. I might be inventing my own. Let's go with it.

Penelope Sonder 20:01

But um, but but it's the same logic, right? It's it's about intuitively find what you like. So that's right. That's right.

Andy Heise 20:08

And so I and the name we we landed on is not one that I think was even on our list. So it was very sim, it was very similar to ones that we were talking about, but it wasn't one of the ones on the list. So, anyways, yeah. Um as Nick would say, back to the show.

Mexico City Residency Builds Real Community

Andy Heise 20:28

Um you mentioned earlier you did a physical exhibition in Mexico City during their um their art week.

Penelope Sonder 20:35

Um yes, in February, first week of February this year. Um, we did indeed, um, it was our um first residency. So we rented a house in um in La Roma neighborhood in Mexico City. And uh we chose Mexico because um I think that the the um art scene in in Mexico is so vibrant and upcoming and interesting and um lacks a lot of rules, which is so in tune with what we do. So um we rented this beautiful old house which has a lot of history in the um in the art world, an art scene there as well. Um, I was shown photos of naked piano playing artists, parties, and uh amazing stuff that was happening in this house. I'm like, all right, we have to do it here. And um and then we uh held a uh week-long uh exhibition called Pantarei Quina, which translates to everything flows in common. So again, the idea was to curate a space um with beautiful art, um, but without taking my idea of um what the show should be about onto the artist, right? Um usually you would have a topic and you go to the artist and you say, Okay, we're now discussing um the philosophy of um uh flowers dying I don't know um and um and in this case it was all about um how do you relate to your um how do you relate to the space and where you are in your career right now like it was all about them it was all about uh so so the curation itself when I had all of the works together I was like oh god how is this going to look together in the in the um house and it it came together beautifully because um the only rule that we set for ourselves was we would have uh we wanted half of the artists to be from um South America um and uh and the rest international to honor um the uh the space that we were in and um and there was a lot of um cultural political emotional discussions in the works and we some of them really really melted together very well and some were um uh very much in contrast to each other and they again spurred a lot of conversations and um we we got the community that we wanted we had the our online community moved into offline we had a beautiful mix of ages of um artists to buyers to um you know the the uh people from the next door shop that really wanted to see it and absolutely everyone participated and interacted um uh with the artworks and each other in that space over the course of that entire week and we added several events to the calendar because it was so popular so that was a huge risk because we had no idea if anyone was coming um this is a very different way of promoting traditional shows with a gallery backing that I uh used to have in the past but um again it's a proof of concept um that this is what people are looking for community yeah yeah and that was that was the heart of the question uh that that that I was that I had was like what was the goal what were you hoping to get out of it and is that an ongoing strategy for Nala to have these sort of uh in real life connections based on uh digital you know that are based on on digital connections yeah it's a it's a very strong pillar of um our not just marketing but our community building and um you know without our user base Nala wouldn't exist. So

Quarterly London Pop-Ups With Creative Debuts

Penelope Sonder 24:33

it's all about bringing people together outside of the space that is um that is our online platforms. So we just um uh launched another amazing partnership with Creative Debutes which is an amazing um company based in the uh in the UK that also champions young talent um that might be uh you know has never exhibited in a gallery before or is just starting off in their careers and we um the the uh founder Callum um is an incredible curator has a wonderful eye um for talent and um he's been doing this for a very long time um in in the UK and has brought uh has brought so many people together and and built beautiful stories and we just partnered so um every quarter we're going to do an event um together in London and probably um many other places the first event will take place on the 4th of June so next week Thursday in uh in London um at the Laundry Studios in E8 and we uh this time we will have an artist event where artists can come in there's free booths free food and more importantly there is um different workshops for artists to uh try out different uh mediums so new uh practices that they haven't um interacted with and also um for art lovers um uh 100 artists will be exhibiting and showing and selling their work um so this is our first uh first partnership with creative debuts yeah that sounds great that's great so I work with a lot of uh young student student artists emerging artists uh that are highly AI skeptical and so if you said you're gonna this is a platform where you upload your images we're gonna analyze them using AI so we can train our algorithm to make recommendations to buyers they would go running for the hills what what would your what's what's sort of your what what should student artists young artists emerging artists know about utilizing a platform like yours and AI their ad is not going anywhere we're not changing the image the copyright remains with them none of the all of the fears for AI which are very very valid especially when it comes to copyright in the in the creative scene it is a very scary time um but uh this is not how we discussed earlier we don't use this technology in that manner our goal is not to produce another piece of art our goal is just to understand what you do and put it in front of the right person so the um the analyzing part just means that our algorithm understands what it is that you put together in what manner and then it moves forward to who actually looks at something similar

AI, Copyright, And Artist Peace Of Mind

Penelope Sonder 27:30

to what you do. That's it. That's all that happens it's all in our terms and conditions and um we answer a lot of individual emails obviously on that topic that we're regularly getting and um and it is a very important question to ask uh absolutely um but that's what we're there for to discuss this great Penelope we've reached the point of the interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions and the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an art entrepreneur?

Advice On Building In Uncertainty

Penelope Sonder 28:00

Oh jump in go. This is the best time uh the world is falling apart not to be dramatic but um I think this is uh this is the best part to build it's the best time to to try something that someone would tell you would never be possible right um so there's always an upside to um to destruction or to losing something that you hold dear or a system that you know and um that's how I have approached um these times and I think it's uh it's also one of the reasons why these kind of new ideas are very well received and people are more happy to experiment and look at the world differently so I think a lot of people should come up with with similar ideas and come up with different um understandings of how this new world could look in any field.

Nick Petrella 28:56

Good what can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience visibility.

Penelope Sonder 29:06

It's the biggest issue that we have in the art world um for artists is how do I get um to be seen because talent is not the same as visibility it's the number one issue that we have um and uh overcuration and marketing is something that just holds the few in the in the space of visibility and um I think it is everyone's job in the in the market to um evaluate what that means for our education for our vision for our understanding of reality for understanding of sourcing talent supporting talent and so on so um finding new ways of uh connecting with artists connecting with um people who want to engage with art is um is one of the most important things at the moment lastly what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice you've been given there have been many especially many people telling me don't do what you're doing in so many stages of my career and I regret it none of them so there is one saying um that I find really um suitable for that mindset and very inspiring which is curiosity scales better than certainty um I think it is uh play is such an important part especially as a as a professional that has been um in the in their field for quite a while uh keep playing keep questioning everything that you do remain curious and um and interact with the new don't don't try to stagnate try not to stagnate um and try and I'm saying this to myself because sometimes there's always uh a moment where I'm like oh I know all of this no I don't and uh I'm I'm being humbled every day by even the algorithm showing me that I was totally wrong about this work uh going to be uh you know being the number one that week so um I think this is a very uh beautiful thing to keep one on their toes and to keep thinking and um to keep moving into areas that have not been tapped into yet.

Wrap-Up And Listener Next Steps

Nick Petrella 31:32

Well said well thanks for coming on the podcast Penelope it's fascinating to hear the innovative ways you're growing the arts ecosystem by connecting artists from around the world to buyers from around the world thank you so much for having me it was a lovely conversation thanks Penelope thanks for listening if you like this podcast please subscribe visit arts entrepreneurship podcast dot com to learn more about our guest and how you can help support artists, the arts and this podcast