Looks pretty good. I have used google image search in the past to find a good tattoo design but a vertical search service like this can do the job much better assuming they get a broad collection of high quality designs.
Hey @gozmike thanks for posting! @TO right now we have a very unsophisticated ranking system to help keep the best artists and images up top and during search to surface more relevant information for you. We're working on something a lot better of course.
@davdin Thanks, we specifically reach out and sign up the best artists around the world but do allow any artist to sign up - it's lead to some really amazing images and designs.
We're also building SaaS tools that support shop owners and tattoo artists to help run their businesses. They are launching in a month.
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@BrandonWaselnuk a few questions since you stopped by:
1. What has worked best as a way to find the best artists and have them sign up to the site?
2. how many artists did you have at launch?
3. How do you plan to reach the other side of the platform, the people who want to get a tattoo?
I have worked on a similar product but for a different vertical and the 2-sided platform aspect of the products has been quite challenging.
Great to hear you are going beyond the directory model and will have services to the artists as well.
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@davdin Of course! Happy to answer whatever I can.
1. In our space - face to face is best (like most I'd guess) but not always scalable. From that, Tattoo Conventions are gold since there's very little direct competition in our vertical. Finally email is surprisingly effective at recruitment. As for finding the best artists - it's usually through direct referrals of top tattoo artists we've already onboarded. They tell us who their favourite artists are and send us warm introductions.
I'd answer even more specifics if you need / want (brandon@tattoohero.com)
2. At launch we had ~50 and almost all were based in our hometown Ottawa, Canada for our MVP launch, at re-launch on our rebuilt web application ~125 that was global but concentration in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto.
3. We're heavy on Content marketing for the other side of the platform and it's working quite well. SEO is another mega factor with such a visual brand and Smart Metadata around our images (with low competition terms as well). The rest are familiar concepts (smart viral loops like tagging your artists / artists tagging clients - sends email, sharing functions, etc.)
There's some other really great ways to bring on the otherside of the market like photoshoots inside tattoo shops - gives us great images, recruits that entire shops client list and makes the artists really happy to have kickass portfolio images to host on our website and attract new clients. In person events work well as well.
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Stacks Accelerator
findable.