Otis Written Interview: Part 1
What is a contrarian view you have that few people would agree with?
75% of galleries will disappear by 2040. Within the art world arena, a view of mine and a common topic of debate is that the gallery ecosystem will completely dry up and the art fair market will reduce by a third. Small to medium sized galleries will pivot to purely online “spaces” or band together with artists to create collective shared spaces for art viewing and dialogue. Artists will further develop their digital personas, self-market, and essentially become DTC brands in and of themselves. My friend and famed Instagram famous artist, CJ Hendry, is doing exactly this by way of razor sharp photos, storytelling, and a light hearted online presence. Sharing this sentiment with an industry outsider, they’d probably agree with me, however this is not a commonly held notion amongst industry personnel. Artists by nature are martyrs for their own creation, that won’t stop. However, art dealers exercise the same type of martyrdom for the spaces that they activate. Digitization will revolutionize collectorship, and the need to return to the physical space and context (like what is happening in retail now), will not come in the form of commercial gallery space but in social and shared settings, non-profits, artist collective galleries and hybrid work spaces (e.g. con artist collective, shashama, etc). These largely won’t be focused on sales of artworks. Art fairs will have a very different customer base, but will not disappear because budgets from former gallery operators will shift from rents to art fair fees. What will remain are the blue chip dealers that run the mothership fairs, the major art world headlines, and the entry points into museum collections. Some galleries will survive in different capacities (online, home galleries, etc..) and will participate in the subsidized wings of the larger fairs. But the smaller commercial satellite fairs will not be able to exist. The participants in the Art Basel machine are not buying art. They are indulging in the scene. I’ve watched art collectorship and art dealer energy wane in Miami and other art fair meccas over the past 8 years. The market for art will be split between either artist-run and mega dealer-run. The question I still ponder is how the two will cohabitate, if cohabitate at all. Other views that create interesting conversations at the bar: Your phone won’t be nearly as important to you in 10 years; Smart people ought to procreate way more..
What is the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome in your life?
I am the youngest of 5 brothers and have always assumed a lot of pressure when it came to preserving my father’s legacy as an artist, and to ensuring my parents’ financial well-being through their golden years. I realized, years later, that an event which compounded this sentiment happened when I was 15 years old -- my parents lost my childhome home in a tax sale. It was partially due to an outstanding invoice to Donald Trump that they were expecting payment on and never received (separate story), but also due to the volatility of their multi-family real estate portfolio and my father’s career as a practicing painter. Since I was young I felt the need to take care of them. In our half-Korean household, that was of course expected in time but shouldn't have been the expectation of a high schooler. At 17, I chose Mathematics instead of Studio Art as my college major, and ultimately turned that interest into a finance degree and lucrative banking job, always with the intention of building and preserving wealth for them rather than myself. Throughout my 20s it was a difficult feeling to shake, everything I did was to take care of them. I took over their business when my father got sick in 2012, and completely transformed it, from location to revenues to branding to expansion of services. I moved back to their house and did everything with and for them. What was ultimately the biggest obstacle I faced and had to overcome was the conscious decision to release myself from the stress of putting their financial well-being ahead of everything else in my life. I was at the point of considering my own life, my own future family, and our potential needs. In 2017, I was given the opportunity to join my current company, Storefront. I was extremely excited but I couldn’t help but feel a sense of abandonment. I was proud of how I transformed their business but it wasn’t what I was meant to do in my life or career. After heavy introspection, I decided I would take the role at this exciting new company, sell the business, and with the proceeds build the basis for a retirement fund for them. The shift in priorities I made was an existential obstacle I had finally overcome, but what followed was several weeks preparing the most robust due diligence package on the business, leaving no nook or cranny unexplored, which included the digitization and reconciliation of nearly a decade of paper bookkeeping. The physical challenge of managing this retail business from afar (open to the public 76 hours/week), dozens of threads with prospective buyers and attorneys, my gallery space in Bushwick, and then my full-time job at Storefront was the biggest obstacle and test of mental endurance I’ve ever been through. This lasted for 18 months, as it took that long to secure the right buyer at the right price. In that time, the business maintained it’s growth YoY, the gallery received a write up in print in the Times among other accolades, and I quickly took on a Global Operations role at Storefront. It was a test of my true fabric, but one the propelled me forward at warp speed in all directions. And after all was said and done, my parents are doing just fine.
What is a decision or bet that you made that led to company impact?
Physically shrink the size of our office at Storefront. To address change in team participation, performance, morale and literal presence in the office after a slew of negative leadership energy flooded the office in 2018, I lobbied our coworking space’s management team to locate a new space in the building. It was half the size but had 3 times as much sunlight. I enlisted my interior designer wife, obtained approval for a very small budget, and spent a weekend tricking out the space with greenery, furniture, storage, and art. Today, people are no longer scattered throughout the building, sick days and request to WFH days have gone down 30%, and laughter levels are up nearly 104.75%.
Two more business-centric decisions I lead:
(1) Buy over build. We purchased an outbound sales software instead of continuing efforts to build in-house on Salesforce. The new software increased call and email volume 40% with our outbound sales team and doubled data accuracy/integrity on logged activity. The software’s annual subscription was 80% less than the annual compensation of the Salesforce developer on the project.
(2) I heavily campaigned for a young paid advertising agency to cure the mismanaged marketing budget spend from a former CMO. Since we launched with them 45 days ago, FB CAC is down 55%, FB CTR is up 236%, Google CTR up 215%, and FB has been identified as a much larger driver for conversion than Google (spend was severely inversed before). I championed this decision because I met with the founder of the agency and identified a ton of grit, tenacity, and raw intelligence.
When we talk to your previous bosses or co-workers, what will they say are your strengths and weaknesses? How have you used that feedback? Pick one for strength and one for weakness from the list provided.
Strength = Resourcefulness. My former and current managers have always valued my organization, tenacity, drive, collaborative spirit, obsession with details, and perspective, however what I’ve consistently received as positive feedback was that I can do a lot with a little. Whether there are limitations to budget, time, guidance, or personnel, I typically leverage free tools, favors, the wee hours of the night, and all of human knowledge (the internet) to get from A to B. Oh, and Excel. You can do nearly anything in Excel. Add some Zapier integrations and the world is limitless. But I believe the main reason why I receive this feedback, is because I know the answer is somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding it. I continuously compound this strength by reading thought leadership literature and by taking advantage of free education through platforms like Coursera, Khan Academy and Investopedia.
Weakness = Other (patience). Or lack thereof. Former colleagues have informed me that I can be demanding when things aren’t completed and that I often have “unrealistic timelines”. I simply don’t like waiting, I’ve been like this ever since I was a kid. I have trouble avoiding the visceral reaction of “I’ll just do it myself” when someone is moving at an unsatisfactory pace. To me, patience is a virtue, with your spouse, child, parents, tourists in Herald Square, but in the workplace I’ve had difficulty concealing my frustrations associated with it. In collaborative and organizational spirit however, it’s something I’ve learned to harness and reframe as positive feedback and constructive direction to my counterparties.
On a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), do you disagree or agree with this statement: "You are a certain kind of person, and there is not much that can be done to really change that." Why?
I somewhat disagree, with a “2” on the scale. If I were to answer this question at age 19, I would’ve answered 6. My nickname in my high school yearbook office was Dictator-in-Chief. I knew what I wanted with every detail in the design of those pages. I had a precise vision for how I would deliver our commencement speech. I had a clear image of exactly what my college experience would look like and in how much money I was going to make. No peer, teacher, or corporate yearbook publisher rep was going to get in my way. However, what you don’t know at 19 is, well, pretty much everything. I’ve gained quite a bit of perspective and life experience since my teenage years, and if there is truly one thing I’ve learned, it is that if we’re not continuously changing and evolving, then we’re not improving ourselves in any shape or form. My leadership style went from throwing down an iron fist then, to one of pure empathy today (with the occasional moment of impatience). I’ve worked with dozens of artists and have seen the world through their artistic lenses. I’ve been repeatedly challenged by retail customers and have learned to bite my tongue hard. I’ve encountered personalities and egos of all sizes, and have learned to adapt my demeanor and temperament to the nuance or circumstance of any situation. I have a few basic core values that will not waiver, which is why I won’t lean to the extreme of the scale, but all in all, I am constantly striving to be a better version of myself for myself and those around me. Education is change, and we ought to be educating ourselves constantly. Every book by a CEO I consume is a representation of my pursuit to elevate and improve the kind of person I am, and I will hopefully continue reading til the day I die. This question makes me think of the George Bernard Shaw quote: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” A great notion to ponder, however I feel that adaptability in the early 21st century is far different than it was in the late 19th. I choose to adapt.