Development
Rather than start from scratch, Hartley and his two co-founders used their own money to buy an existing website called Bluethumb at the end of 2011.
“We were deciding [whether we should] build it ourselves,” Hartley said. “But then we found Bluethumb on the market. We took it on and basically completely redeveloped it and improved the technology and the buying experience.”
A major focus for development was reducing the number of customers who backed out of a purchase at the last minute.
“We saw that people would go to buy a painting and they would click buy and then for some reason they would drop out,” he said. “We saw people would be charged unexpectedly for insurance and they really didn’t like that.”
To address the problem, Bluethumb decided to absorb all the additional costs, including shipping, so that the price listed on the website would be all the buyer would pay. “That makes the decision to buy much simpler.”
Bluethumb followed the revamp with a mobile app for iPhone and it has been wildly successful since its launch in November last year, he said. It has been downloaded 6000 times and was featured in the Apple iTunes store. “Now 50 per cent of all our sales are through the app.”
Bluethumb plans to release iPad and Android versions of the app in the second quarter of this year, Hartley said.
Selling it
Bluethumb has paid for everything itself, said Harley. It has not sought, nor is it seeking, venture capital investment, he said.
“We like to run the business responsibly. All of our developments ... have been based on revenue that we earned. Rather than pay ourselves, we just reinvest it in the business.”
“I like the aspect of building within your means,” he said. “Innovation comes from having scarce resources and [making] the best of what’s in front of you and using your imagination and your skills to build a good business or a good product.”
In 2012 after taking over the website, Bluethumb increased sales by 900 per cent, he said. Sales doubled in 2013 and Hartley expects them to double again this year. The website now lists more than 5000 paintings from 500 artists, and Hartley estimated that the startup on average sold 30 to 40 paintings a month in 2013.
“We’ve had really positive feedback,” Hartley said. “Quite a few of our artists have said to use we are the only online site that they have sold artwork through.”
While the current website has a focus on Australian artists, Bluethumb seeks to expand to international markets in the future, with the UK first on its list, Hartley said. “It’s just a matter of time until we do that.”
Startup scene
Hartley praised the startup culture in Adelaide, noting that South Australia's capital “has always had a great focus on the arts and creativity and has a lot of support from our state government.”
He added that it’s cheaper to do business in Adelaide compared to Melbourne and Sydney.
However, Australia in general remains a more costly place to do business than other countries due to high taxes and other costs of doing business, he said.
Also read: How startups rate Australia
“Australia is going to have some serious infrastructure and employment issues going forward because we’re just not geared up to deal with the global change that’s happening. We’re too expensive and we’re not competitive in a world sense.”
A major cost for Bluethumb has come from sending paintings by traditional freight networks, he said.
“They haven’t kept up with the rate of change of the tech world, and it’s quite expensive and complicated to get a parcel from [or sent to] a remote location.”
Asked about recent talk by Amazon and others of using drones to deliver parcels, Hartley laughed.
“If we could start using that it would make our jobs so much easier.”
Previous startup snapshots:
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If you’ve got a startup or know about a cool new Australian business, please email Adam Bender at adam_bender@idg.com.au or on Twitter (@WatchAdam).
Adam Bender covers startup and business tech issues for Techworld and is the author of a dystopian novel about surveillance. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam
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