And2: Helping Propel Creative Entrepreneurs Forward
This post was written in part by Khailill Knight and Paul Injeti
Local artists often need support creating the business infrastructure for their creative businesses. AND2 (Artists Need Development 2) works to connect artists to information and advice that can increase the potential and scope of their projects. As an artist workshop and movement towards helping career artists build sustainable business practices for reaching their goals as creative entrepreneurs, AND2 consults in the areas of marketing, online presence, web development, and follower/engagement growth. AND2 is led by two Tucson entrepreneurs Khailill “KP” Knight and Paul Injeti, who have over 20 years of marketing experience in the community.
Here’s a spotlight on their backgrounds and how they got started with AND2:
Khailill “KP” Knight-Papaioannou is a co-founder of AND2, whose goal is to have artists create sustainable business practices with their art career. Making music, art and doing freelance Social Media and Marketing was the starting point in this passion project turned business, which is now KPMADMAN, a Design-Thinking based Marketing Company. He gained experience running a neighborhood meal sharing app called WhatsCookin’, where meals could be shared while building community, enjoying the communal space of eating, breaking the barriers of individualized meals and the stigma of home cooking, as well as how capital can be generated this way. As an entrepreneur, KP has had success recently in 2018 with the creation of the Sonoran Room, an all inspired Boiler Room music experience, hosted in the KXCI Hotel Congress studio. This year, his goal is to transform the Sonoran Room into a venue experience with stage design. He finds the power of collaboration and community to be the way to overcome barriers to growth.
Paul Injeti
https://and2.paulinjeti.com/
https://www.paulinjeti.com/
https://www.instagram.com/paulinjetidev/
https://www.facebook.com/paulinjetiseo/
Paul Injeti is a co-founder in AND2, and specializes in helping artists connect to digital realms, legitimizing them and building ways to create sustainable avenues for capital and new user channels to generate a larger audience and teaching artists to build a brand around their art. His foray into entrepreneurship was first with a virtual reality startup as he got to learn all about business structure and how to profit from art. Paul provides freelance website design and digital marketing services and hires a number of local developers to build their portfolios. He also conducts search engine consultation work with helping brands find target audiences to reach for generating greater revenue. With the landscape of technology constantly evolving, he uses a lot of knowledge-based tools such as Feedly to stay current on industry and intergenerational trends.
AND2 focuses on developing documentation to help artists build a full-year plan and continues to offer workshops on artist management and organization as well as creating structure to fulfill goals. While working to help artists realize their full potential with a grassroots approach, KP and Paul are aiming to curate artist development workshops in partnership with Local First Arizona, Twelveotwo, the Arts Foundation of Tucson and Southern Arizona, and other community partners. Another major focus for AND2 is supporting artists in marginalized communities, where fostering critical connections and mentorship on a regular basis is key to helping artists fully develop.
Based upon applications on the website, AND2 brings mentors in based on the needs of the group of artists on areas such as:
Bridging the gap between levels of formal business knowledge and being in a startup
Creating a structure for goal fulfillment and repeating it for consistency
Community building, connecting to people in real life, and a blend of the digital and analog approaches
With these three ingredients, AND2 is cultivating a community-minded, innovative recipe for successful entrepreneurship that is collaborative and service-oriented, while generating revenue from a place of passion.
Prospective mentors can fill out an application on their website. For more information about AND2, go to this link.