The art market
felt impenetrable.

I love art, but I’m not an art expert. I’ve spent my career in fintech, helping companies scale. When I sold some of my equity, conventional wisdom said to put the proceeds in the S&P 500. We had just bought a home, and the idea struck me: could I put that money on the walls instead, and become a collector? Could I buy art I loved, but buy it the way I’d make any other investment?

I knew almost immediately that I was out of my depth. I could tell what I liked. I could not tell whether it was any good, whether the price was sane, or who I was supposed to ask. Everyone who seemed to know was either selling me something or had been doing this since birth. The question I kept turning over was not whether art was a good investment. It was whether someone like me could do this at all.

I bought every book on collecting. I learned that 95% of gallery art never returns a dollar — and that frameworks exist for identifying the investment-grade 5%. Applying frameworks to tricky problems is what I’ve built my career on. That half, I could do.

The books had one other piece of advice: “buy what you love.” A nice sentiment, but no help. I knew what I loved when I saw it. The hard part came after. When a gallerist asked me what I was collecting, I froze. The market’s doors are guarded, but contrary to my assumption, the gatekeepers weren’t checking your net worth. They were checking whether you’d be a good steward of the work. Whether you had a vision. Whether you could say what you were collecting, and why. Whether you sounded like you belonged in the room.

Three things stood in my way. Articulation — being able to say what I was collecting, and why. Conviction — knowing which artists were investment-grade, which is expertise normally reserved for clients with ten million dollars. And access — galleries keep their best allocations for collectors they trust, and nobody publishes the playbook for earning it.

So I built the tool I needed: one instrument for both halves — a coherent aesthetic vision, and a rigorous, data-driven investment framework. I named it Egon, after Schiele. Then I used it to force my way in.

With Egon, I put $200,000 into a collection that hangs in my home — bought selectively, decisively, and for reasons I could say out loud. The barriers dissolved. Studio visits with artists whose work hangs at MoMA. Gallery allocations reserved for established collectors. A museum advisory board seat. Friendships with the artists themselves. And — nobody tells you this part — an enormous amount of fun.

It turns out you don’t need millions. Knowledge, connoisseurship, and passion open locked doors. All you need are the right tools. That’s what Egon is for.

— Frank Bozzo, founder