Art City

Overview

• NoteBuilt as part of the Brainster Academy UX/UI and Project and Product Management hackathon.
• NoteThe concept positioned Art City as the cultural foundation organizing and sustaining Evolution of a Dream.
• NoteThe work focused on product structure, not just presentation: audience, value, MVP, roadmap, and delivery logic.

Problem framing

• NoteCultural activity is heavily concentrated in Skopje, while smaller cities remain culturally under-served.
• NoteShort-term cultural projects create visibility for a moment, but often fail to build continuity, local identity, or economic spillover.
• NoteArtists, residents, tourists, and institutions all need value from the same platform, which makes the product direction easy to dilute if the priorities are not defined early.

Context

Setting

Brainster Academy hackathon with a compressed decision cycle and a presentation-ready output required by the end of the sprint.

Product lens

Product management focus on cultural-platform strategy, audience clarity, MVP definition, and long-term platform logic.

Primary users

Contemporary artists, local residents, cultural tourists, and institutional partners.

Core constraint

The concept had to stay ambitious enough to matter, while still being scoped into a believable first version.

User problem and opportunity

• NoteArtists need a structured way to discover open calls, submit applications, and stay visible beyond one event cycle.
• NoteResidents need cultural activity to feel part of daily city life, not only a one-off festival moment.
• NoteTourists need a navigable cultural experience, not scattered event information.
• NoteInstitutions need a model that shows public value, continuity, and measurable impact.

Research and segmentation

• NoteThe market research grounded the concept in a real regional gap: cultural decentralization and the absence of long-term platforms outside the capital.
• NoteTarget-customer and persona work separated the needs of artists, local audiences, tourists, and institutions instead of flattening them into one generic user.
• NoteThe value proposition work made the product legible from several angles: city identity, artist visibility, public value, and cultural tourism.

Product strategy and MVP

• NoteThe MVP was defined around three essentials: a web platform, an application system, and an archive.
• NoteThe platform was positioned as the central place for information, artist applications, and digital memory.
• NoteBilingual support, accessibility, reliability, and scalability were treated as real product requirements, not later polish.

Prioritization and roadmap

• NoteMust-have features focused on the foundation: website, applications, and archive.
• NoteShould-have features such as the interactive map and artist profiles extended the cultural-tourism and discovery value without bloating the first version.
• NoteNice-to-have ideas such as AR, a marketplace, and educational tools were intentionally held back for later phases.
• NoteThe roadmap moved from foundation to pilot event to year-round expansion, which made the growth path clearer than a feature list alone could.

Key artifacts

Lessons learned

• NoteA hackathon concept gets stronger when the long-term product logic is clearer than the pitch itself.
• NoteWhen a platform serves several audiences, segmentation work is what keeps prioritization honest.
• NoteCultural products still benefit from rigorous PM structure: audience definition, MVP scope, KPIs, and governance.

Related links