Episode 41: Passion Meets Tech

Hey listeners, welcome to SphereCast, a podcast all about technology, technology advice, technology inspiration, and how real entrepreneurs have used technology to build their businesses from the ground up. If you're wondering how technology can support your business goals, rest assured: our guests have been there and done that.

Recent rise in the NFT popularity has brought original artwork back into spotlight. These days, owning digital art is all the rage with people spending millions on pictures of tweets. But what about traditional physical artwork? Investing in artwork has always been shrouded in intimidation. Isn't artwork extremely expensive? Where would I even buy art? Indeed, when buying original physical artwork, where do you even begin?

Luke here with SphereCast and this week Ksenia and I speak with Emilia De Stasio, Chief Operations Officer and founder at Artscapy. The mission of Artscapy is to lower the barrier to entry into art collection. Within the platform, users can both purchase contemporary art and track the art pieces they own, including documentation and value. Artscapy is merging the worlds of fine art and complex technology, such as blockchain, to make the art world more welcoming to the new audiences.

Emilia has always had an interest in art and art collection, a common thread through a relatively uncommon career path. Emilia thought she was destined for a job as an economist and pointed her life plans in that direction. However, when economics didn't pan out as expected and through several twists and turns, Emilia began building a business in the direction of that one common thread, that is art. For Emilia, Artscapy is a place where passion meets tech. And on the podcast, she dives into both passion and the technology as she reflects on a time as an entrepreneur. So, without further ado, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Emilia De Stasio.

Hi everyone. Ksenia is here and today we're thrilled to host Emilia from Artscapy. Hi Emilia, how are you?

Yeah, doing very well. Thanks so much for having me, Ksenia. I'm very happy to be here.

Let's begin with an icebreaker. Could you share with our audience something interesting about yourself that most people don't know?

Probably I would share then two points. Actually, I studied abroad. So I did my undergraduate in the US, but then I took it a step further. So part of my idea with studying in the US to begin with was to really broaden my horizons. So I started studying Chinese actually. And as part of that journey, I actually studied abroad abroad. So I spent a summer in China doing summer courses as well. So don't ask me how my Chinese is now. It's gotten extremely rusty. But yeah, it was a great experience and I was pretty good at Chinese at some point.

Wow, amazing. So you went abroad to study and then you went abroad from abroad. Wow. That's quite a funny thing. Amazing. We're off to a good start here. So I'm going to start with your most recent venture. So first of all, is it Artscapy or Artscapy, like Ksenia said?

Artscapy. I mean, that's what we're going with, yeah.

Okay, we'll go with that. So let's start with your recent venture. So tell us, what is Artscapy and what inspired you to start this company?

Yes, I think it's nice to start from the back story really. So the back story there is basically being interest— I've always been interested in art, looking at art, always been that thing that I always did, going to galleries and museums, whenever being abroad on travels, this sort of thing, and getting into looking at the art world. Eventually collecting since a few years, not necessarily on a museum scale or anything, but getting into art, buying a few pieces, starting to understand a bit of the dynamics.

And this is happening all at the same time as I'm spending time in venture capital. So I spent two, three years now in venture capital, so investing in tech startups, exploring the ecosystem as such really. So getting involved in things: mentoring, advising startup founders, and understanding what it takes to build basically a startup.

And these two experiences really, so observing some of the dynamics of the art world— So the art world has a couple of interesting dynamics to it. One is it's not very digital. So the digital transformation as such of the art world is quite far, quite far behind. So it's been one of the last movers to adopt any kind of online presence. Meanwhile, of course, you have millennials and in general we're used to looking at things much more from an online perspective. So there's that side of the world.

But there's also the other side of the art world that has kept up a lot of facades and a lot of walls between people interested in art and getting into it. So it's kind of an intimidating field, if you will. And actually, having been collecting since a while, observing some of these dynamics, and at some point, you know, having built a bit of collection, but always being met with the same idea that you're feeling quite intimidated, it's always a bit of a standoff going into a gallery. It's not easy to get into art. And we almost had this Eureka moment and said, "Okay, enough is enough. We're going to try to solve this." So let's try to not just observe some of these things, but try to really get to it, try to solve it.

So essentially it started as a hobby project for us and a few collector friends really. So we wanted a space initially where people could interact, learn about art, and basically lower the barriers to getting into to looking at art. And eventually, the more we talk to people—we talked to friends in auction houses, galleries, other people interested in art, art advisors—and we understood how big these problems were, how problematic some of these dynamics were. And Artscapy really grew from that.

So the way I kind of initially start to describe Artscapy, the easiest way from the consumer-facing side, is that it's a sort of LinkedIn for the art world. So a space that connects people interested in art with the rest of the stakeholders as a safe place to interact, to engage. But then, in reality, under that is a big tech stack. So we're fundamentally a technology company that happens to be dedicated to art. So it's really passion meeting tech, so art coming together in one space. And that's Artscapy.

Wow, that's quite a story. Fascinating to learn how you are bringing art to the— Hopefully the idea is to bring it to the younger generation, who are very digital and not used to walking to museums. If we can say that. Hope that didn't offend anyone. And I'll hand it over to Ksenia.

Yeah, no, indeed. Indeed, our mission really is to democratize the art world. So by democratizing, we want to make it accessible. So for anyone to come in and to learn about art, overcoming some of those barriers to entry, that initial intimidation, getting into space to learn, but also to understand a bit more what makes for quality artworks, understanding that, you know, even if it's— and it's not about having millions in your bank account or, you know, always spending a fortune at an auction or at a gallery. You can nowadays, you can buy a multiple of a very well-known artist at very accessible prices. So that's part of trying to foster this idea of making it more accessible, a place where you can learn, and then eventually, of course, trade, manage your collection, and, you know, this whole host of tech features that sit underneath that.

Amazing, amazing. I always find that, you know, when I go to museums or any art galleries, I'm always embarrassed to to be pretending to look at something and appreciating it, because I always feel like, "Hey, I don't know. Is this good? Is this okay? The brush, you know, pattern, is it that I need to be focusing on? What do I look at?" And quite often, I like the worst pieces probably, you know. That's that's what my wife says to me. But anyhow, that's...

Yeah, but it's exactly this idea that, you know, a lot of times, sure, an artist usually has a point that they want to make come across, but a lot of times they purposely leave things for the for the viewer to interpret. So it's to give something, but also to take something from from the art. I mean, the more the more abstract, the more this kind of comes across usually. And that's also one of the philosophies why a lot of artists will even name their pieces "Untitled", because they don't even want to cloud your judgment in any way by by adding that framework in your mind in which you look at artwork. So it's exactly these kind of discussions we want to have. So for us it's having that space to have those discussions.

I like that. I'm definitely going to request my invitation. I've been to...

Yes, do, do.

I didn't do it before the podcast, because I thought we'll do the episode first and then I'll go back. Okay, Ksenia, over to you.

Thank you. Emilia, could you tell us about the product and its journey so far? Have you been involved in the process of shaping the product, its roadmap, and how was the process in selecting technologies?

Yeah, yeah. So I think this is key to building any kind of tech startup or tech business, that you really need to be in it from the beginning, understanding what's going to be the backbone backbone of the business really. So, brought in the the understanding and having seen how other tech startups built their businesses, so building on that experience of investing in these kind of businesses. My other co-founder, who is also my life partner, my husband, has spent his career in running digital businesses, so he brings in a wealth of understanding from that field.

So for us it was to understand, "Okay, how do we build this in the most effective way?" And I think a lot of people who are interested in building a tech business, they think, "Okay, I need to build every single piece from scratch." Well, that's not necessarily true. I think one of the key strengths of a good entrepreneur is being able to understand how to optimize solutions, aggregating different solutions, bringing in maybe some of the skeletons done by others and expanding from that.

So we started from a platform of looking at what it looks like at first, social media. And then we said, "Okay, that's a big animal to build. There are a few players out there who have already built this animal. Why should we do that? We'll start from that, and then we're going to focus it on what collectors need, what we initially wanted as founders." So every idea always stemmed from, "Okay, what are the features that gave me the most frustrations as someone interested in art?" And then we said, "Okay, we're going to build those tech features on top." And that's how this basically animal starts growing, it starts having arms and legs and you understand, "Okay, this is a good feature to add on."

And you draw on your network. So we drew a lot on on network in expanding the proposition. So I've worked previously on a couple of projects within blockchain. I've always been quite interested in that, so that's been a whole chapter that we've added on to Artscapy. And we leaned on on the network to bring in some specialists to help develop this help develop this arm and blockchain in a sense to to support the art world and tackling some of the issues in there. But I'll stop at this point to let you jump in.

Amazing. Thank you for sharing. My next question is following up on the main challenges that you've tackled. Could you tell us some of the, you know, share with us some of decisions and choices that you've made and settled on?

Yeah, sure. So I think, funnily enough, it's I think we're brought back to technology very quickly there. So as I'm sure all of you guys have heard of, I mean it became a big storm, this whole idea of NFTs. We're back in the the idea of blockchain. So NFTs really, really blew up. And although that was something we had always had in mind to consider as part of Artscapy at some point, if you look at some of our original planning documents, so things that predate this big storm, it was something we had in mind to roll out more or less year two, year three, let's say.

But then this thing exploded. We got interest left, right, and center, and we said, "Okay, let's not Instead of doing it year two, year three, we're going to deliver this now." So we did a big sprint to bring on this as a as a chapter. And we found we went back to our network, we employed these partners who are specialists in blockchain, and we delivered our first chapter of the blockchain saga, if you will, for for Artscapy in three months instead of three years.

So that was one of those decisions that we had to make. We said, "Okay, sure, we had in mind to go on a different roadmap, but the markets developed in another way. And let's prioritize that instead. So let's jump on that train first, so let's deliver that now." And that's what we started doing. So for us, the blockchain piece, of course, has the NFT side of it, but we're equally using it for certificates of authenticity.

So in the art world, just for the benefit of of everyone, is when you buy a piece of artwork, you usually, not always, but a lot of times you get a piece of paper that says, "Okay, this is genuine artwork done by so-and-so artist." And maybe it's an addition or it's unique, it has some information. And essentially that piece of paper, which can be burned, lost, whatever, is almost worth as much as the artwork, in the sense that it proves that that piece of art is authentic.

So for those of you then who know a little bit about blockchain, this is a great application of blockchain. So what we've developed is adding those certificates of authenticity, so an immutable record is built as an NFT, and that's one thing that we're offering in Artscapy. And we delivered that in a couple of months rather than a couple of years. So that was one of those and it really turned around a lot of things.

So saying going from being driven by another goal of saying, "Okay, we want to expand the user base, we want to maybe take it slow and easy and see where we are, test the waters a bit," we said, "Okay, we're going to deliver this tech feature now instead. We're going to give this big priority." And so far that seems to have been the right decision to make. I mean, because it's only increased in interest, and the application I think has such great benefits for the art world. Really seem to be adding a lot of value to our proposition.

Definitely. It was it was something I was going to ask you about, that have you thought about bringing this solution in. So obviously I was unaware that you're doing this, because I have not been invited yet to the application. So yeah, exactly. This is one of the I think one of the I was going to say the best use cases that have come out of blockchain, that you could use it and verify a purchase, especially in terms of, you know, some pieces of art that go for hundreds of thousands and millions at times, you know. So it's it's a great little handy tool to have, because those paper things get old and they go away when you move house.

Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. And so I think it's been a great application. So I've looked at cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications for a while, and having come from financial services before, of course it was something that I looked at in the perspective of looking at cross-currency transactions, cross-border interactions, et cetera. But I think this is such a great application to it, because you have so many problems with this in the art world.

Now, does it maybe solve everything? Possibly not. There are always issues that can be there, but we're getting a long way on that journey to to try to add a bit of trust to the art world. So I think it's very clear if you look at some of the biggest artists of our time, or at least if you look at some of the the pop artists, so Basquiat, Warhol, Keith Haring, all those estates actually stopped validating any artworks because they got into so much problem of trying to verify what is a genuine piece. And back then, and even now, if you look at Banksy, a lot of times things weren't necessarily numbered correctly, they're not really sure always how big additions were, what was what was gifted to collectors.

And so that whole validation process has become a bit weak. And so for us to be able to add that kind of value as an impartial service So it doesn't work to offer this, you know, as a gallery, because anyway, as gallery A, I'm not going to issue a CoA for an artist of gallery B, because that's adding a service to them. But for us to be able to come in as a technological provider and offer that as a service, we saw that as as great value and really to tackle this idea of how can we support the trust building in the art world and add that provenance trail and that track of authenticity. So I think it's been a really great practical application of blockchain.

Then, I mean, if we talk about the NFT chapter in the sense of how probably most people look at it, so the application into to digital art. So NFTs as such is not, you know, a new form of art as such. It's a way to add authenticity and ownership to digital art. Now, digital art has existed since a long time. So it's not a it's not a new thing. It's a way to to certify how many editions are offered of this digital digital artwork, typically which is the genuine copy. It's a giving credit to a lot of these digital artists that have struggled. So what happened before was you'd make this piece, it ends up on the internet, no one knows or gives credit to to the creator.

NFTs come in, a great application of blockchain. It gives those digital artists a way to show authenticity. So it's another great application. But it's been very hyped, which has always been interesting to to watch, but it's just a way to to give some more credibility or or authenticity to digital artists.

Yeah, I remember this this piece of news. By the way, it makes perfect sense. I read some news on BBC a few weeks ago: somebody bought the first ever tweet from Jack Dorsey. And that was NFT proven and sold for $2 million unbelievably. So there you go. There, you know, things are changing. I think digital, this is the future. And I think this this is also being applied to a lot of the FIFA cards, the the cards that, you know, we've we've all collected growing up. They're all going digital now and people are creating collections of these things and there's a lot of use cases coming up now. And I think the the adoption is only a matter of time. It's not an if.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great. Okay, it seems like you have been on a journey. And I don't want to focus on Artscapy journey only, so let's say your working career so far. What would you say your, you know, most valuable lesson has been in this in in the last few years that you have been working and doing a lot of amazing things?

Yeah, so I mean it's been it's been quite a quite a ride. So I started my my my education and and line of thinking, I mean since since probably a teenager, I wanted to become an economist. That's what I had my my mind set on. I studied economics in my in my undergraduate, in my bachelor's. And I went on to study it also in my master's, thinking I would continue on to do a PhD, I would go into a central bank, I would set economic policy. And this was going to be my my value add to to the world. I was going to contribute to the betterment of the world through economic policy. This was my statement I told myself. I was going to do that.

And I was progressing on that path. I did the master's and I actually went into to to public sector work after that. So I was at the European Banking Authority for a while, so there the regulator that sets the rules for the banking sector in Europe. I was there and then I moved over to the European Central Bank, so also looking at obviously the central bank for Europe, setting economic policy for for the European Union as such, for the eurozone.

And that was interesting. That was fun. That was I got that snippet of what I wanted to to understand. I think that the first point there why I didn't go straight to the PhD was to really see if I could trial to see a bit how these kind of institutions work. And that's really what I saw being at these public institutions. It was slightly different than perhaps what I what I had in mind. I understood a bit more what goes into doing a PhD. And, you know, once you've had a bit of a taste of a working life, that that idea of going back to study five years and live on ramen noodles just didn't seem that attractive to me anymore at that time. And this whole idea of, anyway, a lot of research work goes into writing academic pieces, which although I found interesting and I even had some some of my work published in peer-reviewed journals, even fairly decent ones, I just realized that that path wasn't really for me.

So I moved in to see how it would be on the private sector side, still in a research capacity. And I had the the fortune or misfortune to be the lead research researcher on Brexit, which was which was which was quite a quite an adventure. So it was basically doing mind maps of 10 different outcomes that could be could be from the next decision, only to find out that of course the 11th one is the one that happened in the end. So that was quite quite an interesting journey.

But, again, I was missing a bit of touch with with not just saying, "Okay, how are markets or or the economy going to develop?" but "What are the driving forces behind that? What really sets innovation? What really determines how we how we interact?" as first from from an economy, but then even more into thinking about what what drives also consumer behavior and what sets market trends. So that got me into twisting this curiosity, if you will, into looking at startups.

So twisting the idea of, "Okay, running financial analysis and research into assessing those businesses that could be those driving forces." So it got me into looking at startups, getting very involved in the ecosystem, so participating in a few of these accelerators, and eventually into into venture capital. So very much from the highest kind of public institutions, quite bureaucratic, you know, really I mean seeing the benefits also of those kind of structures by by all means, and moving more and more into to first private sector, so big, big companies in financial institutions, or the financial sector, moving into the extremely obscure, I guess, from the from the financial spectrum of things. So looking at startups, thinking about, you know, "What does it take to build a solid business? What does it take to build a solid tech business?"

So observing that for for a while and that then arrived into into entrepreneurship now. So I mean I'm always keeping keep double dipping a bit in the sense of being involved in the investment side. I keep being involved as as a mentor, because I like that challenge to see other projects than than my own, than than Artscapy, just to get perspective and try to add values. For me, the the key point is is adding back to the to the ecosystem as well.

And yes, it's been a really wild journey. So that's where I've arrived now. And I think I've never been as happy as I am now, so it's one of those where I've really never worked as much as now, but I've also never been been as happy. And I guess that's the point. So you you have to allow yourself to to trial things. I guess if I could tell myself one thing in my in my in my in my doctorate dream, although that was was a nice dream, probably I would have told myself to not be so so hung up on what you think you need to be doing or that there's only that one path and almost pursuing it ad nauseam, like too much to a to a certain degree. Because I was really said, "This is what I'm going to do. There's not going to be any other way to do it and I'm not going to look in any other direction," while I think life, your true your true value, the true places where you can add value develop over time. And that's probably one thing I would would have loved to to tell myself back then.

That's that's quite a, you know, good backstory you gave us there. So it's rediscovering yourself every time you get to a point and you're like, "Okay, I What's next? Let's do something else." And yeah, it carries on. So what is next after this? Or are you Is it too early to, you know, change this?

Yeah, I mean I mean, first of all, it's it's too early. But at the same and at the same time, although it sounds probably like my journey has not really a clear thread to it, I think it really does, because it's one about understanding, you know, what what drives market, always being being curious of how to be on top of market trends and think how you build a solid business, which is been fundamental for me as a founder. But equally, I bring in a lot of those experiences, having been in a regulator, and and understanding how public institutions look at the private sector is hugely important.

So regulation is coming to Well, is coming, has already arrived, for the for the art market. And that's something that we're looking at. We're currently developing that for for Artscapy as well. So thinking about how can we support the art world with these regulatory requirements and basically future-proofing the business by understanding how those requirements develop. And and understanding that I've really drawn on those experience having been in in public sector and really at the same time understanding never letting go of understanding what drives markets, what is competition doing, which is vital for for the company's success.

So what's next? I mean, now it's it's to the moon, to the art art moon, and and really driving this. I mean, we want to be if you think of art, you think of Artscapy. That's that's that's our goal. I mean, we're we want to be that that technology provider, that that art partner. So if you're if you're ever curious about anything in art, you go on Artscapy. And that's that's our North Star. So that that's really where we are. And I mean I think we have an enormous drive to to get there, a lot of great, great support. And that's what's next. It's it's this drive.

Yeah, yeah. So a message for our audience: think art, think Artscapy.

That's right.

I love it. All right, we're moving on to the personal section of our podcast. Emilia, could you describe your typical day for our audience?

Yeah, so I I'd love to say that I have an answer to this. I think I think the beauty and the curse of of entrepreneurship, at least for for where we are now, is that no day is the same. So every day there's there's a new challenge, there's an infinitely growing to-do list, it gets shorter, then it grows again. It's it's a living, breathing animal that needs love, care, sweat, tears. And and that that's also the beauty of it.

In terms of structuring the day, I mean, to-do lists are are probably my friend. They're they're still they're still quite messy and and they do get ticked off. But it's it's it's a process and I think it's it's just trying to be level. So I have the the the big fortune, I think, one of the the best things seeing with entrepreneurship and and dedicated founders is when you're able to be in a position where you're almost catering to yourself. So you've observed something and now you want to fix it. And you have this enormous drive to fix it and that's where I am.

So also there there is not a typical day and and and art is my life now. So yeah, maybe I close the laptop late on Friday, but Saturday morning I'm in a gallery. I have to understand what what's the latest going on, what artists doing, what is the latest trends that we should think about, talk to galleries, what are their what are their problems, how are they trying to reach collectors, how are they spreading information about their their their exhibition. So so right now it's it's about living and breathing breathing art.

I mean, I'm not going to say I'm necessarily at that level of having a set schedule like waking up 5:45, doing a smoothie, going for a run. I wish it was like that and probably that is a great habit to have. But in my experience, that's not how entrepreneurship has been. It's it's chaotic. It's trying to add structure where you can, take care of take care of yourself, but really trying to to make it fit in your fit in your life.

So I try to be conscious of keeping my mental health in check. So I do try to make it a point to to exercise and and I always typically use running as my almost meditation to to really clear thoughts and a lot of good ideas and thoughts come from doing runs and walks. And it's important to take time for those things. I think it's important to also say, "Okay, now I'm going to to close the laptop. Enough enough enough for for today." So that's something that I try to guide the day. But do I have a set schedule? Absolutely no. Will I have it in in the next months or or even years? Probably not. But I prefer it that way. I mean, for me it works. I'm sure for other people something else works. So it's about finding that.

I agree, I agree. I mean, we had a guest, she goes to bed at 8:00 AM every evening. Sorry, 8:00 PM. What am I saying? 8:00 PM every night she goes to bed and then she gets up at 4:00. Three, was it three or four, Ksenia? We'll go three.

It's three, three.

Three. She gets up at 3:00 AM in the morning. Running a very successful company as well. But I think it's a myth as well that, you know, you have to do this. I think everyone has to find their own balance and and whatever makes their, you know, mind and body in a puts puts mind and body in a good place for them to work the rest of the day.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I admire those people that that that can do that and I think for sure there are people that it works for. But I think not all of us, and I think a lot of times when you read about entrepreneurship it's like, "Oh, but if you're not waking up at 5:30, are you really serious?" And it's you know, it's like, well, there are different routes to it. In the at the end of the day, if you can drive your your business forward while also staying sane, that's that's that's what matters.

Yeah. And and art is, you know, being creative. You can't be very regimental in that too, so you have to just think outside the box sometimes. I agree with that completely. I support you in this argument.

Amazing, which actually segues perfectly to my next question for you, Emilia. If you could go back in time, let's say to the beginning of your career, what's one advice you would give to your old self?

Yes, so I think it's it's this idea of not setting yourself on a on a on a set target like, "This is what I'm going to do and I'm going to only do that and not going to allow myself to look at other things." I think this was probably my my key key finding is it's about and which leads me to my second point, which is surrounding yourself with good people. So surround yourself with people that, you know, give give you energy, but that you obviously can also give energy to, that you can support each other.

So I, for example, I did a sort of accelerator, but it was more I jokingly called it a kind of a hippie MBA. I'm sure sure people will not like it when I say that. But it was basically a a six-month course together, as a peer-taught program. So we all each held a class in thinking about how to how to run a business. So it was everything from founder wellness to what goes into a term sheet to building a marketing a marketing plan, all this kind of stuff.

And the point there was that it was all about being surrounded with those kind of people. So getting energy, getting ideas, and not being afraid to explore them. So had I been my my 19-year-old self who said, "Okay, I'm going to do that economics PhD no matter what, even if I don't like what that then implies," I would have never gone for those things. But it's about keeping and Yeah, so I guess that that summarizes it, so saying to keep an open mind, you know, letting letting that personal growth comes come through. So rather than than saying necessarily, "Oh, I'm I have to reach this this mountain peak and I'm going to use only this one one route to get there," saying allowing yourself to say, "Okay, here are three mountain peaks. Let's start on the journey and and some way maybe even halfway up the mountain say, 'Okay, well actually I like the right one more than the middle one,' and then going for that." But allowing yourself that freedom, so not siloing yourself or setting yourself those kind of boundaries, is probably what I would have said to myself.

I like that. I like that, definitely. I mean, on a small scale, I do it all the time. So a lot of my friends would say that, "Hey, you know, you're doing this one day and then five days later you do something else." So I think there is a balance. I I perhaps do it like too early, you know, change things, but I, you know, I think I find my success that way. So I could relate to that. Yeah, there's more similarities there.

But, you know, people with different opinions, different ways of doing things is what makes this world a very interesting place, and any business as well. So I always find if you have somebody contrasting around you, it always you always de-risk whatever you're doing because you have different perspectives. So it's that's also important, but yeah, really enjoyed your answer there. Okay, so I'm going to, you know, quickly— I think you talked about unwinding a little bit already. You talked about running, which is kind of your meditation. Are there any other particular practices that you follow right now, like yoga, meditation, anything you've joined recently? In in COVID times, how are you keeping up with sitting home? London it was under a lockdown not so long ago for for a very long time, and I think a lot of people were frustrated only being allowed to go out for one hour or something a day with a dog or a cat. So yeah, how how have you survived that?

So I mean so if I could self-impose discipline to do yoga, I I would. And I tried it for a while and I did it do it for sometimes weeks consecutively and I feel great, but I struggle to stick with it. So I still get another sort of cleansing from the from the running. So for me, being being outside and, you know, breathing the the fresh air, listening to my to my music, and just being in that motion. So basically in my little in my little zone and it's oftentimes it's Metallica zone, so it's it's even quite angry, but it's it's really my my my my source of energy.

So I get those those thoughts and frustrations out and and that's really been a key key for me and it continues to be. So so that's one thing that's been hugely important. I did try meditation a couple of times, but again, I I struggled to to stick with it. I would probably recommend it and I try to recommend it to myself, but I also have to be be honest with myself that if it's not something that's working in this moment of my life, and at the same time, you know, I'm feeling for the moment at least relatively sane, you know, it's it's about finding what works for you.

So so I don't I really don't believe in saying, "Okay, you have to wake up at four, do yoga until five, then you do this." You have to have that flexibility, understanding what works for you. So for me, although I think there are some great benefits to yoga and meditation, it just doesn't stick with me in this moment. Running does. And I go running when I need to. I don't say, "Okay, I only do running Monday, Wednesday, Friday." It happens when when I need it. And and that's for me been been one of the lessons. So I'm I'm quite focused with my work. If I if I have things to do and and those really pressing things on the to-do list, they have to get done.

But but then it's about having that flexibility. So if it's at the end of the day and I had in mind that I was going to do some exercise class—I also do I also have a couple of memberships in these kind of exercise classes—but if that's not what's going to work that evening, if the the evening calls for for popcorn and a film, then that's what it's going to be. And I think it's about listening to to yourself and and and allowing that space, because then in the end that for me is what leads to productivity. It's about understanding what you need and and and doing that to to help drive further further efforts.

I like that, absolutely like that, that you have to, you know, listen to your body and mind and keep it in a good shape. Keep it happy and good things come of that, you know. It's very simple. Ksenia has a question for you which I asked her to ask you, so let's see.

Well, since we're on the subject of the personal questions, Luke and I were not so much in astrology, but we believe in spiritual, I don't know, existence, I guess. We're both Tauruses, so we were wondering if you were one of us, if you were a fellow Taurus.

I am, absolutely! But then I have to ask: what point, what gave it away and at what point? This is hilarious.

I just felt it. I just I just sent a message. I said, "We need to check this, definitely."

Here is another stubborn person. Okay, let's ask. Okay, yes, cheers.

Brilliant. I found that pattern, you know, like things that I've been following and doing, so yeah, I agree there completely. Okay. That was good. That was a good one, Ksenia.

So we'll celebrate our birthdays together at some point.

Yeah, 3rd of May.

Yeah, 7th.

Oh, I'm 9th. There we go.

Perfect.

Okay, great. Ksenia, final questions for you.

All right, let's do this. So we're at the final part of our podcast. We may ask some of the tricky questions. Maybe they get trickier as we're progressing. So the last question that we have for you today is what do you think are the top three attributes of a great leader in the current times?

Ah, well, that's a that's a great question. So without thinking too much on a particular order, I mean, for for me, thinking of running a business right now and building it from having had a corporate career before that, what we really tried to bring in is a bit the best of both worlds. So so adding the structure of the of a corporate, but having that nimbleness, agility of a startup. So we jokingly say I think we should try to keep a balance of about 20% corporate and 80% startup, which I think is about the the the sweet spot.

But this brings me into the the point I wanted to make is to say that we try to add a bit that structure. So I'm a firm believer of having a coaching culture. So so each of our team members, they they follow a 100-day plan. They set targets for 30, 60, 90, and 100 days. And and these are supposed to be, you know, goals that help them develop professionally. And also I do them. Everyone does them. And it's it's really a core thing for us to to ensure that everyone is is constantly developing. So I think as a as a leader, you really need to have that there to empower your people and and find ways for them to get challenged. And that's not just defaulting to say, "Okay, if you find a training course, go and do it. We'll set aside a budget." It's much more than that. It's understanding what helps you develop into a better professional and and giving that space. So I think this kind of empowerment and and and coaching definitely plays part of it.

And that leads me into to again this idea of of helping your your team members develop their path with you. So we purposely let all our team members say, "Okay, I'm interested in in doing this. Is there room for me to to explore this more as a as a task?" So again, there's that 80% of startup coming in in place where we try not to silo anyone. So you might have been hired to do to do marketing, but we need a bit of input on think about how this forum is going to look like. What would you like this UI to be? And we give that space for for people to have their their opinions heard. So I think that kind of weaves into it. So a bit this this respect, allowing people to to have a voice and and weaving in that to your to your company progress.

I think finally, one thing I would I would add is sticking with any any core values that you you set in the beginning. So we, before we hired anyone, we really sat down and said, "Okay, what are the core values of Artscapy? What must be the things we never, ever compromise on? What can we never take a shortcut in? What must guide every decision we make?" And we came up with with four, five different different values and we do not compromise on them. We keep with them. And indeed we we run we run a monthly town hall where I bring up those values every time and I and I ask the team, "Okay, are we are we still working towards this? Are we still having this in mind?"

Not not necessarily as, you know, a reminder and say, "Hey, you should remember to do these things." It's, "Are we are we feeling this? Are we feeling like we're also deviating from that? What can we do more to to stay true to this?" And I think this is hugely important. I mean, setting those kind of those values early on allows you to steer the course in that direction and and check back. Are we progressing towards that rather than starting, as as often a startup, it starts quite chaotic and and at some point you say, "Oh my god, we are eight people. I don't know what we're doing. The people start to have their own views of how things should go," and you need to backtrack at that point. And you need to say, "Okay, okay, we need to really set up what what makes us us."

So if while if you set that from the beginning, you have that line that you keep referring back to. And that's been really important. And I I firmly believe that that's great value to to leadership, because aligning everyone to to a common goal, but also understanding that it's something that everyone can can agree. And if those values are set properly, they can also be the things that set your business apart. So we purposely also there, we made it a point to to divide up things that are our core values, and then in our hierarchy we have basically aspirational goals and everyday goals. Or values, sorry, aspirational values and everyday values.

So while both those are are important, they're not necessarily unique to Artscapy. So there are things that I think that everyone should should abide by. So they are things like respecting each other, acting with integrity, and, you know, valuing diversity. For me, those are things I don't even need to say out loud. They are just there. They're not necessarily unique to Artscapy. But then we go into to the core values, and that's where we start to see things that really set Artscapy apart. So without going into all of them, one of them is is, of course, keeping always an an art focus. So everything we do is for the betterment of the of the art world. We're aiming to to to help the art world and we're doing that by by enabling the art world through technology.

I like that, absolutely. I'm a big fan of these values. I think whenever as a person working for an organization, you you are not sure what to do, there should be some guiding principles that should tell you, "Okay, that's the way forward for you. If you make this choice, it you know, it's it's taking care of all the values which you promised when you started here." And it's always, you know, reminding these, I think, is a difficult task. So how you do these monthly town halls, I think it seems like a very good idea. And not just enforcing it on to the people, but rather than having this group meeting to see if we are moving as an organization and and keeping those values in mind, or are we doing something really silly and somebody should say, "Hey, we did this, you know. It's completely against what we started for, you know, what was..." Yeah, so I appreciate that, completely. So yeah, I mean, great stuff. Great answers there. So thanks for those wise words.

And with that, with that, Emilia, we have come to the end come to the end of the podcast. I I really enjoyed speaking with you and I think we would love to have you for episode two. Hopefully we can catch up, you know, in about eight or nine months, 10 months' time and learn more from you where Artscapy is and how you've been doing.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Thanks so much, Luke, Ksenia. It was great to to do this with you guys and yeah, I'm looking forward to to connect with anyone offline and and and listen to more of your your episodes. Thanks so much again for having me.

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