How ArtNight Built an IRL Tech Platform That Scales Offline Events
- Shazmeen Sohail
- 4 days ago
- 28 min read
Offline experiences are scalable when operational complexity is automated at the system level and growth discipline prevents structural debt.
ArtNight is not an event agency; it is a tech-enabled IRL platform.
1,000 monthly events operate with minimal central headcount due to backend automation.
Most founders underestimate the structural complexity and reputational risk of experience businesses.
Answer Hub:
What is ArtNight’s core business model?
ArtNight operates as an IRL tech platform that systematizes decentralized creative events across Germany and Austria. It is not a marketplace; it owns marketing, ticketing, and process infrastructure while freelance hosts deliver standardized experiences.
How many events does ArtNight run monthly?
ArtNight runs approximately 1,000 events per month in Germany alone. The backend system is designed to scale significantly higher without proportional headcount growth.
Why did US paint-and-sip models not transfer directly to Germany?
US formats prioritize entertainment and alcohol-driven engagement. In Germany, credibility of the artist and learning value are decisive. Cultural expectations alter host requirements and experience design.
How did COVID affect ArtNight’s structure?
Pre-pandemic hypergrowth expanded into five countries and multiple verticals. During COVID, complexity increased through digital events and D2C boxes. Post-pandemic recovery required strategic contraction and refocusing.
What is the main risk in experience businesses?
Experience businesses carry asymmetric reputational risk. A poor event generates negative word-of-mouth amplification that directly impacts demand and brand equity.
What operational metric defines success at ArtNight?
ArtNight maintains a Net Promoter Score (NPS) consistently above 96. NPS is treated as structural infrastructure, not marketing vanity.
Why Is ArtNight an IRL Tech Platform Instead of an Event Agency?
ArtNight scales offline events through backend automation, not manual coordination.
An event agency organizes experiences individually. An IRL tech platform builds repeatable processes, ticketing infrastructure, host management systems, and automated operational workflows that allow decentralized execution.
ArtNight centralizes marketing, payments, and quality governance while freelance hosts execute events locally under defined standards.
Aimie-Sarah Carstensen describes ArtNight explicitly as a tech platform scaling offline events rather than a marketplace model.
How Can 1,000 Offline Events Run With Minimal Headcount?
Operational automation replaces human coordination layers.
Approximately 1.5 full-time equivalents handle customer service, and one additional FTE oversees host operations. Process automation governs scheduling, ticketing, payment flows, material logistics, and feedback loops.
Scalability is embedded in system design, not headcount expansion.
ArtNight reports the ability to increase event volume significantly without proportional staffing increases.
What Broke During Hypergrowth?
Complexity outpaced operational maturity.
In 2019, ArtNight expanded into five countries, launched multiple new brands, and scaled headcount from 20 to over 100 employees. Funding availability reduced cost discipline.
When COVID disrupted physical events, layered complexity became structural risk.
Post-pandemic restructuring required closing non-core geographies and verticals to restore sustainability.
Why Did Digital and D2C Pivots Not Become the Core?
Customer demand reverted to physical experiences.
During lockdowns, ArtNight launched online events and shipped D2C creative boxes. While functional, these formats did not match the psychological and social value of in-person events.
The pandemic pivot solved survival, not long-term positioning.
Management deliberately refocused on the core offline experience after restrictions lifted.
Why Is Experience Quality an Economic Variable?
Bad experiences generate negative demand.
Unlike physical goods, poor experiences cannot be returned. Dissatisfied participants communicate their dissatisfaction within personal networks, amplifying reputational damage.
ArtNight institutionalized feedback measurement through post-event surveys and maintains a long-term NPS above 96.
Quality governance is treated as growth infrastructure, not brand management.
Inline Micro-Definitions
IRL tech refers to technology systems that scale in-real-life services rather than purely digital products.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a standardized customer loyalty metric measuring likelihood to recommend.
Decentralized event operations describe distributed execution by local hosts under centralized governance.
Structural complexity refers to operational layers that increase cost and reduce adaptability.
Hypergrowth is accelerated expansion often fueled by external capital.
Operator Heuristics
Automate before you expand.
Do not mistake funding for resilience.
Cultural behavior defines product-market fit.
Experience quality is a growth engine.
Reduce complexity after crisis events.
Treat feedback as infrastructure.
WHAT WE’RE NOT COVERING
This article excludes tactical event planning checklists, beginner entrepreneurship advice, and general community-building frameworks.
The focus remains on structural scalability and operational governance within tech-enabled offline infrastructure.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ArtNight a marketplace platform?
No. ArtNight controls marketing, ticketing, and operational systems while freelance hosts execute events under defined standards.
Can offline events truly scale?
Yes, if backend automation and governance systems reduce manual coordination.
Why did US paint-and-sip models require adaptation?
German audiences prioritize artistic credibility and learning value over entertainment-driven formats.
Did COVID permanently change the business model?
No. COVID introduced temporary digital formats, but long-term strategy returned to offline experiences.
How does ArtNight ensure quality across cities?
Through structured host onboarding, defined process standards, and mandatory post-event feedback collection.
What defines sustainable growth in experience businesses?
Operational simplicity, disciplined focus, and strong reputation metrics.
Is IRL tech a new category?
The label is new. The underlying concept—scaling real-world services via technology—is not.
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Hosted by Chris Fahrenbach, Co-Host at Startuprad.io, covering founders, operators, and decision-makers shaping the DACH startup ecosystem.
Automated Transcript
Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:00:00]:
Welcome to startuprad.io, your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startup scene with news, interviews, and live events.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:00:20]:
Hello and welcome. If you are a founder or creator who believes creativity belongs in everyday life, this episode is for you. We have a special guest today in our founder series here, and I'm welcoming Aimie- Sarah Carstensen. Hello.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:00:41]:
Hello. Thank you very much for having me today.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:00:45]:
Yeah, we're— I'm very much looking forward to this because I think we all need reminders to make more room for creativity in our day-to-day lives. You are the founder and CEO of ArtNight. And you turned a simple idea, painting and socializing offline, into what is now one of Europe's biggest creative experience platforms. In our show today, we will unpack how you scaled from a few events to what is now a multimillion euro community business, how you survived the pandemic, and not you personally, but also the business, and what it takes to build something that that brings people joy at scale. So everyone, welcome to today's episode. Stick around. Right after a short ad break, we will dive into the decision that changed everything for ArtNight. Today on Startupland, we are joined by Aimie Sara Carstensen, a founder who left the corporate world to bring creativity back into people's lives.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:01:50]:
Before launching ArtNight in, I think, 2016, you worked for Axel Springer and Bertelsmann, learned there how to build digital communities yourself. And now you are running ArtNight, which has hosted over a million participants across 60 cities, inspiring people to disconnect from their screens and reconnect with creativity. You started with flyers at Christmas markets, as far as I know, and you led this to a full-scale experience brand. And so today we will dive into a story about persistence, purpose, and painting your own path. I hope none of this is wrong, but my first question for you would be, you were part of the corporate world, you were a corporate executive, and you became a creative founder. Obviously, what was the moment that gave you the idea and the feeling of, I'm going to take that leap?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:02:49]:
Yeah, good question. So I remember that moment. Quite good because in the corporate world, I was in my mid-20s and I had a leadership position. My original thought was that I'm really thriving for a corporate career because both my parents are entrepreneurs and today they are quite successful. But back then they have founded several companies, several companies also did not work out. So they started from scratch. And for me as a teenager and also as a child, I thought this is quite stressful. So my plan was never to found my own company, but I believe that I'm an entrepreneur by heart.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:03:28]:
And of course, you always say also until your mid-20s, I don't want to be like my parents, but then suddenly you realize you have at least some parts of them. So for me, it's definitely the entrepreneurship. And I was at Bertelsmann, I was part of quite nice coaching program.. And we were in the middle of the woods with a group of other leaders. Some of them, or most of them, were a little bit older than I was and already C-level positions, etc. And then we discussed about my next career steps and what is following. And I just realized, okay, actually, I really want to found my own company and just try it out. And my plan B was always that I thought, if it doesn't work out, then I can go back to the corporate world again.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:04:20]:
Um, and that's actually the day when I made the decision, okay, then let's found a company without having any idea or any thought what this really means. I just had a couple of thousand euros of savings on my bank account, and then I started looking for ideas and getting to know other people. And this was actually the start of the decision.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:04:41]:
Nice. I feel very much reminded of my own story because I haven't always been a journalist. I used to work for Mercedes and then for Audi. And the first time when you have an idea or a feeling like this, I'm going to start my own thing, for me, it was— I was brave for about 2 minutes and thought, yeah, I'm going to do this. And then I thought, well, of course I'm not doing this. It would be stupid to do the other thing. But then again, I think You kind of create the spiral and then your mind is already on the, on the other track and you think about how to make the other thing work. In that moment though, was there the idea for ArtNight already in your head or was it more, I just want to start my own thing.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:05:22]:
What could I do?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:05:24]:
Yes, it was more, I want to start my own thing. What can I do? And back then what I did already was, as I said, I was in my mid-20s. I was in a leadership position. At this corporate company, and I was quite young and also a woman, which was not quite common back then. So what I did is I have founded next to my job a community for women because I wanted to build up a network. I realized, okay, business is a lot about networking, but I do not know anybody. And also I don't have the family connections that I get just like a network from home. So how do you do this? So I organized events for women across Germany with kind of ambassador programs.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:06:08]:
We had like a blogazine, etc. So this was the whole woman empowerment movement when there wasn't a woman empowerment movement. We were a little bit too early for the market. And, and this was what I was doing already, and I really enjoyed it, bringing people together offline, connecting people, and also showing people that they're capable of daring to fulfill their dreams. And actually, then I looked into different ideas because I got to know a couple of people, met women and men and other founders. I looked into a couple of startups and nothing really catched me. Then I had first the idea of building a business in the wedding area. So when it comes to wedding greeting cards, wedding organization, but I wasn't really passionate about it.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:06:57]:
And, but with this wedding idea, I met my co-founder. With whom I founded ArtNight. He's not part of the company today anymore, but back then we founded the company together and we met and then we discussed a couple of ideas and then ArtNight popped up. So bringing people together offline, offering creative events, and actually doing something with your own hands instead of just having a speaker or dinner and having kind of a creative experience. And this was then the start.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:07:27]:
What was the event like back then and how did it change now? Like what happens at Art Night?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:07:34]:
Yeah, what happens at Art Night? That's a good question. So basically you can think of a creative event. So you book your ticket online in advance and then you go to a bar, restaurant, or cafe because the events are always happening in those locations, which is also a nice atmosphere. You come there and now depends if you booked like painting or a DIY format. We are offering several different products, but the material is prepared for you. You always have like a local host or a local artist who guides you 2 to 3 hours to create your own piece of art, whether it's jewelry, it's a painting, it's paper flowers, it's oysters that you decoupage and paint. And then you enjoy the evening, um, or the afternoon and take back your own artwork and this everything is like a little bit guided, but it's still like in a cozy and nice atmosphere. You can go by yourself, you can also book it with a private group, or you go with a friend.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:08:35]:
And for me, what I like most is that's kind of an offline experience that you can do alone but also with other people, and you're doing something with your own hands, no screens, and just quite nice.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:08:51]:
What does an average ticket cost at the moment? €49. €49, okay. And then at the café, I guess I can order food, I can have booze. I know it from here in New York mostly as like paint and sip. But okay, so that is all— you don't have to, but that is all possible. Okay, interesting. Did something in 2016, going back to when you had the idea and you looked at the industry? Did something like this exist or did you feel, oh, we have to do it differently? Or was it, did it feel completely new? What was the market environment like back then?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:09:29]:
It did not exist in Europe. In the US there was a company who did something similar. So you had in the US back then already a lot of paint and sip studios. So really studios where you just go and where where nothing else happens than painting and drinking. And also in Australia, there was another company doing this. And we got in touch with them. They had no interest in also expanding to Europe, so we thought, okay, this is a good opportunity. And the toughest part was, of course, in the beginning we tried to copy it quite exactly how it happens, for example, in the US.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:10:08]:
But we realized quite quickly that people are interested in painting, but not so in the drinking part. So I remember the first events where we also had like Jägermeister. Somehow we got Jägermeister there, um, also as a sponsor. And we, we did kind of an event where you were painting like for 5 minutes and then you had a shot and then you were painting and you had another shot. And we realized quite quickly that especially in Germany, the culture is quite different. So people like to enjoy their wine or Aperol Spritz. To the art night, but it's not about getting drunk. It's more about, okay, I really also want to learn something.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:10:48]:
I also want to have fun, but I want to decide by myself if I would like to drink alcohol on a Wednesday evening or not. And this is when we changed the concept and also realized we need different hosts. So in the US, for example, we have a lot of entertainers who are doing these events. So you don't need to be as good in painting. In Europe, we really need artists who know what they're doing and are really, really good in their skill set. So there's a lot of differences, especially culturally. And so yeah, this is, we developed the experience like in the last 9 years more and more, and now it's quite perfect, I would say.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:11:30]:
Yeah. So it's so interesting that, yeah, that there are all these data points or that there are apparently also very different needs from the target audience. I have a friend, she runs events like this probably like once per quarter or something. And there it's just, she does it to like, it's about painting nude guys. So it's actually really like, and so it's like a whole different value proposition probably, I guess.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:11:55]:
Oh, we also did that in the past.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:12:01]:
Nice. In the early days, let's talk maybe like the first year or so, everything was pretty scrappy. You had like small venues, flyers, word of mouth. It was not like a like a big, I guess it didn't feel like a big startup company, probably. So like, what did it, like, what were those moments like? And what did it teach you about the validity of the concept?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:12:25]:
Lesson learned, you do not need a lot of money to build a great business. And so back then, this was actually the problem. We did not really have a lot of money. And we were both not like in university or had any scholarships or anything like that. So we also had to earn money quite fast. So you really are getting creative then how to do marketing. You really think about how can you save money, build up a good sustainable business. And this is what we actually did.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:12:57]:
And it was quite tough in the beginning, but a lot of things worked out. A lot of things also did not work out. And our biggest problem was that back then, also nowadays, if people do not understand the concept, then you have to explain quite a lot. And people, they don't read like 5 sentences to understand what you're offering. So we had to figure out how to pitch Art Night quite good and sharp, especially for marketing. And then we tried out different things. For example, I'm still part of 1,000 Facebook groups for singles. So we just posted in all the cities where we were offering events, like Single in Berlin, Single in Munich, Single in Vienna.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:13:43]:
And hey, there's a new event format if you are looking for a cool date and you want to have a conversation, but you are also want to feel comfortable if the conversation isn't going that well, then Art Night is the perfect thing for you. Here's like a €5 discount. So we did like different things and then learned step by step how to market an experience product.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:14:07]:
Yeah. And then if we are talking, once we are talking now about, okay, it felt more like a startup maybe, then we usually have the bad S-word, which is scale. And I imagine that you must have gotten the criticism very often of like, okay, this is all nice, but it sounds like a hobby. It doesn't sound like a really real big business. So how do you scale this? Was this a huge part of your conversation in the background or when strategizing? Was this something that weighed heavily on you? Or like, how did you approach this idea of like, oh yeah, does this scale? And is this even an important question for us?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:14:50]:
Yeah, definitely. So for me also, the interesting part was always how are you able to scale offline events? Because I know a lot of companies, they are working agency-like, so they're organizing event over event. And what was motivating most was like building really tech in the background that scales offline events without needing a lot of resources for it. And this is actually what we have built also from the beginning on. Of course, it takes a little bit of time to develop all those processes and also tech behind it. And what is quite funny, I had yesterday, I had a lunch date and I heard of like a word the first time. It's called IRL tech, in real life tech. This is completely new.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:15:39]:
Like I'm doing IRL, an IRL startup since now 9 years, but now there's like a new hype coming. This hype wasn't there 9 years ago. So we always had to explore to explain what we are actually building. And ArtNight is in the background a tech platform where we are able to scale offline events. And one example, we are doing around 1,000 events per month in Germany only. And we only have like 1.5 FTE in customer service, for example, and one more FTE managing all the hosts and all the operations behind it. It's really, you don't need a lot of human resources in that sense because we have built really great tech behind it. And we could also do 5,000 events tomorrow if the marketing would be a little bit easier.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:16:34]:
But this is how I understand scalability and this was the thought from the beginning on. And also building a tech scalable platform that is not only able to do painting events Because actually right now we could do the same, or we are doing right now the same. We started that last year again with DIY events, or in 2019 we launched like baking events, cocktail events, planting events. So this was always the original thought behind it, why we also got funding and then went crazy and were also crazy scale-up before COVID.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:17:12]:
Hit. I want to talk about the pandemic more in a second. But I'm curious, how does it work right now? So you get a share of those $49,000? Like, how is the money split up? Does the instructor do part of the marketing too, or is this considered to be like a freelancer for you for the event? Like, how does this work at the moment?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:17:36]:
Yeah, we are not a marketplace. So we are really the event experience creator. And this is how the platform works. So all the processes, they are like our core business, our hosts that are hosting the events in front of also the people, they're freelancers. And they're doing the events with a couple of guidelines we're having. And they're with us, especially like in Germany, we have hosts there with us since 9 years, 8 years, 7 years. So they did like a lot of events already. And this also shows that the system works.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:18:12]:
But we are doing the marketing, we are doing the ticketing, we are doing the tech processes, and we have amazing people who are hosting the events and are collaborating with us.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:18:23]:
Ah, okay. You just said pandemic. So I imagine it's 2016, you got the idea, you build it, it's working nicely. It's 2019, you have these new ideas, what you just mentioned of like, okay, let's move this past just like paint— painting and do DIY stuff. And then March 2020, the pandemic hit. And yeah, your IRL tech/non-tech business is confronted with real life indeed. So what was that like? And what was the hardest call you had to make to keep ArtNight alive in that.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:19:03]:
Moment? Maybe to answer the question, like, what were we doing in 2019? So we scaled up the business super fast, and it was also the time, so costs were irrelevant, money was cheap. You were able to raise like a lot of money from investors with just a couple of PowerPoint slides. So that's what we did because we were really hungry and the startup scene was also working like that. And I was quite inexperienced. So if I'm looking back, I wished to make like, or had made a different decision. But we were in a super scaling phase when COVID hit. So we just launched 3 new brands. We just expanded Artne to 5 other countries.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:19:43]:
We did all that within 4 months and scaled also from 20 employees to over 100 employees. And then we got like a couple of millions of funding. So COVID hit. And I just imagine, like, remember the first days also of COVID and we, nobody of us knew like how long will this go or how, what will happen now because we never experienced something like that. So what we actually did was building even more complexity. So we had the money because we did fundraising before. So we did online events for all formats. So digital painting, cooking, planting and cocktail events.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:20:24]:
We also tapped into the e-commerce business because we then built like boxes for at-home events, cocktail boxes, baking boxes, painting boxes, planting boxes, and we're suddenly shipping around D2C products to different customers. So then what happened was, um, COVID took a little longer. The regulations, especially in Europe, they were like really a lot, and in every German city there were different regulations, so it was quite tough to keep up the operations. But we realized quite quickly after the first lockdown that all those digital products and boxes, they are working quite good, but actually people want to meet in real life again and want to join real events. So we started with real events quite quickly again under all those regulations. Now, your question was like, what was the hardest part or decision? This was actually when the pandemic was fading out because we had back then like a business which was super high in complexity. We had so many employees, the costs were crazy. So we were like a young startup and we were doing online events, offline events, e-commerce business, B2B business, B2C business.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:21:42]:
So the best, but also the hardest decision was focus and turn the business around and make the decision to really build like a sustainable company and focus only on Artmade in Germany and Austria and closing everything else down and also tidying up the company again. And also like, yeah, stop scaling in that sense, but also reducing the overhead, which meant We had to let go a couple of people also to save costs and money and build it a little bit better from scratch kind of again. And this is what we did then the years after.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:22:24]:
COVID. I think this is a good moment to take a little break because we now learned about the building of the company, the growth of it, and then how you kind of like pruned it when when the pandemic happened and something really heavy external happened. And yet now the company is again launching other concepts like Bait Night and Plant Night. We will come back to that after the break. And please stay with us when Aimie shares the ways of how they at Art Night think about diversifying or doubling down on what is the core success so far. Stay with us. Welcome back. So we talked a lot about how you overcame the challenges of COVID successfully, and you also hinted at the fact that there are probably now plant nights and bake nights.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:23:26]:
So when did those ideas come up, and how do you decide when to diversify versus when to like double down?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:23:34]:
Yeah. So we made a decision in 2019, before COVID hit, to do like a vertical and horizontal expansion, I would call it. So geographical expansion and expansion in other verticals. And we closed them down by the end of the pandemic again. And we focused the last year on Art Night only because this was the concept that was working best and we needed to focus a little bit.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:24:03]:
More Okay. Interesting. I see more and more here in New York, there's many plant cafes now popping up. So apparently people are doing like, people are really looking forward to do a crossover between flowers and having coffee. I think it's a bit of a weird crossroads, but probably there's something there. We talked about scaling a lot already, but I'm still curious, how do you make sure that there are certain, that each event stays within a certain range, that there's a certain quality, that each event feels personal and authentic, but also adheres to the standards of the company? How does this work in on, like, on the ground nitty gritty?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:24:50]:
For us, the quality of events is the most important thing. And why? Just imagine if you would buy like a new pair of sneakers. For example. So you buy them online, you, you get them at home, you try them on, and maybe you don't like them, so you just send them back. If you like them, you wear them and also show them potentially to other people. With experiences, the business is super different. Why? If you're booking a ticket for an experience and you have a shitty experience, you tell this other people. So for example, you go to work the other day, or you talk about the experience with your friends, family, you're part of WhatsApp groups or whatever, And so if the experience is not top-notch, then other people will know.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:25:36]:
And this means for us bad marketing. So from the beginning on, a really amazing experience was the core of our business. And the result is that since 9 years, we have an NPS, so Net Promoter Score, where you can actually measure also feedback in a quite nice way of minimum 96, which is crazy high. And, and So this is why we are successful, I would say, also since many, many years, because the quality is so important. And how do we do this? How do we measure this? So with the last point, how do we measure it? We ask for feedback after every event. If something went wrong, we are trying to fix it and figure out why it went wrong. It's still like a people business, so it could be, for example, the location is closed, it was supposed to be open. Things like that happen, but they do not happen quite often.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:26:31]:
And, but with everything else, we coach our hosts, we work with them super closely together to really make the best experience happening. And for us, creating a new experience product, and as I said, like last year we have diversified a little bit again, but in the DIY sector, so doing like jewelry events, paper flower events, etc. And it takes us up to half a year to really develop an amazing experience. So, and there are different things come together. There's like a psychological part, what should happen during an event. There's like an organizational part that should happen during the event. And there's also the material, which also should be really, really good in quality. And yeah, that's our secret sauce, how everything comes.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:27:19]:
Together. It's good. You also already talked a bit about the concept behind it now aligning with bigger trends we see in society at the moment. And I would definitely agree. Even my impression is that especially younger people kind of understand that online and internet experiences are not everything. I feel as if sometimes now Gen Z or the younger people of Gen Z are much better in moving away from devices than us millennials are. So good for them. And that there's a hunger for this and that there's, I mean, we also see it, for example, in the music sector where you can make less and less money with records and Spotify.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:28:02]:
And people say, well, how about we are just on a forever tour because people do want to go to concerts, et cetera. So what are some of the broad strokes of the broad impressions that you have of experiential culture? Where do you see this is going? What are your feelings around just like the market you're in?
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:28:25]:
Yeah. So like recent global and local studies highlight that especially loneliness is no longer just like a senior issue. So it's really hitting also young adults the hardest. And 1 of 6 people are really feeling really, really lonely. So this actually means that, yeah, also in the studies, like around 60% of especially young adults are feeling moderately lonely. And this is like a crazy health risk. It's a higher health risk than smoking 15 cigarettes a day if you're feeling lonely and not socially connected, because it's like something that we as human beings really need. So this is the one thing.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:29:10]:
The other thing is we are all spending roughly like 6 to 7 hours on screens every day. So both comes together. And I think especially the younger generations, they now understand that they have like those human needs and that they want to connect with other people, but it's really challenging for them doing so because they— when have they learned to connect with other people easily? So this is a quite interesting movement that communities are getting more and more important. You have like a lot of running clubs or sports clubs or communities in cities where people connect with each other. And I think it's just something normal. My hypothesis is, and I say that quite often, like technology has developed super fast in the last years and just look at everything we can do with AI today. But we as human beings we are still really basic. So the human needs we actually have— excuse me— yeah, but they haven't changed like since forever.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:30:13]:
Like we need to sleep, we need to eat, we need social connections, and all those things haven't changed. So I think this is something that is super interesting and where we are going more back and back to all those basic needs and core needs, because if we don't, we are getting sick. So bringing people together offline, offering communities and offering like the fancy word IRL, in real life, is something that we as human beings just actually need to survive.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:30:45]:
Yeah. Yeah, I would definitely agree. And it also brings us back to the pandemic a bit, which I think was also a huge lesson in the fact that we're not only craving the connections to our good friends, but also that we probably undervalued the weaklings in our life. And the weak links to people like the barista or just like the other regular you saw at the bar or the people in your soccer club. And I had this one friend who said, well, I really miss friends, but I also really miss strangers right now. And so yeah, this idea of the fact that we are social animals is definitely something I can relate to. And I also think it's interesting when we are looking at the generations and again, talking about probably Gen Z, they have never experienced the internet as this like innocent thing that's going to bring just good, which probably a generation of people that is now in their 30s, 40s, 50s and who remember a time before and then who remember the golden age of the internet and everything was meant to solve society's problems, that time is also gone. So I mean, that's a story for a whole other day and there are huge bookshelves written about this, but I definitely do I do think that, yeah, experiential culture, the in-person connection, and also the idea of we have to expose ourselves to people who are other and different from us, that this is just very beneficial to us.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:32:12]:
I always tell people it's very easy to hate a group. It's very hard to hate a person. So like you have to meet the other people. Two quick final questions that we asked every guest. Number 1, are you talking to new investors right now? Are you looking for.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:32:32]:
Money? I'm not looking for money, but on the other hand, always.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:32:37]:
Not from investors. Okay, from customers. Are you hiring or looking for talent? How does it work? If I'm not a good enough painter, I have to wait for, like, I don't know, we do poetry night or something.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:32:51]:
Then I will come. So right now we are always looking for great people. Um, but now, right now we are especially looking for great hosts. So creative people who want to do events and host events next to their normal job. I would say these are the most that we are looking for in many, many cities and countries right now.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:33:12]:
Very nice. Thank you very much for joining the show and for explaining. I feel I, uh, I feel very inclined now to book it the next time I'm in Germany to go to an art night. I have to like talk to some people like you, you convinced me the pitch worked.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:33:30]:
Yeah. You're invited. Like the most important thing is like dare to create whatever it is, what you're creating.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:33:36]:
Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. I'm too much of a perfectionist. It's very often like, this doesn't look right, but it's stupid, obviously. Like in order to have a good 10th painting, you need to do 9 others before, I guess.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:33:49]:
So you don't just like half an hour starting point is enough.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:33:54]:
Or 5 minutes between shots, which I learned today.
Aimie- Sarah Carstensen | Entrepreneur | Founder of ArtNight [00:34:00]:
Too.
Chris Fahrenbach | Co-Host Startup News [00:34:00]:
So, uh, uh, dear listeners, if you have ever joined an art night yourself, or you maybe thought about starting a community-driven business yourself, please let us know what was a takeaway from Aimie's journey here. Um, write it to us in the comments, tag us on social, write us an email. We, uh, are curious whether you, like this bit of a different episode today because we, for once, we were not talking about AI and software as a service here. I say thank you for coming on the show. I hope, yeah, I wish you the best of luck with the business. And till the next time, bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:34:45]:
Find more news, streams, events, and interviews at www.startuprad.io. Remember, sharing is caring.
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