Music Business Startups

The fact is that it costs millions of dollars to sell millions of units. If an artist can go Platinum without a label it is very impressive but not necessary. Success as an independent artist can be very different than on a major label.

If you’ve been successful in getting people to sample your music on YouTube, MySpace, etc that’s great…many people don’t do well. The next thing to do is leverage this into contacts that will join your community so they attend a concert, buy merch, prepay for the next album, etc. If you can get 50,000 people to do that then you’ll be able to make a living doing music.

Creating a conversion path, with the goal being a new registered fan, is more important in a startup phase than selling a CD or two. The value of each person should be judged in “lifetime value” and not off of one cd, t-shirt, or concert ticket. Create a website or other ways of making a long-term connection to your fans and invest the time in making it grow.

Back in the day, I used to help No Doubt with their merch business. They made $1,000,000 in merch sales before they saw a dime off their record. Even when their record had gone Gold (500,000 units sold) they were working hard to build their mailing list and stay connected with their fans.

Granted, it takes a lot of skill and hard work to create a work of art but when push comes to shove, music is a business, and all small businesses are hard work. You’ve achieved a level of success already. Keep up the hard work and leverage what you’ve built and maybe we’ll see you soon on the cover of Rolling Stone.