What do technology and art have in common? Thanks to three MIT grad students, that’d be Tekuma, a platform that connects artists and Airbnb hosts.
Although those two demographics seem like a strange pair, their venture makes so much sense.
Tekuma’s goal is to create pop-up art galleries in apartment spaces around the world. It gives artists, who don’t always have the best luck making it big, the chance to display their work – and make some money off of it. At the same time, Airbnb hosts can boost their rental appeal, giving their guests a dynamic aesthetic experience. And don’t forget the travelers, who then have a unique stay.
It’s a win, win, win.
How Tekuma came to be
The three co-founders – CEO Marwan Aboudib, COO Kun Qian and CPO Tengjia Liu – met during their first semester of their Master of Architecture program at MIT. They were all a part of the same studio project, and that’s where the roots of Tekuma first sprouted.
After slaving away on their studio project, everything came to an anticlimactic head.
“We worked so hard all semester and pulled all-nighters. There was so much excitement to get our 15 minutes of fame when we’d present our finished project,” said Aboudib. “But then the day of, no one showed up except for the judges.”
“We were frustrated," he continued. "We had done all of this work and we had nowhere to show it, no one to show it to.”
They found a solution, while playing basketball of all things. They guys gathered friends and organized a series of pop-up galleries throughout the MIT campus. After only a couple of these impromptu showcases, they began to realize they were onto something.
“The last one at Sloan is when we got in trouble,” Aboudib explained. "We weren’t allowed to use the printers and we didn’t have permission to set up the artwork, but we did. On top of everything else, it was raining. At the end of it, we went to take the artwork out and didn’t know what to do because of the rain.”
That’s when Qian had an epiphany. Recalling that moment, Qian told me, “I said, ‘What if we put a piece of artwork in each study room? The walls are empty.’"
Aboudib added, “He suggested we leave them there with a QR code, so that anyone there could scan the code, purchase it and walk out with the art.”
All of these guys admitted they thought the art would be stolen for sure. But it didn’t. Instead, they managed to sell most of it.
From there, they had to think big picture, and their target was unlikely: Airbnb.
Airbnb's, for the win
“The hosts on Airbnb have to reply to inquiries within 24 hours or else their rating goes down, so we decided to just do it and see what happened,” Aboudib clarified. “It was amazing. Eight out of ten hosts said ‘yes.’ We saw then that they’re very open to the idea.”
Printing out digital art, stuffing them in plastic and dropping them off at Airbnb apartments by way of Zipcar, the team did a trial run. However, they still weren’t making money.
They wanted an accurate host perspective as a solution. Still students, they leased and rented out two Cambridge apartments on Airbnb.
“We took an enormous risk,” Aboudib explained. “We had so many upfront costs. We leased these apartments for two months, and then we found ourselves having to furnish and stage them.”
Luckily, it paid off, and, all thanks to the artwork.
"We’re trying to use technology to bring art back to the physical space. There’s nothing like the element of having art in a physical space and actually seeing, experiencing it.”
“The money we made on Airbnb fully funded our startup. We exceeded the revenue that an average Airbnb apartment in Cambridge makes,” said Aboudib. "The art made a difference, mainly because travelers judge based on the pictures of apartments. The art made our place more intimate and appealing.”
Bringing art to a broader market
During their time in the MIT Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator, they pinned down a hospitality operator who owns hundreds of apartments. It wasn’t hard to win the company over as a customer.
“They realize the travel industry is changing,” Aboudib said. "Travelers want to be immersed in a place, to feel like they’re a part of it.”
With Tekuma, Airbnb hosts can add local color and make travelers’ stays more unique. The team described how different it is for people to walk into an art gallery knowing they can’t afford the art to lying in bed, enjoying a piece of work that they could plausibly take home with them, even as a souvenir.
“There are so many online marketplaces out there now,” Aboudib emphasized. “But there’s a different way you see art in front of you than all of those pixels on the screen. We’re trying to use technology to bring art back to the physical space. There’s nothing like the element of having art in a physical space and actually seeing, experiencing it.”
Photos provided.
