So I have not been reading my feeds for the past few weeks. Did not miss nearly as much as I thought I would – which is all kinds of nice – but there were a few things that did slip past. Starting with one of the more recent misses just from earlier this month was i (heart) music’s annual Hottest Bands in Canada list!
Two Hours Traffic and stretching it a bit Holy Fuck – were the only bands from the east coast to make it on the list this year.
On the following Monday Matthew followed up with the “Also receiving votes…” list.
Locals i see rowboats showed up there as did Ghost Bees [see his recent post Ghost-ly fun for more Ghost Bees], Hey Rosetta!, Jenn Grant, Julie Doiron, Eric’s Trip, and Wintersleep were just a few of the other east coast acts to get at least one vote.
Always a good read and gives me something new to consider and check out.
Derek Sivers is the founder and CEO of CD BABY which is a popular choice for indie artists to get their music out to the masses. I was skeptical, as I always am of anything new, when I first learned of CDBABY but I have always tried to experiment with how I got my music to people and figured what the hell. Since launching my album with CDBABY a year ago I have actually gotten paid, a few times so my skeptisism was quickly replaced with excitement.
I have since grown to become a fan of Derek’s blog and his insight into the music business. He gives away a tonne of great info on www.cdbaby.net and I recommend all artists take some time to read the advice portion of the website.
I recently stumbled upon Derek’s blog and found this awesome post so I thought I’d share it. The reason this all rings so true to me right now is partly due to the fact that I have recently taken part in the Cape Breton International Drum Festival. It was really inspiring to see world class drummers (seriously famous drummers if you know about drummers) coaching younger people and driving the point home that to “make it” they have to perfect their skills. If bands focused on getting good first instead of getting gigs/recording/money they would get further in the business of music.
I spoke at a conference last weekend, where a woman in the audience was SO mad about piracy that she was physically shaking, red in the face, tears in her eyes, fuming spitting livid, asking how we can stop this rampant piracy.
I didn’t answer her concern well, but I said “More people are killed by pigs than sharks each year, but because shark attacks are more newsworthy, they seem more prevalent. Piracy gets all the attention, but I don’t think most of you in this room have lost more than $30 to piracy.” (I got a big “Booo” from the audience for this.) “Obscurity is your real enemy. Fight obscurity until you’re a household name, then piracy will be more of a problem than obscurity. Until then, worry about pigs, not sharks.”
The woman got so furious about this that she screamed at me with tears in her eyes, “I HATE YOUR POINT OF VIEW, BUDDY!” (and some other angry things I forget.) From her point of view, piracy was Enemy #1 and anybody ignoring this massive threat was hurting us all.
Driving away from the event, of course I figured out what I wish I would have said in that moment:
The thing separating us from where we are and where we need to be is not piracy.
It’s always something more internal, whether writing, communicating, producing, networking, promoting, or taking a wildly different approach to marketing.
Putting so much attention and energy into fighting piracy (as if, when solved, you’ll suddenly start selling 10 times more) – is misguided effort, distracting you from what you really need to be improving.
That’s the real reason I often tell musicians not to worry about piracy. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. But energy spent worrying about it is energy better spent working on what you know you really need to do.
I will start with the particulars to save those that need just that their time, then I ramble, then I provide some additional info on Mr. Segal. Actually I will fire my rant in there at the end.
Event Details:
Time:
8am – 11am
Date:
Monday April 14th
Location:
Sport Nova Scotia Building
5516 Spring Garden Rd
Class Room A/B – 2nd Floor
About 2 1/2- 3 hours in length
Informal/Free
Small Groups
Information on VC/Angels and the process.
Sample Term sheets, documents, business plans, PowerPoints
Example Pitch or Pitches to show what’s interesting/good/bad
Open questions for a good chunk of time
An understanding of my world
A better feel for my industry and if raising third party capital is right for you
Other Dates/Cities:
April 14th Evening – Moncton NB
April 15th Evening – St John’s NF
More cities to be announced shortly.
Rick Segal
His bio from the JLA Ventures site:
Prior to joining JLA Ventures, Mr. Segal was President and Chief Executive Officer of Microforum, a leader in providing integrated e-business solutions in a wide array of industry verticals. Mr. Segal joined Microforum in July 2000 from Chapters Online Inc., a leading Canadian e-commerce company, where he held the position of President and Chief Operating Officer (1997-2000). Mr. Segal began working with Chapters Inc. in 1997 as a consultant on the technical development of the Chapters e-commerce venture. Based on this successful collaboration, he was named the President of Chapters Online in August 1998.
Prior to joining Chapters Online, Mr. Segal was a partner at the international firm of TMS Consulting from 1996 to 1998. Mr Segal worked at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington from 1992 until 1996 as Director of technical services for the Internet Customer Unit. Mr. Segal is also the author of four books on Network Management and Windows software development.
Mr. Segal serves as a director of Planeteye, HealthUnity, B5 Media, MusicIP Corporation, Sirit Inc., and Truition Marketplace Solutions.
There’s more personality on his blog bio:
One-Line Bio: Doing the Voodo VCs do in Canada
Biography – The really short version is this:
I’ve done:
The U.S Air Force, TRW, AEtna, Brightwork, Microsoft, Chapters Online, Microforum (painful!) and JLA Ventures.
Interests
Digital Photography,Sailing,Movies, Cooking
Me Ranting
So this is not really music related, loosely connected – but it is relevant to the bigger picture. See also Jonny’s post: A tale of two Lobsters
We named our label From Here To There for a number of reasons – the significant one here being the physical distance bands from the east coast most overcome to reach a critical mass of people. That no matter how good you were, there just weren’t enough people here to sustain most bands. You had to go down the road.
So for similar business reasons, when I saw a post on Rick Segal’s blog The VC Roundtable Series – Call to Action, where he announced his intentions to visit communities across the country in order to do some VC outreach I had to respond to his questioning whether Halifax should be a stop or not [ and St.Johns etc.]. While larger centers across Canada certainly deserve his time, I believe it is the smaller regions that will benefit more from his visits.
If you ever meet me ask me about my music business plans I have – I have them in various states of completion for venues, social network aggregater(+) targeting bands, USB music related ventures, payment sites, a label and a jam space [those two have been funded at very low levels] and maybe another half dozen all music focused.
The issue isn’t finding opportunities, writing the plans or even finding the people you need on the east coast – finding money however has been a little more difficult. BUt I still refuse to believe it can not be done while remaining on the east coast.
See the SHARE THIS widget at the end of this post [all my posts and plenty of other blogs' posts as well]? The company behind that [same name] just received $15 million in funding. Add to that the $6 million they already received and that = $21 million dollars for a ^%@#$ widget that has made no money. ZERO REVENUE. So I am quite confident that if you dear reader can invent a widget that actually generates revenue, you too could find yourself funded.
Point being though, I don’t think there is any individual or organization set-up or in the habit of doling out such amounts [and we're talking about the $6 mil not $15] on the east coast. Particularly not for social media/music widget/donation payment/USB/aggregaters opportunities.
And that is not to say Mr.Segal would be either. But he is part of a small group, within Canada, that is active in the venture capital process. To have him spend 3 hours of his time introducing us to his world could prove invaluable should lessons learned eventually lead to funding for any participants on the 14th, or elsewhere on his trips across the country.
I had another more eloquent post on the matter that was lost due to a browser crash, but will sum my feelings up by mentioning that Mr. Segal’s visit itself represents an opportunity for entrepreneurs here to be funded. Whether via meeting him and eventually landing his support or via learning how to approach others from his talk – you may find you do not have to leave home to find the investment you need. And that will benefit everyone that calls Halifax home.
Quite looking forward to this – Halifax will be the first stop on his tour across the country (VC Roundtable – Block One) so let`s kick it off for him in fine style – hope to see you there.
As a purely business decision, you’d be an idiot to start a company in Canada, he says, unless you can get some capital from the U.S.
The article and Rick`s post address a number of issues in the Canadian VC scene and makes for a nice basic primer for folks interested in the opportunities available. Definitely worth reading.
Final note: Thanks to Jonny Stevens for assisting with the space hook-up
JupiterResearch is hosting a free Digital Music Trends & Outlook Plug.IN Webinar on Tuesday
March 11th at 1pm ET/10am PT.
“Digital music was a $1.3 billion business in 2007, but it still only comprised 10 percent of consumer music spending. Meanwhile, Apple continues to dominate both devices and downloads and Yahoo! became the third big player to drop out of on-demand subscription services.”
“Will digital music ever save the industry? Are downloaded singles replacing CD sales? Who are today’s customers, and how is that likely to change over time? What is the role of ad-supported services, and of P2P networks? Will there be a showdown between iPods and music phones? iPods and anybody? How do you compete with, or thrive alongside Apple?”
JupiterResearch VPs David Card and Michael Gartenberg are hosting the webinar.
The amount of online “chatter” about an upcoming album release directly correlates to higher physical album sales, according to two researchers with New York University’s Stern Business School.
You have ten days left to vote in the Best of Saint John Music Poll.
(http://www.giraffecycle.com/survey)
Please read below if you’re unfamiliar with the survey!
Here’s how it’s going to run down. For the next six weeks you will be able to vote in up to 15 categories (you must fill out at least 7 for the ballot to count). Then, on March 15, our super trusty ballot counting monkeys will quit writing the great Canadian novel and figure out who received the most votes. The winners will be announced during a FREE SHOW at A-Khord in mid-April.
Remember, we’re looking for local answers here. If you put down Shania Twain as best female artist, we’re going to laugh at you, so think Saint John and surrounding areas. And don’t get all up in arms if your favorite band/radio station/musician does not win. This poll is about having some fun, and thinking positive about our wonderfully diverse community.
“Music2.0″ is now available, finally, both as a ‘real’ printed product, as well as a ‘pay what you want’ – pdf. Music2.0 is kind of like a ‘Best of Gerd Leonhard’ compilation (if I may say so myself), 227 pages filled with the best blog posts and juiciest essays from the past 4 years, slightly remixed and tweaked, riffing on that good old subject of the next generation of the music industry. And this may well be my final riff on music, for a while, too – stay tuned*.
Anyway, the book continues and expands on some of the ideas and models we cooked up in my first book “The Future of Music” (co-written with my colleague Dave Kusek). It describes what the next generation of music companies will look and feel like, and gets even deeper into some of my favorite buzz-phrases such as Music Like Water and the Flat Rate for Music, Feels Like Free (FLF), the Usator, Friction is Fiction, and the People Formerly Known As Consumers. Oooops, yes, sorry for the geek-speak!
