Articles

Survival Guide: Living the Artist Dream
Business of Creativity, The Biz, Art Guest Author Business of Creativity, The Biz, Art Guest Author

Survival Guide: Living the Artist Dream

You can be brilliant with a paintbrush, voice, camera, or choreography—and still struggle to pay rent. That gap between talent and livelihood isn’t a myth; it’s documented. In 2024, Spotify touted $10B in royalties—yet only a small fraction of artists reach a living wage from those payouts, highlighting how income skews toward a tiny tier at the top. Meanwhile, the median pay for fine artists in the U.S. remains modest relative to the cost of building a career—studio time, gear, travel, promotion—long before anyone sees your work. And it’s not just music or visual art—survey data shows many professional musicians earn low annual income from music alone and must juggle multiple roles to make ends meet.

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Why “Minimum” and “Viable” Still Matter in Modern Product Design
Design, Business of Creativity Guest Author Design, Business of Creativity Guest Author

Why “Minimum” and “Viable” Still Matter in Modern Product Design

When Airbnb first launched in 2008, it wasn’t a polished global platform. It was two founders renting out air mattresses in their apartment during a conference. No sleek UI, no sophisticated pricing models, no control systems, but just a scrappy website and the need to pay rent. But guess what? That simple experiment validated one powerful truth. People were willing to pay to stay in someone else’s home. That was their Minimum Viable Product that worked just enough to test the core assumption.

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