Executive Suite: Jen Bekman On Becoming “The Gateway Drug Of The Art World”

Jen Bekman’s career trajectory can be summed up by the story of her employment in the early years of Meetup, the popular website that facilitates offline get-togethers for users with similar interests. After years of employment in the internet industry, bouncing between New York and San Francisco, working for companies from tiny startups to Netscape to Disney, Bekman scored at the job at Meetup after a long period of unemployment. “On paper it was the perfect job,” Bekman says, “but just wasn’t a good fit.” Scott Heiferman, Meetup’s cofounder and CEO, fired her. Now, Heiferman is an investor in her flourishing art company, 20 x 200.

“I didn’t really figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up until my mid-20s,” Bekman told me recently. But when she figured out her second act, she did it right. Bekman founded 20 x 200 in 2007 with a simple premise: The website offers curated, limited-edition prints with a tiered pricing system: small $20 prints are sold in editions of 200, larger $200 prints are produced in smaller editions, all the way up to $10,000 prints in editions of five. Bekman chooses works from both prominent artists and up-and-comers, and sells to both serious collectors and 20-somethings who want to dress up their first shoebox apartments.

20 x 200 has grown into a profitable company with 20 employees and $2.9 in venture capitol. In August, the company announced a partnership with West Elm, in which the furniture retailer offers selected prints selected by 20 x 200. Bekman has been named one of Forbes.com’s Top Ten Female Entrepreneurs to Watch, and Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology. In all of her spare time, she also maintains the popular Jen Bekman Gallery in New York.

What was the initial impulse to open an art gallery, after years in the tech world? In 2003, I had friends who were artists, but I knew nothing about the art world. If you would have told me six months before that I’d do it, I would have laughed! … I was just incredibly frustrated that no one had tried to sell me art. I was frustrated that that the only options for me were Ikea or Pottery Barn. I thought, “I’m going open a gallery that’s good for people like me.” And I did.

What made you take the leap from gallery owner to online entrepreneur? People come through the door with baggage; they were defensive. There’s a lot of opacity traditionally in the art world. … We live in a time of an empowered consumerism. But the art world says, you’re paying $2,000 because I say so, and you have to wait 30 days, and all that. Buying art is a big risk. It doesn’t come with a lot of the assurances that being a regular consumer usually comes with. But I knew if people lived with art, if they had the experience, they’d get hooked. That’s the birth of 20 x 200. The simplest shorthand is that it’s the gateway drug of the art world. We give them the good stuff for close to free, and create an appetite for experience. … I want people to talk about art in the same way they talk about books or movies or shoes.

Obviously you had a great idea. But were there other brass-tacks kind of things you can point to that contributed to your success? I always say, I’ll ask anyone anything. I found one of our first artists in a museum exhibition, where a lot of people might assume she wasn’t looking for a gallery. I went to people and said, “I have this idea but I don’t have money. But I really want to work with you. What I can’t give you in money, I’ll repay you in credit and connections and introductions.” That’s how our logo happened — we didn’t pay them until we were able to. I didn’t create debt; I just said, “Help me get started and I’ll become a paying customer.”

Tell me about taking the next step and pursuing investors. I ran the business with 100% cash for the first two years. if I didn’t have money, I didn’t have money. I still don’t have a credit card! It was exhausting. And then I got to the point where I realized the idea I wanted to pursue was bigger than the cash I had on hand. I asked myself, “Do you want to be a big part of a small thing, or a small part of a bigger thing?”

How did the collaboration with West Elm come about? I was really excited when they approached us because literally, the creation story of 20 x 200 is me looking at a Pottery Barn catalog and being frustrated. So the opportunity to reach a portion of that audience was really thrilling.

Did you worry that that would sort of compromise your coolness within the art world? I’m not interested in being cool. I’m not a slouch or anything! But I’m really interested in changing the world. I want people to collect art. Our tagline is “Art for everyone” — and I really mean “art” and I really mean “everyone.” If it’s everyone, it can’t only be “cool” art. The tent has to be bigger. … There will always be a sections of the art world that gets its value from exclusivity. I’m ok with that, but I’m not interested in it.

Have you felt at any point with this process that being a woman has either helped or hindered you? Absolutely. I would go as far as to stay that I don’t think a man could build this business. … I think that the framework from which I’ve built my business embodies a lot of the qualities that people think of as feminine. The conundrum of it is that the business world is defined by more male qualities, and I need to learn how to express the value of what I do in terms that make sense to them, to get empirical about things like the newsletters [that Bekman writes herself with great care and personality]. People find them engaging because I’m putting myself out there; the empirical way of saying that is that our “audience engagement” is off the charts. The feedback I get from advisors is that I need to be more “crisp,” but imprecision — there’s a lot of discovery and enjoyment in the journey, not just the destination. It’s a challenge for me to repackage what we do in a way that’s relevant to the investor community, but learning their language and communicating in a way that engages them is a challenge I enjoy.

So what’s next for 20 x 200? We’ve sold 140,000 prints and there are billions of people in the world. We’re just starting.