Rivet
Rivet is a unified search platform designed to help you find and activate opportunities to advance your creative practice.
VISION & IMPACT
Education is built into the foundation of what we believe. From workshops for both organizations and creatives to free multilingual guides, we not only want to provide a tool that helps our users, but also create a stronger, motivated community with higher success rates.
We are disrupting financial barriers worldwide. We are changing and widening access to prestigious opportunities by increasing transparency. We understand that the creative world is truly global and that currently, only lack of information keeps creatives in India and Bulgaria away from life-changing opportunities in Iceland and China.
Building a united cultural policy for the world. Rivet’s ultimate goal as a “first thought service” is to be the epicenter for cultural producers and providers. We aim to be the UN of creative leaders, unifying standards and define a growing and critical world-changing industry.
THE CHALLENGE
Working for a cumulative 13 years in the artist residency field, we noticed that it took a long time to find the right opportunity for creatives—up to 10 hours!? On top of that, it was hard to tell what the pricing transparencies were for each opportunity which means once a creative applied, was accepted, they were stuck with a bill of $2,000 and often had to turn down the offer.
PAIN POINTS
Transparency/Clarity • Funding • Accessibility • Time Wasted • Not getting enough diversified applicants
2016 Available Search Engines Worldwide
Here is an image of all the platforms in 2016 that creatives and organizations had to use to find and post their opportunity.
2016 Creatives User Journey
This drawing was made with the Team and Jason Huff to understand the current dillema with searching for opportunities.
TEAM & SUPPORT
Co-Founders & Primary Team
Katrina Neumann (Rate My Artist Residency), Lead Product Design and Branding
Kira Simon-Kennedy (China Residencies), Lead Business Strategy and Partnerships
Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria (Residency Unlimited), Lead Web Developer and Product Manager
Advisors
Jason Huff (Senior Product Manager Etsy & Netflix) • Ruby Lerner (Creative Capital) • Linda Blumberg (MoMA PS1 Founder and Former ADAA President)
Support
Residency Unlimited, Common Field, Kate Spade & Company Foundation, & General Assembly UX Designer Students
Tech Incubators
NEW INC. and Made in NY Media Center by IFP
RESEARCH
We surveyed over 1,200 working creatives and 100 organizations
81.5% of 1,200 creatives surveyed think it’s a terrible mess
47% of 100 organizations say they don’t get enough applicants
51 % of the organizations want more diverse applicants
COMPETITORS & INDUSTRY
Competitors at a Glance
(via Berlin Sessions)
Who is Publishing? 45 Platforms with Open Calls
3,195,600 Website visits in 6 months
857,739 Facebook Followers
559,402 Twitter Followers
American Artist Residency Field
(via Alliance of Artist Communities)
Artists Provided with residencies in North America: 10K+
Applications for residencies in North America: 80K+
North America Residencies: 500+
Worldwide: 1500+
ID POTENTIAL CUSTOMER MARKET & SEGMENTS
A growing worldwide creative field of 17 million Students, 15 million Employees worldwide
North America: 1M Students, 3M Employees
South America: 650K Students, 1.5M Employees
Europe: 5.1M Students, 5.5M Employees
Asia: 9.6M Students, 4.7M Employees
Australia: 290K Students, 343K Employees
Africa: TBD, growing market
US Cultural Capital, National Endowment for the Arts 2018 Report
2013: Arts and cultural production adds $704.2 billion to the U.S. economy, equal to the combined total of the construction ($619B) and utilities ($270B) industries.
CUSTOMER SEGMENT 1
Creative Individuals
Visual Artists, Musicians, Writers, Choreographers, Playwrights, Engineers, Academics, Curators, Administrators, Filmmakers, and Scientists
CUSTOMER SEGMENT 2
Creative Organizations
Non-profits, Museums & Galleries, Music & Film Festivals, Corporations, Cultural Fairs, Foundations, Government Municipalities, Institutions, Ministries of Culture, Education & Academia
WORKSHOPS
Internet Yama-Ichi
Before building the platform, the team manually searching and finding matches for creatives to help them get opportunities and to test their willingness to pay for the service platform. 2016, Maspeth, Queens, NY. Fun Fact: Rivet was originally called Res but went through a rebranding session.
Common Field
The team went to Common Field Los Angeles to host a workshops with over 50 arts organization directors and creatives to discuss the pain points of finding and posting opportunities.
Stakeholders meetings
Many nights and days spent working through the user journeys of the platform at NEW INC. during our two year residency.
Applying to Things
The team hosted several workshops at NEW INC. called, “Applying to Things,” that invited creatives to share their successful applications and advice. There were also organization leaders presenting on their organization and what they are looking for when sorting through applications. The second half of the workshop helped attending creatives review their applications. The team was able to discover new pain points with this focus group. (Image: Artist Onyedika Chuke presenting a successful application).
University Panel Discussions
The team was invited to several arts universities to present Rivet to a targeted audience and use the opportunity as a focus group to gain more insight into designing new features.
LOW-FI SKETCHES
HIGH-FI WIREFRAMES
FIRST MVP
FINAL DESKTOP AND MOBILE MVP
SEARCHING MADE EASY
CLEAR FUNCTION TO SEARCH AND FIND OPPORTUNITIES WITH FUNDING FILTERS AT THE FOREFRONT
FIND FUNDING FAST
DYNAMIC SEARCH ENGINE WITH UNIQUE FILTERS SHOWCASING FUNDING
FOLLOW ORGANIZATIONS
CLEAR ORGANIZATION PROFILES THAT CREATIVES CAN FOLLOW FOR UPDATES
TRACK APPLICATIONS
CREATIVES CAN TRACK THEIR SAVED OPEN CALLS
PROFILE UPDATES
CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS CAN MANAGE THEIR OWN PROFILES AND DUPLICATE OPEN CALLS SAVING THEM TIME
RATE RESIDENCIES
A BETTER RATING SYSTEM FOR RESIDENCIES TO PROVIDE TRANSPARENCY IN THE FIELD
MOBILE RESPONSIVE
MOBILE RESPONSIVE DESIGN FOR ON THE GO SEARCHING
ACCESSIBILITY ICONS
QUICKLY VIEW IF OPPORTUNITIES ALLOW PETS, ARE FAMILY FRIENDLY, OR ACCESSIBLE TO VISION, WHEELCHAIRS/MOBILE DISABILITIES, OR HEARING DIVERSE CREATIVES. ROLLOVER ICONS FOR TEXT.
COUNTDOWN
EVERY OPEN CALL HAS A COUNTDOWN FOR THE APPLICATION DEADLINE. CREATIVES CAN SAVE THE OPEN CALL AND BE NOTIFIED BY EMAIL BEFORE IT IS DUE, SO A DEADLINE IS NOT MISSED AGAIN.
2021 BRANDING REFRESH: Updated social media avatars, banners, icons, and posts
LEARNINGS
Start with mobile wireframes and prototypes first
Discovering the power of a user journey through observation, surveys, and focus groups
Keep it simple while prototyping (refrain from using high-fidelity wireframes)
Translations between Adobe XD wireframes and the developer
9000 CREATIVES WITH A PROFILE
1000+ ORGANIZATIONS ON BOARD
200+ OPEN CALLS MONTHLY
RUNS AUTOMATICALLY WITH LITTLE TO NO WEB ADMINISTRATION
User acquisition is through word-of-mouth and very little advertising.
We went with a stealth quiet launch and the website has been slowly growing since 2018.