Chris Bates is an artist and muralist who has created art that you’ve surely seen, walked past, and admired in and around Fort Collins. His business, Mighty Fine Art, produces a wide array of work and Chris has some great insights on how to make your work valuable.

Let’s get to know Chris!

My name is Chris Bates and I am a local visual artist out of Fort Collins, primarily working in murals and also commission drawings, live painting with musicians, and work at a couple of galleries.

Is the business of painting a mural more difficult than getting a commission?

They’re similar. The business side that makes murals a tad easier is they market themselves. They’re out in the public eye and it’s easier for people to access the work and find you. The major part of my career is doing that.

Is it normally a city official or business owner that you’re working with in order to do that?

Everybody and anybody. City folks, building owners, business owners, developers, teachers, principals, school districts, individuals, you name it. I’ve worked with the whole gamut.

What’s been the best project that you’ve worked on so far?

The latest one that I just finished over the entire summer of 2018. I was working with Brinkmann, a local developer in town that was revamping a block of old town they named the Exchange.

They had hired me to paint a lot of their electric meters, water meters, storm drains, telephone boxes, entryways. I did some chalk art for them and then they also commissioned me to do a large scale mural on an intersection of a couple of alleys. It was a really intensive project that took the whole summer.

I was able to do what I feel like my best work to date.

How do you go about tackling a project like that? There’s a huge scope when it comes to figuring out something like a utility box versus an entire canvas of a building wall.

The way I operate, I like to make site-specific work so it was fun.

The challenge of trying to find something for a storm drain and then trying to find something for this 10-foot by 20-foot box. Then trying to find some for the building wall and then trying to work on gas meters.

The client was patient and we had the time to spend all summer coming up with designs for each specific site. We took it one project at a time and just checked them off. It was a lot of fun to be able to take on these challenges to work on different surfaces and different shapes.

Besides your work, who is doing the coolest work in Northern Colorado? Whose art do you look forward to seeing the most?

There are so many great people. Lindee Zimmer is doing a lot of great work. I’ve got a friend I went to college with down in Denver, Jeremy Burns, who’s making these really cool large murals on the side of corrugated steel buildings that can be seen from different angles.

There’s just so much. The whole public art realm is just exploding right now. There’s just so many people from graffiti artists to people that are rolling out really abstract works. I get on the internet and I just am amazed by the level of work that’s out there and the number of things that are getting accomplished.

I’m trying to spend the next three years focusing on what I’m trying to do. I tend to like keep my hands in a lot of different pots and try to work as many angles as I can. I’m trying to take a two or three year period here and just stay really focused on achieving a couple set goals for myself and not worrying about what other people are doing as much.

We talk a lot about business planning during startup week in particular, but to hear an artist talk about their three-year plan is interesting. A lot of your work comes through commissions or through other folks asking you to do certain things, right? How do you plan for that uncertainty?

It’s just a balance of making things happen and letting things happen. I haven’t typically been a huge goal setter. I’ve gone through the process of formulating business plans and mission statements and all these things in the past, but all kind of loosely based and even my three-year goals aren’t … There’s not a huge plan set in place for them. They’re just places that I would like to see myself get to and I’m just going through the process of figuring out the roads I need to take to get to that spot.

What are you looking forward to most in startup week?

It’s always a great thing. There are tons of really smart, cool people that are out in the community. I look forward to, even in down times, just talking to people that are out. Some of the best conversations I’ve had surrounding art and business and moving things forward in the community have come just having a sandwich or some snacks with someone in between talks.

What do you see is the biggest challenge in Northern Colorado in terms of the creative community.

Probably the cost of living. It makes it more difficult for creatives to find work that will sustain their careers in a way that allows them to meet their full potential as artists or whatever genre of creativity that they’re trying to pursue and not have to hold down multiple jobs at the same time as pursuing their dreams or their creative careers.

People have to make some pretty hard choices and are putting things on back burners or maybe just giving their creative ventures half time or a third of the amount of time that they could be, if they could figure out a way to make their art financially sustainable.

What do you think is the easiest path to make that happen?

There’s no one way. It is finding what success means for you and then pursuing that version of that success and staying flexible and opportunistic in that pursuit and just not giving up and just keeping at it until you get to where you need to go. It looks different for every single person. I don’t think there’s really one way to do it.

A lot of the issues that we face in startups from art to tech and everything in between are so complex. It’s really good to have that startup community behind you to talk to different minds in different studies and in different areas.

I like to partner with anyone that wants to partner with me. I really did like the whole experience last year partnering with Brinkmann. I had never partnered with a developer on a redevelopment project and they were really easy to work with and supportive. I worked with Toolbox Creative and Art Lab for multiple years.

It’s just finding those people that like what you do and that want to build with you. Everyone’s got their own taste and their own opinions and their own ways that they handle their business or their fun. Find those people that you’re jealous of and try to make things happen with them.

How can we find out more about you and your work?

I put newer things up on Instagram under mightyfineartist. I have a website, MightyFineArt.org, that is updated every three years and it’s about that time to do that. I’m always happy to connect with people and talk and give advice andget advice. I like to be involved in the community.

Jeanne Shoaff is a former gallery curator and current arts and creative coach passionate about getting artists to think critically about their art as a business.

Let’s get to know Jeanne!

My name is Jeanne Shoaff. I am an independent consultant for artists. Specifically I do career coaching for artists as well as other arts and culture consultations for groups and organizations.

You must deal with a lot of artists directly day to day.

I have spent almost 20 years as a curator and gallery director. I have had a lot of interaction in that time with artists in all different aspects of their careers, specifically toward getting them to exhibit in the various galleries that I worked in. I have a great network of artists whom I know personally and professionally.

What have you heard is biggest challenge in the Northern Colorado creative community?

I would say the biggest challenge is probably the art market that exists here. It’s, I’d say, really challenging to sell your art here as compared with obviously some of the larger cities across the country. And a lot of artists are looking for ways to extend their market outside of the Fort Collins region or outside of the Northern Colorado region.

Another challenging aspect is finding studio space that’s affordable for artists. Many artists do work out of their homes but a lot of other artists would love to have a space either working in community with other artists or even by themselves. But real estate is just so expensive here. The rental rates are very high, so it’s difficult to find a good place to make it work and also just working community with other artists in an affordable way.

It definitely necessitates a coach to sort of guide new artists through the Northern Colorado art scene.

I would say that that is true. I think what artists can benefit most by having somebody else kind of take a look at their career is … First of all, artists have to determine for themselves what are their career goals. Do they want to sell art in a retail or a gallery type setting? Do they want to look at more online options? How are they going to be using social media and really what is their goal? Some artists prefer to do a public art and there’s a whole different kind of direction that you would go than if you’re interested in getting your work into a more traditional gallery setting.

Or if you want to just sell independently and look at some online or even wholesale options, that becomes another pathway towards success for artists. Really, it’s a matter of artists setting their own goals and determining what’s going to work best for them for their personality, for their particular type of artwork and then figuring out, okay, now that I have this big goal, what are those action steps that I can take to get there?

If you could tell a Northern Colorado creative one thing, what would it be?

I would say be realistic. Use your strengths and find others to help you in the areas that are not your strengths. For instance in the whole business realm, a lot of artists need help with even basic things like accounting, to be able to figure out where the efficiencies in their business. And where is their money going, and how much is their art worth? How much do they really want to make? How much should they be charging? Where is the market that’s going to support that price point? And I guess that’s not one thing, but use your own strengths and find someone else that help you with the other things that you’re not as strong or don’t want to be spending your time doing.

Who’s doing the coolest things in Northern Colorado?

Oh, my goodness. There’s a lot going on. I would say Center for Fine Art Photography has met some challenges in some very interesting ways. They have recently given up their brick-and-mortar office/gallery space and they are moving into kind of a more mobile aspect of their business. And I think that, again, that reflects the affordability or not affordability of Fort Collins and they are working with lots of other kinds of organizations to present their artists and figuring out ways to do that better out of the norm.

I’d say any artist who is kind of going in their own direction and creating their own pathway. I’d say Chris Bates is one person who’s going to be a co-presenter with me. And he is beginning to work directly with developers to figure out how to incorporate art right at the beginning of these developments that happen.

There are, I think, a lot of people who are out there kind of figuring out how to make it work. Things are changing rapidly in the artist world. And if you can be nimble and creative in a way that you approach how you’re going to be going, then that’s going to be helpful to you.

You mentioned your panel at Fort Collins Startup Week & Artup Week. What’s got you most excited about the whole week?

I attended that week last year just as an individual. I’m not associated with anything. I did do a couple of panels but there is just so much to offer to artists and creatives specifically. I love the fact that it is really targeted toward people with creative businesses because artists are a different breed. They need different kinds of services. They need to think about things in different ways than your typical business person.

And to offer all the different kinds of resources and advice and the networking between other people who are approaching ideas in different ways, it’s just fantastic. I don’t know that there’s any one thing about it other than the fact that it exists, that it really does look to help the artists and the creative entrepreneurs in our community.

Tell us a little bit about your panel.

The panel is going to be specifically on helping artists develop goals and then using those goals to determine what the next steps in their career will be.

Where can we find out more about you and your work?

Probably the best place at this point is to look me up on LinkedIn. And you can contact me directly at Jeanne Shoaff@comcast.net.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone more knowledgable about music in Fort Collins than Julie Sutter. An avid concert-goer, Julie’s experience with several music-based startups makes it no surprise that she’s the Community Manager at The Music District.

Julie’s main squeeze at Techstars Startup Week and ARTup Week Fort Collins is The Music District’s free Sonic Social on Saturday, March 2nd.

Julie, tell us about yourself!

I am Julie Sutter. I am the Community Manager at The Music District. I’m also the content captain for the music track for ARTup week sessions, which are a part of Techstars Startup Week Fort Collins.

What are you most excited about in terms of the music sessions you’ve seen so far?

This year we are combining The Music District’s Sonic Social, which is kind of an immersive open-house, with ARTup week. So on Saturday, March 2nd, we’re going to have this big celebration at the end of ARTup week that invites the public to plug in, turn up, and geek out.

It’s a themed event that incorporates science fiction, fantasy, video games, and it has music at its core and it’s going to be super fun.

There will be two sessions that are related to music production and sound engineering and tech as well.

We’re going to see some geeky bands in Northern Colorado come out and play?

That is the hope. We are working on booking some live performances for Sonic Social as we speak. We’re working really hard to make sure that we are inclusive, which is one of the key values that we’re exploring via Start Up week in general this year. Inclusivity and access.

Do you see access and inclusion as big challenges in the Northern Colorado music community?

We always have work to do around that. It’s important that we are mindful about it. Music is by its nature, inclusive. It’s one of our shared languages that you don’t have to work very hard to understand each other through. It’s good to be very intentional about access and inclusion and make sure that you are exploring the opportunities you have to invite more people in.

If access and inclusion aren’t the biggest issues, what are the biggest challenges for the Northern Colorado music community?

We have challenges surrounding abundance and making sure that we’re getting through, and I’m really not trying to make a pun here, all the noise. That’s a challenge for anybody producing any sort of event or wanting people to explore the art that they’re sharing. There’s a lot of competing interest and we are especially blessed in Northern Colorado with lots of choices of fun things to do. There are some challenges around just making sure that people know what you’ve got going on.

Musicians and artists also have different approaches to learning about technology, and we’ve got a session on how to leverage technology to advance your career that’s geared towards musicians and presented by the Fort Collins Musicians Association.

Who’s doing the coolest things in Northern Colorado?

I am a big fan of the Downtown Artery. They are one of our most creative venues and do such a wonderful job of combining artists and music. They are always doing something that pushes boundaries.

The Lyric Cinema is also amazing. They have so much going on in terms of movies, but they also have music outside on their patio, and they’ve designed some pretty interesting art installations within the cinema itself.

If you could tell a Northern Colorado creative one thing what would it be?

Don’t forget that if you are exploring this as an entrepreneur, if you are trying to make your art a business, you are a business person already.

One of the challenges that comes up for the artist is this idea that if it’s something they enjoy doing that somehow they don’t deserve to be paid for their work. Or they shouldn’t view themselves as trying to earn a living form it. That’s just wrong, you can do both things. You can both have a gift and be rewarded for that gift.

Have you seen any good examples of a business integrating with art and music?

The Poudre River Public Library District.

They do such a good job of inviting in so many different people in the community. I know that maybe they don’t look at themselves as a business but they serve lots of businesses. Whether it’s through helping people learn how to navigate the nonprofit world or just by having a business librarian. They also manage on top of all that to bring in some really good elements of thinking about weird stuff, and I love that about the Library. And it’s for everybody.

I admire what they do and I continue to learn about things that they do that are really cutting edge, more than people would think. When you think, sometimes, about the Library you think about a place for books, but it’s a community-connected place with lots of things other than books.

Where can we find out more about you and the work of the Music District?

TheMusicDistrict.org – we have an events listing for all the things going on over here. We’ve got artists in residence, we’ve got ongoing events, and most of our events are free to the public. We’ve got some business development type workshops. And, of course, we teach how to protect your art and the craft of music.

About The Author

Julie Sutter is the Community Manager for The Music District and a content captain for ARTup Week’s music track.

The Music District’s Sonic Social is Saturday March 2nd at 4PM.

Tyler Brooks, founder of Analytive, wants you to make sure your marketing is converting. He believes until you know your customer and how your products fit in the market, you can’t scale up.

His talk at Startup week is How to Market to Your Dream Clients on Friday March 1st, 11:00am-12:00pm @ Cohere Coworking.

Tyler had a lot to say about digital marketing. Let’s check out the interview!

My name is Tyler and I founded a digital marketing company called Analytive about three years ago. We focus largely on the B2B space as a conversion-focused agency, meaning that when I work with clients, my goal is to always get them revenue, leads in the door, or sales.

Our focus is on revenue, we’re not a branding agency or a creative agency in the strictest sense. Obviously, there’s creativity in what we do, but I love working with clients who have a strong desire to build a marketing funnel that will provide resources and revenue over the long run.

What would you say to a startup that was just coming out of the gate?

To borrow startup lingo, find that product market fit. I’ve worked with a lot of startups, established agencies, and established companies, but one of the big challenges is always finding the product market fit.

Where it isn’t quite established yet, they think, “Oh, we can go out and we can outsource marketing,” so they come to us or they go to other agencies and say, “Well, you’re a marketing agency. Here’s our product. Figure out how to sell it. Figure out how to get it in front of the right people.”

We’ll usually ask them, “Who are the right people?” If you have this software as a service or you have this manufacturing or you have this consulting service, who are the right people for you? Until you know that and until you know your product’s a great fit for the market, you’re really fighting an uphill battle. Before you spend any money on marketing, one of the most valuable things is to make sure you have the right product reaching the right market. Then once you sort of get that traction, that’s when the scale up can really happen.

That’s where we love coming in with companies when they are just starting to get that product market fit and we can take what’s already working and we can help them scale it. We can spend money on ads knowing that we’re gonna get a return, we’re not just kind of shooting in the dark, but we’re actually trying to drive real revenue because we know that it’s the right product and we’re getting it in front of the right market so that those people begin to convert.

What percentage of businesses would you say start out with the wrong type of marketing?

Most companies aren’t quite as far along that journey as they think they are. If you think you’re at 70% or 80%, realistically maybe you’re at 50% or 60%. If you think you’re only 50% of the way there, you’re probably only at 20% or 30% of the way there. Until you’re pretty confident in your product market fit, don’t spend money on marketing and scaling.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for a startup that’s looking at doing marketing for the first time?

One of the things that they miss most often is the message. Because you are working in your company all the time, it’s easy to talk about the features of your product and instantly begin to nerd out on the features or the technical aspects of whatever it is that you are trying to sell. The problem is that nobody really cares about the technical aspects by and large. That comes later in the sales process. What they actually care about is the benefit that they’re going to gain if they use your product or service.

So I think that’s one of the things, even today I had a lunch meeting with a guy and he was talking all about the technical aspects, the features, how much you get, how much it’s gonna cost, but he didn’t talk about the benefit, the actual benefit to the end user and to the potential customer. So that’s the number one thing I see. Everyone likes to focus on the media, so they like to talk about oh, we’re doing Facebook ads or we’re doing Google ads, but until you have the right message and the right market, you’re actually getting in front of the right people, the decision makers, only then should you really look at the media and which channels you want to be on.

Yeah. I think Seth Godin made the point of whose it for is the most important question in marketing. It seems like that’s a common refrain with what you’re saying as well. When it comes to whose it for you also have to think about how they’re looking at the benefits or the problem itself that you’re trying to solve.

For sure, for sure. Actually, in my talk at Startup Week, I’m gonna break down … our topic is how to market to your dream customer, we’re gonna talk about how you start to define who that dream customer is, again, asking that and answering that question who is it for.

So about Startup Week, what are you most excited for?

Well, I love Startup Week. I have participated in the Fort Collins Startup Week, I spoke I think two or three years ago, I’ve attended many events there and I’ve also participated in even Denver’s Startup Week which is a little bigger than us, but we’re growing as well, and I’m really excited about that.

I love seeing the creativity and the opportunities to solve real problems that come out of Fort Collins. The other thing I love about Fort Collins is because it’s not a major tech hub, a lot of the companies are starting to be revenue positive right out of the gate, so you’re not necessarily funding these massive companies with millions of dollars in venture funding, but these are real startups that may or may not ever get to that billion dollar mark, but they’re actually gonna make a dent in the world if they can get their product traction and get it sort of off the ground. To me, that’s really exciting. I love what we do, especially in the health care and the biotech space, that isn’t necessarily happening as much in some of the bigger startup hubs where they’re focused perhaps on consumer products or consumer software services.

How do you change your approach when it comes to those different industries? Because Fort Collins is rife with all sorts of different businesses.

It’s a matter of first of all finding the right audience. Who are we actually trying to sell to? What are we trying to … who are we trying to reach? What is the message? What is the problem that they have that they’re trying to solve? Only then do we actually think about what we put in front of them as far as the messaging that we’re putting in front of them.

So for me, it’s a lot of research. It’s a lot of really deep understanding. We have clients in the manufacturing industry and myself and our team, we get the industry newsletters. We understand what is happening in that industry so then we can go out and say, “Oh, here’s the problems. Here’s what we’re seeing,” and we work with then the CEO or the division manager or the marketing manager, CMO, whoever we’re working with, to say, “Okay, let’s get in front of the right people.” We can now do just crazy level, individual level targeting on that so we’re not wasting ad spend or branding on people who won’t ever care about the product.

Marketing dollars are so hard to chase down when you’re in startup mode, it’s important to use every dollar to its last, that you can and squeeze every bit of value out of it.

Exactly, right. If you’re a software as a service marketing to Fortune 500, Instagram probably isn’t quite the right channel for you, maybe even Facebook isn’t. Maybe that’s more LinkedIn or high intense searches on Google. Where does SEO fit into all of this? We help them sort of sort through that, because it’s easy to be overwhelmed with the amount of channels that are out there. There’s always a new channel, always a new social media network, always a new ad platform, but how do you come back and say, “Well, wait a minute. Let’s first figure out who our people are, then let’s figure out where they spend time.”

Yeah, not just channels but I would argue that the analytics have gotten overwhelming for an average small business owner as well.

And people don’t understand there’s a cost to analytics. Yeah, the software might be free, sometimes it’s not, if you want more advanced analytics, but the time it takes to actually go in and analyze the data that you’re gathering actually takes marketing time, it takes marketing dollars and analytics are really important, love them, they’re super valuable, but I see a lot of companies spend too much time and effort on analytics and not enough actually getting their message out and that’s a danger as well.

Who do you see in the B2B space that’s absolutely crushing it in terms of marketing in Northern Colorado?

The truth is, if they’re doing it well, I would probably never see it. Right? If I’m not in their target market. I think that is the other beautiful piece of this is that when you’re not marketing to everybody, John Smith on the side of the street doesn’t know who you are, but do the people who are going to buy know who you are? The answer should definitely be yes.

Beyond your panel, whose panels are you looking forward to most at Startup Week?

There’s a couple marketing ones, Nick. I want to actually come by your panel as well. I really have to dig into the schedule. This week I’ve started to map out some of them that I’m looking forward to. I always go to the marketing ones. I always go to the investor ones as well. I think the investor ones are really interesting because if you are a startup raising money, you are selling to your investors, and even though they’re not customer dollars, you’re getting your startup in front of them and you need to have actually a marketing plan in place to actually pay them back and grow and exit the business in whatever form that looks like. Those are usually the two tracks that I spend the most time on. I think there’s a lot of really talented marketing folks here in Northern Colorado and so I always want to learn from them and in the Rockies Venture Club and all the work that they’re doing. I’m super happy.

I actually was at a pitch event for them, a training, even though we’re not raising money and don’t have any plans to raise money, I still like the persuasive elements of it and I’m learning all I can from them. Those are kind of the two broad tracks that I’m looking to spend time on.

You want to tell us about your talk?

Okay. When I talk, and right now I’m speaking I believe on Friday at 11:00 a.m. at Cohere, I think, so I’d love to see you guys there. At my talk, I’m really gonna talk about how to market to your dream customers. Now, we’re gonna talk about putting a message together that really resonates with them. We’re gonna talk about actually using media and using some of the really detailed targeting available today to get in front of the right people, the people who can actually pay you money, and then we’re really gonna help people put together meaningful strategies and kind of have some checklists and some go-to guides so that they can actually start using these marketing and promotion strategies today.

My goal is that whenever they’re spending marketing dollars, they’re actually making money. Now that’s not easy. It’s very, very, very hard. I think everybody, especially if you work in the marketing industry like we do, people will tell you, “Oh, it’s just so easy. You throw out some Facebook ads,” but 90 plus percent of the time, it’s not that easy. But I do want to equip people so that they can start on the journey of discovering what their message is, what their market is, what media they should be using so that they can actually get in front of the customers that are gonna drive revenue for their business.

Any last words of advice for a newbie startup?

I guess what I would say first is I love Startup Week, but it will be like drinking from a fire hose, especially if you go to several of the sessions a day. I’d say one of the most valuable things is whether you come to my talk, hopefully you come to my talk, hopefully you go to a bunch of other talks as well, is at the end of it, you gotta prioritize. You’re a startup with limited resources, go back, make a list of the things that you need to do in the next week, even the next day, the next week, the next month, whatever those are. Because I’ve seen so many times, even with myself, I’ll go to Startup Week and I’ll get so excited about so many new opportunities that are out there but then reality hits, I gotta answer emails from clients and customers and you’re producing blog content, everything just kind of hits you and a lot of times it’s never put into action.

So the one thing I would recommend to people is throughout the week as you’re in these sessions, take notes but then as soon as Friday hits, Saturday, maybe the first thing that following Monday, make a list of what you want to get done and then follow through with it, because if you don’t, it’s just sort of gonna be honestly a waste of time. Not because the content wasn’t good, but because you’re probably … if you’re like me at least, you’re not gonna get much of it done.

Ben Brickweg helps business owners figure out their exit strategy through his company, Sagewood Transaction Advisors. Whether you love your business or you’re ready to move on, a good exit plan can make sure your legacy lives on (and that you have the best possible chance for a great exit).

Ben’s Startup Week talk is called Building a Valuable and Sellable Business, it’ll be Friday, March 1st, 12:00pm-1:00pm @ Innosphere.

*A full transcript of Ben’s podcast is coming soon.