We were lucky to catch up with Luke Keller recently and have shared our conversation below.

Luke, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My life was forever changed on August 29th, 2010. The pillar of my family, the most talented artist, my mother was taken from us in the blink of an eye. Looking back I would not have said she was my inspiration to become an entrepreneur. In fact, my views of my mother’s career were always that of a stay-at-home mom. Don’t get me wrong, words can never express my gratitude to her for the care and love she showed my family and me daily. And yet, until recently I never would have called my mom an entrepreneur.

I finally was able to buy a home with enough wall space to showcase my mom’s artwork. My excitement was crushed when I discovered that due to our ignorance and inexperience we did not take adequate care of her work. Most of her art was falling apart and nearly impossible to repair. This sent me on a tailspin of trying to understand more about her career as an artist.

She was a mixed-media multi-talented artist. Her biggest claim to fame is being one of the original creators of the Chick-Fil-A C (you know the one with the chicken face). I always assumed her career as an artist was paused so she could focus on my family. While that might be true in part. In reality, she really struggled on the entrepreneurial side of running her company “Creator & Co.”. Being an artist is tough enough to then add in marketing, sales, bookkeeping, and everything else it takes to run a small business. One artist I spoke with told me that finding inspiration for my craft is easy, finding inspiration to put myself on camera or update my social is nearly impossible. After spending months trying to uncover why her career stalled, I came to realize that 99% of artists I speak with, struggle the same in 2022 that my mom did a decade ago. It’s all too easy for artists to quit when they are spending so much time and energy on things outside of what they love to do.

At the same time, I began to understand that buying original art is not the most fun experience. If I do find art that I love and can commit to, filling a home would cost thousands of dollars. Otherwise, I can get cheap prints that do not actually go to support local artists (not very millennial of me either). But like 94% of Americans I pay hundreds of dollars for multiple subscriptions already. It hit me all at once.

1) Artists need reliable and consistent income
2) Patrons want access over ownership

That was the beginning of Kicky. As I continued to understand the marketplace, I realized that not only do consumers have this issue but businesses (and specifically the hospitality industry) are desperately looking for this type of solution. I spent months having conversations with some of the largest hospitality brands here in Atlanta. What I heard was that they were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars as capital expenditure on art. The idea of a rotating art gallery for a subscription was excitedly recognized as something 99% of these business owners did not realize they wanted.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My entire career has been around solving complex social issues related to the global refugee crisis. I spent years building up the non-profit organization Tekton Career Training and then the for-profit business Amplio Recruiting. I recognized the power of good-paying jobs when I made the switch from the non-profit world to the for-profit world. There are so many amazing non-profits doing excellent work (Tekton being one of those). But what I heard time and time again is the need for upward mobility and better jobs.

Even with Amplio, we were confined to contracts with blue-collar businesses that really only need a warm body and do not recognize that these men and women need the flexibility to pursue education or training. I sold my equity in Amplio, and in 2020 started my career in technology. What I really wanted was to learn how large technology companies are able to scale.

In, 2021 Tekton merged with another organization called Refcode to provide software engineering training for the community. Earlier this year, I left technology to step back in as Executive Director of Tekton and launch Kicky.

From Tekton to Amplio I have always been obsessed with client care. How can we go above and beyond to surprise and delight our clients/patrons. We are building Kicky to do just that. We want to be the spark for the next great art renaissance. Imagine you’re in a waiting room, in line at your favorite restaurant, sitting in the board room. What’s your first reaction? 99% of people would say to pick up your phone and start scrolling. Imagine a world where you’re drawn to the art that is surrounding you in these same situations. We want to leverage technology to connect patrons to artists in intimate and intentional ways.

Kicky is uniquely positioned on the intersection between fine art and technology. Our mission is to lead the decentralized art gallery space by providing curated art opportunities to patrons who otherwise would not have access, as well as the best business resources to artists so they can succeed.

Our vision is that we will be known as the world’s leading provider of the decentralized art gallery experience for Patrons and artists.

We do this by building unwavering Trust – Trust in us and our team is vital to the success of everyone, Big Visions – Creativity, innovation, tech-oriented, and Connection – We are art brokers by trade but connectors at heart; we place relationships above transactions

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A college football coach once told me that “there’s not much we can control in life, but we can always control our attitude”. That has always stuck with me through good times and tough times alike. I always tell my team that if we can be obsessed with gratitude and attitude we win. It’s a scientific fact, that your brain cannot respond to anxiety and gratitude at the same time. I try to practice gratitude often throughout my day and week. I usually do this by writing thank-you notes to clients, mentors, and friends every Monday. So when pursuing clients a hand-written note is top of my agenda.

In my previous business, I was pursuing a BIG contract. Every Tuesday at 9 am for about six months I’d drop by just to say hey to their VP HR. I drop her off a coffee and a donut and just check in to see if there were any new opportunities we could help with. For six months I built a relationship with the lady. And every time I left I’d slip a pre-written handwritten card into her mailbox thanking her for her time. Finally, on one of my visits, she invited me back to her office. As soon as I sat down I could see every single one of those handwritten cards sitting in a neat pile on her desk. She smiled at me and said, “thank you for your kind and genuine persistence”. They became one of our best clients for years.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

This story is one of my greatest successes and also one of my greatest lessons. I learned of an amazing opportunity with a local legendary entrepreneur named Don Panoz. Don was a serial entrepreneur who founded multiple large pharmaceutical companies, a winery, hotel and was now launching an electric vehicle company. They were going to need to build a workforce of 2000 people and I was going to be the guy to win that contract.

A mutual friend happened to know him through the grapevine and told me he’d make an intro If I read Don’s new book “Drugs, drinking, and driving”. I happily agreed and a few days later a signed copy showed up at my home. I absolutely demolished the book in less than 24 hours and immediately requested the intro.

Don’s personal assistant instantaneously held up a yield sign asking me to follow up in three months. And three months to the day I followed up only for that yield to be turned into a complete stop. “Don is too busy, and cannot speak to you. Please do not contact me again”. No one ever gets ahead by taking things at face value. So I bought Mr. Panoz a bottle of his favorite Irish whiskey (he mentioned it in his book), a pack of his favorite (very difficult to find) European cigarettes, and wrote him a heartfelt letter thanking him for his book. I dropped them off at his office and within 24 hours I had a call from the man himself. A week later I had my first meeting with Don in his office. It was my greatest pitch and leaving the meeting we had a handshake deal to move forward together.

We spent months planning how we were going to be their exclusive staffing partner. The day I was scheduled to drive up for the signature I got a call from his VP of HR. “Don passed away suddenly from pancreatic cancer”. No one on his team knew and every single one of them was let go that day. With his death so came the death of his newest startup and our game-changing contract. Don had become a mentor and friend. We talked for hours about family and business. I was devastated on so many levels.

Even though it was the greatest sale of my life that never happened, he and his abrupt passing taught me so much. He showed me first-hand how important both gratitude and attitude are. And he reminded me that kind persistence and true grit is how to win in sales!

Contact Info:

• Website: kicky.com
• Instagram: @kicky.art
• Facebook: @kicky.art
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucastkeller/
• Twitter: @kicky_art
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpKLokh8QVjXMMbFte0ORxA