#559 Inside Pharrell Williams’ auction house | Caitlin Donovan (JOOPITER)

Caitlin Donovan (0:00)

Pharrell really believes that objects hold energy. And so these objects that were so meaningful at times in his career, were just sitting collecting dust in his warehouses, felt kind of like a disservice to these objects. And so Pharrell realized that there wasn't an auction house that really cared about current culture and understood it and would use that in valuing and selling and making sure that it was targeting an audience that was not the traditional auction house audience. And so in that, he said, there's a hole in the market.

Adrien Garcia (0:25)

Who are you ? What you do ? And what are we going to learn today ?

Caitlin Donovan (0:27)

And I think that what JOOPITER does better than anyone else is storytelling. Every single object that we sell on JOOPITER has extensive storytelling behind it.

Adrien Garcia (0:36)

What do you put the value on an object ?

Caitlin Donovan (0:38)

Value is always a little tricky. We sold a card last year for $2.6 million and a Michael Jordan signed rookie card. And in the moment, it held the record for the most expensive card ever sold.

Adrien Garcia (0:49)

Why would I choose JOOPITER instead of Subbiz or whatever auction house ?

Caitlin Donovan (0:53)

We sell things in the six figures on our marketplace and seven, eight figures on at auction. And people do it oftentimes sight unseen and that is because of trust.

Adrien Garcia (1:03)

How did you made it to the top ?

Caitlin Donovan (1:04)

I tell anyone who's young, really try and make sure you're forging a path into something you love, because the hard work feels a little easier if you love what you're doing.

Adrien Garcia (1:12)

Do you think you could have made what you've done in terms of career somewhere else ?

Caitlin Donovan (1:16)

The work ethic that people have in New York is so far and beyond other places I've experienced, my personal experience. I think what's challenging about New York is there's just in such a small space, you have some of the most brilliant, creative, hardworking people in the world.

Adrien Garcia (1:34)

Hello everybody, thanks for listening to The Bold Way. Today I'm talking with Kathleen Donovan from JOOPITER. How do you pronounce it ? Jupiter. Jupiter.

Caitlin Donovan (1:42)

Exactly right.

Adrien Garcia (1:43)

How are you ?

Caitlin Donovan (1:44)

Great. Thank you.

Adrien Garcia (1:47)

To put a bit of context, just to begin with, just let's thanks Sarah Andelman for putting us together, introducing me to you. How do you say it in English ? My English is very rast. That was perfect. Introducing us.

Caitlin Donovan (2:00)

We'd like to thank Sarah for a lot of things. She is very helpful and we're so lucky to have her in our network.

Adrien Garcia (2:07)

Fantastic. Where are we exactly, Kathleen ?

Caitlin Donovan (2:10)

We're in New York at our offices in SoHo.

Adrien Garcia (2:14)

In SoHo. All right. At JOOPITER's office.

To put a bit of context as well, I would like to, for the people who don't know you, don't know what you do, what company you are working for and to push them to stay here until the end of this interview. Who are you, what you do, and what we're going to learn today ?

Caitlin Donovan (2:34)

Sure. My name is Caitlin Donovan, as you said, and I'm the global head of sale for JOOPITER. So what I do is I help put all the auctions on, help all of the cool things sell from start to finish. Yeah. JOOPITER, to take it one step further, is an incredible digital auction house and marketplace, which was founded by Pharrell Williams.

We're really changing what it means to be a modern auction house, and how to sell modern collectibles. So it's a really exciting moment for JOOPITER.

Adrien Garcia (3:09)

Fantastic. And what we're going to learn today ?

Caitlin Donovan (3:11)

Well, it depends what you're going to ask. And then we'll see what we're going to learn.

Adrien Garcia (3:16)

But what do you think we're going to learn ? I mean, honestly, what I want to learn today is, what is JOOPITER ? What is modern auction ? What is an auction ? How do you succeed ? How do you make a success of an auction ?

I want to listen as well, your career path, I mean, how did you made it to the top ? It's very interesting. I've got a lot of women in my audience, so it's very interesting to have your career perspective as well.

Yes, I want to dive into all that things. But to begin with, where did everything started ? Where do you come from ? What did you study ? Where did you grow up, etc.