Behind the idea of an app that lets you virtually see art on your wall

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Like many technology startup founders, Cari Sacks is a student who built a mobile app to solve a problem. Sacks, a Highland Park art collector and master’s candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, wanted to visualize how art would fit on her walls. So she set out to build Curate, even though she couldn’t write code. A board member of the Museum of Contemporary Art and the wife of hedge fund CEO Michael Sacks, she explains the big insight she missed as company founder and how she plans to fix it.

Q. Why create this app?

A. I needed help figuring out how to hang certain pieces of art. My sister, Patti Bartelstein, who is my co-founder and chief operating officer, is a photographer. I would have her come to my house and take photos of my walls and Photoshop art onto my walls that I might want to hang. After two or three times of asking her to do it, I said, “There should be an app for this.” I wanted it to be able to virtually hang any piece scaled to the exact dimensions on a wall.

Q. How did you build it since you don’t code?

A. I’m very good friends with Eric Lefkofsky, who runs Groupon (as CEO). He said there are great studios in town that can build apps. I picked Eight Bit Studios because they’d done things in the art world. I hired Ariana Price (in May) as chief technology officer.

Q. Is it an app or a business?

A. When we first built it, it was going to be 99 cents on the App Store to help anybody hang anything. As we were beta testing it, it became apparent that this was a fantastic marketing tool for galleries. As long as people have uploaded their walls (images and measurements) into the app, they know it fits. We changed the app to be a free download, and the galleries would become members and pay a monthly fee to have a folder on the app with their inventory. I’m taking the advice of the people in the art business to keep it free (to galleries) until Jan. 1, because I want everybody to try it.

Q. What would you do differently knowing what you know now?

A. A lot of amazing galleries are my clients right now. But the fact is that apps are used by 20-, 30- and 40-somethings. Fifty- to 70-year-olds who are buying blue-chip art aren't big app users, and they are never going to be. I think the 30-somethings who are buying their first piece of art from emerging artists and emerging galleries are really the right demographics for this app. When I think about it now, I can’t believe I missed that. I should have been aiming at that all along.

Q. How much have you invested?

A. I’ve spent close to $200,000 so far, and I didn't want to get too much past that before we started charging galleries.

Q. How will you avoid burning through too much cash?

A. I’m hoping the galleries are all going to want to be members. If not, I’ll know right away, and I won’t keep pouring money into it. You don’t know until you really know.

Q. How would have done this if you had $5,000 instead of $200,000?

A. I would have raised money because you can’t do it for $5,000 unless you can write code. The other thing I would have done is gotten involved in one of those incubators.