James Ryan, 32, started working as a vacation clerk when he was still a teenager. After that, he worked for a short time as a sports agent and a seller of luxury watches, but what really worked for him was in the art world. He is the founder and CEO of Grove Square Galleries. The contemporary art gallery in western London generated $ 10 million in revenue in 2021, and Ryan co-founded a second gallery, Quantus, in eastern London. This is Europe’s first NFT advisory to reach the forefront of $ 40. bn industry.
Hakan Korkmaz leads head-on and that skill remains with me to this day.
Hakan was my boss when I was working as a First Choice Holiday rep. He lied to the application because he wasn’t over 18 at the time, but when invited on an X-Factor type business day, enough for them to book my flight a few months later. I did something.
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I worked at a resort called Aqua Fantasy in Turkey. They quickly recorded my age, but fortunately they kept me going. Together with the other three, I ran the largest hotel in Turkey at the time and managed all the guests. It’s a big responsibility for an 18 year old and Hakan has guided me in a new, daunting country for those who are wet behind their ears.
He understood me the culture, the essence of working hard, and introduced me to the people who are important to ease my time. But most importantly, he taught me to sell. He was a customer-friendly person at first, and people warmly trusted him. He built a relationship of trust, but it wasn’t forced, and it led to sales.
Hotel customers ranged from newlyweds who wanted to line up and check out, to people who had a serious accident and needed to recover somewhere. Still, Hakan was calm under pressure, spoken gently and inspiring.
We gave an on-stage excursion presentation in front of 300 people and earned commissions for each trip we sold.
I was in the first choice for 3 seasons. I found a travel bug and not only set foot in Greece and Spain, but also started mediating mining equipment in South Africa and Botswana. When I returned to the UK, I entered the luxury watch industry after working for a Scottish sports management agency.
I was in the middle of buying a watch store, but the problem was the huge inventory spending on investment, sale, or returns.
Harry, my business partner at the time, said he needed to consider the art on the premises. He suggested working with the artist to reduce all sales as the security and premium that came with the watch were fine. He met a talented artist named Finn Stone, formed a company organization, and sold his work to him. It was a success, and three months later I moved to the Grove Square Gallery, despite being in the middle of a pandemic.
me too Currently co-owner of Quantus, a digital art gallery, Specializes in NFT. It’s an industry I won’t leave because I love the journey of art.
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During the pandemic, we started conducting virtual tours of the gallery and extended it to databases and social media. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been possible to sell to Japan, Australia, the United States, and Canada so quickly.
I hired Serenadan as an art director last May. She previously ran the Halcyon Gallery in Harrods. During the pandemic, there were other galleries that weren’t online as part of the business plan, and we were able to snap really talented people in that space.
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We have a fairly small number of book artists, so we can pay attention to them and offer solo and group shows. As a result, we aim to hold a show every six weeks to add to the digital infrastructure we have already built.
Many entrepreneurs are born of a pandemic and are willing to take risks. You have to make a sacrifice along the way. It can lead to anxiety due to reduced family time, doubts from your close network, and stress and heavy workload. I have experienced them all. Not for the timid, but Hakan certainly gave me the confidence to survive.
Shoreditch Quantus Gallery Europe’s first NFT advisory service and physical gallery
