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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

I’ve always thought that a remote tech job/lifestyle business is perfect for opening an art gallery / niche bookstore. You don’t need to worry about paying the bills, you have a private office / desk, and realistically you won’t get more than a few visitors per hour, so you can focus on work.

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Tried to combine running a craft beer retailer with some remote programming work for a while. Struggled with it as customers always appear at the wrong moment and switching between brain modes was weird and didn't help me concentrate when there was peace later

Let's say 'a few' is 3. How can you get any work done when you have to stop every 20 mins (one someone else's schedule) and spend 3 mins making coffee & small talk? This sounds like people saying 'I won't have to pay for child care because I can work from home'. Uh, what? Either you're doing 'child care' or you're 'working from home', but you can't do both (for children < 5), and anyone who says they can, obviously has never done it.

Most smaller art galleries get 5 visitors a day, tops. That industry revolves around openings, events, and networking, not people walking in off the street.

Then why bother at all opening during the day? Surely not for the $5 in profit?

Because the idea is to have your own art gallery and not simply to make money...?

Some galleries are only open at weekends or Fri-Sat or by appointment. They need to have opening hours to show the world they’re a gallery and their artists also want to feel they are having an actual exhibition.

As another commenter said, "to have an art gallery," but also because you don't know which of the (imaginary five) might be your best collector in five years.

A big part of running an art gallery is being available for people who want to look at art. Some of those buy, some of them spread the word.

In the end a small number of people are going to keep your gallery alive, if it stays alive. But you have no way of predicting who they will be or whence they will wander into your space. That VP of Sales in town for a conference who only has Wednesday afternoon free and is starting a collection of $YOUR_SPECIALTY.

That sounds intuitively right (I go to a lot of galleries) -- but do you have a source for the number or are you just guessing?

(I'd love to see the source if you have one, it would probably contain other useful info.)

Have a remote job and opened a gallery with a friend. Was ultimately a frustrating experience.

Would you mind to call out the worst parts?

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