Matt Sandler

Home

Startup BD @ Amazon
EIR @ Techstars Music
Saxophonist

Blog / About

The Artist CEO – Part I

by Leave a Comment

Artists rarely think they’re starting a business.

Building something is difficult in any setting. But more than other industries, creatives struggle with the ambiguous path to success. The economics of creativity are dizzying. Most artists know how to create, but fail to recognize that art is only one part of their job.

“If you build, they will come” is a dangerous myth. Comedians believe it’s all about the jokes. Musicians believe it’s all about the music. Writers believe it’s all about the words. And it is…until it isn’t.

Talent and great art only gets you so far. Even (and especially!) the best artists put substantial work into customer development, audience engagement, marketing, and ultimately monetizing their creative output.

Making an analogy to the corporate world – your art is the product, and you are the company’s CEO.

CEO

GOOD ENOUGH?

Before anything else, you need confidence that your product is good enough to support a business.

You’ve recorded music, painted, or written jokes. Great. But that art was made in a vacuum. How do you know your product is good enough? What data tells you that you should be building a business?

In technology, we frequently talk about product-market fit. Meaning, you need to make a great product that satisfies the needs/wants/desires of a market. Enough to get them to part with dollars.

But how do you know if you’ve hit product-market fit? I contend that for artists, it’s a balance between gut feelings and data:

GUT

  • How does the audience react at your shows?
  • What do artist peers say about your product?
  • What do fans tell you via YouTube, Soundcloud, or DeviantArt comments?

DATA

  • How many audience members come to shows specifically for you? Are those numbers consistent, growing, or declining?
  • How are your social, newsletter, and/or website metrics trending? Have you surveyed fans to get a sense of their affinity to your product?
  • What do your online conversion rates of email capture or content sales look like?

The list goes on and on. It boils down to whether you’ve proven that people want and will pay for your product. That’s the golden ticket.

Be willing to do anything and everything to find product-market fit. Hold down a fulltime job, while practicing every night. Perform as a street musician in the downtown area every weekend. Show up to four open mic nights a week, ready to jump in with a ten minute set. Keep learning, iterating, honing your craft, gathering more data, and producing better content.

It’s worth mentioning that there are also a couple services to help in this process – Fluence and Clarity. Both are marketplaces for advice and constructive feedback from industry experts. Fluence is focused on creators and artists. And though Clarity is dedicated to business experts, you can find fantastic advisors in music, art, comedy, writing, and more to connect with. Get a fresh set of eyes on your project.

Be real with yourself – can you honestly say that you’ve hit product-market fit? If so, let’s talk about building a business…

Continued in Part 2, where we’ll discuss making money, putting a team together, and setting up a sustainable business. Dig this post and want more? Subscribe to get notified about new releases.

Creatives No. 2 – Fail to Succeed and More

by Leave a Comment

Build Stuff That Matters

Creatives is a weekly newsletter covering the best in music, art, and entertainment. Delivered to your inbox, weekly.

If you dig it, please consider signing up and sharing the newsletter with your friends on Twitter (click to share) or Facebook (click to share).

I’ll send around an email midweek and also post the links here on my blog. Would love to hear what you think in the comments below!

1. 7 Things a Record Deal Teaches You About the Music Industry (Cracked)

Spose, a young hip-hop artist, details his crash course in how the recording industry works. He doesn’t hold any punches or names. Just one person’s perspective, but it’s a great read for those looking to work with record labels, studios, and institutional entertainment companies.

2. Fail to Succeed (Auren Hoffman)

Exploring failure’s role in success.

3. Too Poor for Pop Culture (Salon)

In a world where the latest Kardashian selfie drives mass media consumption, D Watkins talks about information being class-based.

4. I left New York for LA because creativity requires the freedom to fail (The Guardian)

Moby’s take on why New York is “no longer the world’s cultural capital.”

5. Creative Machines (InfoQ)

Addressing the question of whether machines can be creative.

6. The Economics of Girl Talk (Priceonomics)

A discussion about piracy and sampling, in context with one of the world’s top artists, Girl Talk.

7. What Does Pussy Riot Mean Now? (BuzzFeed)

Pussy Riot’s unlikely journey from art-school project to international icon.

8. Slaves of the Red Carpet (Vanity Fair)

Are the top Hollywood stylists cold-eyed dealmakers, or vulnerable freelancers, dependent on the whims of designers and stars?

For Musicians: 8 Steps to A Million YouTube Views

by 4 Comments

YouTube Audience

I get at least a dozen emails a month from musician friends who want to build out their YouTube presence.

I don’t claim to be a YouTube expert, but I spend a good amount of time at Chromatik working with artists and the YouTube ecosystem. We’ve built the Chromatik channel to over a million views (led by the extraordinary Kelley McKinney), and I’ve worked on musician friends’ channels with over 50 million collective views.

Through the process, I’ve noticed some clear do’s and don’ts when trying to build a quality YouTube presence. If your goal is fame and fortune without hard work, move along. But if your goal is to build a lasting community for your music, then follow the general guidelines below to a million views and beyond…

1. YOU NEED TO START

Failure isn’t your biggest obstacle to success, it’s not even starting. Most people talk the talk, but never actually walk the walk. You want a great YouTube presence? Start making videos…today.

I know that there’s a tune you can crush. Maybe it’s Classical Gas, maybe it’s Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Perhaps 15 seconds of a popular chart? It doesn’t matter. Spend 30 minutes recording and uploading it to YouTube…today.

Start viewing YouTube as a sandbox for playing, performing, and sharing. Not everything you upload to YouTube needs to be perfect or professional quality initially. We’ll get there. But as a relative unknown in the YouTube ecosystem, you’ll want to just get comfortable with the recording and upload process first.

2. BE PROLIFIC, ON A SCHEDULE

One of the YouTube myths I hear all of the time is – “I just need ONE video to strike it big.”

So what do folks do? Pour a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money into producing an incredible video. Cool. Assuming that you rocked and it miraculously went to the front page of Reddit, you now have 100,000 views and a couple hundred subscribers. Now what? Can you replicate that?

The unfortunate reality is that 100,000 views and a couple hundred subscribers doesn’t get you very far in the YouTube ecosystem. Not to mention, with over 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, there’s a 1/1,000,000 chance of you achieving that result.

The myth is dangerous because it forces you into an assumption that “if you build, they will come.” Which, as many creatives – from musicians to tech startup founders – learn quickly, just isn’t the case.

So let’s focus on starting small and building a community. Without a miracle, the only replicable way I’ve seen to build a successful YouTube channel is by being prolific and regimented with content production. One of my favorites, Gabe Bondoc – now with 272k subscribers and 48 million views! – was phenomenal at this early on (thanks for the recco, Corey!).

You’re learning or writing new tunes every week, right? Great. Set up a regimen. Chose two or three days a week, every week that you’re going to spend 30-60 minutes recording a new tune and posting to YouTube. Not every tune needs to get 100,000 views. Rather, start with a goal of fifty views on each video, and work your way up. We’ll talk growing viewership shortly.

3. RECORDING TIPS

Your videos do not need to be professional quality, but they should look somewhat polished. Here are a few quick tips:

  • Don’t record in your messy bedroom, for goodness’ sake. Find a space that looks hip, or at minimum, neutral. You want to be the focal point.
  • Backing tracks are clutch when playing popular tunes. If you’re a solo instrumental artist, it adds a tremendous amount to your video performance to play the melody in context. You can find almost any backing track you need on iTunes.
  • Many YouTubers record audio first, and then mime/sync the video to get the visual right. Not saying that it’s the best way, but think about how you can most effectively record videos for quality and time investment.
  • If you’re not great at AV editing, I suggest investing some time into learning. If you need some help along the way, Fiverr has great folks who edit videos, design intros, and more for just $5.

4. TITLE AND TAG PROPERLY

YouTube is currently the second most popular search engine in the world. While bloggers and websites spend a lot of time thinking about search engine optimization (aka, how to appear at the top of Google search results), many YouTube creators don’t give the same amount of thought to their videos.

What if, when you typed in “Katy Perry Roar,” your video was the first search result? You’d get millions of views. Obviously that’s unrealistic, but you get the point. Where you fall in search results matters.

Check out the YouTube Playbook for some basic details on how to title and tag your videos. It’s important.

5. BUILDING AN AUDIENCE

We’ve established that you’re posting great videos to YouTube regularly. Now’s time to build an audience.

Simply put, passively posting to Facebook and Twitter will only get you so far. Your video will get viewed by a few of your friends and family, and then disappear from the stream/newsfeed after a couple hours.

Before anything else, read 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly.

To build a sustainable YouTube channel, you need to drive conversion to channel subscribers. And that’s going to take some hustle, both inside and outside the walls of YouTube. Most folks will never just happen upon your content and share it to their friends. So for the sake of brevity (another post on building an audience to come), here are a few thoughts to get your brain a’moving…

  • Regular, personal communication paths to friends and family, asking them to check out your videos and subscribe. Email Newsletter, Facebook messages, Twitter DMs, Instagram Direct, Snapchat, and more are all potential communication paths.
  • Make a clear call-to-action in your video and video description.
  • Sharing on video communities like wimp, Reddit, and Plug.dj. Remember to respect the rules and community.
  • Outreach to bloggers who feature “Top YouTube Videos of the Week” or write about music closely related to your style/influences.
  • Work with friends and other YouTubers. See “Work With Friends” below.

The point being, you likely will not build a lasting YouTube channel by simply posting to Facebook and Twitter. Get hustling.

6. THE MOST POPULAR MUSIC, HAPPENING NOW

We talked briefly about SEO for YouTube. But the core variable with SEO is building content interesting to a target search audience.

People use YouTube search just as they do Google. They type in “Katy Perry Roar” or “Lorde Royals covers” with far more regularity than your name or “jazz saxophone.”

So, game that user behavior by covering the most popular music, happening right now.

Let’s take an example — if you were to create content on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” there are thousands of back-catalog videos already there that you’re competing with. Many with thousands, or millions of views. Hard to win, especially if you consider the low search volume today for MJ’s “Beat It.” Regardless of how popular the tune is in pop culture.

But if you create a video today for Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” (or any other tune that spiked on the charts this week), you’re entering the search competition with the same amount of views, time, and opportunity as anyone. And the search volume for a tune like this is 100x that of Michael Jackson in its first four weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

You may not love the most recent tune by Katy or Beyonce, that’s fine. Find a way into one of the top tunes, by layering in your performance style, technique, or a full-on remix to make it your own. If you hit the right cover and timing, I promise it will pay dividends in views and subscribers.

7. WORK WITH FRIENDS

You’re only one person. You’ve tapped your network, hustled to get additional coverage, and done great thus far. But how do you expand your reach even further? Work with friends.

Pretty simple equation. More people involved = most potential reach. Collaborate on a few videos, and ask them to share to their friends. Or better yet, have their friends subscribe to check out future collaborations.

If you have YouTuber friends, there are a plenty of cross-promotional things you can do together too. YouTube’s written a great primer on this, so I won’t re-create the wheel.

8. PATIENCE

This process is going to take a serious investment of time and effort. Building an audience for your music is not simple, but hopefully I laid out pretty straightforward guidelines for success. You going to need patience and resiliency. 1 million views won’t come overnight.

As a musician, most of our dreams circle around playing for an audience. But we all wish that we could get more stage time with a captivated crowd. YouTube can be that vehicle for you. You have the talent. Now put it into motion.

And if I can be helpful in any way, please feel free to send me an email (mdsandler at gmail dot com) or message on Twitter (@mattdsandler).

Creatives No.1

by 2 Comments

calling-all-creatives

I’m trying something new — a weekly newsletter about the business of creatives.

Musicians, actors, comedians, writers, and artists are trying to find their way in a business that has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. Almost all creatives now experiment with different technology platforms, distribution paths, and ways to grow their art-driven ventures. And that is what I spend the bulk of my day working on at Chromatik and beyond.

So I figured it would be fun to send around my top 11 weekly highlights for creatives. It’s not really meant to be all-encompassing or “breaking news.” Rather, I’m hoping it sparks interesting thoughts around the creative process.

If you dig it, please consider signing up and sharing the newsletter with your friends on Twitter (click to share) or Facebook (click to share).

I’ll send around an email midweek and also post the links here on my blog. Would love to hear what you think in the comments below!

1. At Arm’s Length: A History of the Selfie (New York Magazine)

We live in the age of the selfie.

2. The Nerdist Podcast: Paul Williams Returns (Nerdist)

Singer-songwriter Paul Williams joins Chris Hardwick to talk about his upcoming book, Gratitude. He gives an incredible glimpse into Muppets history, addiction, and his thoughts around new music distribution.

3. King Kendrick and the Ivory Tower (Foreign Policy)

What hip-hop can teach academia. Seriously.

4. Neil Gaiman Reads Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham (Open Culture)

Neil Gaiman reads Dr. Seuss. If you haven’t heard the story of Green Eggs and Ham recently, it’s worth it.

5. One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song of the Last 20 Years. And You’ve Probably Never Heard His Name. (CelebrityNetWorth)

A look at one of the most influential and powerful musicians in pop music over the past 20 years, Max Martin.

6. Surely They Can’t Be Serious (Grantland)

The unlikely rise of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, Hollywood’s majorly hated, hugely successful kinds of the modern-day spoof.

7. In Conversation: Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels (Vulture)

An inside look at Lorne Michaels. He discusses SNL, diversity, Lassie, and when he actually laughs.

8. Storytelling Lessons from World Wrestling Entertainment (Harvard Business Review)

Pro wrestling is perhaps the only 24/7, 365-day-a-year fictional storytelling machine alive. What can we learn from it?

9. Spotify: How A Busy Songwriter You’ve Never Heard of Makes It Work For Him (The Guardian)

SEO for music, via Spotify. Matt Farley has composed and digital released over 14,000 songs over the past six years. In 2013 alone, he grossed $23,000.

10. Learning to Think Outside the Box (NY Times)

Can creativity become an academic discipline?

11. How to Write a Bestselling Book This Year – The Definitive Resource List and Hot-To-Guide (Tim Ferriss)

The master of lifestyle design walks through what writing a bestselling book today looks like. Challenges, marketing, publishing, and the creative process.

(Header Image Credit: JK Chapman)

Guitar Center: Interview with Metallica’s James Hetfield

by Leave a Comment

Great interview and quick jams with Metallica’s James Hetfield at Guitar Center.

On his early decision to play music — “It was one of these forks in the road, that was pretty pivotal to my life. Do I want to be second string playing football, or do I want to be up on stage, with a mission, speaking through music?” (2:55)