The trigger: a new technology or a shift in the digital landscape. Aspiring founders are searching for a good use case to leverage that development and turn to something they’re passionate about. Music. With a vague understanding of the music business, they proudly announce their plan that will totally disrupt the industry.
People who’ve spent a decade in music have likely seen a dozen of companies promising to disrupt come and go. Disruption doesn’t sell. Solving problems does. The most common misunderstanding seems to stem from a fallacy around intermediaries and that disintermediation always improves things. The oversimplified view is that everything besides the artist & fan is ‘extra’ and both would profit if it can be successfully disrupted.
The reality is that things don’t function as an artist-management-label-distributor-DSP-fan chain. Music doesn’t always travel through it like that. Value doesn’t always travel through that chain. Instead there’s a whole network of connections where various types of value are exchanged, connected and created. In most cases it’s not linear; it’s a network.
The above may seem obvious, but this misunderstanding occurs time and time again. It leads founders to present themselves in an adversarial way to parts of the industry that actually should be their customer. If you can do X better than how a label is currently doing that, then that label might be happy to pay you for it. Artists & their management have a ton of things to do, so in many cases they’re happy to let labels or label services companies take care of some of it.
Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of inefficiencies and practices of exploitation in the music industry that need to be disrupted. These may occur anywhere in the ecosystem (which also includes other parties like everything related to live, merch, PROs, etc) or in the connections between players. They typically don’t apply to an entire domain, e.g. ‘all labels’ or ‘all booking agencies’. Even when they do, like in the case of inefficiencies or friction, there may be other aspects of those businesses that would not benefit from complete disruption.
What I’m saying is do your research. Create a map of the industry’s domain you’re interested in and also map out everything adjacent to it, because there will be unforeseen connections. Understand how companies collaborate, what goals they’re trying to achieve, how they add value, and where frictions may occur. Read Don Passman‘s All You Need to Know About the Music Business. Speak with people to understand whether your research is based on current-day practices, because it definitely happens that people launch companies with assumptions based on early 2000s practices.
Music is complex. Part of it unnecessarily, but there’s a reason why things are structured this way. Figure out those reasons. Learn how others leverage those reasons to pioneer new businesses. Identify the trends. Understand the complexity to avoid endless pivots and repositioning. Music is in need of innovation – do it through partnership.
This week MUSIC x TECH x FUTURE turns one. Born as a newsletter on Revue, itās now (finally) a sustainable company. That word, sustainable, comes with a caveat, because it currently still depends on me selling my time. Thereās inherent risk in that, but I digress.
Launching the newsletter, I knew it would take me places, so I dropped everything else I was doing in order to be able to get the most out of the opportunities.
Hereās what happened next. šæ
People will hire you for your most visibleĀ skill
Iām not a writer. I write a lot, but I wouldnāt consider it as a full-time profession. Yet itās one of the things I get approached for most often.
Even when I was leading product strategy at Zvooq, a music streaming service in Russia, writing was one of my most important skills. It helped me communicate ideas to the team, investors, labels and potential partners. It also helped me keep the team inspired and motivated.
But Iām actually a strategist. I keep a wide overview, and have a few topics that Iām more knowledgeable about than many people in my niche. This allows me to find value through combining things.
I had always said Iād never charge money for writing, but this year I had to reconsider that. I had always seen writing as a means to attain visibility, which would lead to bigger, better thingsā¦
But what if youāre running on savings and those bigger, better things take a while to materialize?
So, I caved in: fine, Iāll write for money. My attitude towards it has changed now, because not only does it allow me to work on pieces with even greater quality, but it also brought me something elseā¦
Find a base sustainable incomeĀ early
Writing has been an easy skill to market: every month, thousands of people come across my articles through recommendations, my newsletter, the Synchtank blog, as well as Hypebot, which occasionally syndicates my writing.
And writing can be done from anywhere. As a matter of fact: I strongly prefer to do my writing out of office, away from officey distractions.
One of the real challenges I had was getting to a sustainable income before my savings ran out. I considered getting some part-time job, but I didnāt want to commit myself to a schedule just yet. The following anecdote will explain why:
Last April I got an email on a Monday evening. It was from a well-known music business figure, with a legendary background, asking whether I could be in London for some event on Wednesday morning. After checking the email header to make sure someone wasnāt pulling a prank, or scam, I called up the sender and the next evening I was on a plane to London.
It was an incredible honour to be invited, and I got to present my ideas and vision to a room full of industry execs (my 3 minute presentation). This, to me, was the first confirmation that I was onto something with the newsletter. Had I had a job at, say, a bar, I would have had to find a replacement and I might have missed out on this opportunity.
So I held out as my savings dwindled. I wanted to stay flexible.
Then people started asking whether they could pay me to writeā¦ and suddenly I had found something that allows me geographic freedom, an income, and it synergizes with everything else I do.
Find synergy, because youāre selling yourĀ time
Some of the things I do now:
Helping a music tech startup with content strategy
Helping a music tech startup with business model development and licensing strategy
Helping 2 artists with management & marketing
Helping a conference curate their music track
Paid writing about trends & innovation in music
Occasionally lecturing about these topics
The thing I love about these activities is that they all add value to each other. Working with the artists gives me a chance to try out new ideas around building a fan base, pitching labels, as well as creative ideas around ideas. For example, I built a chatbot for Quibus recently to let fans unlock some special goodies: now we can use it to send a push notification directly to fans (stay tuned).
If youāre dependent on selling your time, you should make sure your hour becomes more valuable: if you can draw on past work, you can achieve more by spending less time or you can charge a higher hourly rate.
Moderating a panel about interactive music experiences at Border Sessions.
Leads can take a looooong time toĀ convert
Iāve had a lot of people reach out to me to figure out potential collaborations. Most of those went nowhere, yet.
And thatās fine. People are busy. Priorities shift.
It made a big difference when I shifted my focus from 100% international to local. Somehow, locally, itās easier to get a collaboration off the ground. But that, too, took me some time to figure out: I had been abroad for the bigger part of 10 years and had to accustom myself to the Dutch culture again. But thatās a different story.
Basically: donāt assume positive talks about collaboration will lead to anything tangible. I just ploughed on and focused on expanding my network and the value within it (often by connecting people). Keep seeding. Sooner or later, some of those collaborations will happen and youāll be too busy to worry about the ones that didnāt happen.
Always save some time to walk around and enjoy the moment.
Make sure you have work during theĀ summer
If I could go back in timeā¦
Dear Bas,
Summer is dead season. Be extra proactive during Spring to find things to do during the summer, because people will be out of office and initiating new collaborations will just be a lot more difficult.
If you donāt find anything to do, just get some part-time job, because last-minute invites are also unlikely to happen.
Itās obvious, but I feel it bears mentioning, because of what it implies.
We live in a distracted age where everyone is competing for your attention. So the advice I always give to artists building their fanbase is: make sure you stay top-of-mind. For a freelancer, the best way to stay top-of-mind is through collaboration.
The next time someone has some work to do, theyāll know they can call you. Even better: they might not realize a problem can be fixed, if it werenāt for knowing you. We often ignore things that seem like they canāt be improved, not being aware of the problemā¦ so by being present in peopleās thoughts, you help them find more work for you.
Invest in your relations.
What this also means is: you now have an excuse to feel great about doing some work with a client that you donāt find super inspiring. Just stay focused on quality and promise less, deliver more.
There is real risk in selling yourĀ time
It doesnāt scale. You can only spend your time once. You can only work with so many people at a time. And if you get sick, there goes your income.
It also means unfilled gaps of time may exist between projects, which means you wonāt have income for that time.
My goal is freedom. A naive goal for an entrepreneur, for sure, but to me it means: doing what I love while being able to go wherever I want to go.
So a tip Iāve had from a few people is to sell something other than my time. I have a few product ideas that I want to launch this year. Iām also considering setting up a Patreon for MUSIC x TECH x FUTURE, which will probably somehow be tied into those products (eg. funders get early access / lifetime subscription, etc.).
The goal is to create a revenue stream to cover basic costs, like rent. Once I hit that goal, Iāll figure out whether I can scale that revenue stream or add new ones on top of it. A big example for me is Pieter Levels.
Left to right: Music Tech Festās amazing 2016 venue (Funkhaus Berlin), one of my favourite meeting spots in Amsterdam (Quartier Putain), panel discussion at SĆørveiv Conference in Kristiansand.
So that says something about MUSIC x TECH x FUTUREās direction
But donāt worry: I wonāt suddenly throw up paywalls. This strategy is working well for me, so whatever is free now, will stay free. As a matter of fact, due to my focus on synergy, I aim to deliver you more value over time.
After a year, I finally got to a point where I can set up a steady pipeline of projects (by the way, Iāll have more time on my hands from mid-March, so if youād like to work together, email me: bas@musicxtechxfuture.com). In part because of shifting my focus to The Netherlands, but also because international collaborations are finally materializing.
Year oneās a wrap!Ā š¾
Itās been great meeting so many awesome people this year, from Amsterdam to Groningen, London, Berlin, The Hague, Ghent, Kristiansand, and Valencia. Thank you for the follows, the shares, the correspondence, the collaborations, the advice, and the amazing conversations.
Iām proud to be part of such an intelligent, forward-thinking, global community. Hereās to the future! š¤ ā¤ļøļø šø
(If youāre feeling generous, help me work through my reading list š)
If so, allow me to break your music industry bubble for a second.
People outside the music business are often filled with astonishment by the music industryās prevalent sense of entitlement.
āI made something, so I deserve money.ā
Nonsense. What kind of business is that?
To me, the best way to think of yourself as an artist is as an entrepreneur or freelancer.
You have a business to build, an audience to identify & serve, and a competitive landscape to understand.
The landscape is hyper-competitive and choosing to participate in it, especially without identifying a good niche, means there is a good chance you will not be able to make a good living out of it.
If you make good music, appeal to a well-defined audience, and have a good business strategy for monetizing that relationship, whether thatās through gigs, sales, Patreon or something else, then youāve got a good chance to make a good living.
But youāve got to keep working hard at it – just like an entrepreneur.
If you build enough, work at it long enough, you might be able to let the reins go and collect money on your past achievements – just like an entrepreneur.
But if you fail to identify your market or risks, youāll go broke – just like an entrepreneur.
A recent report commissioned by Dutch rights organisations and a labour union for musicians revealed that as much as 19% of Dutch musicians who live with a partner or family are able to make a living from music (PDF). Itās as much as 31% for singles.
How cohabiting musicians (left) & single musicians (right) make a living. Green means they live from money generated by music. (Source: Pop, wat levert het op?)
Over 80% of businesses FAIL. Why should it be different for music?
Letās take the 20-30% success rate for musicians who can make a living and think about how we can increase that.
First, we need to shatter the sense of entitlement, that has new artists entering the business with false expectations. It sets them up for failure.
We need management companies, record labels, booking agencies and rights societies who stress the importance of hard work and strategy. Who can communicate the necessity of reinventing yourself when your chosen path hits a dead end.
Many artists choose to continue down a dead end path. Becoming wedding DJs or playing covers of classic rock ān roll tracks at the opening of a friend’s shop in a local mall or something.
āThis is the music I play. I should be able to make a living off of it.ā
No. Your entrepreneurial pursuit failed. Start over. Do something else. Pivot.
We need music schools to prepare artists for this.
Artists also need room to fail – just like entrepreneurs.
Look at startup accelerators and incubators, look at tax incentives or cuts from governments. Governments, businesses and the existing music industry could do more to give artists some room to breathe while they work on their music & business strategy.
Many initiatives already exist. Every country, and every city, having its own mechanics or ecosystem.
What Iām particularly interested in are collaborations between people from different disciplines. Take artist managers, musicians, developers, tech entrepreneurs, designers, and organisations in music with a lot of data, like ticketing services, event organisers, collection societies, etc. Divide them into groups and give them 48 hours to hack something together.
We need:
More data to help artists & management to understand their markets and to develop strategy to address them;
More collaboration to make it easier for entrepreneurs to have their products piloted at scale;
More applied innovation – we can talk about blockchain, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality, but how do you apply it to your strategy?
Iād love to live in a world where everyone who wants to make a living with music is able to do so. Itās just not likely. But letās expand that 20-30%. Letās push it to 25-35% and then higher.
Rapid developments in technology means weāll be able to offer a greater diversity in experience. Itās these developments that has led to a situation where more artists are simultaneously earning some money with music, than ever before.
Technology, combined with human creativity, can expand the market.
And that may be just what we need to help more artists make a living.
Hat tip to Marco Raaphorst for the link to the research report.
