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Over the last few blogs we have discussed a lot of ideas from starting a business to budgeting to finding the right team etc. In the next few blogs, I will discuss with one the most important aspects of running a business, making money as well as creative and efficient ways of making it.
Step no. 1
Start a Production Company:
We live in a world today where Content is King. Owning and having the capacity to create good and meaningful content is one of the best ways of approaching monetization in this day and age
When it comes to becoming a Record Label, you need a business that can find the right talent, record and produce their music, and then package, market and sell this music.
When you put these three things together, you have the makings of a traditional Record Company.
But it doesn’t take much to start a production company. You don’t need to have a A&R team, big swanky offices and industry contacts to get started off the ground. All you need is the acumen to find good talent, hone the talent and an infrastructure that can help the talent to record and produce their music.
Most recording studios already have the infrastructure for an artist to produce your content, in the traditional setup a recording studio charges the client a given sum for providing these recording/mixing/mastering services to the artists. When you’re starting out, it will be hard to have the studio booked throughout the week, so what do you do with the time that you have your studio free? Well you could invest in finding and producing good talent that can generate revenue for you in the long term.
There are many different ways that you can approach the monetization of this, you could own a stake of the money made by the artists since you are putting down all the expense of putting the record together. In most cases this expense will be minimal if you are an engineer/producer/owner of this space, you invest your time in good talent and own a piece of that Intellectual Property that is created together.
Step no. 2
Getting Registered:
It’s always a good idea to have your production company registered as a separate entity that is your main business which is a studio. There are many ways you can do this, you can in fact register the production company as a sister concern of the many companies.
There are many other tax regulations also that you need to consider, so it’s best to have a word with your tax consultant and your lawyer regarding this. My general advice when it comes to this would be to have a word with a professional, don’t try doing all this yourself. You can always ask your friends and people around who are in these profressions for advice, but hiring someone who will go through the right proecss will cost some money upfront but will save you from a stupid mistake that might come back to haunt you later.
Step no. 3
Signing and Finding talent:
Once you have a Production company and put the word out that you’re looking to sign on artists as a part of a production deal the chances are that you’d be flooded with a tonne of responses. A simple post on Social Media about a Studio looking to sign new talent is the best place to start if you don’t have any direct contacts in the local music scene. You should be looking at 3 main criteria when looking to produce an artist:
The Amount of experience the Artist has playing together:
This is not the most important aspect to look at, but usually artists that have been playing together for longer have a well cemented chemistry and also usually will be the ones utilizing the least amount of honing/training before they hit the studio. This is also important from a live aspect given that, these artists are usually better performers when it comes to playing live and hence will have a better chance of generating higher revenue through live performances.
The Quality/Originality/Marketability of the Content:
This is pretty self explanatory, a song/melody that sticks is the one that’s going to make you the most money. Nobody wants to listen to another band that sounds like the 100 bands that came before. Look for Originality and if you can personally relate to it or not, don’t just use your filter, think from audience perspective and take that into consideration
If this artist is in it for the long run:
Nobody wants to invest months of time to put an amazing record together to find out that the artists can’t work with each other anymore. This is the worst place to be in.
Step no. 4
Album Packages:
There is a long running joke that being a Musician is probably the expensive art form. Unfortunately, this is true (Which is what makes it funny) and which is why you don’t see too many talented artists that are able to record and put out an entire Album or an EP. Most of these artists are releasing singles right now, hoping to be found by a production company and picked up for an EP or Album deal.
When you’re starting a new recording studio, you ideally want to be booked out for as many hours a day as you can. This not just helps wil generating revenue but also keeps you busy as an engineer and practicing on projects will further hone your skills, which is why in most cases it’s a great idea to offer Package Bulk deals to artists for Albums where you change your revenue model from hiring the studio per hour to charging a fixed fee per song or per album.
Step no. 5
Playing as a Session Musician:
If you’re a good performer, chances are that you can use your skills as a musician to generate even more revenue in creative ways. We see lots of singer/songwriters coming into the studio with an idea of a song and trying to imagine how that song would sound with a band, if you’re a musician you can offer your expertise to the Singer Songwriter and play on the record for him as well as work as an Engineer/Producer for the project. Chances are that once the record is out there, the Musician will also need a band to play with, that’s where you step in. You start by becoming a Session Musician inside the studio to becoming a full time musician playing with the band live and getting paid for both the session as well the gigs.
Get in touch!
If you guys have another other questions you would like to shoot at me, just shoot me a mail at ronak@gray-spark.com.
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