Couple quits their jobs and starts an art business

Omar Obeid loved drawing since childhood.

As an adult, he spent weekends relaxing after work by painting abstract art on canvas, which he hung in the west London home he shared with his wife, Summer. His friends would say, “Where did you get this from? Oh, this is cool,” he told CNBC on a video call.

Summer encouraged him to sell them, and they promoted his work through social media. At first, “it was just an incidental thing,” he said.

Sales grew rapidly, and after about two years, the couple decided to quit their corporate jobs. Omar worked as an advertising operations executive at the New York Times, and Summer was an advertising manager at Odeon, a movie theater chain. They wanted to turn their side hustle into a full-time e-commerce art business. They set up her company Abstract House in 2016, making a profit of around £125,000 in its first year.

Working in the art world has always been Summer's dream. “I always… wanted to have an art gallery. It felt like a dream to me, and obviously Omar's paintings and that kind of married,” she said. said.

Sommer, who had previously managed clients and built relationships, will oversee transactional clients, while Omar, who has a degree in computer science, will focus on creating art and managing websites.

Eight years after its launch, the company expects to make profits of around 2 million pounds (approximately 252 million yen) this year. There are 10 staff members including husband and wife. And in 2020, they moved to a showroom, office and production space in west London, where they can create artwork, store inventory and pack orders for delivery.

In addition to the artwork, all created by Omar, the company offers printing and framing services for artists and also sells individual frames.

Omar's work is available for sale on the Abstract House website for up to £2,250 for a 150cm x 90cm framed original work, and around £250 for a limited edition framed print. Her trading fees start from £4,000.

“We've always been focused on providing original art at an affordable price…Our mission has always been to create quality and make it accessible,” Sommer said. Although our originals and prints are created in-house, we do not charge gallery fees or commissions, which keeps our prices reasonable.

The cost of goods has increased at Abstract House. “As a UK manufacturer, one of our major challenges is the cost of raw materials, energy prices and transport prices, all of which have risen sharply over the past three years and are on the rise,” Sommer told CNBC in an email. It seems that there is.”

She said that while the business has consistently grown, there are hurdles such as having their work copied, which is a “huge challenge” for artists. For Abstract House, the problem was largely resolved by asking those selling counterfeit art to remove it from sale.

Attracting more trade customers (approximately 40% of customers are businesses) and expanding overseas are two ways the pair want to grow their business, and Mr. Omar is building a conference center near the Caesars Palace Hotel in Las. Created six large artworks for Caesar's Forum. Vegas.

Abstract House will also supply more than 300 works of art to the common areas of South Quay Plaza, a 68-storey luxury residential development in London's Canary Wharf.

Although most of their sales are online, the couple said it is important to have a showroom so they can hold meetings with trade customers and allow individuals to view their work. “There are a lot of people starting side hustles online, and we wanted to show people that we are real and that we exist,” Omar said.

How do their sales numbers compare to what they had in their previous lives? “We're healthier than we were when we were in the office,” Sommer said. “There is also flexibility in terms of timing. You can pick up your children from school and you can go to the school gate, which is very important,” she added.

“When I tell this story, many people say they can see that you took a leap of faith,” Omar said. “We're doing something authentic, something we're really passionate about. [and] and [some] I was lucky, I was successful. ”