Society6
Founders
Justin Cooper, Lucas Tirigall-Caste, Justin Wills · Founded 2009 · HQ today: Santa Monica, California, United States
Society6 was founded by Justin Cooper, Lucas Tirigall-Caste, Justin Wills in 2009. It is now led by Justin Cooper.
Society6 launched in 2009 as a collaboration between Justin Cooper, Lucas Tirigall-Caste and Justin Wills, who wanted to give artists an easy way to show and sell their work online. Early on it sold art prints and then other products such as iPhone cases, all printed on demand so artists did not have to pay for production up front. Within four years the idea had grown enough that Demand Media, owner of eHow and Livestrong, bought the company for about $94 million in its first move into e-commerce.
| Founder | Role at founding | Contribution | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Cooper | Co-founder | — | — |
| Lucas Tirigall-Caste | Co-founder | — | en.wikipedia.org |
| Justin Wills | Co-founder | — | — |
Designer and tech entrepreneur.
Justin Cooper co-founded Society6 in 2009. Working closely with his co-founders in Los Angeles, he helped establish the absolutely critical early community guidelines and brand aesthetics that attracted thousands of independent artists to upload their work to the fledgling print-on-demand platform. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Developer and entrepreneur.
Lucas Tirigall-Caste co-founded Society6 in 2009. He served as the primary technical architect, building out the highly complex, custom backend required to seamlessly connect thousands of user-uploaded art files directly to third-party printing facilities across the country.
Lucas Tirigall-Caste was born in 1974.
Lucas Tirigall Caste was born in Buenos Aires in 1974. He is a multimedia artist who studied audio-visual design and wrote the book Evolutionary Art, published in 2004.
Entrepreneur.
Justin Wills co-founded Society6 in 2009. He managed the absolute core operational and supply-chain logistics, fiercely ensuring that the platform could actually deliver high-quality physical products (like canvas prints and phone cases) to consumers reliably and profitably. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Julie Matrat
CEO, Society6
As General Manager, she manages the absolute brutal fallout from the post-pandemic e-commerce crash, attempting to stabilize the company under Leaf Group's ownership.
Sean Moriarty
CEO, Leaf Group (parent)
Former Saatchi Art CEO who made art marketplaces central to Leaf Group.
Justin Cooper
Co-founder
Helped build an early print-on-demand marketplace for independent artists.
Society6 was founded in 2009 by Justin Cooper, Lucas Tirigall-Caste, and Justin Wills in Santa Monica, California.
In late 2008, the founders wanted to help an artist friend show his work at Miami Art Basel. Shocked by the immense gallery fees, gatekeeping, and printing costs required to participate, they decided to build an open website where any artist could exhibit and monetize their art without middleman gatekeepers.
Justin Cooper served as Chief Executive Officer and creative visionary of Society6. Cooper focused on brand identity, artist community relations, and marketplace design, ensuring the platform felt like an authentic art collective rather than a sterile e-commerce warehouse.
Lucas Tirigall-Caste was an Argentine-born artist, graphic designer, and creative director. He ensured that the user interface prioritized large, vibrant visual artwork and fostered genuine artistic collaboration among global creators.
Justin Wills served as Chief Technology Officer, architecting the website's initial e-commerce infrastructure, automated image-resizing pipeline, and the backend ordering integrations with third-party print-on-demand fulfillment manufacturers.
The founders bootstrapped Society6 with minimal outside capital, utilizing personal savings and credit cards before achieving profitability through organic word-of-mouth growth within the visual arts and design blogging community.
Society6 began strictly with fine-art paper prints, gallery-wrapped canvases, and iPhone cases, gradually expanding into home textiles, throw pillows, tapestries, and apparel as customer demand exploded.
The founders implemented a peer-voting and curation system that rewarded exceptional art with homepage visibility, treating artists with respect and paying reliable monthly royalties, which led influential illustrators to promote their Society6 shops on Tumblr and Instagram.
The founders viewed the $94 million sale to Demand Media as an opportunity to scale Society6 globally, providing the capital and infrastructure needed to expand manufacturing to international markets and add hundreds of new product categories.
The founders instilled an unwavering commitment to empowering independent creators, championing diverse artistic voices, and enabling everyday consumers to surround themselves with original, meaningful art.
The founding team was widely recognized across the Los Angeles technology community ("Silicon Beach") as pioneers of the direct-to-consumer creator economy.
Justin Cooper, Lucas Tirigall-Caste, and Justin Wills proved that print-on-demand technology could be elevated into a sophisticated, artist-centric global marketplace, transforming hundreds of thousands of independent illustrators into self-employed creative entrepreneurs.
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