Marketing whiz Everette Taylor has founded multiple companies — all marketing related — and gained a reputation more often associated with entrepreneurship than with art.
In May, Taylor went in a new direction. He launched ArtX, a company that helps artists to get exposure to the masses, empowers them to solve common problems and makes art more mainstream.
Now Taylor is going to work for Artsy — the top-ranking art marketplace on Google — and it’s a dream alignment, Taylor said.
Taylor announced on Twitter that he has been named chief marketing officer of Artsy, an online art collecting and discovery platform that claims to attract 2.5 million unique visitors each month.
“My dream for democratizing the art world and making art more accessible directly aligns with Artsy’s mission,” Taylor tweeted Tuesday. “Excited for this next step in my journey.”
In 2017, the Richmond, Va.-born, Los Angeles-based founder bought his first artwork — “The Red Whisperer” by Jonathan Henriquez — setting off what became a business endeavor.
Now Taylor, 30, said he’s moving to New York to join Artsy.
Taylor is CEO of ET Enterprises, a portfolio of tech companies he founded. These include the marketing firm MilliSense, the software company GrowthHackers, marketing and advertising firm PopSocial, charitable foundation Southside Fund, and Hayver, a drug and alcohol addiction prevention app.
In a statement, Artsy CEO Mike Steib described Taylor as “a brilliant and experienced marketer with a passion for the art world and Artsy’s mission,” ArtNews reported.
Artsy is an online platform for collecting and discovering art. It claims to have the largest online database of contemporary art and aims to expand the art market to support more artists and art in the world.
Since its inception in 2009, Artsy has raised a total of $100 million in venture funding and was most recently valued at $275 million, the Observer reported in May 2019. Artsy is backed by investors including Eric Schmidt, Thrive Capital, Jack Dorsey, and Peter Thiel.
Taylor launched his first company at age 19 with EZ Events, an event marketing tech company that he sold after two years. As a marketing executive, Taylor helped lead Qualaroo (acquired by Xenon Ventures) and Skurt (acquired by Fair) to successful acquisitions, oversaw growth for new mobile apps for Microsoft China, and led e-commerce company Sticker Mule to unprecedented growth as its youngest executive ever.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 23: Everette Taylor
Jamarlin talks to serial entrepreneur and marketing whiz, Everette Taylor, about building GrowthHackers, PopSocial and other companies. Everette shares what he learned from selling his first tech business at age 21 and working with Snapchat on a new startup accelerator.
Earlier this year, Taylor created ArtX, an online platform for emerging artists. ArtX was unlike anything Taylor had ever done, Afrotech reported.
“For the first time in my life I’m doing something and creating a company that I’m actually super passionate about and I want to work on,” Taylor said. “I’m very fortunate and I’m very blessed to create the successful companies that I have thus far, but this hits different.”
Taylor is hooked on the art world, John Ketchum wrote for Afrotech. He has bought art from known and unknown artists and, in the process, identified problems for Black artists that he hopes to fix with marketing, technology and community.
Read more: Diversifying Your Portfolio: Investing In Art
