Trapital – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Spotify went from a $14 billion market cap in 2022 to crossing $100 billion toward the end of 2024. A lot has changed in two years, but there’s more to the story than just the past 24 months. Join me and Sleepwell Capital, an investor, to break down Spotify’s journey to profitability. Hope you enjoy!

04:59 Spotify vs Big Tech DSPs

10:16 Spotify's growth signifies change in music distribution.

14:26 Netflix comparisons

21:44 YouTube vs Spotify

28:19 Is Spotify's PE ratio too high?

32:31 Major label’s challenging 2024

This episode is presented by State Farm, the home for your small business needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Don't forget to follow Sleepwell Capital on X and Substack for more insights.

Listen in for our Chartmetric Stat of the Week.

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Here’s Part 2 of the winners and losers of 2024 in streaming, artist, and record label with Zack O’ Malley Greenburg. We talked about the shifting terrain of the music industry, down to the decline of festival headliners and the emergence of “Peak Superstar”. Hope you enjoy!

02:00 Live music - winners and losers

08:22 M&A - winners and losers

24:38 Comeback players of the year

28:13 Honorable mentions

TikTok has had quite the 2024, especially in music. The year started with a very public dispute with UMG. But TikTok also saw the rise of SoundOn, the end of TikTok Music, lingering threats of a US ban, the force of TikTok Shop, and more.

Join me and MIDiA’s Tati Cirisano as we break it all down.

Sponsors:

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I’m digging into the mailbag for today’s episode. For the first time in over a year, I asked Trapital listeners and readers to send me their most burning questions about the music industry. I’ve pulled out nine questions from the bunch to cover on the show. 

We’re covering everything from NFTs to artificial-intelligence-assisted music creation to investing in music catalogs going forward and a whole lot more. I’m hitting you with my honest thoughts on each. Here’s a look at the topics:

[0:54] State of music NFTs 

[4:40] Customer problems as a music startup

[8:35] Lack of new music superstars 

[12:07] Future of AI-assisted music creation 

[17:00] Tradeoff for artists wanting ownership 

[22:11] Hasbro selling eOne

[26:16] Music catalog investing in 2023

[29:41] Globalization of hip-hop 

[33:21] Emerging artists as startup founders 

Trapital’s first-ever Cultural Report for 2022: https://trapital.co/culture-report/

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Check out The Drop, REVOLT's weekly newsletter to stay ahead of the latest news in hip-hop and Black culture. To learn more, visit revolt.tv

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Dan Runcie: If you're an owner of I.P., often times that I.P. may be the most valuable thing that you have. But does it always make sense for you to then be the ones that produce it? Of course, there's unique examples of this, right? I think Disney is a company that clearly does both, but Disney is such a unicorn in what it does in so many ways, and we've all seen that flywheel of what they've done, and that flywheel is so relevant because it's hard to see another company that could really do that to that level. But it's more likely than not that if you are an I.P. owner or it's probably in your best financial interest to partner with a company that you can leverage their production because they are skilled at being a production company to do that thing.

[00:00:46] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. 

[00:01:04] (Intro) Dan Runcie: From you, the listeners who make Trapital, exactly what it is. So this is a mailbag question where you all sent in your best questions. Some of you emailed them, some of you posted them on socials, but I looked at the questions and picked the best ones, and this is a mailbag episode. It's been a while since we did one of these, so it felt good to do one. I actually wanna do these more often just because I think the questions were really great and we're able to address a bunch of topics that we'll get into A.I, the future of music, globalization, ownership, and all the topics that we love to break down on capital and a few ones. So let's jump in.

[00:01:41] (Pre Roll Ad Moonpay) 

[00:02:11] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have our one and only Mailbag episode from Trapital. It's been a while since we did one of these. I feel, maybe at some point earlier this year we did a mailbag, so it was finally good to dig back in, hear from folks and be able to answer the questions that a lot of you have been thinking. This podcast has grown quite a bit this past year and was in the 1% for the most shared podcast according to Spotify wrap, so that was pretty good. Some applause for that. And I wanted to bring in some of the questions from some of the avid listeners and readers we have. So I posted in social media, posted in the newsletter, and this is a roundup of the best ones. Covered a bunch of topics. We're gonna talk about the future of A.I and music, the state of NFTs, globalization, ownership, and a whole lot more. So let's dive into the first question we have here. So, Ken Penn wants to know what is the current state of music NFTs and our major labels as interested in them as they were? So first for some clear context, a lot of people have been asking questions about this because the general trends of N F T discussions from last year to this year is not quite what you would expect. A lot of people saw that Bloomberg report that came out earlier in 2022, I think they said, N F T transactions were down 97% from the peak that they were at in 2021. And if you type in the word NFTs in Google Trends, you'll probably see a slope that looks quite downward. That is very true, and that's clearly where that is. But I think there's a big difference between that, which I think 97% of that was the hype and a lot of the crap that you likely would only see at the height of the pandemic when money was flowing like crazy. Think about the time when like Pet rocks were being sold and Logan Paul was buying his NFTs or trying to sell his NFTs for whatever. If that was the top of the market, then I think we're seeing things level off a bit more now because you are still seeing partnerships from the major labels and from a lot of artists. I look at Warner Music Group. Warner's been active, more active than any other major label, I think, when it comes to active investments and being forward-looking and being public about those investments. And it was just six, seven weeks ago that they had formed a partnership with Open Sea, which is one of the largest platforms out there to be able to trade in as a marketplace to be able to buy and sell NFTs. So you also have other deals that we've seen. Universal Music Group recently hired two SVPs that are focused on web three with a pretty strong focus on NFTs themselves. And more broadly, you have companies like Public Pressure that just raised $6 million to continue to build in this space. I have said this a few times in this podcast, but I think that Web three and NFT specifically, you had to get through the.com era. You had to get through that heads.com phase of people just starting shit because it sounded like it was something that was gonna resonate, but after a lot of that didn't work out. You obviously had the.com bubble burst. That era still gave us Google, it still gave us Amazon and all these other companies that have still continued to be successful and be some of the biggest companies in the world today. And I think there was a very strong chance that we will still have that with this current wave. It may look slightly different in music, but I still think that we're gonna see, and we have seen more of the true opportunities, whether it's on the artist side of artists that are selling actual NFTs that their fans would find valuable and that others will wanna buy into as well. And I think you'll see this on the major label side with more investment going into acts that can actually reap the rewards from it. One of the biggest deals of 2022 when it comes to N F T sales was Snoop. and what he was able to do, just capturing that momentum. After the Super Bowl. We wrote, or I covered a lot of this in the culture report that Trapital put out will include a link to it in the show notes if you haven't checked it out yet, but still a lot of upside on NFTs. I do not see it quite as much as the bubble that I think was clearly there in 2021. A lot of that quarantine rapid growth needed to calm back down a bit, and I think NFTs are one of the areas that were hit a lot harder than others, but I still think that there's plenty of upside for people that actually wanna build and don't just wanna do grifter, whatever the hell else people were trying to buy itself time. Another question here is from David from Santa Monica, and this was actually a reply to a newsletter that I recently put out where I was talking about some of the cost challenges that music startups and music tech companies will face as in regards to working with customers and customer service and working and dealing with unprofitable customers and wanting to move further up. Mark's question was whether or not I had any data on the customer service costs that these companies have. And I wanna answer that question in a slightly different way. It's less about customer service in the same way that you know, you or I may go call Comcast or may call Xfinity when we're having an issue with our cable or our internet, but it's more so you are a client or customer that is trying to use this particular service, whether it's free or you're relying on it to grow your own business, and you are now having some challenges, you're having some type of question. The thing is a lot of the companies, especially a lot of the distribution platforms, started off being available to everyone, but I think they realized how expensive it is to serve the clients and to serve the customers who are not driving the most business possible. It's no different than a lot of people see when they're working with client services. Overall, your $2 million clients in a lot of ways can be so much more enjoyable to deal with and work with than your $2,000 clients or $2,000 clients will chat a nickel and a dime. They have a bunch of questions about this, that, and the third, but your clients that have a bit more money, they normally come in a bit more clear and confident with what they're looking for, and it can lead to better business in the long run. And I think to a lot of extent, the same is true with a lot of the artists that you end up serving or a lot of the customers that a lot of these platforms end up serving because a lot of their time gets spent with customers that just don't justify the ROI of how much it costs to have that person on staff continue to work and continue to coach and work directly with someone who's just not generating enough revenue to be able to justify the spend. And if you think about how a lot of the companies focus on these things, especially if you're being built out like a tech customer success. This is a role where whether even at the high individual contributor, or the middle level manager role, you're talking, you know, $150, $200,000 plus for someone that can do that roll on annual basis. I mean, I'm thinking of myself, it was six years ago at this point, I was offered a customer success role from a startup that has, you know, now been acquired. I believe the offer was right around that $150, or maybe it was a little bit more than that K range. And that's how much you're paying to have one person that is dedicated to not just you, but to other clients.

But if you were to fractionize my time, let's say that, you know, I was someone that was making $160k a year and I had 12 to 16 clients per year that I was serving, you have to justify, okay, is it worth $10k of the company's time to be able to continue to serve this person if that's what I'm spending my timeline, and we all know that it's less likely that it's gonna be an even split. So that's where these things I think, can often come into play, which is why I think you've seen a lot of the distribution services and a lot of the others start to be more selective over time. And they start to have cut-offs in terms of who they're willing to serve and who they're not willing to serve. And that's one of the reasons why I think we see that shift where, especially in music distribution, it ends up leaning itself towards just having a low cost option, like Distrokid or a tunecore where it essentially doesn't cost much at all to upload the services, but it's a bit more do it yourself or you get something that is a bit more boutique. But by being able to join the boutique offering, it's much more selective as a result. So the next question here is from Arthur from Twitter. He didn't specifically say his name, but it was a good question here. He asked, who gets more blame for the lack of consistent superstar X, labels or customers? The answer is neither. The answer is technology. If you're trying to blame anyone, I personally don't call it blame. I more so call it the driving factor, but this is more about technology. Technology was the driving force that lowered the barriers to entry for artists to be able to create more music than they've ever created, and to be able to release it the way that they've done it. And because they're releasing music the way that they've done it, it then becomes harder and much more noisier for new artists to be able to enter the scene and be able to hit the same heights that they did. And because of the increased number of options that are there, it makes it even easier for powers that be to continue to invest more in what they already see proven. Whether that is your superstar artist or ones who have already proven themselves that seem like they'd be most likely to be the next next bets, whether that's your Taylor Swift or your Adele, or your Beyonce on the proven side or on the artist coming up, whether it's someone like, Olivia Rodrigo, or like Blast, or Billie Eilish or someone like that. So these things that are, I think, a big factor just based on where things are and barriers continuing to be lower and lower. And there's been countless reports on just how difficult it is and how record labels are starting to feel like it's having a harder time to break new stars in the way that they once did. It's harder to have new superstars reach the levels that they did. I think you see this in some of the analysis that's been done on charts and stuff like that too. It's a lot of the same names that have been household names for over a decade that are continuing to stay there and it's harder for the new artists to really come through. So I guess if there's anyone to blame for that, we can blame the founders and the product managers from the companies that enabled the barriers actually to happen in the first place. I know a lot of people disagree. I do think it's a good thing that people have more options than ever just in terms of the artist's perspective, but just because I think that it brought a lot of flexibility. But with that, there's always trade-offs like any new technology brings. There's good with that. There's bad that comes with that. I do think that the pros and the cons outweigh them. I do think that the pros do outweigh the cons with that, but still very aware of the downsides of the current timing. This next question is from Joe Edwards and he asked, what is the ultimate potential of GPT-3? This is a hot topic right now, I think for a lot of folks, and it's a question that I think everyone from record labels to attorneys, to emerging artists are trying to figure out, but here's my perspective. I think that GPT-3 is a great tool that will be able to give songwriters an extra tool that they can have by their side. I think we recently heard Bruce Springsteen on a podcast talk about how he could use A.I., whether it's something like something that can help jog his memory or jog his thoughts, specifically if he's having a better writer's block and how difficult that can be for a songwriter. You just wanna be able to have a few things that can aid your process of bringing thoughts together. The pen that comes from that would ever truly replicate something that Bruce Springsteen would wanna put out himself. But just give it how advanced these tools get and how better and better they get. It's likely gonna provide some

inspiration that can be helpful. That said, I think it would be more helpful to help existing artists, and I'm a bit less bullish right now on new artists coming up. I think we all saw what happened with Capitol Records and FN Meka and that whole mess, while I don't think that that's all A.I. driven, part of that's driven by the people that were running it. I do think that that is an inherent challenge that some people may be a bit weary of, at least for now. But one place that I do think A.I. and GPT-3 specifically could be unique for is for giving certain artists or certain people the ability to access a sound catalog or an ability to access a group of songs that they can use to then scour to figure out what they can then glean from that to be able to create the new songs that are able to create lyrics that they could use in the future. The reason I highlight this is because I'm sure if you're trying to use a song that is based on a song that is owned by a major record label, the record labels and their lawyers will come after you, and it is something that I know that is already top of mind for. But there's a lot of music out there, a lot of music that people would want to hear that isn't owned or controlled by the major record labels. And I think in the same way that you saw platforms like Epidemic Sound or Splice and others be able to create, whether it's monthly subscriptions or other types of opportunities to buy access to a right to use any of the songs in the catalog. I think you could see something very similar to that happening with A.I. and GPT-3 specifically, because yes, if GPT-3 tries to scour all of the songs available, that is a legal nightmare. But if you're an artist and you wanna be able to pay $10.99 a month or whatever it is, to be able to access this tool where you could type. Any prompt that could help spur your thought, that could be a very great use of $10.99, especially if that gives you the ability to make the next album from your bedroom that could be nominated and win a bunch of Grammys or sell, or, you know, do a bunch of commercial success or just have enough success for you to be a standalone successful musician in your own right. Because I do think a lot of those things are likely to appeal more so to independent artists. I also think that we'll see some potential with GPT-3 with an artist that breaks out on TikTok in general, I almost feel like it's inevitable that there's gonna be some artist in 2023 that has some song that goes viral on TikTok, and people are gonna be like, oh, where did the idea for the song come come from? And the artist is gonna say, oh, I just typed in a prompt. Write me a song about X, Y, Z. And here's what came up. Because we already started to see little hints of how artists would use name generation or using tools to come up with things, right? You've all heard the story about how Lil Nas X used insights from Reddit and insights from Twitter to create Old Town Road and how he essentially engineered that song to reach a type of success that it did grant. A lot of that was outside of his influence, just given things going viral after the whole country music controversy. But a lot of the things leading up to that point were influenced by him. And I think even on a more simpler side, artists like Childish Gambino and Post Malone, I'm pretty sure that both of them got their names from some random computer generators. So there's been things like that that we've seen and I think we'll continue to see more of that. And I think even the answer to this question is gonna continue to evolve. So you could ask me this question in a year. I think I could probably have this as an end of the year podcast question for some time now. And their law used to be something new to glean. The next question here is from Mercedes G. She wants to know why don't artists prioritize ownership even though artists have been pushing ownership for decades? So this question is a bit nuanced because I do think that there are a lot of artists out there that do push ownership, and they are clear that they wanna be able to own their masters and own their publishing and understand the value. I think the challenge comes though, when it becomes a trade off and that trade off is likely offering the artist something that they couldn't have otherwise had because owning your masters and owning all those things sounds great and it sounds great if we assume that the artist could have reached the same heights that they could without giving up something in exchange.

The thing is, when an artist is starting to pop and they are already experiencing what some of the challenges are, being able to really hit that next level and whether that is something that they want to do because of some of the things I answered with earlier questions. With more and more music coming out, it's harder for everyone to break out. It's especially harder for artists that are already signed to two record labels to break through. That means it's gonna be even hard for an artist that doesn't have the major label resources behind them to break out as well, which could make them even more likely to wanna then sign with the major record label, especially if they are cutting you a check. I'll look at a few examples of younger artists as well. Look at an artist like Lil Dirk or even NBA Young Boy, I'm pretty sure little Dirk. Posted that he had gotten a 40 million deal recently this year. And I think Dirk is someone that has been popular. I mean, it's several years ago at this point that he was on double XLS freshman list, but even as an independent artist, it could have taken him quite a bit of time to ever hit that amount of money, especially if he's trying to cash it in on the moment that he has. So it's one thing to push ownership and it's another thing to still be able to say, you know what, no, I'm good. I don't want that check. Let me continue to do what I'm doing. When someone offers you an eight figure check that's right in front of you. And I think there's a bit of that human element that can sometimes get a bit lost cuz it's easy for the people in the pita gallery playing Monday morning quarterback to go say, oh, why would you do that deal? Or us to focus on some of the survivorship stories of Master P turning down a million dollar record label deal. Different people that may have offered it to him. Because for every success story like Master P, there are other people that turned those same type of deals down but it didn't take off the way it did for P and then they go back to the record label and being like, oh, hey, could I still get that deal? And the record label's like, no, like the moment passed and the only reason you're coming to me is because you don't feel like you have the momentum that you had before. So there's a few factors here that I think are important to consider, and there is that human element that I think just changes. It's one thing to be a Twitter pundit and put your thoughts out there, but it's another thing to really still say no when a company that you know, they're rolling out the red carpet for you their show, they're presenting the seven, eight figure check, whatever it is, and then you still saying, no, I'm good. And then I think you even see us at the highest levels as well. You look at the deals that you know, someone like Drake or the weekend, you're more so hitting now into the nine figure deals and these artists are more likely to be able to continue to have ownership, but they're still licensing their masters or licensing their music out to the major company. So there's still some trade off there. It's very rare that you ever are really seeing superstar artists that still are hitting those superstar artists levels that is like, you know what? I'm good. Let me just go release everything independently. Cause I think at the end of the day, if you are a priority on these labels, and if you are still getting the best that you can get, you're more likely to figure out, okay, what trade-off is commensurate at what level? And that doesn't mean there wasn't a better way that could be done optimally. My explanation here is more of an explanation of the entire landscape of less of an advocacy for one position or another. But I do think in general, just given how much harder it is for record labels to be able to truly, I think, focus and invest on that artist development piece because they're expecting artists to come to them when they've already hit zero to 60. I think it really puts the onus on the artist to be like, okay, are you happy at 60? Because if you're happy at 60, you may not need the record label, and maybe you think you could get to 70 or 80 yourself, but it may take some time. But if you're trying to get to a hundred, it's gonna be really hard for you to do that independently. So a lot of it requires some questioning on where you wanna go, how far you wanna go, and why that may or may not be as important to you. 

[00:22:52] (Mid Ad): Today's episode of The Trapital Podcast was brought to you by Revolt. Revolt is on a mission to curate and share the best of the best in hip hop culture and social justice. You may remember a couple months back I had the CEO of Revolt, Detavio Samuels on the podcast scene. He talked all about the mission and where things are going, and I think this is one leading company that is elevating what's happening in black culture. It was launched by Sean Diddy Combs back in 2013, and the multi-platform Network offers breaking news videos, artist interviews, exclusive performances, and original programming. They have content for everyone, like Asset over liabilities and original podcast with the host of Earn Your Leisure that gives you a behind the scenes look into the business investments of artists like Soulja Boy and Rick Ross. They also have the Drop Revolts weekly newsletter and curation of the latest in hip hop and black news, and they have the black print where sits down with innovators and change makers laying the ground up for the next generation for the culture. You can learn more and sign up for Revolt's newsletter, the [email protected].

[00:24:00] Dan Runcie: All right, this next question here is about a specific deal that's going on, but it's gonna be a good one to answer. JB from Atlanta asked, now that Hasbro has sold E-One's TV and film division, could quality control be a potential buyer? So a few things to unpack here. Earlier in November, Hasbro announced that it will be selling its TV and filled divisions of the comp company. Note that this news, three years after Hasbro had initially acquired all of Entertainment One, which included its music division. And then I think it's been about a year now. My time may be off, but it's been about a year plus now that it had rolled off its music division, which then became Monarch, which is run by Chris Taylor and that team. You may remember them because they were the team that was involved with the selling and the acquisition of Death Row records and then that deal with Snoop Dog. But Hasbro overall has kind of been in this, oops, maybe we should have done this deal when they went and bought E-One. And I think the big takeaway away for Hasbro has been that if we want to leverage the IP that we have, and as many of you know, Hasbro toy companies, so it has the IP there, but it also has some brands that were in that production, like Peppa Pig and things like that. They can still own the IP, but they don't have to own the in-house production to be able to then leverage that IP and make it happen, and then when you own those divisions, it just can be so costly to try to do that. So they got a lot of pressure from Wall Street and other analysts to sell that division and focus on what they do. If you're an owner of an IP, Oftentimes that IP may be the most valuable thing that you then have, but does it always make sense for you to then be the ones that produce it? Of course, there's unique examples of this, right? I think Disney is a company that clearly does both, but Disney is such a unicorn in what it does in so many ways, and we've all seen that flywheel what they've done, and that flywheel is so relevant because it's hard to see another company that could really do that to that level. But it's more likely than not that if you are an IP owner or it's probably in your best financial interest to partner with a company that you can leverage through their production because they are skilled at being a production company to do that thing. So that was a lot of the reason why that sale happened in the first place. Now let's talk about the QC part of this. I would be very surprised if Quality Control was to go on and buy a TV and film division because I also look at Quality Control as an IP. I mean just given the ownership structure, they may joint own some of that with Motown, give the joint venture there. But they are IP owners that can then use that to leverage, whether it's the brand or the story of your little baby Migos and even the rise of coach K and P and and things like that. And while QC does do investments, like I know they're involved with SoundCloud and they have a few other things going. I would be very surprised if they went on to acquire a type of, you know, studio themselves. I know that QC does have a film division, but my impression of that has always been more so, yeah, let's stay quiet, let's have that something that we could have that small and manageable in-house, but if they still have a big release, I think they would probably wanna go to shop that and market the same way that any other big time producer would want if they wanted to push something further. No different than, I think you kind of saw with the Little baby documentary that eventually went on, Amazon was released on Amazon Prime a couple of months ago. So I would be surprised there, if anything, I mean, I think QC is one of these record labels that may be looking for an outside investor itself, but I'm not quite sure what the Motown relationship, just given the joint venture ownership there and how that may look, whether or not who the actual company is that owns, whether it's the brand or the artist or anything like that.

Moving forward from that. All right. Couple more questions here. So is music investing specifically, like in catalogs, is music investing still a good idea in 2023? And my answer is yes, but not in some of those 2021 pandemic era evaluations. And that's because I think what I liked about the catalog boom is that it brought awareness to something that I think a retail investors in the niche knew, but a lot of others weren't focusing on, is that there's a lot of value to be had with owning some of these catalogs because there's certain artists that I think do have the potential to just feel similar to a evergreen stock or something like that continues. Provide consistent revenue that isn't correlated with the economy time and time again. But I think there's a few things that happened that people may have missed. One, there is a decay curve with all of those assets. And even as much as people wanna tell you that the Beach Boys or Michael Jackson or the Beatles are timeless, everything has a decay curve. I mean, you could even go back, you know, decades, even. Frank Sinatra or Elvis. I know that you know that the movie that came out recently, but even folks like that, the discussions that are happening now about those people aren't anywhere near the type of discussions that you may have heard, at least when I was growing up, and that just shows you how much has changed in several decades since then. So, and I think the music listening would've probably aligned with that as well. So there's that, and I just think that the valuations that were being paid for a lot of these things probably just wouldn't happen again. One, because interest rates are nowhere near as low as they were, but I think even regardless of interest rates, there was a lot of overpaying for those assets just given the excitement. So smart on a lot of the artists for cashing out when they did and getting a lot of those returns because at least from what we've seen from a lot of the reports, You've seen some of these financial time stories talking about Hypnosis. And Hypnosis has at least from what the returns have been from their catalog has not been able to generate returns that a lot of the investors feel satisfied with and feel are in line with what they had, which is why I think you started to see more challenges there. There was almost an entire year period where the company didn't make an investment, and I think you've seen a lot of things ring true for others. There are still catalog sales happening. It just may not happen at the particular dollar amount that people wanted. For instance, there was Pink Floyd deal that was being talked about for a while. It's still being talked about. I believe they wanted $500 million, but based on some of the recent findings that had come out, the offers that they started to get were much smaller than they would've liked. So people are still interested in buying Pink Floyd. It may not be for the amount of money that the rights holders wanna sell it for, but there's still interest there, and I think that rings true all the way up and down the board. Listen, it wasn't even just music investing. The quarantine era of the pandemic led to a lot of sales for things happening that just probably wouldn't happen in the same way today. All right. Another question here is how does the globalization of hip hop Influence its business and cultural impact? And this question came from chat GPT. Someone had submitted this question and then it came back as, oh, what do you think is a good question to ask about the business of music or the business of hip hop? So this is a fun one. I know I've written about it a few times, but for the sake of brevity, I'll tackle it in two ways. First, A lot of the Western hip hop artists were able to reach a much bigger audience as a result of globalization, and I think it made it easier for some of them to launch global brands as a result. I look at folks like Rihanna and folks like Jay-Z. Look at some of the deals they've done with, whether it's ACE of Spades for Jay-Z, or the Fenty partnerships with Rihanna. These partnerships are tied in with European companies and there has to be some relevance for how big you are seen in Europe and other areas for those things to really have an impact. And I think you saw that compound as well. When you look at someone like Rihanna and Fenty Beauty, being able to enter Africa and just given the ethos of that brand being able to be inclusive and have shades for all skin tones, it makes perfect sense to be able to do it in Africa, which you just think about the beauty industry. This is an entire continent of people, especially women. Different complexion and skin tones that were largely overlooked by the many other major brands. So being able to have that influence there directly ties into an artist like Rihanna, you know, years, decades earlier, being able to tour in these places and being able to have her name out there, being able to be seen in that way. So I think it affects it from that perspective. And of course, Jay-Z, Rihanna are more so people at the top of that chain that are billionaires, but I think it really made a large impact on everyone else on the other side, I think it's made a huge impact on international artists too, because we've seen in so many other places that hip hop has truly been that connective tissue. It's really been that gateway that can help. Raise and elevate the voice of the unheard or elevate the voice of the people that may not have either gotten a chance to get their word out there or can really speak to some of the challenges that are happening. And that's the way that hip hop started. You look at Public Enemy, they saw themselves as the black CNN. They were trying to voice what's really happening. You listen to songs like Grandmaster Flash, The Message. This is what's going on in the streets of New York right now. And I think that if you listen to a lot of hip hop from other areas and you hear things translated, you're hearing a lot of that. And even someone like Bad Bunny, how he speaks about some of the challenges and the oppression that's happening in Latin America, or even things that are happening in Puerto Rico specifically, or even how we spoke out about disaster relief and even L G B T Q issues. It's not a coincidence that this is a hip hop artist that is doing this in their own language and that's happening. So I think we've just continued to see more and more influence and we'll continue to see how hip hop continues to be such a big driver. And it's not just Latin America. You're seeing it in France and you're seeing it elsewhere. And as globalization of music more broadly has made it more possible for artists in local languages to truly rise up. I think you're gonna see more and more of that coming from hip hop in a lot of those local language areas. All right. And the last question we have here is from Quai Bangs who asks, do I notice similarities in emerging artists that follow the start-up path to start-ups themselves? And I definitely do see a lot of those. And I like the question because I've been hearing so much from founders in the space and start-ups in other companies about two things. Truly identifying and seeing artists as founders, not just as the creative talent behind what they're doing, but they are the ones that are the founding person of this company that if successful as it can be, it'll be a company built around them to then help focus and really benefit and speak to their strengths and address their weaknesses as well. No different than a start-up would be who is that? Who are your co-founders that you're gonna find that may not be on the talent side, but can help with the business? Or if you wanna do it all yourself, who are the people that can be around you to at least help support in that way? And I think that you've seen some of those things happen, from time and time again. You look at the start of Dreamville, I very much do. Ibrahim Hamad and Jay Cole as two people that are in line with being able to do that and continuing to push forward, which I think has been pretty strong, seeing how they've been able to do that over the past decade. Plus, you look at any of these record labels and I think you're more likely than not going to see some type of tandem there. We talked about Quality Control. I think you see a lot of that too, and I think no different than a start-up may try to get equity for what they're doing. I think you're seeing certain artists start to explore this as well, whether they're trying to explore on chain, we're trying to sell tokens or they're trying to get a more formal structure in place. I recently had the investor, Cooper Turley, Cooper Tupa on the podcast, and he was talking about this as well, and how he's investing in companies that are looking at this investing artist specifically so that he can take an equity stake out of the artists themselves and be a bit, you know, less dilutive than a record label that may wanna take 80% of the cut moving forward in exchange for in advance. So there's plenty of trade-offs there. I think it's an interesting thing to continue to explore, but I think that it is a sign of what that path to the future looks like. Cuz I think that artists, our founders, at the end of the day, how they go about that, you know, is one thing or another. And who wears that CEO hat. Whether it's someone that artist proactively puts in place or it's someone. It ends up being at the record label that they signed to, or it's their manager. There's so many ways that these hats can be worn, so you'll be interested to see how it plays out. But wow, that was fun.

That was a quick bunch of rapid fire questions there, but this was really great. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you enjoyed the podcast this year as well. Definitely continue to share it with anyone that you think would be in. And let me know if you have any other questions. We can keep this in mind. I wanna do these more regularly in general. So, yeah, if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, send us a quick note, whether it's, you know, on social media or email. And then we'll keep them rolling so that the next time we do a mail bag podcast, we can keep it rolling.

This episode is a two-parter. At the top, I talk about the news at Motown Records with Ethiopia Habtemariam stepping down from her role as CEO and Chairwoman. After that, I talked to Zack O’Malley Greenburg about Hip-Hop’s wealthiest artists of 2022. 

After years of compiling the list for Forbes, Zack O’Malley Greenburg released the 2022 edition independently. This time around, he used insights from Columbia Business School to better grasp on the wealth of the industry’s biggest moguls.

Jay-Z tops the updated list with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion. In second is the newly-minted billionaire Sean “Diddy” Combs. The rankings are rounded out by Ye ($500 million), Berner ($410 million), and Dr. Dre ($400 million). 

Zack joined me on the episode to discuss the rankings, and two artists in particular — Diddy and Berner. Diddy has a portfolio of diversified assets that include media, music, spirits, and now cannabis. Berner is the biggest surprise of the top 5 but has quietly built a cannabis empire with a large runway for further growth. Here’s everything Zack and I covered on the show: 

[13:56] Zack’s process behind putting the list together  

[15:40] The newest billionaire on the list

[16:41] The growth of Diddy’s DeLeon tequila brand

[29:02] Sean John’s place in Diddy’s portfolio 

[30:28] Diddy’s latest moves in cannabis and possibly Twitter 

[32:45] The evolving business of REVOLT

[36:19] Berner’s “surprise” $410 million net worth

[31:50] High potential for Berner’s business

[34:52] Berner’s business success supersedes his music fame 

[39:50] Drake moving up the ranks 

[43:50] Girl Dad stories

Zack’s Hip-Hop’s Wealthiest Artists list for 2022: https://zogblog.substack.com/p/hip-hops-wealthiest-artists-2022

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level.

[00:00:23] Dan Runcie: Hey, today's episode is a two parter. The first part of the episode, we're gonna do a breakdown on one of the more recent news that happened in the music industry. Motown Records CEO and Chairwoman Ethiopia Habtemariam has stepped down and there is a lot to unpack there. So we're gonna talk about that. And in the second half of this episode, we're joined by my guy Zack O'Malley Greenburg, and we are gonna talk about the recent list that he put out, which is his hip hop's 2022 list for the wealthiest artist. He has some new announcements, some usual names, and we break it all down. But first, let's start with the news at Motown. So it was last week, shortly after Thanksgiving. Ethiopia and Universal, and Motown announced that she will be stepping down from her role. This is a role that she has officially had at this level for just over a year and a half. I think it was March, 2021 that the role was announced, but she's essentially been the face of Motown from a leadership perspective for over a decade now and when the move happened, I think that there were a fair amount of people I could understand that could have been caught off guard by it. But when I start asking around, asking a few people questions who I know understand the situation pretty well, it's quick to see that what's being pushed publicly isn't quite reflecting what's actually happening behind closed doors. But before we get to all that, let's talk about some of the wins that I think Motown and Ethiopia have accomplished over the past decade, because I think these stand out and they're really important. I look at the 2015 joint venture deal that she did with quality control music, as one of those deals that can ultimately help bring a record label from its days of resting on its laurels to being able to get a bit more current. We've seen this happen time and time again. You look at Interscope in the early nineties. Interscope was a legacy rock and roll label. Jimmy Iovine was trying to figure out the next thing and then boom. Here comes Suge Knight. Here comes Dr. Dre and Death Row records comes through. Not only does Death Row continue to rise up with the supportive Interscope, but you also see Interscope adopt a bit of that cool factor and really revive itself, and now Interscope is continuing to be one of the strongest record labels that we have. You also saw that a few years later happened with Republic records and with cash money signs. The deal that I've talked about plenty of times on this podcast, that 1998 distribution deal and that deal did a lot for Baby and Slim, but it arguably did even more for Republic Records, which now I believe it's in its fourth year in a row, the leading industry or the leading record label in the industry when it comes to overall market share. And I do think that what quality control and Motown were able to do, do deserve some similar praise. But the slight difference here is that Motown for a lot of its time and even more so as we continue to learn, was saddled under the Capitol Music Group umbrella and didn't really have the opportunity to standalone as a true record label that could run on its own and be a standalone entity. The same way that we see with Interscope, the same way that you see with Republic. And some of the other record labels that are under the Universal Music Group umbrella. When the news first announced though, there wasn't as much chatter about Ethiopia's departure. You think about the times that Def Jam has turned over CEOs. There are think pieces on think piece. You can't get people to stop talking and sharing their opinions, and some of them on base, but people sharing their opinions about what Def Jam did and didn't do wrong, but there wasn't as much here. You saw a little bit in piece that Gail Mitchell at Billboard had done where I think she did a good breakdown. You could definitely read between the lines a little bit of some of the things that necessarily weren't being said, but what I think we started to unpack and what we started to get a sense for was, even though Motown had increased its market share considerably under Ethiopia's tenure, I believe back in 2017, it was around 0.4%. And as of most recently from what Billboard reported in 2022, it's at 0.95%. And that's great, more than double. And you think about how much more recorded music has grown from 2017 to 2022 now as well, that's a pretty huge growth and that's nothing to shy away from. The thing is, record label executives and the music industry aren't just judged on market share. You're judged on how efficient you are with what you do to acquire that market share. You're also judged on your ability to score deals and your ability to do it in a way that's efficient. Everyone still has a PNL at the end of the day. But I think the slight difference for some of these companies is that because they sit under the Universal Music Group umbrella, you may not necessarily know what's really happening unless you have a really discerning eye and you can put two and two together. And if you look at some of the moves that Motown has made over the years, there have been a number of big signings. But have those big signings always necessarily led to the type of results? You know, someone like Universal CEO, Lucian Green wants to see from a record label that now would be standing alone and no longer under the Capitol Music Group umbrella. You look at an artist like Lil Baby, who you know, through quality control, is part of that Motown collective. But, you needed a few more artists at that level and you needed to get them at affordable rates. And I think the biggest win that we saw from Motown in recent years was they recently signed NBA Young Boy. This is about a year after he started working with his record label, but how much did it cost to get NBA Young Boy? He had just posted on Instagram, this is two months before this deal was made public. He had just posted on Instagram, this was in August, 2022, that he was a 60 million dollar dude. You're saying you're a 60 million dude. A lot of people thought that was a cash money deal. They thought that was probably what Baby and Slim offered, but you later find out that this is what was coming from Motown, and I don't know if that's the number or not, but you can just assume a few things. One, NBA Young Boy was someone that just got out of his deal at Atlantic Records and he's getting out of his deal. This is the second most streamed artist according to HITS Daily Double for year to date for 2022. But as we also know about streams, not all streams are necessarily weighted the same, and those YouTube streams may not necessarily lead to the same payouts that you may get from the digital streaming providers. Your Spotify, your Apple music, your titles, your Amazon, and so forth. So you have that. You also mix that in with NBA Young Boy's audience isn't necessarily the type to go buy up a bunch of vinyl. They're not the type to go buy up a bunch of digital copies or then necessarily sell out an arena. And it's great that he has those streams, but he has those streams because he is dropping an album every other month. It's not the same as Columbia having a big release from Harry Styles and then monetizing the shit out of that. Or Kendrick Lamar having a big release on Interscope, and then that continues to do numbers and numbers. It's not the same type of thing in that way. So I think, even if you were able to win a bidding war, which is great, obviously a number of labels would've wanted to get NBA Young Boy. There's a certain price to everything, and even though we may not know the specific details, we can put two and two together. There are also a few other recent signings that could be called a bit into question. There were signings of Diddy and Brandy, and these are names that I think a lot of people, especially millennials and Gen X folks grew up with, and they're gonna be people who have done quite a bit in the music industry, but they're at a different stage in their career. They're hot. Their years of earning meaningful revenue for a record label aren't necessarily where they are at this particular point in their careers. That's okay. But does the price that was paid to get them, justify that. And I think there's kind of an unsaid thing where if you're signing someone who is already well off, they are likely doing this for their own choice, then it may cost a little bit more than an equivalent artist who could produce just as much from a revenue side as what you may expect from Diddy or Brandy moving forward if they don't have that name and that cache. And to be frank, the stability to not do a deal unless it's gonna be lucrative enough for them. And then you also have artists like Smino and Vince Staples who are talented at rap, and they definitely had the moment where you thought things were rising up, but they don't move units like that. And then it brings you back to the broader piece of what's happening, specifically with the JV, with quality control music. And I think that you've seen a lot of success there. Little Baby is one of the most successful artists that we've seen, but I think you just needed a few more artists, even Migos. I think that Migos in some ways from a commercial standpoint, peaked with that first culture album that came out. Culture two wasn't able to hit the same heights and Culture three definitely wasn't either. None of the solo artists were necessarily able to do that, and unfortunately there was some, you know, conflict between the Migos themselves. Takeoff is no longer with us. There's just a lot that just didn't exactly line up. It's really tough, and it's even tough to share it this way because I think one of the reasons you didn't hear a lot of chatter and discussion about this is a lot of people really wanted to see Ethiopia succeed, myself included. We wanna be able to see these black executives continue to reach the highest ranks that they can because we also wanna be able to see the same, whether it's toon feat at Def Jam or other. But the way that things are presented externally and this effort to necessarily hide things may have you thinking that these executives have more control and influence than they actually do. And they weren't necessarily given the same level of influence or control that John Janick may get at Interscope or that the Lipmans may have at Republic. So we really have to be honest when we're reporting these things and what we're showing and what we're not, because it does a disservice not only to the industry about, you know, trying to hide these things because listen. This is a place where there's plenty of people that are talented. People learn from where they can come through and it doesn't, and it isn't gonna hurt people the way that you think that it is. And one of the reasons that these things often can be controlled this way, the music's industry's PR machine can be so strong and it can have you having this, you know, Misconceived perception, and while I think insiders do know, there's a lot of folks who are on the outside that will eventually rise to those ranks who just don't necessarily have a clear picture. And anytime that there's that big of a delta, that's how information just doesn't necessarily get itself to the right people at once. And we wanna make sure that we're doing everything we can to empower the folks in the next generation. And I know a lot of this is swimming uphill. This is an industry that is controlled by a lot of lawyers, and it's an industry that really thrives on the PR of how things spin, but been behind closed doors. It's a very different situation. In some ways it's almost a stark difference to something like tech where so much of the drama and decisions that happen within big tech are happening. You know, out in the open you could see things and while some of that, you know, can be to a fault, I do think it leads in some ways to some better discussions around what success can look like and what opportunities can look like. So I hope we can all use this as a reminder to make sure that we're being transparent as we can. When we call things out, it helps more. Think and be able to have the right discussions about what success looks like, and the more that we can report on what success benchmarks actually are, so that you're not just relying on an imperfect key performance indicator like market share, and you're actually reporting on. Efficiency. It's great that someone landed a deal, but how much should it cost to get that artist assigned? And will that payout turn out the way that you think that it is? And at the end of the day, this is about PNLs. Are you bringing in enough profit to offset any of the loss? And is there future belief and potential in your ability to get the buy in, do it in an efficient way, and keep driving the business? Quite the buzz after Thanksgiving. We'll see what the rest of the year brings. I think things will be pretty quiet until things head into January. But with that, let's turn things over to the next part of the episode. Here's my conversation with Zach O'Malley Greenberg about the wealthiest hip hop artists in 2022.

[00:13:06] Dan Runcie: All right. We have Zach O'Malley Greenberg back with us, who recently released Hip Hop's wealthiest List for 2020. Your second year doing this independently, by the way. So shout outs to you on that. And it was great to see the results. We had some expectations, Jay-Z, number one, but there's two people I really wanna dive into with this conversation. Let me just run through the list first. So you have Jay-Z, number one, one and a half billion. Diddy to newly minted billionaire, 1 billion. You have third, Yey at five hundred million dollars. 4th, Berner, 410 million. And then we have Dr. Dre at 400 million. So let's start at the top. What was it like for you, not just releasing this independently, but being able to put it out and as you were putting it together, what were some of the stuff that stuck out to you?

[00:13:56] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. You know, first of all, this list is probably the thing that I put the most effort into every year. At the end of the day, you see these numbers, you know, 1.5 billion, they get reported. And it was the same in my days at Forbes, as doing it independently. People take the number, everyone with it. And I think a lot of times people just assume it's like, ah, somebody's pulling them, out of wherever. But you know, I would say I put more time into those numbers, than I have put into some cover stories, you know, that are several pages long. So it's going through each of these, you know, these superstars and figuring out, you know, what's in their portfolio. What is each asset worth calling? People, you know, who have knowledge, whether it's, you know, within the camps of the stars themselves, or industry experts that are covering, you know, the booze business or the weed business or something like that. Finding ways of valuing these assets. And, you know, and I think the new thing for me, aside from doing it independently was, I've been taking courses at Columbia Business School this year. I'm part of a fellowship where I sort of do my first year of business, school light, and get to bounce around and learn some of these concepts that, you know, maybe, I didn't know before I got to sharpen them. And it's given me some new tools for looking at things like Diddy, Ciroc Partnership and, you know, ways to value things that are a little bit weird and not sort of like a run of the mill asset. So, yeah, you know, I mean I think the big takeaway, the big surprise is probably Berner being on the list, being ahead of Dr. Dre. Like you said, I think Diddy being a billionaire, finally, you know, Diddy would say that's not news. You know, you would say that he should be higher. I'm sure it's been really cool to take a look at it, you know, independently and with some of these new tools in my toolkit to come up with, I would say my most active list.

[00:15:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Well, that's good to hear. And I wanna talk about Diddy first because I feel like. That's the one. I'll be honest, the news there surprised me a bit, not because I didn't think that Diddy was a billionaire, but more so because of how his business is and how things are structured. And it made me wonder, okay, how much has changed? Because I knew that Ciroc was the main thing that he had, that was the one of the largest drivers of his net. But you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the sales had peaked around the mid 2010s and maybe there was a slight decline, but maybe, you might have more intel on that. And I know that revolt and I know that business there. And with Sean, Sean itself, I know he had sold it and bought it back. So I was a bit curious to see or maybe hear how much net worth changed as a result of something that had appreciated in value versus your calculations of how you'd be doing this now as opposed to maybe how you had done it years back?

[00:16:41] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I mean, so, you know, I think my methodology changed slightly. The breakdown isn't that much different. Ciroc is still the main component. You know, you could say safely, it's the slight majority of his 1 billion net worth. And it's a weird arrangement because he does not hold an equity stake. However, the deal is structured to emulate an equity stake because, you know, it wouldn't have worked as an equity stake cuz Ciroc is owned by Diageo, it's this giant public trade company. They couldn't really be like, Hey, here's, you know, a quarter of our company or something like that. There wasn't really anything to do with that. So it was more creating a framework around the Ciroc brand to function like an equity stake. So if Diageo were ever to sell Ciroc, Diddy would get, you know, let's say the proceeds after you back out the amount of money that Ciroc has put into the partnership. So, you know, it would be a lot. And there's no doubt that even if things have sort of flattened out a little, it's a multi-billion dollar brand. You know, I mean, if you look at something like Ketel One, you know, brands like that that have changed hands, you know, these are billion dollar brands and you know, Ciroc is I think number two behind Grey Goose. So it's up there. They're not gonna sell it, but if they did, you know, we're looking at a pretty big payday. So the question is how do you value something that isn't gonna get sold? And really, you know, you wanna really nerd out about it from sort of MBA type perspective. You know, thinking about valuing cash flow. That's, you know, one of the fundamentals of valuation in corporate finance and stuff like that. And, you know, there are formulas and without getting into like the, you know, sort of like more details of it where you can sort of enter assumptions into the formula and you can get a number. But basically what I did was I took the way I was doing it before I ran the numbers that way, and then I kind of did some pre cash analysis and kind of like average things out and any way you slice it, these Ciroc partnership is, you know, worth a little more than half of his, billion dollar valuation. The other things that, you know, I think perhaps I had been, you know, undercounted a little bit in the past or have appreciated. A lot since then, you know, revolt is still hanging around there. And that's another thing where the valuation could depend on you. Do you value it as, you know, sort of a, like a TV based entity, even though it's more digital? Do you value it as a news outlet? Do you value it as a tech startup? There are a bunch of different ways to look at it, but in any case, you know, he is the majority owner. Another thing that I think people sleep on is DeLeon tequila, that is really growing and he owns half of that. Actually. It's a 50-50 joint venture with the AIO and they're moving a hundred and something thousand cases a year now. Actually, you know, booze has done really well during the pandemic. You might imagine people, I don't know, I feel like we're back to, you know, some of our old ways of going out and doing things. People are drinking at home during the pandemic. So, you know, Ciroc and DeLeon didn't get hurt in the way that, let's say the live touring business did. So Diddy was pretty well slated there. And then you go through and he's got like a pretty immense art collection. He's got some real estate that's appreciated pretty rapidly over the past few years. You know, some of which he owns out, right? And, you know, you kind of add it all up. And, he's comfortably a billionaire. And yeah, I mean, if you notice like  you know, some folks when they hit that status or when they make the list or something, we'll kind of like to tweet about it. But, you know, I don't think I saw anything from Diddy because, you know, he's thought that he's a billionaire for, you know, years already. And, you know, maybe he was, but now I, I definitely think that he is and, I would expect, you know, to see other, let's say mainstream business outlets follow suit in, you know, kind of acknowledging what's definitely the attitude.

[00:20:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah, appreciate the breakdown there and thinking about just like different categories there. If thinking about Ciroc itself, as you mentioned, maybe the sales flattened out a bit, but looking at revolts specifically, and I know that business has, you know, gone through some evolutions as well over the past few years, would it be safe to assume that the biggest valuation change here for Diddy's assets that maybe brought him to a billion is daily owned and some of the artwork in terms of like what's appreciated? If we assume that whether it's Ciroc or Revolt have flattened out a bit. Like would those be the ones you say that had put him over 1 billion? 

[00:21:21] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, you know, he was pretty close before, last time I did it before was, I think it was three years ago. I think he was at 740. You know, personally, you know, without getting too deep into it, I would've put 'em a little higher. But, you know, you get your files. I did. And that spar deal and you know, you gotta create a consensus. And I think, you know, and Forbes always says it, it would rather be conservative about valuations that it would rather understand an overstate, but you know, so that's part of it too. Yeah, I think there's definitely been an appreciation in the value of DeLeon the real estate, you know, there's a lot of startup stakes, and he's not doing it as, let's say publicly as, Nas or Jay-Z, but, you know, he definitely hops in as an angel in a lot of, a lot of startups that, that have done well. So, but, you know, yeah, I think DeLeon doesn't get the glory of Ciroc, but you know, it's a younger company. There's more room to grow. And not to be a shit, but it actually tastes really good. I've tasted other, you know, celebrity tequilas and they're not good, but it is a tasty booze, if I may say so myself. And I think the way that he launched it was that he found this sort of, you know, like a boutique brand that had already won some awards and then he kind of got in with Diageo and, and they boosted. To where it is now. So I really think that's probably like where you could see a lot more growth, if he's gonna start to try to challenge Jay-Z for that.

[00:22:53] Dan Runcie: Why do you think that DLleon hasn't gotten that same amount of love that Ciroc has gotten, at least publicly?

[00:23:00] Zack Greenburg: I think a lot of attention was focused on, you know, like Casamigos or some of the other really big brands and it hadn't quite gotten to that level with the same, you know, distribution and mind share. And, you know, frankly, I mean, I think Diddy has been devoting more energy to Ciroc, but you know, you're starting to see it, you know, it's a little bit less in your base kind of vibe with the brand. it's like more of a sipping thing, less of the shots at the club kind of thing. Although I'm sure, you know, you could sit either or do shots at either at the club. But I think it's just not around as much. I mean, I think the case volume on Ciroc is still like 10 times more than 10 times as high as DeLeon. So, you're just not gonna see it around as much. And I think that's why.

[00:23:51] Dan Runcie: And the other thing too, that you mentioned is that DeLeon itself is actually a joint venture with Diageo, unlike Ciroc Partnership. So of course I know that the Ciroc partnership, now we're talking 15 plus years ago at this point when things kicked off and different positions, different leverage and relationships. So I wonder if the relationship is part of the reason why Diddy was able to have the type of ownership. Partnership with DeLeon that he may not have, at least in writing with Ciroc? 

[00:24:23] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I think so. And I think that was part of his motivation, for how he structured DeLeon. He wanted to have that. Actual equity stake, you know, like ironclad 50-50 joint venture type thing, rather than an agreement that mimics a joint venture. So, you know, I think that the success of Ciroc definitely convinced Diageo like, all right,, we can do this with another brand. He's the guy. And, for my book, 3 Kings, I talked to some books over there and you know, I think I talked to the CEO at the time, and they couldn't have been more abusive about him. And of course, you know, like whatever, he's part of their team. Of course they're gonna say good things about him, but they were saying just like the attention to detail. Like he would, he would go to clubs and, you know, go to the bartender and be like, why is the Ciroc not on the top shelf? And what are you going to do? You're gonna be like, oh, sorry Mr. Coles gonna leave Joe here. You know, and they'll put it up on the top. I mean, it's sort of like a retail politics level of stuff. And you know, I always say that, that Diddy, you know, in a way, like you could argue. Who has had the most scheduled career and you know, who's the goat of, you know, on the business side. And you know, I think a lot of people would say Jay-Z, and they wouldn't be wrong. But, you know, I think Diddy in a way has done more with less because he hasn't been musically relevant in, you know, a really long time in that way. Still puts stuff out in whatever, but it's not like the anticipation that exists when Jay drops an album or even a verse on, you know, on a DJ Khaled song or something. And, you know, I always like to say that Diddy is kinda more like Richard Branson if he happened to just have had, you know, like a moment as like a big time rapper And you know, certainly as a producer, he's had ahead a lot of things. And not to diminish that, but he acknowledges himself. He says, I don't write rhymes, I write checks. And I think that's a strong student. I think it's especially impressive to see that he's done it without being particularly talented. 

[00:26:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think that, His true line of being able to sell a lifestyle is what sets him apart in a lot of ways. He did it with his music. I think in a lot of ways. Bad Boys modeled after so much of what he learned at Uptown, and then you're able to transfer that lifestyle to, okay, this is the music that you listen to now. This is what you wear while you wear Sean John. This is what you drink while you're listening to this, right? Mm-hmm, you're gonna drink and this is the media that you're gonna watch. Now with the cannabis line that he just bought, this is what you're gonna smoke while you're enjoying this lifestyle too. Mm-hmm. And I think that a lot of those businesses have had varying success and we can go into that, but I do think that the ones that have been the most successful, Ciroc, Sean and the music, there's that tight connection and there's a key timing aspect that goes into all of it.

[00:27:35] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, and it doesn't even need to be his music. Right? That is popular in order for the Ciroc Formula to work, it's the Ciroc Boys, it's DJ Khaled, Summer Watermelon, or whatever it is. You know, I think his ability to make those partnerships, to find other people you know, who are kind of doing now what he was doing then musically are, you know, I think that that's part of the formula and that's why it works so well. And you know, I mean, it's funny, like DJ Khaled, you know, something like Wild Thoughts was doing exactly what Diddy was doing a couple decades ago, right? He was taking a song from a couple decades, you know, one or two decades ago and putting, you know, some new voices, the modern voices on it. And it was a song that was great before and now it's got, you know, like more kind of a vibe to it and you know, goes off the chart, so I think Diddy is just very savvy with that kind of stuff, even if it's stuff. 

[00:28:31] Dan Runcie: Let's talk about Sean John for a bit, cause I'm curious how that factored into your methodology with everything, because as many people know, he started the brand over 20 years ago and well, in 2016 he sold the brand, then the brand was up in auction, and then he bought it for public number I saw was 7.6 million. So now he has that back as an asset. How did that piece of it factor in for you and just the journey overall of Sean? 

[00:29:02] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, and not much now. You know, I mean, I think what factored in more was, sort of like his cash pile. Like he sold it for. Like, whatever it was five years ago, something like that. I think he got, he got 30 million out, 40 million, something like that, that he then put into other things. And uh, you know, obviously without him it doesn't do well. And so he went bankrupt and I think it's really smart for him to buy it back. You know, who knows what he might end up doing with this, but, I think there's just,  you know, like a tremendous market for sort of like nineties nostalgia right now. You know, I think Sean John, or even a Rocawear, if they could have, I dunno, that's a little more complicated, but I think that, you know, if he's at the helm and his part as a lifestyle, Would never count him out. So, but yeah, as far as what it's worth right now, it's sort of more of a rounding error and overall number. But, you know, be interesting to see what comes.

[00:30:04] Dan Runcie: And when you made your list around the same time, I believe that same week, there were two other announcements that came up. One was the cannabis company that he bought for, I believe it was 185 million. And the other one, I don't know if this one was a hundred percent confirmed, but did you see that thing floating around about him making an investment in Twitter along with Elon Musk's bid?

[00:30:28] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, no, you know that was all after the numbers got finalized, so, you know, those weren't really factored into it. But you know, I mean, yeah, it all makes sense. It's all part of the lifestyle thing. It's all part of the Diddy empire, the Diddy MO, and you know, he's look, I mean, on the cannabis side, right? Like he's puff daddy, you know, like what are, what are you puffing? It's exactly, it makes sense. It's like part of the brand. And, you know, if he could do the same thing with cannabis leaders with vodka, Which is to say like, I mean, I don't know. I think when he started vodka was not, you know, it was not really seen as a stylish thing. It was more like, you do a shot to get drunk. I mean, I don't know, maybe that's physics. I was in college when that happened, and that's when, that's sort of the vibe on vodka. But he made it like the champagne of vodkas. He associated his lifestyle with it and similarly, I think with weed, it's like, you know, we're in this very nascent part of the canvas economy, you know, becoming legal and, and sort of how do you start to differentiate brands, you know, and when you have legalization you can have, you know, like. The champagne of weed, right? You can start to differentiate, you know, like what type of buzz you're gonna get because it's regulated and you can actually say like, this is the thing that has this much THC and it's gonna give you this kind of high, versus like, this is just gonna knock you on your ass. I think it's a great place for him to get into, but you know, at the same time it's like, It is a really hard place to do business still. And you know, it is not without risk. It, you know, because it is not federally legal yet. You have to do, you have to do most of your business in cash. You can't get loans in the same way, especially if you have a plant touching enterprise. You have to do all these, handle all these different state regulations, which are constantly changing and are subject to the whims of, you know, clinical races and you know, potentially gerrymandering, all kinds of stuff that has nothing to do with Diddy. So, you know, I think that's the tricky part. And you know, also not being a first mover in the way that somebody like Berner is. But at the same time, it's like, you know, he fills a different niche in the mark potentially than Berner does. 

[00:32:45] Dan Runcie: And yeah, no, that'll be fascinating to watch. Yeah. I think the thing about Revolt is a great concept in the vision, of course. Makes sense. Seeing how influential Diddy was with MTV and whether it's the voter die shirts that he would wear or some of the other programming, he leveraged it so well as a hip hop artist. So if you know you have that impact, why wouldn't you wanna go start your own company and go do the same? Right. I think some of the timing just became a little tough in that he started the cable network in 2013. People are already starting to cut the cord at that point. And then I know the company's transitioned much more into digital media, but even that, given that so much of it is social media based, relying on other platforms and their algorithms, I think we saw so many of those companies in that same timeframe, even the ones that were perceived as being successful, whether it's your Buzzfeed or your Huffington Post or your Complex, like all of those valuations came back down to earth. And you look at a company like Revolt, which I think was largely playing the same game, although I think they still make tons of great content and there are tons of great, brilliant people working there. I think that the digital media itself and where things transformed was a bit tough. Like let's say that Diddy had started let's say 2007 as opposed to 2013, I think we'd be having a very different conversation, 

[00:34:03] Zack Greenburg: You know, or 1997 , you know, I mean, yeah. I think it could be a whole different conversation and, you know, yeah. That's one of the smaller pieces of the empire, and I think, like you would say, he would make a certain argument about it and, you know, valuing it more like on the line of being a tech company. But it's hard to escape the fact that it, you know, it still. I would say yeah, like primarily a media outlet point and whether it's, you know, via cable or the internet or whatever, it's like these are not, like, these are kind of tricky places to be, but you know, it does make sense. There is a demand for that kind of stuff and it's a crowded marketplace, but, you know, he does have something different to offer and, you know, I think that there's a reason why it's still around and, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it goes, how it proceeds as we enter like the next phase of this sort of media shake up in a amount of time.

[00:35:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And I think the other thing too, that I should have mentioned earlier is that given that this is a black owned media company, I know he's been vocal and Byron Allen and others have been vocal about advertisers not contributing the same level of money into black owned media companies that they would to, let's say, some of the Revolts competitors in the space that maybe started and run by white founders, white executives, but they're commanding more money from that perspective. So I think that's another tough thing there. But overall, like we said, this is a small piece of the overall pie. And yeah, it'd be interesting too. Especially the newer businesses, how many of them can continue that Ciroc magic, the bad boy flavor? And see? See where that lifestyle keeps going? Yeah. All right. Now let's talk about the other big one on the list, Berner. And based on the response that I saw from people sharing the list of people talking about it, this is the one that surprised a lot of people. But I know it didn't surprise you because you've been following this for a while. You've been talking to Berner, getting a better understanding of his business. So it'd be great to hear the breakdown because I think a lot of people out there may know Berner now more so for this product than they may actually know his music or anything else that he's done in hip hop up to now.

[00:36:19] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think Berner is one of the most fascinating names on the list. Definitely the most surprising. But, you know, I've been following his work for a while and, you know, he is a master marketer and his whole journey about how he turned cookies, cannabis, You know, it is a billion dollar company and it's just a little tricky to value, but, it is a billion dollar company and the way he did it, you know, I would say it's a case study, but it's actually pretty hard to emulate. It is sort of like a singular way of doing things. So, you know, for the people who don't know the background, Bernard born in California and San Francisco grew up there, moved to Arizona as a teenager and, and would bring back good weed from California when, whenever, you know, would make trips back to his old stomping grounds. And that's how he kind of got his start. He moved back to San Francisco, during the early, you know, weed legalization gold. Worked at a dispensary and, you know, kind of popularized this Girl Scout cookie, strain of weed. And so his thing would, at the dispensary, he would, you know, they used to sell things. It was sort of like an index car with the name of the strain. It was very clinical. But he would sort of like do these doodles and cookies and, you know, these like bright colors and stuff. And, and it started to get some tension. He became, you know, Wiz Khalifa's weed man when he was in San Francisco. And on one occasion brought this fully butted six foot tall weed plant onto the stage at Khalifa's show. And, you know, I think it was sort of instrumental in that Khalifa had created the Khalifa kush and all this. And so Bernard ultimately parlayed this sort of underground, you know, weed connoisseur image that he had as both on the legal and illegal markets into this brand. Cookies started opening stores, created a clothing line that, you know, kind of goes along with it. But the thing that he did with the way he set up this company is pretty, pretty unusual and very hard to value, but I think is quite brilliant. He started striking these partnerships with dispensaries and, you know, essentially it was a licensing deal where he would get a cut of revenue. And then the other part of the deal is that he could also buy out any of these partners. At market rate, at a time in the future, you know, in the future to be determined. And you know, like some of these numbers are out there, but you know, I think the system-wide sales are close to half a billion dollars now. And he gets a cut of that. But you know, at any time he could decide to roll all you could raise money, roll all these partnerships up into one giant weed company that's, you know, making. You know that, that kind of revenue and, and suddenly, you know, all you need to do is you put a multiple on that and, and that'll tell you what the company would be. If he rolled it all up and bought everybody out. And I talked to Wall Street analysts about this and covered the space and they said, you know, yeah, you could put like a five x multiple on this, so that would mean it's you know, yeah, like about a $2 billion company. Then you have to factor in the cost of buying out all those partnerships. You know, long story short would probably be about half billion dollars because it is a very tricky business. In fact, you have to be very liquid when doing everything in cash. It's kind of complicated. People I talked to, you know, bankers and stuff, said, yeah, you would apply a private company discount due to the uncertainty of the market, things like that, that's operating in it, you know, you would knock 20, 30% off of that and you know, so that it brings it down to around a billion dollars and then Berner still owns about a third of it. And so there's the bulk of his fortune right there, you know, so his stake is probably worth around $300 million. This point, I figure. And I think that's pretty conservative. You know, you add in some other thing invested in the clothing line, which he owns, you know, a huge part of still, you know, some homes, cash stuff like. And you get to that 400, 2 million number.

[00:40:27] Dan Runcie: Nice. Yeah, I've been seeing people wearing the cookies hoodies, walking around San Francisco, walking around other places. But definitely seeing the apparel thing push and I feel like he has one of those brands there are probably seeing even more of that stuff. I think it was a couple weeks ago I was driving by and I saw the store in Hate Ashbury neighborhood here at San Francisco. So yeah, no, definitely making moves. A few things there that stuck out. So he of course has his own standalone stores. As you mentioned, there's 55 of them across the country right now. And he also was selling them to other dispensaries. And I'm sure if and when weed does become legalized across the country, that will then just make things even easier from a distribution perspective from other places that he may be able to sell any otherwise. So in some ways the investment isn't just based on what's currently there or there's also a speculative nature. As this underlying product becomes more and more legal, there will be more opportunity to further sell this and further have its reach to different places. 

[00: 41:36] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And the clothing line also builds the value of the cannabis brand. And you know, if and when it is federally legalized, you gotta think. I mean, you know, this is one of the top brands in the business. And in fact, you know, there aren't really brands in this way in the cannabis space. There's strains, it's almost saying like in beer, you know, like, yeah, people like IPAs or people like those or whatever, but there isn't really like a Budweiser yet or a dogfish head, you know, or something like that. And, you know, to go back to Diddy, there's not really a champagne of weed. So, you know, I think that Berner has built up all this credibility in this space and, you know, if, when it goes legal, it's like to be one of the top weed brands in this space that is going to, you know, potentially rival or, you know, at least kind of start to eat into alcohol business. I mean, you know, 2 billion is not a large number for a company. There's a lot of potential for it to get a lot bigger and, you know, we can get into the whole. There's definitely a lot of arguments, pros and cons, about the benefits of THC and Cannabis General. And, you know, we will be here all day on that. But just from a business perspective, you know, it seems like we're headed toward legalization. Berner actually thinks that republicans are more likely to make federal legalization happen. He said, cause they're all about their paper. So I'm not saying who he's voting for anything. I don't. You know. it was an interesting perspective and, you know, like I think that he's really got kind of the key to where…..

[00:43:15] Dan Runcie: One of the other things that sticks out to me about him is that he's someone who is much more known, at least on a general awareness perspective, for the business that he's built as opposed to the music. I feel like his music was a bit more of a regional thing and he puts out a ton of music, but it never hit the same levels as some of the other artists who are having nine figure net worths as well. And I feel like there's often this thought, and which I do believe generally is true, that the artists who tend to be the most successful with product sales and investing and some of the more lucrative business opportunities that artists have done, they're more likely to be the household names who have been releasing music and touring for decades than a lot of times it's because they're releasing products that are lending their names, so they're leveraging their influence to now sell things that have a larger stake in and can be bought time and time again. He's a little different though because he doesn't necessarily have that. I'm curious what you think about that piece of it, because I think so many of the hip hop cash lists over the years do have at least somewhat of a correlation as to who are the more well known artists or who are the more popular artists at the time, and not necessarily who is building the strongest business, you know, that is being worth the most, and that is not correlated with how much mainstream popularity that artists may have.

[00:44:44] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. I mean the funny thing is when you look at it, he is the most prolific artist on the list. But, you know, he has the least name recognition as well, right? I mean, Jay-Z, Diddy, Kanye, Dr. Dre, none of them are putting out music at the pace with which Berner is putting out music. But everybody knows who they are and not everybody knows Berner. You know, I think you could almost argue like, well, are you really gonna put him, you know, on the list with these guys who have that much more name recognition? But you could also argue, should we really be treating, you know, Diddy as a rapper anymore than we should be? You know, treating Richard Branson, as I know Richard Branson didn't actually rap ever, but, you know, effectively Diddy is just focused on business at this point and you know, he puts out songs here and there. Music is an ancillary Berner also used. You know, the Music Chief boosts the weed business, but he's in the studio like all the time, more than any of these guys. Yeah, it's just kinda fun.

[00:45:48] Dan Runcie: I think another person that maybe thought of a similar way, someone like Chamillionaire who had one really large hit, mm-hmm. But wasn't necessarily known for having classic after classic after classic album or touring the world in the same large ways as some of the other big names we did, but his investing journey is something that has been pretty well documented and I think as a result, he's definitely further than a lot of the other artists that came around the same time as him that may have had even more commercial success. So I feel like even though there is a lot of a correlation between who are the most well known artists and who are the wealthiest artists, he is someone else who is a bit similar in that Berner way of, hey, yeah, there may have a smaller overall impact from the music itself, but was able to wisely use that and then now leverage that into something where, you know, the artist is making more money from the business moves and more known for that now. 

[00:46:49] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. I mean a great example of Chamillionaire and, you know, the work that he's been doing in the startup world. So at the same time, it's like if he hadn't had that one day hit, you know, would he have been able to get into, you know, the Silicon Valley kind of fear in the same way, you know, I don't know, but I think all it takes is one hit to be in the mix. And certainly like Burner never had that one hit, right? He just had a lot of, you know, really solid albums and stuff, but he was doing it in San Francisco. And I think, you know, in that way that you see somebody like Jamon Green getting really involved in the startup world, would he have been that guy if he were in, you know, like Cleveland or something? You know, I don't think so, but if you're in the mix, in the Bay Area, you're just gonna have access to a lot more opportunities, you know, in the startup world. And I think the startup world, cannabis world, you know, it. Kinda the epicenter. So in a funny way that the two have a lot of commonalities I think are familiar.

[00:47:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. This is good. I'm excited to see what next year's list looks like as well. And I know you may not be able to share publicly, but in order to get the five, you probably evaluated a few others. Are there any names creeping up, arising up that you think may make a  2023 appearance?

[00:48:08] Zack Greenburg: I think, you know, Drake is creep enough, big new deal. You know, he doesn't have quite the same level of, you know, sort of like outside assets. Like he doesn't have, like a Ciroc or a cookie or what have you. And, you know, I think he does have this whiskey, Virginia Black, but it's like, never like still around, but it never really took off and it only tastes okay. It's okay. I don't think taste ultimately matters a lot of times with this stuff, but I'm kind of surprised that he wasn't able to like boost a little bit more. But I don't know. When I think Drake, I don't really think whiskey. Maybe that's just part of it. I mean, I could see him with more champagne maybe. 

[00:48:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I'm interested to see for him how this new deal he has and the music that he makes as a result ends up factoring in, because of course we know that music itself may not be the largest revenue stream for a lot of these artists. Drake has this huge deal with Universal and Republic now, and he's releasing music more frequently than ever, and we can assume that it's likely because he's getting better upside and margins for the music he's releasing. So if he keeps up at this, like two, three albums a year clip. I mean, the numbers are gonna speak for themselves. Last year he streamed more than all pre 1980 artists. Like it's gonna catch up. 

[00:49:29] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing with net worth less as opposed to. Is that, you know, it's just harder to get on these lists if you are a big cash earner. Like if you are earning a lot on an annual basis, you know, things get factored into that, like taxes and cost of living and all that. And so, you know, you're getting these huge outlays, but you know, it's not in the same way that it was like going into this, this growing asset that can be valued. And in a way that's kind of like a quirk of the system because, you know, I'm valuing Berner’s stake in cookies, you know, like it's not tax, right? Like  if he were to sell it and he were to get $300 million, you know, whatever, a third half of that would be gone to the government. But that's not baked into the formula until he sells it. So you know, this is how Bloomberg and Forbes do it. It's just kinda what it is. But, it means that if you are holding assets, you know, the taxes aren't taken out. Whereas if you're a cash earner, that gets deducted before it gets added to your cash pile. So, it just means Drake is more likely to be at the top of, you know, let's say top earning artist. And you know, it's a little harder for him to get to the top…

[00:50:59] Dan Runcie: That's a great distinction. No, we'll definitely keep that in mind for next year. Do you think you'll do another top earners of the year list as well?

[00:51:05] Zack Greenburg: I don't know. Maybe, we'll see how it goes. Being a new dad, and doing this full time program, you know, this fellowship at Columbia that I mention. It takes a lot of time. And you know, I don't wanna put out a list unless I have the time to really dig in and get the numbers right. But yeah, you never know. I got this one out. So, there could be more. More to come.

[00:51:28] Dan Runcie: And I think on that note, just talking about dad life in general. Let's close things out there. So by the time this comes out, your daughter will be six months old and we can both share one funny thing that our kids did this past couple weeks. So I'll let you start.

[00:51:44 ] Zack Greenburg: Oh, man. Well, I think the thing that's really most exciting is that she's laughing now and the thing that she mainly thinks is funny is when I'm laughing. So like, we'll get into this thing, I will make myself start laughing and then she'll go, ha ha. I go, ha. And, and it’s very dorky, dad life. But, that is like one of my favorite things to do is have like, sort of a laugh off with Riley. So, yeah, I don't know, man. I pick her up from daycare every day and she just gives me this huge smile and I know that she’s still really young, but I can tell that she's specifically recognizing me, you know, and that we have this bond already. That there's like a specific connection. I just had no idea that babies could sort of, like, differentiate people and start to have unique relationships in that way. And that, it's like the best part of my day every day. So… 

[00:52:41] Dan Runcie: That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. How about you? 

[00:52:42] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. How about you? 

[00:52:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like there's something about that. Like yeah, the first couple of months I remember I would like, ask my wife, I'd be like, you think she recognizes us? Like, because she understands who we are. And I think over time there was like, yeah, no, we can get that in. Even things like now, The mirror is something that she is obsessed with. I'm sure you probably feel the same with Riley too. But yeah, the mirror. At first it was kind of looking at the mirror where there's like, okay, what is this screen? Who is that person that I'm seeing? But I think now it's like looking at us through the mirror and like seeing that it's us. And maybe she's starting to be like, oh well, I see them through this. Like she probably still isn't at the point where it's like, oh, I can see that's looking at me. But she'll look at that other person staring at her in the mirror and start smiling and stuff too. So I'm like, oh, that's cute. So yeah, man. Wild time's flying by. She'll be five months by the time this comes out. Wild man. 

[00:52:35] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. . Yeah. Yeah. We do a lot of like….

[00:53:38] Dan Runcie: oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's that? Little, little peek-a-boo style games. 

[00:53:42] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. In the mirror. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We'll have to have our kids together sometime soon. I guess, you know, but of course babies, not so interactive with each other yet.

[00:53:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. No. We'll get there. That'll be fun. Zack. This is great, man. Good work as always. It was great to see the list and again. The fact that I think you got just as much coverage and buzz and recognition for this, doing it independently is a great sign. Not just for you, but I think in general for people that are always questioning, okay, you know, what's the power of what I do elsewhere versus individually. So great job on that and we'll definitely keep tabs on this coming years. But great work, man, as always. Appreciate that.

[00:54:25] Zack Greenburg: Thanks man. Same to you.

Rich Homie Quan was one of the defining rappers of the music era that preceded the industry’s shift to streaming. He — along with the likes of Future and Young Thug — made “mumble rap” a hot commodity in the mid-2010s. But while Future and Thugger continued their careers, Quan took a hiatus from the game, until now.

Quan dropped his first project, “Family & Mula”, in almost three years back in October. During the long layoff, Quan admits he lost both his confidence and heart for rapping. He refused to quit on himself during the down period, which only spurred him artistically and business-wise. 

That’s because the eight-track EP is also the first under his independently-owned Rich Homie Entertainment label. Now ten years into his career — most of which spent under a label — Quan felt now was the time to go independent. Not only for the creative freedom, but also for the CEO role that comes with it. 

I caught up with Quan to reflect on his 10-year music career up to this point and how he envisions the next ten playing out as an independent artist and a CEO. Here’s everything we covered:

[2:41] Reflecting on the loss of Takeoff

[4:07] What Quan misses about his “come up” years

[5:16] Why Quan went independent at this stage of his career 

[5:40] Taking on a CEO role

[7:57] Why Quan doesn’t like his hit record “Flex”

[10:33] New partnership with Troy Carter and Suzy Ryoo's Venice 

[14:44] Differences between Quan the CEO and Quan the artist 

[15:54] Rising as an artist before the streaming era took off

[17:25] Distinctions between album, EP, and mixtape 

[20:16] Quan’s non-music business pursuits 

[21:56] How pandemic re-motivated Quan to do music

[24:00] Quan wants more credit for influencing Atlanta sound

[31:14] Quan’s 10-year vision for himself 

[35:54] Did Quan start “deluxe” project drops?

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Rich Homie Quan, @RichHomieQuan

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Rich Homie Quan: I was kind of afraid of my creativity on that song. You know what I'm saying? If that makes any sense. Like, I don't know. Cause I make a lot of music, man, and it's a lot of songs that's probably similar. That's like that. That will never come out only because of my mind. But that's why lately I've been letting the team I create, decide, you know? Pick which ones they feel like that needs to be heard. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I've grown as an artist slash CEO.

[00:00:31] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Ruey. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:51] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is the one, the only Rich Homie Quan. R.H.Q came through to talk about his partnership with Venice and how this is a new start for him as an artist. He's independent now. He's seen what it's like on the label side. He's seen what works, and what doesn't work. But this is his opportunity to have more creative control. To see more of the money that comes in and out, and ultimately have more of a say on what makes the most sense for building his career and moving. So he talks about the benefits of the Venice partnership. He also talks about some of the other things that he's working on as well. We talked about his real estate game and how he made over a million dollars this past year from his real estate business. We also talked about where he sees himself in Atlanta's influence. He says he's top three and not three from the city. So you have to listen to hear the name chops that he has in here. Some of the other multimedia projects and a whole lot. Quan also recorded this one while he was getting his hair braided, so I gotta give him credit for multitasking. Shout out to Quan. Hope you enjoy this episode. All right. Today we got the one and only Rich Homie Quan with us. Man, before we get started with any of this stuff, let's just do a quick check, man. How are you? How are you living? How are things right now?

[00:02:03] Rich Homie Quan: Oh man, I'm good man. Mentally, better than ever. I'm just in a good space right now, man. I love the space I'm in, probably better than ever, man. I'm good, man. Yeah. How about you, man? How are you, you know what I'm saying? Mentally, you know what I'm saying? You know, spiritually how you feeling? 

[00:02:021] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I mean, I'm good. I mean, things have been good getting ready for the holidays and everything right now, but, I feel like it's kind of been a tough week, I'm not gonna lie. Thinking about take off and just thinking about artists passing so young. I mean, I mean, I know that this isn't anything new necessarily, but it just feels like it's been so much recently, so I've been thinking a lot about that.

[00:02:41] Rich Homie Quan: That part, you know, like I've been trying to get it out my mind, man. Cause like me and Takeoff wasn't close, but I have worked with him, you know what I'm saying? On numerous occasions, on numerous occasions. And with him being from Atlanta, man, it just hit, that one hit a whole lot different, man. That one touched me, man. That one hurt me, man. That hurt a lot of us, man. You know what I'm saying? Like I think I was walking say the best man, like hip hop took big ill man that that was a humongous ill man.

Humongous.

[00:03:10] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And there were so many of you that came up right around the same time. I feel like you came out and then they had the moment, like there were so many of y'all from Atlanta that rose up.

[00:03:22] Rich Homie Quan: Yes. Yeah. So that's why it's like, I, I kind of felt a different, like I saw, I saw before, um, they were with QC all us sitting on Gucci couch before we, before we got our first million, when we still were grinding and grind mode. So like, just to see that and know like, man, that could have been me, that could have been any of us. You know what I'm saying? Like, so that, that one definitely like hit me. Alright man, real hard.

[00:03:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, you were just talking about it, you going back to being I QCs couch. I was just looking back at the double like cell cover, the freshman class for you on the cover. And man, it was such a moment. I mean, when you think back to that moment when everything was rising up, like what do you think on the most, what memories stick out to you the most about that time?

[00:04:07] Rich Homie Quan:  Uh, what memories stick out about the most? I would just say more so recording in the music, being so. Because at that time we didn't have all those eyes on us. So then, you know, like we could say whatever and when, and no one, you know, we can say how we really felt. You know what I'm saying? Because you was in that grind and it just, you know, once you get to a certain level and certain things, you can't say no. Cause you know what I'm saying? You got certain people looking at you and that dissecting your words every, every type of way. So I would just say, man, just a recording process, man. Then man, the way we record the way, it'll be all five of us in the booth at one. Or maybe you should say it this way or this way. And it was just a know, just a vibe man. And the learning experience, man. Cause we were so young at that time, like we didn't know we'll be here 10 years later, you feel me? So yeah, that's the beauty of it all. 

[00:04:56] Dan Runcie: And I mean, for you 10 years later, you've done a few interview recently. You talked about why you wanna be independent and what this next chapter looks like for you? What has been the big thing that's made you wanna have this next chapter? Be independent, be on your own terms as opposed to how the last decade was up to this point?

[00:05:16] Rich Homie Quan: Would say the most important part about being independent and what I wanted about it, what I wanted, uh, from it more so, it was just the fact that I had tried everything else. I had tried being with the other independent labels and I just thought it was my turn. I had saw every side of the sword, but just this side of the sword and it's just been so much more fun.Just when I say fun, it's more so from a business side. And I say that because at first I was such an artist mode. It was hard for me to be a CEO, but to continue to say I'm a CEO when I'm not doing none of the CEO shit. And I say that to say like, I'm not in tune with the conversations, or I'm not on every phone call. I'm not CC'd in those emails and those important emails. So now man, with me being a ceo, I'm more in tune. You know what I'm saying? I'm knowing, I'm knowing what the budget is for this. Uh, just understanding the budget, know what I mean? Understanding, so, you know, just taking this a whole lot more serious, being independent, knowing now, like it's really the, that's why I'm probably in this such great space because I know the opportunity I have, I know what I've done.

[00:06:27] Dan Runcie:  You talked about seeing the money and just being able to see what the costs are looking like, what the money's coming in. What was the biggest surprise there? Cause I know you didn't see a lot of that as the artist, but now that you're being CC'd on those emails, now that you're seeing those things, did anything stick out to you?

[00:06:40] Rich Homie Quan: The most? To me, uh, it was just more so of money I would see go without videos and stuff like that, and I would have no knowledge on my input when it's my money that's paying for these. That made me just put my, you know, like, damn, I would've rather shot the video with so and so and so, and maybe, you know, it could have been better for a cheaper number than a number of, uh, someone who's big, big, like, you know what I'm saying? So it just started making me like, way more in tune man, just way more in tune and like, how can I call my c myself a CEO if I'm, if I don't have those last say sos on, you know what I'm saying? Who, who, who I think should shoot the video. So it's like, yeah, I just want to stay in tune, man. And stay at it. Stay at it. Yeah. All the way around the boy, man. Like I'm getting older now and I still got people I look up to and I'm looking at some of the transitions they had to make. You know, sometimes you gotta realize everybody can't go with you. Right. And that's part of better. 

[00:07:40] Dan Runcie: And I feel like you're talking a lot about something I've heard you talk about at other interviews too. Creative control, being able to have more say so over the process. And I was surprised it stuck out like a song like Flex, which was a hit that people liked. Like you really weren't feeling that song as much. 

[00:07:57] Rich Homie Quan: Oh, oh. Like one of mine like, because I felt like at the time Flitch came out, I was such, I was more so of, I don't wanna just say a street rapper, but those were my fans. My fans were like the people who came up from similar situations to me. And I just didn't want my fans to ever think like I was crossing over or making crossover music. And, cause that was one of them songs. Like it wasn't a, I was known for making pain music, you know what I'm saying? So to say. And uh, that was one of, one of those still good different records, but it made, it was, it was a gift and a curse to me cause it made me realize. It's not what I like, it's what people want, and it's all about the fans. And that was my biggest song, like solo to this day. So it's just, it, it just made me realize like co you just, just focus on making the music and let the people decide for you, which is which man, you know what I'm saying? But it turned into a good situation, man. To this day, I still patrol. I still perform Flex Man, you know, so still getting paid off. So, you know, that's. That's one of the perks, man. You know what I'm saying? Trust your team. Definitely trust. Trust your team. The ones that love you, who love you, that you keep around.

[00:09:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I feel like that's a balance I hear from even the folks that have been doing this in entertainment for years. I feel like Denzel was someone who had said, he's making all these equalizer movies, right? But he's like, those movies pay the bills so that I can do these August Wilson plays and all of these things that really mean something to him. So I feel like Flex might be that for you, that gives you the ability to do the stuff you really wanna put out so….

 [00:09:38] Rich Homie Quan: And that's what it was like. I was kind of afraid of my creativity on that song. You know what I'm saying? If that make any sense. Like, I don't know. Cause I make a lot of music, man, and it's a lot of songs that's probably similar. That's like that, that will never come out only because of my mind. But that's why lately I've been letting the team, I create, let the team decide, you know? Pick which ones they feel like that needs to be heard. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I've grown that as, as an artist slash ceo, know what I'm saying, getting outta the artist mode and going step back. I trust these guys enough. You know what I'm saying? Not, they're not gonna make me look bad, let alone make themselves look bad cause they're part of this. This represents them as well. 

[00:10:15] Dan Runcie: Definitely, definitely. And if we fast forward a few years, here you are now you have R.H.Q Entertainment, you recently have the joint venture launch with Venice. Shout out, uh, Troy and Susie, the folks over there. Talk to me about this. What's the vision for that joint venture? Where are things going? 

[00:10:33] Rich Homie Quan: Oh man, where are things going? I think, uh, the world is starting to see, and we haven't even got started yet. That's the crazy part. Like we haven't even got started yet, but like, you know, it was one of those situations. The distribution was nothing I hadn't had. You know what I'm saying? So like I said, it's all about me, like always throwing new things and never want, try nothing twice. You know what I'm saying? Like I still don't know like what my future holds, but I just know like, man, Venice has just been such a tremendous help to the RQ brand and for what I got going on, it just fit perfectly. And it wasn't one of those, or we just jumped straight into it. I think like a big shout outta Red man. Cause red, like he did not give up man. And it might have took us six months to get everything just done the right way where everybody's comfortable. And most importantly, everybody wins, man. You know what I'm saying? Big shout out Detroit. I was just with him last night. He flew down here, man. It was tremendous. Every time I'm, I'm big on energy and energy last night. Created a crazy vibe, man. You know what I'm saying? At the vintage man, Susie, everybody, the whole team Alyssa. I don't wanna eat nobody out, but man, uh, I love it, bro. I love it man. And it was the best situation for me. And like I always like to say, I don't wanna encourage no younger artists or anybody upcoming who wants to do music. I'm not saying independence may not be for you because at the same time, music takes money and sometimes a label situation may be the best for you. It just wasn't the best for me anymore. Cause it's something I. You know what I'm saying? And with me being in the game 10 years, like kind of saw it all. And now I know what's best for me, man. The creative control, you know what I'm saying? And like, and I still have a partner, you know, I still have a partner, man, but now man, I'm, I'm really boss ceo and I'm, I'm loving it.

[00:12:24] Dan Runcie: So now that you do have a partner, but like you said, they're not a record label, it's more on the distribution side. What are the things that they are gonna be doing for you and like what does that partnership look like in terms of your role, in terms of Venice's role? 

[00:12:37] Rich Homie Quan:  Okay. You got a partnership, man. It's more so of a, uh, like a lot of things I didn't know, like on the technology side of things and stuff that's showing me, man, you know what I'm saying? Even with more opportunities outside of. You know, I'm, I think that's the biggest thing now, man. You know, opportunities outside of meals, you know what I'm saying? Movie ventures and stuff like that that I had no idea that I thought I could tap into, but you know what I'm saying? It's showing me, man, it's beautiful man. It's beautiful man. Feel top priority. It feels better. You know what I'm saying? Like I've been in label situations. The team we got over there, they're working hard on 80% of these labels I saw, and I.So that, that's what I love and that's what it's been, that being able to show me, man, that like they ain't playing, they ain't, they ain't playing. You know what I'm saying?

[00:13:26] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah. Cause, cause I mean, Troy gets it and I know just seeing the way that they've structured things, a lot of it is thinking about how to think beyond streaming too.Right? Like what does web three look like? What do NFTs look like? 

[00:13:39] Rich Homie Quan: Exactly. So that's what I'm saying. It's stuff that I had no knowledge of. Of course I hear it, but now I. A person who can show it. And that's what I told him last night. Like, man, it's different when you, everybody that's talking, but you, you've shown and prove everything you said, man. So, and that's a big, and with me being able to have a direct line to him to be able to talk to him, you know, like, and no showing on the labs.

[00:14:29] Dan Runcie: No dope. No, that's for sure, man. So yeah, it's been good to hear you just talk about the ownership and just what it means to be a ceo. And I know it's two different hats you gotta wear. Do you feel like Quan the CEO is any different from Quan the artist? 

[00:14:44] Rich Homie Quan: I would definitely say according to CEO is a whole lot different from the, uh, from the artist. And that's only because as an artist, I be in my mind a lot. You know what I'm saying? I be in my mind a whole lot. But as a CEO, I get it. Where you gotta get out your mind. It, it ain't about your mind or your feelings, man. It's business. You know what I'm saying? It's, it's business and, and that's why I have to separate. It's what they're totally. And is only corn as an artist with the microphone, whatever. When I'm not the microphone, it's about the family and it's about the beast. You know what I'm saying? In that order. In that order, and God, of course, first with him being first, you know what I'm saying? I'm backing up. You know the son. 

[00:15:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. And thinking back just about your career, I feel like we're just talking at the beginning of the conversation, right? Whether it's you, Migos, Rockos, a few of you that came up in this same timeframe, but I feel like y'all were a little bit early then when streaming really took off. And I often wonder like, man, like they obviously all had successful careers, but would things look any different, and maybe it was like two or three years later when you saw how streaming was streaming really copied what y'all were doing.

[00:15:54] Rich Homie Quan: I remember, yes. I remember that. Like when the first, like my biggest records, like those were so hard copies, you know what I'm saying? It's been like, it wasn't no streaming, it was just like, but a lot of my packs packs. You know what I'm saying? Me and record sold like no, like, you know, physically. So it is different. Like there was still city players then and stuff, you know what I'm saying? So it was, when they first started talking streaming, I was like, I can get paid out that, nah man put, I wanna sell money just now. Like you said. I really feel like they got something from the numbers we were doing and, and turned it. All the way. So I love it, man. And that's why this run here is more important. Cause I'm gonna get me some of that. No money, I promise you that.

[00:16:37] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah. A whole lot. Yeah. The thing. Yeah, the thing. I feel like that you all. A lot was just dropping in the frequency of when the mix tapes came out. Right. It was like you didn't let up.

[00:16:49] Rich Homie Quan: Like all Now and now Mix Tapes are album, they're no more mix tapes, you know what I'm saying? Like I think I saw something from He is gonna bring mix tapes back and it's like even now Mix tapes are album, then there was still mix tapes. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like come on. But yeah, it's ok. I got something.

 [00:17:07] Dan Runcie: I know, man. I know. So, yeah. So you had the recent release that came out. It was an EP For you though, how do you distinguish or make a distinction between EP versus albums versus Mix tapes now? Just given that everyone is putting out music and however they wanna label it, maybe. 

[00:17:25] Rich Homie Quan: Yeah. Yeah. To me, I differentiate 'em only because man, like, so what? I just put out the little EP man or mix tape. I feel like EP mixtape, same. Mix tape. I'm doing, I'm, uh, I would say I'm rushing the music, uh, album. I'm gonna take a little more time. You know what I'm saying? It's gonna be a little more thought out. It's gonna be, cause I still look up to my favorite albums coming from your, coming from your tis first album. You know what I'm saying? I'm looking at the structure of those and the instruction of those can't be within a month, two month process. That process may take a. You know what I'm saying? Because you know, I need the content to rap about, but that's the only way I differentiate towards the time I put out a man. You know what I'm saying? Time. 

[00:18:09] Dan Runcie:  Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like for the most part, you can hear that from a lot of artists. Once in a while you'll hear a mixed tape that people feel like it's just as goods an album, but for the most part, The more effort that you hear or you hear to the production quality, you hear it in the bars and yeah.

[00:18:25] Rich Homie Quan: And they last longer.

You know that last longer. That's why I feel like a lot of the music is here, you know, today and gone in two weeks because it's so much similarities and that's why I've been trying to stay creative with the process. Stay corn, don't change my style, but I can't evolve in my sound. And when I say what I mean, it's like, you know, I don't see the same stuff I used to see. Now I'm rapping about the things I'm seeing now. Cause I'm old. I'm trying to put my peers and the, uh, the younger generation on real estate, man, that's probably less jewelry. Let's be, you know what I'm saying, little less flashy and get the things that really matter. You know what I mean? We, we screen the block, let's go buy a couple of properties on the block. So now, now we have a reason to, you know what I'm saying? Stuff of that nature, man, you know, and me just, you know, respecting my position and, you know, playing it.

[00:19:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah. You been getting more real. 

[00:19:16] Rich Homie Quan: Oh man. A whole lot. Whole lot. And I think last year, you know what I'm saying, a million plus on real estate, you know what I'm saying? And not a music checking ball, you feel me? Just last year. So I definitely getting into a whole lot more, man.

[00:19:31] Dan Runcie: Nice. Was that a rental property or a sale property to be here? 

[00:19:37] Rich Homie Quan: Uh, rental. A couple of flips and me selling my first. Nice. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's like, yeah, I did a million plus in real estate. No rap, no rap cap. And is this mostly in Georgia or is it El you got,  uh, not only in Georgia, you know, like I'm born and raised here, now I'm getting on. Now I have, I'm getting to the level I'm going out, you know, in different states and, you know what I'm saying, going to buy, you know, smaller, smaller stuff and just, uh, revamping them, doing resell. I'm doing a clip flipping and stuff like that, man. 

[00:20:08] Dan Runcie: That's what's up man. That's what's up. Appreciate that, man. Yeah. Are there any other businesses that you've been getting involved with outside of music? Uhuh, you? 

[00:20:16] Rich Homie Quan: Yes, sir. Uh, also with the 18 wheelers, got a couple of 18 wheelers, you know what I'm saying? We got box trucks, you know what I'm saying? A couple of car lots and stuff like that. Car mechanics, some stuff like that. It's every type of way to keep it. Keep it rolling man. Keep it moving, man. You know what I'm saying? The pandemic opened my eyes up a whole. And I really had to take advantage of that time opposed just sitting in the house making babies.

[00:20:42] (Mid Ad) Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to tell you about a podcast I am sure you'll love. It's called nineties Now, A show all about the music, movies, tv, pop culture, and more from the nineties with a twist of what's happening. It's hosted by two radio vets, Kelly Alexander and Sharon Highland, along with their millennial producer Alex Brisson. The three of them navigate all that is and was the nineties, and you'll hear a wide range of nineties music. They had a really interesting episode about Diddy and Bad Boy and him starting a new record label. They had another breakdown on Beyonce, especially with Renaissance coming. And they look back at the decade that was the film, the TV, and so much more. And you'll also get to catch up with some of the beloved actors and actresses and entertainers that made that decade what it is. You can find nineties now on all of the major podcast platforms. Also check out their website nineties now.com or follow them on social media at nineties. Now fm

[00:21:44] Dan Runcie:  I hear you on that man. I hear you on that. What was it like for you during the pandemic? Obviously you couldn't tour. I know that gave you an opportunity to explore these other ventures, but what was it like for you. 

[00:21:56] Rich Homie Quan: uh, the pandemic? Uh, what was it like for me? Uh, I would say that's definitely the moment I caught my groove back in the music. Opposed when I had took that long break. You know what? Being here. Cause I had just moved at that time. I had just moved and got me another house. I had bought my, uh, the house for something. And when I moved, I didn't set the studio equipment up for like close to a year. Just I, I'm syn like, come on man. And I think, I think the Migos might have had a just drop sign. I'm had my employees just dropped, but I'm hitting like in a competitor mode. Like I go drop me one two with just like, man, get up off your ass and go. Go get up off your ass and go do something. And since that day, man, I haven't started recording. I built, I built the studio back at the house. A new one, A dope one. That's where I'm at now. And get here, get it done. And it's just like my whole mindset changed like, nah man, we ain't giving up. We ain't quit right now. Nah, man, I'm from Atlanta. We, we don't throw in any white flash. You feel me? It's going hard. I think, um, it started with that then from dropping some music, uh, in Lincoln with Ben and them trusting my plan and wanting to have my back, you know? 

[00:23:05] Dan Runcie: For sure. What has it been like for you with live music just coming back in general? Have you been going and doing as many shows as you were doing before the pandemic?

[00:23:17] Rich Homie Quan: I would definitely say I'm doing more shows than I was doing before the pandemic, and that's probably because of the new music we've been dropping. But I've been trying to get like a little more social, social active on the social media a little bit too, man, that's, that's played a part and me just, you know, like I say, taking it a whole lot serious, more serious now realizing that the game don't need me, game doesn't change the players do. And realizing that I need the game, so let me act like I need this shit like you. Changing my mindset shit, man. That's, 

[00:23:49] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And in other interviews too, you've talked about your place in Atlanta hip hop and your respect in Atlanta, hip hop ain’t you say you feel like you don't get the credit you deserve.

[00:24:00] Rich Homie Quan: Nah, I don't, I don't, I don't get the credit. Uh, I don't, uh, like I say, I feel like the sound, like the Atlanta sound today. I feel like I should be one of those ones in that heavily influenced sound. You know what I'm saying? But I wasn't vocal about it then. So I don't respect them. But they know, like we know, like we know and they know, you know what I'm saying? Like you can't mention the Atlanta sound today without mentioning corn. Corn, period. Period. You know what I'm saying? That's why I'm, you know, top three and I'm not three. And that's, that's, that's what it's been. And I'm gonna show, I'm gonna show these people that I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna let the music show you. It ain't just me saying it. I know what I, I know what we've been working on. They gonna see what I'm top three.

[00:24:44] Dan Runcie: And so top three are not three. Who? The other two? I don't know. That's what the people decide. I didn't know three because, like I, but cause it's really like a five in hour. Like I got like a. And the five will be, um, no order. Savage is up there and it's just for today. It's not all time. You know what I'm saying? Bro. You got Savage up there. You got Future Up, you got Thug up there, baby up there, and myself up there and I'm just, you know, I'm top three and three. That's for everybody else. 

[00:24:47] Rich Homie Quan: I don't know. That's what the people to decide. I didn't know three because, like I, but cause it's really like a five in hour. Like I got like a. And the five will be, um, no order. Savage is up there and it's just for today. It's not all time. You know what I'm saying? Bro. You got Savage up there. You got Future Up, you got Thug up there, baby up there, and myself up there and I'm just, you know, I'm top three and three. That's for everybody else. 

[00:25:16] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, I hear that. And I mean, just here are the names you think about, thinking about you and a thug. I mean, I feel like lifestyle is one of the most influential songs of the decade.

[00:25:27] Rich Homie Quan: For sure,  for sure. Yeah, for sure. Or lifestyle and definitely that the uh, the rich game mix tape, the rich Oh yeah. Tape as well as the still going in. And I promise I never stopped going in that influenced the sound that influenced the sound man. Cause that's when the differences came. The some type of wave and, oh man, that room was crazy that that decade did. It definitely influenced the sound.You know what I'm saying?

[00:25:56] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I mean, even just the way that you see that artists are trying to do multiple things on a track, whether they're trying to sing, they're trying to real like the, I feel like you dug a lot of you were doing that early. So you combine that. You combine with the frequency that people are released in music. We, a lot of these pop stars just, you know, try to do different things on the, at all.

[00:26:23] Rich Homie Quan: You know what I'm saying? Like Yeah, I think, I think we showed it like they ain't gotta be a single, the hold the tone. And I think it more people just want to go try like that. Cause I know I can't sing, but I can hold a decent song where I can make you, I can, I can trick your mind. And I think a lot of people want to try that and that's why, that's why you hear it so much. It's an unorthodox sound. We ain't trying to sing, but it does sound, we try to hold a song and you hear that in 80% of the music you on the radio today. If you weren't hearing that then 10 years ago, that's all I’m saying.

[00:27:09] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, you see where the trend is for sure. But yeah, I mean, For you. I do know that, you know, even though you had that moment, there was a period where you know, you weren't released in music and there was, I know that in past interviews you've talked about how it was a bit of a difficult time for you. What was it like for you to be able to come back from that? I know you talked a little bit about how the pandemic was an opportunity for you to reset things. What was it like for you to really be able to come out of that and then still be in the place that you, you are today? 

[00:27:42] Rich Homie Quan: Oh, man. To come outta it, I think it was just like amazing. Took a whole lot of praying for one, stand down and like I said, man, not wanting to give up, man. You know what I'm saying? Knowing like, I think I, I started something beautiful and it's still so. So many pages I've yet to get to, and I know I'm capable of getting to, I get to scratch the surface and like me being such an asshole to myself, you know what I'm saying? Like on days I would just make up, I would wake up mad just for no reason and like the people around me didn't deserve it. You know what I'm saying? Like. I'm the leader and a lot of times like, man, I just know, like I couldn't, I couldn't continue to live like that and call myself a child of God, man. You feel me? So once I got that cloud, my head, man, it felt, it felt amazing, man. But I had to take it a day at a time like it. I wouldn't be talking the way I'm talking now if I didn't get filed over. Like it was some tough, tough, tough nights. Like I think, like I said, I went a year without getting in the. And I've always kept me a studio, like at my house, like a nice, yo, I didn't, I didn't listen to the radio three years, you know what I'm saying? But I'm still doing shows. Like I never stopped doing show, but my, my heart wasn't in my mind, was there, but my heart wasn't it. And I think like in this bitch heart gotta be in anything. And I like for my shit genuine and you know what I'm saying? My heart just wasn't in it. So sitting back in this house for that, Um, reminiscing on a lot of things, a lot of memories, those good ones. And waking up one day is like, well, this is how you gonna hear your story. And I myself telling myself like, you better than all these niggas. But in order to say that, you gotta go put in the work to be able to show, show that. And that's what it was, man. And I ain't got, I ain't got, I did in room since I do everything down here. I sleep down. You as you see, I'm getting my hair braided down here. We play the game down, the vibes down here, it your energy out. Don't even come down here. You know? And that's just what it been, man. 

[00:29:58] Dan Runcie: And I've imagine that some of that exact competitive nature too, right? Yeah. You don't listen to the radio for three years. You're focused, you're locked in, but you're still performing. When you start listening to the radio again, I'm sure you're hearing what's popping off and you're like, no, I'm better than these.

[00:30:13] Rich Homie Quan: Oh yeah. Like when I'm hearing, I'm like, oh, this what people going crazy about. Oh no. We got to, we got to go to work.To go to work. And it was like, and when I started going to work, like at first I didn't, I felt like, um, cause I, I was so used to doing songs fast, like going crazy. And when I got back in there, it wasn't like I just got back in there and was the, it was the corner I am today. Oh no, it took time. It might have took six months before I got back to playing my songs back in the car from my, for the people around me. You know what I'm saying? So still I had to gain my confidence back, man. I had to get it back man. But I got it. Oh, I got it. I got it.

[00:30:50] Dan Runcie: And I know too for you, I feel like there's a few things, cuz obviously it's you as an artist, like we're talking about Wanda artist building that up. You've got the confidence and you got the swag back with that. But I know that you've talked a lot about how 10 years from now you want Wanda CEO to be doing more of the work and you don't necessarily wanna be making music as much. You talk to me about what you see that 10 years from now looking like.

[00:31:14] Rich Homie Quan: Uh,  10 years from now is a long time and I try not to see that. Like, and when I said. Cause I try to make like real short term goals that are real possible. But I do know and I like 10 years from now, I'll be 43 and I probably said 12. Cause 45 sounds like a better number just to leave it alone. It um, I won't be focusing on Coin the artist, but as far as point the CEO coin, the CEO may start writing more. Cause I just love music that much, but I still can never not see myself created. So, uh, I've been even dipping into it now, like more writing. Writing more, but I would probably doing, writing more, focusing on, cause I been trying, I've been doing models moderat lately when they do the fashion show, I'm walking the runway. It's the first time I did that, I had just did the fashion week. So I'm already trying how that?

[00:32:05] Dan Runcie: How did you like doing the runway for the fashion show?

[00:32:07] Rich Homie Quan: Well, I haven't done that yet. I, I do that next week. But just the fashion snow itself, just going to fashion week in new. Aw man. Amazing man. Like, just being around people like, oh my, like, I was almost like, I didn't want my phone. I, but I was, man, that's the boy from my show out. You know what I'm saying? Just like seeing Cal coo, no, see, uh, you saying boat? Amy? What's her name? Amy W Winnie. Winnie Harlo. Yeah. Winnie Harlow. Man. Like just seeing her in person, just made and being. Front next to talking to court a like, dang. It just gets you in different room. I'm, and I'm saying like, I maybe could do this. I maybe we could do this for the next 20 years after rap. You know, I'm saying stuff like that. So it's just like, you know, other stuff. Even like being an author, I wanna come out with a memoir. I'm ready to write my book, you know what I'm saying? Cause I do want to get in movies and I, uh, wanna come out with a autobiography movie one day. So, not even me playing myself, but at least writing it. I'm trying to get in directing, trying to get in. I see 10 years from now I see myself, that guy, man. 

[00:33:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Okay. I feel like we're gonna see you at the Met Gala next year or something.

[00:33:15] Rich Homie Quan: For sure. For sure, for sure. I'm gonna be at, uh, try to be at a whole lot more of a man, a whole lot more and all this stuff that's clean. I just gotta let 'em know I do this shit too.

[00:33:26] Dan Runcie: The memoirs are good. I mean, Gucci's was good. Ross's was good. I mean, there's so much, and I mean, you're obviously gonna be able to tell stuff that no one's stole before. You're gonna have the …

[00:33:35] Rich Homie Quan: Yeah, and I got stories that, I got stories that I know like, I mean, I just don't give that, I think that would be dope into a book. Like, especially me being real, I think it'll be more raw. Cause I love to read, so I would definitely give more, more details on my book, you know what I mean? I would definitely, yeah, it get spicy, it get spicy.

[00:33:55] Dan Runcie: Have you done as much on TikTok lately? Just, you know, whether you are the on camera, off camera and, and I'm have a lot of opinions about it.

[00:34:03] Rich Homie Quan: Yeah. I'm, I'm still adjusting. I'm still adjusting. I'm still adjusting. So now a lot of my TikTok has been like, like stuck on the music, but I'm starting, I'm, I'm gonna start, I'm, I'm gonna get a little more personal show, show the fans a different side of me. Cause that's what I'm transitioning to now. Like I am a rapper and that's what fans love. I'm transitioning just to showing them a little bit of, a little bit more of my personal side and just decide deciding which side of my personal side and what I'm willing to reveal. No, that makes sense. Cause I want to be authentic. I don't just wanna get on there cause everybody's doing it. I wanna have something different to offer and that, you know, it's authentic. You're getting a real me.

[00:34:42] Dan Runcie: Yeah, like, I can't see you trying to do some like trick, like, you know what I mean? Like everyone trying to do these visual tricks.

[00:34:48] Rich Homie Quan: Like no, never, never, never, never, never. That, that, that goes against my morals and ethics, you know what I'm saying? Like , you know what I mean?

[00:34:57] Dan Runcie:  Yeah. No, for sure man. Well, no man, I'm excited for you, man. I feel like this is a good chapter. I feel like whether it's a pandemic or other things, like these triggers that happen in life, give us a good opportunity. Just pause, reset, and come back stronger. And I feel like you got the infrastructure there to keep moving, man. So proud of you. Excited for you for what's coming, but man, before we let you go, give us a heads up of what to look out for. What should we look out for the next couple months coming? 

[00:35:25] Rich Homie Quan: Uh, next couple of months coming from me. We In November. Yeah. Oh shit. Some weeks after this, man, you can look for us to be reloading the family in Moula. You know what I'm saying? We're not gonna call it a deluxe, we're just gonna reload it. Cause I feel like the reloaded is a deluxe anyway. And I think like that's a trend I started years ago. So they, they, they say deluxe, but we reloading it with seven new songs.

[00:35:51] Dan Runcie:  Wait, wait. So, so you started the deluxe. 

[00:35:54] Rich Homie Quan: Yes. I'm not gonna say that, but it was called Reload. No, God, I'm not gonna say I started, but I think I did. You know what I'm saying? I think, I think men, I think Men Thug, what's the first artist doing? You know what I'm saying? The Duo Mix tape that they name the album. You know what I'm saying? So it's like a, you know what I'm saying? You know, history beats yourself. 

[00:36:18] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So dope man. We'll look out for that and we'll look out for the rest of this stuff coming from you.

[00:36:23] Rich Homie Quan: And more videos. Yeah, more, more videos in your face. A whole lot more. Yeah, man. More RQ, the brand, more RQ Time, Venice and more of us going up putting it in they face. Man. I'm on the way. We're here now. We're here now. 

[00:36:39] Dan Runcie: Love it man. I love it. Quan, it's been a pleasure, man. Thanks for joining. 

[00:36:44] Rich Homie Quan: Thank you, man.

Cooper Turley, better known as Coopahtroopa, is betting big on ushering a new generation of music. In September, he announced a first-of-its-kind investment fund focused squarely on web3 music projects and artists themselves. Coop Records raised $10 million and Coopah will be the sole general partner. 

He’s hesitant to call it just an investment fund though. That’s because Coop Records is also a record label and incubator. Coopah will invest directly into web3-native music artists in a “seed round” — turning emerging artists into venture-backed startups.

Structuring an artist’s company is what Coopah sees as web3’s biggest opportunity: resetting ownership dynamics. NFTs are another vertical of the Coop Records fund, in addition to the seed-stage investing in both companies and artists.  

Coopah joined me on the show to give us an in-depth look at how Coop Records is eying its investment opportunities. Here’s everything we covered:

[0:00] How Coop Records started

[2:06] Focusing on emerging artists, not established ones 

[3:35] Coop Records’ investment thesis

[7:24] Investing in artists during “seed round”

[9:50] Structuring artists as a holdings company

[11:40] What does an exit look like for artists investors?

[15:00] Artists as CEOs

[20:11] What makes a music NFT historical 

[22:28] NFTs as a replacement for masters and publishing

[27:18] Accredited investors vs. fan investors

[29:30] Artist success stories with community building on web3

[31:40] Focusing on story when marketing NFTs

[34:25] Optimizing for engagement not reach on social 

[39:24] How tokenization changes the artist-fan relationship 

[47:00] Predicting the year that music NFTs go mainstream 

[48:25] Coop’s big question for web3

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Cooper Turley, @Cooopahtroopa

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Cooper Turley: And I think that gets to this artist development piece more broadly is that you're trying to start the process much earlier, much earlier than I think a lot of the major record labels are starting now. Because I think they often wanna see artists having some proven. Track record before they're willing to sign them.

[00:00:24] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Ruey. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:49] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Cooper Turley, aka Coopa Troopa. He is the founder of Coop Records, which is a new venture fund, a 10 million fund that is focused on investing in the future of music, specifically in web three. He is someone that has made a name for himself as a thought leader in the space. He was involved with the Dow Friends with benefits and he's now started this fund to make economics better for artists and ultimately help them take more advantage of the opportunities that are around them. So we talked about a lot of it. We talked about how he views the space right now, why he started this fund, and what the fund's investing in. There are three main areas that we go into. We talk about investing in music startup. Investing in artist seed rounds and investing in NFTs themselves as an investible assets that him as a general partner and little Bited partners would wanna see returns from. So we talk about what the economics of that look like. I think that. Cooper stands out in a lot of ways because he has a much more nuanced understanding of how Web Three fits in with the broader ecosystem of what's happening right now in music, what some of the trade offs are with the financials, the relationship with fans, what services it offers versus the traditional record labels and more really insightful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it. Here’s our chat.

[00:02:07] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we're joined by Coopa Troopa who just launched Coup Records, which is his fund that is investing in the future of music and Web three specifically. And first off, congrats. I saw the announcement, it's really dope. So walk me through the process from thinking about you wanna start this fund to where you are now, today with it.

[00:02:28] Cooper Turley: Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I've been in music for the last 10 years in crypto for the last five, and so I've seen everything from ICOs to Defi, to Dows, and not most recently NFTs. You know, throughout that time I've been active across public markets as a trader, behind the scenes, as an angel investor, as a community builder, and as an operator. And when I started to think about how to connect all the pieces together, I've always been a fan of music. I felt like there was never really a clear vehicle to help elevate and amplify the space. And so I found coop records to be the best way to really just zoom in on this niche that I'm so excited about and figure out how to really help the founders, artists, and builders that are supporting this space everyday.

[00:03:05] Dan Runcie: Makes sense. What were the conversations like getting buy-in from LPs?

[00:03:10] Cooper Turley: Basically helping to explain what music NFTs are, why this is a vertical that you'd wanna invest in at this time and day? You know, historically I think that music has gotten a bit of a bad rep, cuz it's very antiquated in a lot of ways. You know, there's a lot of systems that are very complicated and hopefully we can unpack some of those on this episode. But, I think we through presents a new opportunity for artists to monetize in creative ways. You know, as someone who's been a curator my whole life, it's very easy for me to understand the value of investing in songs, artists, et cetera. But for someone who's not music savvy and not passionate about this sector, you know, the majority of those conversations are why would anyone wanna collect a song? Why would someone wanna invest in an artist? And trying to help people understand why there's an opportunity here that I think is. Influential and paramount for the next chapter of music. But once people get over that line, you know, I've kind of been able to build a brand for myself that I think speaks very clearly to why I'm so excited about music. And so for investors that are looking to get exposure to the space, coop records is a great way to get that exposure without them having to get as deep in the trenches as I am.

[00:04:07] Dan Runcie: Right. And I gotta imagine that that probably took a few conversations just given things that I'm hearing too, from folks. People, they understand the promise and the opportunity of what NFTs and what web three offer, but there's. Hesitation, there's still perception about what's going on and some of the headlines that people see. How did you communicate or address some of those concerns while still sharing the value add for what you have? 

[00:04:32] Cooper Turley: Yeah, I really focus on emerging artists. You know, I think that this is where the vast majority of value will accrue over the next couple years with Web three. And so when you think about investing in music, most people's mind goes to like, how do we get Drake to drop NFTs? I actually don't really focus on that at all. Instead, I think about how do we develop the next act that becomes Drake using Web three tools? And so for investors that are kind of hesitant about getting involved in the space, I point out early examples like X copier people, you know, crypto artists who really made a brand and a name for themselves on the back of selling their nfts. And obviously in the case of people, he had a major brand before, but it wasn't until the existence of NFTs and sort of these community based assets that they started to see monetization aspects with their fans and with their collectors. And so trying to highlight that there's an opportunity here to develop and support emerging artists new to Web three through music, I think it really made a clear case that. This isn't about trying to get your biggest celebrity to drop NFTs. I think that will happen at some point in time. But this is about investing in the infrastructure and the artists that are going to make this space very valuable over the next couple years.

[00:05:31] Dan Runcie: And one of the things I like too about how your fund is structured or reminds me a bit of Matt Pinkus and how his music fund is structured. It's not just focused solely on startups that are trying to build the next tech platforms. You're also looking more broadly. The NFT space itself and what that opportunity looks like and it'd be great to break each of those down. So let's start first with the music tech companies, cuz I know that's 85% of your fund looking at preceded seed stage companies. What's your thesis for the type of company that is a coop records company that you're looking for? 

[00:06:04] Cooper Turley:  I'm a really big fan of composability. So in Defi there's this concept of money Legos or protocols and platforms that could plug into one another. I believe the same thesis will play out with music, where we're gonna have music legos, where there's different marketplaces, service providers, tooling, infrastructure that can help sort of amplify what an artist can do with Web three. And so when I think about investing in a music tech company, I think about culturally, is this company aware and active within the pocket that I'm spending a lot of my time in? And then beyond being aware of sort of the artists, the songs, the type of platforms that are doing well in this space, do they have the open mindedness to wanna work in collaboration with those other platforms? So in accurate, we can kind of create this toolkit in this stack where if I am an artist who's new to web three, it's not about choosing Spotify versus Apple, it's actually about trying to develop a presence across many platforms. And hopefully those platforms. The life of the artist easier by making everything connect together with one another.

[00:06:56] Dan Runcie: And I feel like this speaks to one of the broader themes that I know you've talked about before, is. It can't be this approach of web three versus web two. These things need to be collaborative. No more zero sum games. How can you think more broadly about the opportunity there? How do you view that more broadly, not just with the fun, but also likely how you're seeing the space with any artist that you're working with too?

[00:07:21] Cooper Turley: I'm really laser focused on web three platforms because I think there's a lot more room for change within those platforms. You know, I have nothing against legacy platforms like Spotify have done fantastic work for artists and I think there will be at a time and day when they're able to enable music, NFTs to be purchased, collected, listened to within their platform. But the reality is these companies are so sophisticated that trying to move the needle is very complicated. And so for someone like. I'm running this fund as a solo gp. It's a relatively small fund, and so when I think about where I can have impact and leverage, it's typically working with very early stage founders. You know, I can get in the trenches and help to develop the product. Think about how we're onboarding artists, think about new marketing strategies. And so for me, I think right now it's about cementing the cultural relevance and value of this emerging wave of Web three music. And once that's been clear and established, we can take those same values, ideas, songs, artists, and help to bring those into the traditional industry in a more clear way. Because right now I think that a lot of the bigger players, let's call it major labels, et cetera, they recognize that there's value to be captured in Web three, but I don't think that they have the same level. Boots on the ground cultural awareness that maybe someone like, um, myself or some of my colleagues have. And so I think the challenge here is a, making it very clear what that culture is so you can start to translate it to larger players. And then once that they agree there is something of value there, you know, being able to act as a connector where you can say, Hey, maybe instead of going and doing a 500,000 or a million dollar drop for the biggest act on your roster, let's go ahead and find an emerging artist who's curious about the space and develop them with the course. Five or $10,000 drops and instead really build that community and that collector base in a very organic way.

[00:08:56] Dan Runcie:  And I think that gets to this artist development piece more broadly is that you're trying to start the process much earlier, much earlier than I think a lot of the major record labels are starting now. Because I think they often wanna see artists having some proven. Track record before they're willing to sign them. And in some ways your approach isn't too much different. Maybe it's just a bit of a different stage because one of the other areas that you're investing in is artist seed rounds. And can you describe. What stage an artist would have to be in order to be at the seed round, and what types of things you're looking for there from an artist?

[00:09:33] Cooper Turley: I think it's very similar to what I look for in companies. You know, has this artist been able to prove a little bit of traction? You know, have they demonstrated that they're culturally aware of where this industry is headed? You know, different things that I feel like are interesting to kind of describe. Cause it's not very concrete. Like you can't point to like a specific amount of sales or a specific amount of volume and say, okay, this artist is ready to be invested in. But it's really just a development process of like, is this person making web three a focal point in their career? I believe that that's something really important for me personally, cuz that's where I had the most leverage. But once they've demonstrated that they've been able to release on some of the bigger web through platforms, you know, once they've been able to collaborate and onboard other artists to the space, you know, you start to see that these people have like a little bit. Leverage was sort of their career. And at that point in time, instead of signing a traditional record deal, co records can really be the one to say like, Hey, let's go ahead and set up a company for you. Let's think about how we wanna do a cap table. Let's bring on some partners to give you the capital that you need to go and hire a team around you. So instead of selling your next three albums to a major label, you can instead fund this through accredited investors. And then over time think about the ways you wanna bring other partners into the fold, but not need to be so reliant on the capital to do that in the first place.

[00:10:38] Dan Runcie: And with the artists specifically, cuz I know that you've started the fund. Maybe for the people listening, is there a particular artist that you have made a seed investment in just so people can get a good idea for, okay, this is someone that we invested in, this is where they're at in their career, and this is what the opportunity is 

[00:10:56] Cooper Turley: Not publicly. I think by the time this comes out, we'll be right around there. You know, I can say that privately, behind the scenes we're working. The first round, you know, we've had some very serious progress on it. Investors are excited about it. We're going through the whole corporate structure, but for me, this is a very different lane because it's not as simple as just investing in the safe note of a precede company. You know, there's a lot more complexity around IP ownership, around revenue sharing around. Kind of how this artist thinks about their company and what kind of rights they're giving back to people. And so it's a slower process, but it's one that's currently in motion. I expect that we'll probably have the first one announced within the next one to two months, but I can definitely say there's one in motion that I'm really excited about. And I think, you know, by the end of this calendar year, we should have that one announced. 

[00:11:37] Dan Runcie: I think part of this too is also the structure of things. You mentioned this earlier, and I think for a lot of artists it's probably. Not necessarily a new way to think about it, because I think in general, artists do think of themselves as having multiple revenue streams, but in order for this to work, in order for you to be able to make an investment, there needs to be some type of, whether it's a holding company or some type of structure in place so that you can make an investment that would touch all of these things. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like on the artist side?

 [00:12:05] Cooper Turley: Yeah, it's a fantastic question. I wanna start by saying, This is early days and so this is the first stab at it. I think that this model will evolve and change over time. The way we're thinking about it is there's one Hold Co, that represents the artist ownership across their various income streams, uh, that hold co owns subsidiary entities, one of them being a music entity, which owns the masters in publishing for that artist. One being a live entity, which owns touring and merchandising, and then one being a Web three entity, which owns NFTs and. And so all of that wraps up into the larger hold cow. But the reasons those subsidiaries exist is because we wanna limit liability to each of those different vertical. If there's an issue across web three, we don't want that to end up touching the masters. If an artist wants to go and sign a record deal, they shouldn't have to figure out what to do with their touring or what their NFTs to be able to enter into agreement with a different party. And so we've kind of split up the different verticals into buckets that make sense relative to the type of partners and the type of work that it is. But all of that rounds back up into this holding company and when it comes time to invest in the artist, quote unquote, that artist is selling anywhere from five to 10% of that hold cow to accredited investors so that they can have exposure and pass through to those underlying revenue streams. But there's not this sort of majority ownership, creative control, et cetera. It's really, here's capital and exchange for you to go do what you do best. In exchange for that, we have exposure to these underlying entities, which represent the artist brand in its entirety.

[00:13:27] Dan Runcie: And for an investor like you, I think most people listening have a good idea of what an exit looks like for a startup, but what does an exit look like for you as an investor, for an artist, if you're going in at that seed round?

[00:13:39] Cooper Turley: I think there's a couple ways it can pan out. You know, one I think would be IP acquisition. Let's say that there's a buyout of someone's masters or publishing, et cetera. You know, there's kind of larger capital inflections that can happen later down an artist's career. I'm more excited about this idea of taking artists public cuz it's something that hasn't really been done before, but I think will happen eventually. Where right now, if you're a fan, you can't really invest or bet on an artist. I think we're starting to see us at a very granular level with music NFTs, and it's something I would love to cover as the last bucket next, but to me, I think an exit here is helping an artist really take this company that we structure for themselves and explore what it means to go public. And so rather than only accredited investors being able to buy into that five or 10%, how do you invite fans to participate in that convers. I think that there's a lot of, uh, legal nuance there that needs to be figured out. And so I don't have that answer today, but I would say that more broadly, the two ways that this could happen is a, investors are seeing a return from the IP becoming more valuable, and they're being capital injected into the whole co. Or B, more optimistically the artist, quote unquote, going public by either, you know, listing on a traditional market or what I think is more likely is creating some form of a token, which represents exposure to this entity that's been set up to represent the artist brand in the first.

[00:14:49] Dan Runcie: Got it. And then from a structure perspective, do you ever hear any type of pushback or comments from artists who feel like, oh, you're getting a slice of all these revenue deals. This feels similar to a 360 deal. Do you hear any of that at all?

[00:15:04] Cooper Turley:  Yeah, I mean, it is a 360 deal, and I think that that's really important to like zoom in on, because 360 deals have gotten a really negative rep because of the percentage ownership that they typically encompass. So traditionally with 360 deals, it's anywhere from 50 to 80. When we talk about a 360 deal in this context, it's five or 10%. And if you start to look at the way that companies take on dilution and precede and seed stage rounds, it's kind of the same concept. You know, like that company is basically taking all of their revenue into this central entity and they're selling off dilution to investors. And so I think for artists, this is particularly scary because there's been such a history of people taking advantage of 360. But I don't think the structure with 360 deals incorrect. I just think the ownership targets that those deals are typically set at is what's really predatory. And so if we can zoom out a bit and instead say, Hey, five or 10% can give you a couple hundred grand, maybe a million dollars to go invest in a team around you, there's ways for that capital to be really value added where the dilution is actually necessary and valuable because it helps you advance your artist career in a way that you simply couldn't do without it.

[00:16:04] Dan Runcie: I agree with that. I think that that's, Testament of some of the challenges with the broader major record label system as well, right? It's not that people shouldn't be willing to trade some level of ownership in exchange to get a boost from the company. It's how much ownership, it's what the terms that the actual economics look like, not the economic agreement itself.

[00:16:28] Cooper Turley: Yeah, it's correct. And I think that it's something that is really important to help educate artists on. And this is the area that I'm actually most fascinated by is like artists really thinking about rights ownership, thinking about dilution, thinking about cap table management. And just with that in mind, I wanna highlight, it's a very specific type of artist that is willing to enter into this quote unquote, artists seed round. Because I think that most artists are not thinking about their brand as a ceo, but I think there are very selective artists who think about their entity as a business and for those specific artists being able to demonst. There's value in having employees. There's value in giving them long term options and equity, and having these ownership incentives be a little bit more aligned. I think traditionally music has existed in this weird ballpark where we've basically only ever sold masters in publishing. We haven't really experimented with equity or any of these other ownership vehicles that startups have been taking for the last couple generations, so I'm excited to explore it. You know, I by no means have all the answers, but I think. My time investing in precede and seed stage companies has given me a little bit of context on how things work behind the scenes, and I'm hoping that with a little time and effort, we can sort of mold those same practices and help apply them to artists more broadly.

[00:17:34] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I have to imagine too, with artists as well, there's some artists that love the mentality of being the business person themself that can be the CEO and wear multiple hats. There's other artists who I. As much as they want the business to work for them, they just wanna focus on the art. So there's specific things that you're looking for to determine, okay, is this artist gonna be wanting to be the ceo? Or maybe making sure that they are partnered with someone that may wanna be in that role instead

[00:18:05] Cooper Turley: Yeah, I mean, you just touched on it perfectly. I think that there's situations where artists have partners that are acting as their ceo, you know, and in many typical startups you have a ceo, a cto, a ceo, et cetera. Um, the artist isn't the only person that's responsible for their success. They're obviously the largest player in that. But it's less about, is this artist capable of being a ceo? It's more about is this artist capable of building a team around them that can. In tandem as a unit and as an organization. And if that artist is uncapable of operating as the CEO, because they're phenomenal at making music, it's very likely that there may be a manager, an agent, a business partner, et cetera, that could step into that role. And I think the biggest thing that I'm excited about is to realign incentives around the service providers around an artist. So whether that be a manager, an agent, a business manager, a lawyer, et cetera. Typically, all these actors are just operating on commission, you know, and they have five or 10 clients because there's no guarantee that they'll be with that artist in 10 years time. You know, these contracts aren't really a center aligned for those key players. But if we can instead start to create an instrument where a managers may be able to take a salary and then have equity that's vested over four years, I think there will be more situations where artists would be willing to enter into a full-time quote unquote agreement with their manager, because that a manager is now incentive aligned to actually spend all their time developing one. Instead of needing to commission off of five or 10 different artists just to be able to make a living.

[00:19:24] Dan Runcie: It's a huge point because there's so many managers I've talked to that just talk about how thankless that job is, and that's purely just from how they're treated, not even getting to the economic aspect. You start thinking about the economics about how managers are treated and yeah, maybe you'll get 10 to 15 to 20%, but if that artist levels up and then they wanna level up their manager too, they can just be like, Hey, sorry, I wanna move on. And you, the person that brought them from zero to 40. Now you have nothing. Right?

[00:19:54] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I mean, it happens time and time again from smaller artists to the biggest acts in the world. I mean, I don't have to name names here, but I think we all know examples of this happening time and time. And it's really just a game of incentive alignment. You know? And when I think about the term web three, to me that means ownership. And so for all of these different deals that I'm doing, it's about how do you create ownership incentives so that everyone who's contributing value to this entity is able to capture that in some way, shape, or form. And so I think it's a very difficult conversation to tell a manager, Hey, instead of taking a 15 or a 20% commission, you're gonna get a base salary and then have a couple equity percentage points that best over multiple years. But when you start to zoom out a bit, you start to see like, hey, maybe 1% of equity can actually be more valuable than 20% commission. Because if you're operating a multi-million or multi-billion dollar business, you know that's a life-changing amount of money. And so I don't expect this is something that's gonna happen in the short term. I think it's gonna take a very new class of partners, managers, agents, et cetera, that are willing to enter into these type of. Situations and these type of organizations. But I'm very excited to work with the emerging class of talent that's willing to try something out a little bit differently because I think that new class of talent is looking for an opportunity here. And I think that we've seen time and time again that the systems that exist today work, but I think that there's a lot of room for improvement and I'm excited to use some of the artists that we're working with help push the needle on what that could like. 

[00:21:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think the other point that you mentioned too, was aligned as well, just in terms of artists being able to have that team around them. We've seen so many examples where whether it's Jay-Z, having someone like a Dame Dash next to him, or you have Jay Cole and e Bama, they've been working together for years. Kate, uh, Kendrick Lamar, and the whole Top Dog team. These artists are doing it themselves, and oftentimes the ones that try to get stuck, so no different then. Yeah, a startup, if you're trying to raise money, they're gonna push back. If you have the technical co-founder being the same one that's trying to go raise money, right? Like you need to have some expansion there. So I think so much of that makes sense. I do wanna talk about the other piece that you mentioned though, the NFT piece of it, because the way that you're investing in these, I think could be eyeopening to some of the folks listening because you're looking. And I heard you referred to historic NFT opportunities and NFTs as collectables. Can you talk a little bit about what you're looking for if you're investing in NFTs through this fund and how that may separate from what a lot of people may assume when they think about an nft. 

[00:22:18] Cooper Turley: Yeah, so there's a really amazing market of songs that are being released as collectibles right now. You know, there's platforms like Sound xyz, where every day an artist is releasing a song with 25 editions as NFTs. And I've been really active across these markets for the course of the last two years. Personally, you know, biggest collector on Sound today, one of the biggest collectors on catalog. And I'm really excited about being able to collect these early songs from artists that are building in Web three. You know, the analog I'd make here. Music, rookie cards. You know, we have rookie cards for basketball players, for baseball players, et cetera. We don't really have rookie cards for artists, and I think in a lot of ways these early music NFTs are sort of the equivalent of an artist rookie card. And so personally, I've been doing this for the last couple years. I recently just put out a post called the Music NFT Collector Thesis. This is how we're thinking about collecting from the fund. But to really break it down, we're thinking about how do we sort of acquire early NFTs that represent historical relevance of this. Web three and Music NFTs have been around for maybe a year at this point. I think that there's a huge opportunity for fans to start getting involved by collecting the songs that they love and for the fund. I almost look at music NFTs as the new form of like masters and publishing. You know, it's not quite one to one, but there's almost this new market being formed of Tradeable assets that you can buy for something like 50 bucks when it drops, and then hopefully have the ability to resell at a later. And I think for the fund, you know, us being able to participate in these markets and say, Hey, we are aware of what's happening on the ground floor with the next generation of developing artists, we're actively collecting these songs that we can show that were there from them, beyond needing to set up a company and needing to do some crazy type of investment situation. And I'm really excited about the opportunity just to have. Ownership over some of these really early collectibles, cuz I think they're very historic in the development of these artists' careers and I believe they're extremely valuable and will continue to demonstrate. So in the years to come. 

[00:24:03] Dan Runcie: You brought up an interesting point just about how you feel like NFTs could replace what we are naturally thinking about masters in publishing. I guess in terms of how artists are monetizing and what their ownership looks like. Can you talk a little bit more about that and specifically how that could look or what that could look like? Years down the road.

[00:24:23] Cooper Turley: I mean, I'll start by saying that, um, masters in publishing are extremely valuable. You know, I think that this is a system that has worked for generations. There's a huge trend around catalog acquisition. I think that will continue to exist for many, many years to come. I think for someone like myself, me trying to get in the catalog acquisition game is not a smart move. You know, there's a lot of players with a lot more experience. There's a lot of people with a lot more money. The one unique advantage that I do have though, is developing thesises within this small pocket of web three artists, and the best way to get exposure to them is to simply buy their nf. You know the way that this looks is if there's the first song an artist ever released their artist rookie card, and there's 25 additions of that being sold for 50 bucks. If you zoom out and one of these artists becomes the Weekend, Drake Post Malone, Jack Harla, whatever it might be, there's a very high likelihood that those early additions are gonna be worth a lot more than $50. And so instead of trying to invest in the masters in publishing rights, those songs can also go on Spotify. They can stream extremely well. You can have relationships with major label. But I believe those early collectibles have a market of their own. These markets are not tied to any sort of royalty rights because it's just collectibles. You know, there's 25 additions of this digital vinyl. I can buy it for $50 and then sell it for whatever price I want in the future. And I think this is a market that not many people are paying attention to right now. But I think when it comes to new and creative revenue streams for artists, I think that collectibles are gonna be a very, very big market in the years to come. I think it's the most clear way that fans can start to get involved with sort of, Collectible nature of getting involved with an artist and as a fun, I think we're really excited to be participating here to say, Hey, we're really excited about this. I think there's some really amazing plays out there right now, and we're gonna continue to support artists on the ground floor to help develop this thesis. 

[00:25:59] Dan Runcie: Why do you think that a lot of people aren't paying attention? Or what do you think some of the, if there's friction or if there is just in a bit of a natural adoption curve, like what do you think's going.

[00:26:12] Cooper Turley: It's just new. I mean, this entire market has only been around for a little bit more than a year at this point. You know, in total, I think we have less than a thousand artists that have ever minted a music NFT before. There's probably less than 10,000 people ever collected one before, and so. Relatively speaking, it's just a very new and small market. And I think for a lot of players that have bigger fish to fry, it's probably not worth their time to invest buying records for $50 because they have multimillion dollar record deals in place. You know, and so for someone like myself, um, a lot of what I do is help educate artists that there's a lot of value to be captured in web through right now based on how early it is. You know, I think that there's a lot of unlearning that can be done with the way artists are releasing music in Web three. And so traditionally, when you're putting out a song on Spotify, most artists I know here in. They'll take eight weeks in advance to think about what distributor am I gonna put this out through? Am I gonna sign this to a label? What's my advance? What's my marketing rollout? What's my TikTok campaign? How am I getting pre saves? How am I making the music video? And what I've been preaching is like, Hey, if you have a song, you should put that out tomorrow. You know, like there's people out there that would probably wanna collect that record. And if you can 5 25 people to come and collect music in FT for 0.05 E, they're basically $75. That's the equivalent of half a million streams. And so I think trying to teach people that you don't need to have this giant rollout process to make this headline moment with music. We've gotten really conditioned to trying to shoot for the new Music Friday playlist. You know, all of these emerging editorial playlists. One of the beautiful things about the SoundCloud era was people were just uploading music in real time and if you had your finger on the trigger, you could go and just repost something and be part of a wider movement. And I think what's happening with music and FTS now is artists are gonna start to see that you don't need to have a six week rollout to put out a collection of 25 songs. If you make that song on Wednesday and put it out on Thursday, you can immediately get funding from your biggest fans and use that funding to go and market the rest of your career and instead be able to obviscate the need for a lot of those major capital advances that typically get artists caught up in a weird position in the first place.

[00:29:05] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like if the funding's in place and you can replace early on, because I think for a lot of artists, the economics don't really work out either. Unless A, you own the underlying masters in publishing to begin, so you're just bringing on a. You know, revenue per stream or just general from what you're getting from streaming or on the other side, you're just massive, like Drake or someone like that. And your billions of streams per year brings in plenty of money. But for a lot of other artists, it ends up being either A, a loss leader if you're focusing solely on streaming or a, or you're leaving money on the table some type of way. So I feel like that approach is something that makes sense for a bunch of. On the investing side though, I have a few questions on this, but the first one, on the investing side though, how do you feel like the appetite will be for, let's say an artist does have early investors, the likelihood for those investors to be folks who are accredited, folks that just wanna be able to get a return, versus people who are actual fans of that artist. Any thoughts on what that mix may look like for the average artist that's going through the web? Growth cycle and the rep do growth curve?

[00:30:19] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I mean, I can speak on this from the artist seed round that we're doing right now. Every investor in that round has been an active collector of this artist for many, many months. Prior to that, they all have personal relationships with the artist. You know, they may be an accredited investor, but they're not just bringing capital. They've been active and supportive of this artist's career way before the seed round even started. And so I think if we zoom out, there will definitely be situations. Investors just want to put in a couple hundred grand and not really worry about getting involved on the ground floor. But given how early it is right now, most of the investors who are interested in participating in these capital markets are ones who want exposure to both NFTs and to the artist equity. And so I think that over time, collectors to me are a little bit closer to like early investors. Think about them like almost angels or sort of like seed round investors. Over time, collectors will start to mirror more fan behavior. But I think for right now, a lot of the collectors I know, they're just excited to get exposure to an artist's career and to go and support them more so than they are to really go to their show or to buy their merchandise, et cetera. And I think that's where a lot of the pushback comes for web through music is like, oh, these people aren't actually fans. They're just, you know, buying NFTs. But if you zoom into what that means, it's almost a different form of fandom where they're providing capital to be able to have exposure to an artist's career. And their expectations are a lot less on the fan side. I need you to collaborate with this artist. I want you to put out this type of music. It's more so like, Hey, we just wanna support you and your career however we can. Because the more that you're able to identify your vision and create a brand around it, the more valuable our NFTs are going to become. And so it's a very mutual relationship I think hasn't really existed in music in the past.

[00:31:50] Dan Runcie: You're really getting at this aspect of community and how artists can foster that, how they can build around them. We've seen the power of that in the SoundCloud era, so we've seen a lot of these things happening and what streaming in general has enabled to happen. What are some of the success stories that stand out to you when you're thinking about artists to be like, oh yeah, they've nailed community, or they're nailing community, like that's how you do it.

[00:32:13] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I would say a couple artists to check out. Daniel Allen, I think has done a fantastic job of this in the web three space. Latasha who started something called Zora Topia has done a fantastic job at this Early nft. Artists like Matt Cha os. Grady bloody white. I mean, the list goes on and on, but basically you see. The small pocket of artists that are really making web through a centerpiece for their career, and they're leveraging that into creating more community conversation. Where typically all these artists have a collector chat where once you've bought a music nft, you can get into a private chat with that artist. It's typically 20 people, 25 people, and that artist is in there every day saying like, Hey, what do you guys think about this demo? Hey, I'm thinking about dropping a song next week. Which one do you like more? What do you think I should do for the supply? Do you think we should do an airdrop? And that conversation is a lot more interactive. And I think in a lot of ways artists have typically maintained separation from their fans to kind of uphold this like form of mystery and this like storytelling aspect. But what I'm seeing now is that collectors are getting really close to the artists that they know and love, and those artists are realizing that for a very specific demographic of their audience, they can be very value added, asked the right questions. And so instead of just doing a meet and greet or doing like, you know, 50 people standing in line to say hi, back to back for an hour and a half, it's like, hey, if we wanna have a valuable conversation about the future of my career, These other people that I can turn to, cause I know they have exposure to my brand and they actually typically have experience That's very valuable and it's something that I think is gonna happen more and more with the next generation of collectors to come.

[00:33:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's a good way to just think about the framing of it, right? Meet and greets can be great, but it's so transactional. It is really isn't an opportunity. And it kind of has a bit of this like hierarchical thing. Like, oh, I paid $500 extra at this concert to like take a picture with you. Versus no, like if you've really been with this person, then how can you help shape that in the same way that someone that was really early on can? So I feel like there's so many principles there and there's so much that aligns with, especially on the financial side. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the marketing side of it, because I know that's a piece that a lot of artists have had questions about, but I also think that we've seen from. Project specifically with Web three projects like outside of music where whether it is the creator themselves who's been able to market or get the word out effectively, or they've been able to just find ways to build their distribution themselves. What are some of the ways that you've seen artists who've been successful on the Web three Path have been able to replicate, or at least make up for some of the marketing that they would get from a major record label, but otherwise they're recreating on their own.

[00:34:47] Cooper Turley: I think it starts from the story, you know, like first of all, what is the music that you're releasing and what is the story behind that? But more importantly, like what is the narrative with how you're using the technology? And so almost fusing together like the creative side with the tech side, you know, whether this be something as simple as like creating your own artist website where people are mentioning s from, or it's something like, hey, we're using on chain splits to reward and compensate. 15 different contributors, five of which didn't touch the music, but were helpful in the development or the project management or the visual assets, et cetera. You know, I think there's new creative channels to help bring more people into the table, but I would say generally Twitter is kind of the main resource for all web three artists. You know, the ones that I see doing really well are typically putting out tweet storms, talking a lot about the drops that they're doing, why they're doing it, and how they're doing it. I see a lot of artists doing these sort of collector chats and more private investor relationships. If they have a bigger release coming out, it's not only about posting the tweetstorm, it's also about going and finding time to talk to some of your bigger collectors one on one and being like, Hey, what do you think about this? How can I get you involved? What are some feedback you would have on this drop? Are you excited or not excited? And I think typically with music, traditionally, how it's released, Artist makes a song, they have their internal team, and then they put it out to the world. And when it's out to the world, everyone forms an opinion on it. With Web three music, a lot of the time, there's a lot more happening behind the scenes before the release actually comes out, so that when it is time for one of these releases to happen, you start to see these things sell out because there was a lot of work put into the record before it came out, and that's not untraditional from typical music, but I think the difference there. Active conversations with your collectors is very new. You know, typically it's like people around a table at a major label that are talking about like, how are we gonna market on TikTok? But this is different because it's going and having very direct conversations with the people that are supporting you the most. And in aggregate that sort of. Neural net of all these different people talking about your drop in tandem. It creates this sort of network effect where when it does come out, there's almost a rippling effect that helps to make the drop become more successful. And I think that's something that I'm seeing being replicated time and time again.

[00:36:44]  Dan Runcie: And I know that, as you mentioned, Twitter has been a great space for artists to be able to share things. There's so much. There's so many people in the one three community that are active there, and I think have added to a lot of the discussion and narrative around it. But as someone who's active on Twitter myself, I know how small sometimes those circles can feel. What other platforms or what other areas are you seeing some of these conversations happen, and how long do you think until we're starting to see it not just becoming necessarily a Twitter thing, but it is expanding to more platforms and it's becoming a bit more of. Early majority, at least being able to catch on.

[00:37:22] Cooper Turley: I think it'll be Twitter for the foreseeable future. You know, I think that's just where the vast majority of Web three people live. And I think it's actually the one social platform where you can talk about Web three and not get ridiculed for it. You know, I think across nft, TikTok, et cetera, it's very taboo to talk about NFTs, and I don't think that those users are really as tapped into sort of like the valuable aspects of Web three. And so I think for the immediate future, let's call it the next one to two. Twitter, I think is gonna be the source for all of that. And to your point, some of these communities do feel very small, but I think that's actually one of the biggest differences with Web three. You know, I think with traditional marketing platforms, we optimize for impressions, we optimize for plays, for eyeballs, et cetera. On Twitter, if you have 50 people that are consistently showing up to each of your drop, you're doing an amazing job. You know, I think that this is the biggest thing that shows why Web three is valuable is you don't need to have a million monthly listeners to make a couple thousand bucks. If you have 25 people that are willing to come and support you, you can make the same amount of money and have a deeper relationships with those individuals. And so I always say to artists, Even if you're only getting three, five reactions on your tweets every single time, that's very impressive because the benchmark to move the needle and Web three is a lot lower because every individual person is much more active and the quality of those conversations is much higher than what you could expect from a TikTok, Instagram, et cetera.

[00:38:36] Dan Runcie: And I think in general, like with those platforms, you're more likely to reach people who are just casually following or passively engaging versus whether if you're already in that audience that's Twitter, you're likely reaching a more active fan base to begin with. And it gets to this whole concept of where can you not just reach followers, but reach people who are actual fans of their music? And a lot of the platforms that have grown tremendously large in the past few. Are much more overindexed on followers and less overindexed or or under indexed rather on true fans.

[00:39:08] Cooper Turley: Yeah. And so there's still a lot to be done there. You know, I do believe there's a world in which artists that are using Web three and music NFTs become viral acts that have fans in the traditional sense. I try not to like focus on that too much because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to get there. I think that will happen, but I don't think it's healthy to think. What that looks like today, because frankly, we're just far away from it, you know? And I think for me, helping an artist get a thousand collectors is much more important to me than how do they get 10 million streams on Spotify? You know, if the ladder happens, that's great. But I think the former's actually a lot harder to do because it's a much smaller design space. But, you know, I think there's something really exciting there. And a lot of the work that I do as a collector is really just educating fans on like, why would I wanna collect music? Like, why would I wanna participate on the other side of these? I think from the surface, a lot of bands got really bad experiences with NFTs because artists were just selling random drops that didn't really have any merit to them. They didn't actually care about the output. They were just kind of doing something to be cool at the time. But now what I'm starting to see is that these emerging artists, they really care about their NFTs. They care about them just as much, if not more, than their release strategy on Spotify. And for those demographic of artists. If you are a fan that's looking to sort of develop a brand for yourself around. I believe that this web through music space is a great opportunity to do so. And what we're now seeing is a very small group of music collectors who are building their entire Twitter brand around collecting drops on sound, or writing newsletters or writing mirror posts, et cetera. And I think those are the type of people that I want to try and amplify in Spotlight because it's a very much two-sided marketplace here. And in order for these artists to be successful, you also need to have collectors that are willing to be active in these markets and see success from the music they're collecting as well. 

[00:40:42] Dan Runcie: This is one thing that I keep in mind. More broad trends about like what's happening in music, but I also keep it in mind with artists and creators who are trying to expand beyond the folks that they're naturally reaching. Because if you're only going to try to focus on the people that you naturally reach on a regular basis, it, it can work. And I do think that it's kind of like shifting a bit of the psychology, because I think so much of us have been conditioned to just focus. Who is the next person you're gonna reach? What is your customer acquisition cost? It's not just artists, it's the whole industry that's thinking about it this way, but you can build a sustainable business if you are just focused on the pub shot reach. I know it's a bit of that thousand true fans mentality applied to web three, but I think that there's plenty of nuances there. And sometimes it could be less than that. Sometimes it could be more than that. But I think there's some really unique things. One thing. Interested to hear your thoughts on though is just with artists specifically and fans and just the nature of that relationship and whether or not the tokenization of their relationship changes anything. Right. Because I feel like with fans, there's a lot of this conception that because they don't feel like there's nothing that's like financially tying them to them, maybe that brings up, you know, a different relationship than they would if they do feel actually, you know, financially tied to the. Is there any downsides or is there anything that you think of in terms of how that broader tokenization of the relationship changes any of that dynamic or expectations?

[00:42:21] Cooper Turley: I definitely think there's downsides, and I think there's a lot of pressure that comes with it. You know, I think for artists that are selling nfts, you need to think about new mechanisms. Like, what is my floor price? What is my volume? Is this asset trading above what I sold it for in the first place? That's a lot of pressure, you know, and that takes a lot of time to get right. I think that over time people are gonna recognize. Collector is getting mad about floor prices. The same as a fan being mad about the type of song that you're releasing, where that's just kind of the name of the game. You know, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but it's not like there needs to be a huge reliance on that. I think the one thing the artists need to focus on is actually being consistent with what they're putting out in releasing. If you're giving it your best effort and you're doing things to add value back to early collections, to be able to engage with your community and doing things that show that you're being intentional, that to me matters a lot more than like, what is the price of the tokens themselves, because I think over. We need to recognize that not all fans are the same, and it's not like all music is only gonna exist as NFTs. What's gonna happen is that all these songs are gonna be available on Spotify. If I'm a passive fan, I can go and just listen to that song. There's no expectation for me to ever have a financial relationship with that artist. But the new unlock here is if I wanna go deeper on that relationship. This is something that I've wanted to do for a long time, and I believe many others do. I can now collect something that represents a limited version of that song. And for other people that are excited about that artist's career. Not only can we share on our Instagram story, we can now go into a private collector's chat and say, Hey, I was able to pick up this sold out drop. I was able to pick up one of their early rookie cards, and I think what we start to see is that the fan base gets a little bit more. It's delineated across different verticals where there's some vans who are just showing up to a concert, you know, all the time. I go into GA at a show and I'm like, how do I get these people to buy music and FT use? And the reality is most of them probably never will because they just wanna go and have a good time. They wanna party and forget about their nine to five job. And that's perfectly fine. But I think for the small subset of people who are really passionate about music, those active listeners being able to answer into these more deeper relationships, it's really gonna empower curation in a very new way. And I think the analog I would make here, Sites like Height Machine really drove the success of SoundCloud in a very massive way. You know, there was a demographic of curators who were saying, Hey, we love this type of music. There was all these different blogs, like This song is sick, you know, all these EDM blogs, pigeons and planes, et cetera. They were adding cultural zeitgeist to these songs. And I think the financialization of these assets is not only gonna incentivize people to wanna curate and write about these different article. It's actually gonna give them the means to sustain themselves on the back of doing so. Or if I'm a curator who's really successful at identifying talent, I don't need to go work for a major label as an a and r because I can simply spin up a newsletter on sub stack, go and look at the drop calendar on sound, xyz, and then the event that I'm able to really identify. Successful drops, I can actually start to make a living on the back of my taste. I think that's something that hasn't really existed before and something that I'm personally really excited to see happen more and more in the industry at large.

[00:45:08] Dan Runcie: That last piece is huge because it makes me think back to the blog era, especially at hip hop with just. How popular it was when, whether it was sites like Two Dope Boys or Now, right. And their influence on being able to have a mix tape that they're putting out. They're putting their stamp for approval. They're the media channel that's sharing the tape, that's being released from Dap Piff and being like, Hey, here is this new kid Cutty record that you need to listen to a kid named Cutty. You know, this is the mix tape. Check it out. Or the cool kids, or Charles Hamilton or whoever, one of these artists, The difference though, is that even though the artists in the blog era and the people who ran these websites in the blog era were so influential, and I think at a time they even had more influence than the major record labels did. They didn't capture the upside. They created the culture. They created the influence, but they didn't capture the upside. This allows that to happen in a way. The next version of Two Dope Boys could essentially be the one to, like you said, they could start up a newsletter, they could be able to release this and be like, Hey, I'm the one that is putting this investment in and then this is gonna stay there from here on out. That's something that's really special. And to be honest, I don't feel like there's enough discussion around that. So I'm glad you brought that point up.

[00:46:26]  Cooper Turley: Absolutely. And I think the one, the one thing I wanna zoom in on there, That doesn't require the artists to sell any of their masters. You know, them putting out 25 editions of a collectible song that a curator can go and buy and then help spread the word about within their pockets. There's no conversation around like, what percentage master publishing does this curator now have? Do I need to bring them into my creative decision, et cetera. It's a new market that now exists on the back of taste and curation, and I think in a lot of ways, music NFTs get pushed back cause they say, oh, you don't actually own the rights. Why do these things have value in the first place? I'm a big believer that community has a lot of value to it. You know, I don't think that art needs utility or needs IP ownership or Masters or publishing to be valuable. I think these curators are able to tell very compelling stories about the impact that music has and being able to add a new market into the equation through music and fts, it really unlocks a new mechanism for artist fandom that I think is very simple to understand. I don't think the average fan will be able. Rationalize what a master or a publishing right looks like. But I think they can understand what a rookie card or what a limited edition of songs looks like. And so I'm very excited to watch these markets mature. And I think that ties back into why the fund is collecting music, NFTs, cuz we believe that. More people are going to be able to understand what it means to own a collectible than they are going to know what it means to own masters or publishing. And so you sort of have these two different sides of the equation. I think they can both work in T and in unison with one another to make the aggregate music market more valuable as a whole.

[00:47:51] Dan Runcie: And I think your fun will be a, a test to see how well that works. So, It'll, it'll be, it'll be fascinating. I feel like the structures make sense. You have each day, each piece of it there. I'll be very interested to see what the returns end up being like for each of those categories. Right. Of course, you know, most of the fund is looking at your precede and seed stage music and web three startups, so I assume that it's naturally gonna be what the expectations would be for any young startup. But I'm very interested to see what those expected multiples or the exits will be for the NFTs and then, The artists seed round investments themselves. 

[00:48:26] Cooper Turley: Absolutely. I will say that the vast majority of the fund is going into web three companies, but time and time again, people get really excited about this idea of investing in artists. Again, do not have the answers whatsoever, but. I'm noticing people are really excited about that ballpark. So I'm excited to at least start that trend with this first fund here and in the future. I'm hoping that we can create playbooks for many artists who don't even use nft, use their web three to also start to enter in these agreements as well. But you know, I'm really excited about it. You know, like I said, I've been in music for 10 years, crypto for the last five. I feel like this fund is a great way for me to really fuse those two passions together. And it's a very small market right now, but if you made it this far in the episode, I hope that this is something of interest to you and I would love to keep the conversation going if you have more.

[00:49:06] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Before we wrap things up and let you go, one of the quotes you had mentioned, you referenced this earlier, the conversation too, that we're not at the point in Music Web three, where Drake is gonna come through and drop an album or a Bieber or a Post Malone or one of those artists. If you had to pick a year that you think that will happen though, what year would you pick?

[00:49:26] Cooper Turley: Uh, 2025. Okay. And I think what's gonna happen is that a lot of the biggest artists in the world will just happen to have NFTs under the hood. You know, I don't think it's gonna be like one of those major superstars doing their first drop as NFTs. I think there's like a developing culture of artists right now that are gonna really gain a lot of momentum over the next couple of years. And when they release that major album, you're gonna look back and see that their first songs actually happen to be minted as the collection of 25. A lot of major artists are really excited about this. You know, I spend a lot of my time talking to artists who are currently signed to deals that are saying, Hey, I wanna drop, but I can't because the major label doesn't let me. And I think what's gonna happen is that major labels are gonna wake up to how valuable these early collections can be. And instead of blocking their artists from doing these drops in the first place, they're gonna start to really ramp up and get engaged with them too. So instead of just like, how do we put this album out on Spotify? It's gonna be, how do we develop a relationship with these platforms and onboard our catalog into the. So the biggest thing that I see as a question mark for web three is do we recreate the same systems of Volt? You know, is there going to be a world in which the major labels are just driving the vast majority of NFT sales? I think you're already seeing early examples of this like Warner's partnership with Open Sea, and one thing that I think is really important for us to recognize is that artist independence is very, very valuable. You know, I think that artists owning their own rights and knowing how to run their own companies and run their own business is extremely valuable. And so I'm hopeful that there's a world in. Artists can coexist with labels in a more free form matter. You know, I'm hoping that there's a world where artists can upstream their most viral song to a label, but still retain the rest of their catalog. But I think what's gonna happen over the next year or two is there's going to be. A shuffling of different power dynamics from artists to label relationships. And I think the most forward thinking labels are gonna recognize that it's okay to give up a little bit of control so that an artist can run their business more properly. And if you have 20% of the biggest artists in the world, that's probably more valuable than having 80% of someone who's not really doing much with their career. And so I'm eager and excited to see what those relationships look like and hopefully try and, you know, form some of those early stage relationships along the way.

[00:51:41] Dan Runcie: But it's to your point, yeah, they would rather have 20% of that than 80% of the field at this point, so, mm-hmm. , I think we'll see more of that and actually we'll see more of that, not just involving multimedia, but involv. More merging technology. So yeah, it's only a matter of time. 2025 is earlier than I thought you were gonna say, but things move quick, so we'll keep the, we'll keep an eye out for it.Cool. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. This is great.

[00:52:07] Cooper Turley: Thank you, man. I just wanna say, I really appreciate this podcast because you're so well versed when it comes to both the music side, the tech side, and the financial side. I think that it's, Um, difficult for me to find pockets to really talk about the financialization of music. You know, there's a lot of pushback that comes from it, but you know, the way you structured this conversation I think really gives a clear picture of why I'm excited about more of the financialization of music. I think it gives a lot of credence to emerging artists and sort of the way I'm thinking about collecting. So really appreciate you making this happen. I think it was a fantastic episode. I'm excited to share with all my friends.

[00:52:37] Dan Runcie: Likewise, no. These are the conversations that need to happen, right? The more that people can talk about it, the more it just gets in the open and the faster things get to where it should be.So thank you for making the time. This is great. 

[00:52:49] Cooper Turley: Yeah. The last thing I'll say here in closing, I write a weekly newsletter called This Week in Music, NFTs. If you're interested in any of this conversation,

every Monday I publish a short edition that talks about upcoming drops, top stories, bonus read from the community. So if you're looking to get more involved in the web three space, that's where I'd recommend getting started. And then if you are a founder or an artist that's building something and looking for investment, the best place to reach me is via email coop Coop records xyz. But again, thank you so much for having me, man. This was a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate your time.

[00:53:18] Dan Runcie: Thank you. And if you're not following him on Twitter and you reactive on Twitter, make sure you do that. What's your Twitter handle?

[00:53:23] Cooper Turley: Twitter is at kooopatroopa. Good stuff. Thanks man. Thanks for having me.

Today's episode is a two-parter. Part 1 is on Spotify and YouTube’s billion streams and views playlists. After reviewing both lists, there’s a lot to learn about the streaming era and the strategy for both platforms respectively. I broke it all down with Tati Cirsiano, a music analyst at MIDiA Research.

Spotify’s list is more reflective of passive consumption. Spotify’s top-performing songs are more correlated with radio hits than YouTube, which is a more active consumption experience.

YouTube’s Billion Views Club has more international stars than Spotify. With streaming continuing to grow across the world and plateauing in the United States, YouTube’s list more reflects future music consumption. 

Part 2 is with Glenn Peoples from Billboard. We talk about its new Global Music Index that takes the publicly traded stocks from the biggest music companies in music to give an overall picture of stock performance for the industry. 

Here’s everything Tati, Glenn, and I covered on the show:

[3:03] Immediate takeaways from each Billions Club playlists

[5:15] How “meme traffic” impacted both platforms

[9:37] Passive consumption vs. active consumption

[12:11] International differences between Spotify and YouTube

[14:57] The Justin Bieber conundrum 

[16:36] How Spotify and YouTube enable fragmentation of fandom

[21:26] Gym-going and seasonality’s impact on streaming numbers

[26:14] Short-form videos eventual effect on YouTube streaming

[27:55] YouTube vs. Spotify competition intensifying 

[35:58] MIDiA’s upcoming predictions report

[38:33] What % of the Global Music index Spotify takes up

[39:23] Why music industry stocks fell further than the overall market

[46:25] Streaming platforms increasing prices

[50:22] What goes into calculating Average Revenue Per User for Spotify

[55:23] Spotify’s podcast strategy & acquisitions

[59:18] How much of Trapital’s audience comes from Spotify

[1:02:53] Why TikTok should launch it’s own streaming service

[1:09:39] What Glenn expects 2023 to look like

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Tati Cirisano, @tatianacirisano, Glenn Peoples, @theglennpeoples

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Tatiana Cirisano: Spotify's list is more of an accurate reflection of what the passive majority listens to, whereas YouTube is more of a reflection of what people are actively fans of and actively engaging, which is interesting because that was a question that we asked in our last episode where we were like, how do we measure, like, what are new ways to measure consumption? And I said, well, it'd be interesting if we could actually measure, you know, active consumption versus passive. And now here I'm looking at these two lists, I was like, oh, this is actually potentially an example of that.

[00:00:37] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:57] Dan Runcie: Today's episode is a two-parter. We normally don't do two-parters, but these topics were so closely linked, it made perfect sense, so we had to do it. The first part of this episode is a conversation I had with Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research, and we talked about the Billions Clubs. Spotify and YouTube both have their respective playlists that have over a billion streams and views respectively. So we talked about what can we learn from both of these playlists together. What does it tell us about the most popular songs that do well on streaming, but also what can it tell us about these two platforms individually? What are the differences between the two playlists? Are there certain songs that perform better on others versus that and why? And what that means more broadly for the sector, Just given how big these companies are. Second part of the conversation, I talked to Glen Peoples who works for Billboard, and he recently released this Global Music Index, which is a value-based index that takes the publicly traded stocks from many of the biggest companies in music, combines them, and gives us an overall picture of how we can look at the performance of the music industry, at least in the publicly traded companies. Hint, it's been a down year for stocks overall, so nothing too surprising there. But we talk specifically about Spotify, who stock is noticeably in a tougher place, at least from, where it was year to date compared to some of the other companies. So we talked about why that is, what to expect, and more. Really great conversations. Let's start things off with Tati. Hope you enjoy it. 

[00:02:31] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Tati Cirisano back with us from MIDiA Research and we're going to dive into the Billions playlists that are both from Spotify and YouTube. What a fascinating list that's like a tripped-out memory lane, telling you what songs are popular, but also how these lists are different. I feel like they both have somewhere between like 3 to 400 songs, but there's a whole bunch of different trends here. I know that we both have a bunch of notes here, but Tati, I'll start with you. What stuck out to you most when you were looking through these lists? 

[00:03:03] Tatiana Cirisano: Oh my gosh. So there's so many things. I guess I'll start with the things that stuck out to me that don't have to do with differences, but just stuck out to me in terms of just looking at both. And one was that I felt like there was definitely a dominance of songs and artists from the last decade and maybe even just the last five years, which was interesting to me because there's been such a debate recently about is old music or what we call catalog, which is often not actually old music. But is it sort of cannibalizing new music? Does new music have more to compete with? And that whole argument. So it was interesting to see that there actually weren't that many or weren't relatively as many older songs. I believe the YouTube Billion Views Club had, like, one song from the 70s. It makes more sense with YouTube. And I think YouTube had even more dominance with more recent songs. And that kind of makes sense because if it's visual-based, maybe some of these songs we don't have the music videos, or maybe they're not as good. But I thought that that was interesting just off the bat from both ways. 

[00:04:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I would agree. I think that YouTube's list did trend much younger, and there's a whole MTV effect of just what music videos look like then and now. But I also feel like what's important is with both Spotify and YouTube, that when these platforms accelerated in growth, a lot of the artists that were releasing music around those times accelerated and growth too. And I feel like I saw some trends there. If I think about YouTube and its rapid growth phase more so in the early 2010s. There were a few songs there that I saw, whether it was like a party rock anthem or songs like that, that streamed really well on YouTube. Still nowhere near a billion streams on Spotify. And I think on the flip side of that, on Spotify, there were a few songs that were in that late 2010s era when Spotify was in its rapid growth phase that weren't on YouTube's playlist. So that was one of those interesting things. Like, for example, I think Drake's song Nice for What, a billion streams on Spotify. It's in the Billions Club, but it wasn't on YouTube's list. And I remember that music video, I think it's at the skating rink and he has, like, Issa Rae and all these people in it. So there was definitely some influence of the platforms too. 

[00:05:15] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. And that reminds me, too, of with the influence of platforms, it felt like, there were, so okay on both platforms. I felt like there were a lot of songs that were driven by, like, a viral hit or a novelty, which kind of just goes to show how embedded music has become in, like, meme culture and social media and just like online culture in general. But it also, like, looking at the differences within that, it felt like, this is like, I mean, you'd need to do more of a real, like, study and look at the actual numbers on this, but just from scrolling over the list, it seemed like, more of the TikTok traffic is going to Spotify. Like, there were a lot of songs that had a billion streams that I just remember being moments on TikTok, like Dreams and the Roses, Imanbek remix, like those songs and many others had passed a billion streams on Spotify, but had not cracked the YouTube list. And then on the flip side, YouTube had a lot of stuff that was more, like, just these, memes about, I'm trying to think of an example, like the Dame tu Cosita song and video, like that. There were actually an abundance of songs on the Billion Views Club for YouTube that were linked to these videos, including Crazy Frog. 

[00:06:24] Dan Runcie: I saw that. 

[00:06:25] Tatiana Cirisano: It like that was just, like, that was a moment in time in meme culture that kind of preceded TikTok humor. I don't know, like you can almost track meme culture's impact based on these two platforms lists as well with TikTok driving more traffic to Spotify and sort of the old, almost like Vine humor going more to YouTube. 

[00:06:45] Dan Runcie: That point makes me think of two things I also saw as well. So I believe the first YouTube video that hit a billion streams was Psy's Gangnam Style. I don't think that song has a billion streams or anywhere close to that on Spotify's list, which I think speaks to your point about just the visual nature of that. And that of course is a pre-TikTok era. The other song I think that lines up with this a bit, and this is because of memes within the music video itself is Nelly and Kelly Rowland's Dilemma music video. That is the most popular YouTube video that Nelly has, and I'm pretty sure that Kelly Rowland likely has too. And it's because of this one scene in the music video where Kelly is texting on this 2002's phone and she has Microsoft Excel open, and that's what she's actually using to text. So they're both, you know, generating money. And Kelly was even talking about an interview semi-recently talking about, I didn't even know what Microsoft Excel was. They just told me to type. But over time, and now we obviously have a different relationship with texting. That type of event can blow up on YouTube in a way that not necessarily going to Spotify. 

[00:07:54] Tatiana Cirisano: Right. Like, there's an inherent difference in just what you're going to do on these platforms. Like, there's a number of reasons why you might look up a music video on YouTube. Maybe you like the song, maybe there's a celebrity cameo, maybe somebody told you that. It's a crazy, wild video and you're just curious. Like, there's a lot more reasons I think than there are reasons why you would stream a song. So that just by definition kind of opens up a lot of differences in these lists. 

[00:08:18] Dan Runcie: The other thing, too, that you mentioned earlier was the decades and how YouTube's list only had one song that I think that was before 1980 and there was only a handful even from the 80s and the 90s as well. And while Spotify had a bit more, I still think it was quite less. Last time I looked at Spotify's list, it was less than 10% of the 300-plus songs that were more than 20 years old. And I have to assume YouTube may be even closer to 94-96%. Part of that, I think, as you mentioned, is music videos, but I also wonder is part of it with Spotify having a bit more of a close link to radio play and just things that were popular on the radio at the time. Like for instance, a song like Goo Goo Doll's, Iris, that was on Spotify's list is not on YouTube's list. I don't necessarily think the song had like a memorable music video necessarily, but I think it's the audio of it, it makes people think of, you know, what was that movie that it was in? I'm trying to remember the movie that it was in. It'll come to me, but there was some 90s movie that was in, I'm drawing a blank on it right now. Oh, City of Angels. So it was in that, and then, but I just don't think that people, like, recognized the music video they would like, it wasn't necessarily this big, like TRL hit the way that like a boy band song was. 

[00:09:37] Tatiana Cirisano: I noticed the same thing where looking over Spotify's list, it felt very much like just a list of every radio hit of the past 10 or 20 years that it was really, really tied to that. And I wonder, like, this kind of brings me to another thing that I wanted to talk to you about with this, which is how my sort of theory with another reason that these are different is that Spotify's list is more of an accurate reflection of what the passive majority listens to, whereas YouTube is more of a reflection of what people are actively fans of and actively engaging, which is interesting because that was a question that we asked in our last episode where we were like, how do we measure, like, what are new ways to measure consumption? And I said, well, it'd be interesting if we could actually measure, you know, active consumption versus passive. And now here I'm looking at these two lists, I was like, oh, this is actually potentially an example of that. And the other reason that came to me is because at MIDiA, we've recently done a report on looking at different types of entertainment and how much of consumption is in the background of another activity versus focused. And YouTube, like, people that watch music videos on YouTube are much more likely to be doing that as a focused activity in the foreground rather than something in the background, which makes sense because it's visual, there's, you know, social features to it, et cetera whereas they're a lot more likely to just put on their Spotify music in the background of something else. So I wonder if that's also part of the reason that Spotify seems to have more of a tie to radio and those songs that were just kind of popular for everyone whereas YouTube is more what are the songs and artists and videos that people are like engaging with.

[00:11:09] Dan Runcie: That's a good point. It makes me think, well, on the YouTube side, I'm much more likely to listen to a YouTube playlist run, right? Like, I normally don't do that when I'm watching YouTube. I know YouTube has playlist, but I'm more likely to put a Spotify playlist on, which speaks to that. And I know some of the stuff that you've researched and the team has researched on MIDiA as well, is just this whole nature of probably a bit more on the digital stream provider side, but how to measure active versus passive engagement of, or actually listening to a song. And maybe this is a closer way to get a gauge for that because, you know, especially when these artists have these big week sales that'll come out and we'll see the numbers come through, it would be great to know, okay, how many people said yes, I want to listen to this Taylor Swift song from the Midnights album as opposed to people being like, oh, it just happened to be what's dominating today's top hits or if I'm listening to, you know, the number 50 or the top 50 songs in the US. These are the ones that happen to play. 

[00:12:11] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, yeah. That makes total sense. And I think the other reason why Spotify's list probably is more tied to radio is because it's a lot more, like the user base is less international than YouTube 'cause that was the biggest difference, looking at the two lists was just how few internet, like non-Western artists there were on Spotify's Billions Club versus YouTube's. 

[00:12:36] Dan Runcie: That stuck out too. And I think YouTube as well also had a list of artists that had the most Billion Views Club songs were and artists like Ozuna were high up on that list. I want to say he had at least 10 videos on YouTube that hit a billion. But on Spotify, it's far less. I think J Balvin was another one too, where there was a big discrepancy there. And yeah, I think the fact that YouTube has had much more of a market share and in general listenership in these regions outside of, you know, US and Western Europe as opposed to YouTube. So maybe part of that, where it's a signal of like, okay, this is where Spotify's clearly trying to grow and has been trying to get more share in. So, like, if Spotify achieved its goal, then it likely would have more of that and vice versa.

[00:13:28] Tatiana Cirisano: Right. And then it is YouTube's sort of a more accurate representation of, like, what the music landscape of the future looks like in that way where it will be less dominated probably by Western artists. As you know, streaming sort of infiltrates all these other places. And that is so interesting for, like, the fragmentation conversation that we've been having because it means things are just further fractured and, you know, there's going to be lots of artists and songs on these lists that we've probably never heard of. Like, it was so interesting to me because part of the, like, excitement that I had to do this little project of, like, opening the two and comparing them was, I was excited to be surprised. I was like, I want to see what things are on the list that I'm like, I have never heard of that. Or what is that? How did that end up here? And I did not have that moment once looking at Spotify's playlist. But looking at YouTube's, there were so many videos and so many artists that I just had never heard of, and that was exciting to me. So I wonder how much that's a product of YouTube specifically versus that being what will happen inevitably when streaming is more widespread.

[00:14:34] Dan Runcie: And were most of the surprises that you had, were most of them from an international perspective, or were there any Western-based music surprises? 

[00:14:43] Tatiana Cirisano: That's a good question. There were definitely a handful of Western ones that I can't think of right now, but the majority were probably just artists I'd never heard of or songs, yeah, artists I didn't know anything about that had billions and billions of views. Yeah, I don't know. Let me think about that. 

[00:14:57] Dan Runcie: Yeah. While you're thinking about that, one thing that stuck out to me was there were certain artists that I think surprised me both in a way of, oh, I thought there would've been more here, or there were actually a bit less here. One artist is Justin Bieber. So I know that Justin Bieber is very popular, but if you would've asked me who were the biggest artists of the 2010s, I probably would name four names, maybe even five names before I named his name. But if you look at, even if you're just looking at Western artists, the artist that is the one with the most songs on Spotify and the one that I believe has the most songs on YouTube as well, Justin Bieber is in the top three of both of those lists. I believe it's at least nine songs on Spotify and at least maybe 10 or so on YouTube. And there's something about that fandom that I didn't necessarily, I mean, I knew that he was huge. I knew that there were so many songs that were quite popular, especially the album that had, like, Sorry, and Love Yourself. Like, that one was huge, but I thought that there were other artists, like for instance, an artist like Beyoncé or even someone like Taylor Swift, who, I don't believe that Beyoncé had a song on the YouTube list at all, or a song that's really close to that. And at least up to now, I don't think that Taylor Swift has a song on Spotify's Billions List. I think that Blank Space will probably get there eventually, but I don't think she has a song this moment that's on that list. So to see the two of them who I think a lot of people largely think are two of the largest musicians in of the past decade, but to see someone like Bieber just have hit after hit on both of these lists, I was like, wow.

[00:16:36]

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iana Cirisano:

That's so interesting, the Justin Bieber conundrum of all of this. Okay, I have a couple of thoughts on that. I think, so he was sort of Made on YouTube, right? That's where he started posting clips. That's where he was discovered. And I think something else that this ties into that I wanted to bring up is how, with YouTube, the artists that reach these Billion Views Club, I think probably are more likely to have sort of built a community on YouTube which Justin Bieber did, and that was kind of like the roots of his fandom. So when I was reading YouTube's, like, blog about the Billion Views Club, and there were a bunch of artists' quotes, and a lot of them had to do with the artist saying, you know, like, YouTube was a place to build a community. And Alan Walker was one of the artists who said that. And he was someone who, he's an electronic music artist who when I was looking at the YouTube Billions Views Club, he came up again and again and I was like, it seemed random to me because he's a great artist. He has a big community of fans, but I just didn't think that he would have billions of views. But he seems to credit the community aspect for that. So I think that could be part of it. But then as soon as you said, oh but he's also one of the top artists on Spotify, I'm like, okay, but that's a completely different story because there's no community building on Spotify. So is it just that the fans are, that obsessed with the music that they're, you know, maybe migrating over and streaming there as well, or are we just misremembering, you know, how big of an impact Justin Bieber had? And then that brought me to thinking about how, I mean I think this relates to Taylor as well, but they both built their fan bases at a time when things were just kind of a lot less congested. So I think it was in many ways, easier to get a billion views or billion streams on something a couple of years ago than it is now, now that people's tastes are so fragmented. So maybe that's also part of the reason why, like, I wonder how many of those streams came from, you know, pre-2015 or something versus from then on. I wonder when they were accumulated. So yeah, that's sort of my rant of thoughts. 

[00:18:41] Dan Runcie: That one about Bieber is a good one because I didn't think about that, but I think it's absolutely right. He was doing all those cover songs of all these other artists when he's like a teenager. He's growing the base there. And to the point that you had brought up in an article a couple of months ago, we talked about the last time we're on the podcast, he is in a different category than someone like a Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. Like, when Taylor made Teardrops On My G uitar. I don't even like, that was probably around the same time that YouTube started. Like in some ways her fandom predated so much of what people know as music. And of course, Beyonce became a solo artist from Destiny's Child well before YouTube even started. So I think that's a good point there with some of it. The Spotify thing though is interesting, yeah. I mean, I think those songs did get a lot of radio play as well. Like everything off of that album, that Bieber's album that Sorry came on as well. Like, they got a ton of radio plays. So that ties into the Spotify piece of it, too, and maybe a little bit of misremembering of certain things of, well, and you know, like I'm a little bit older than the custom Bieber demo, so there could be some of it there where they may not hit me in the same circles that, the same way that, you know, someone did with Beyoncé for instance.

[00:19:53]

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iana Cirisano:

Yeah. I have another thought related to this that I feel like I'm struggling to articulate, but I'm going to try, which is that on the Spotify list and the YouTube list, I thought there was more overlap when it came to which older artists were on the list than there was when it comes to newer artists. And I wonder if that is also sort of further proof of this fragmentation that's happening because it would make sense that if a decade ago, two decades ago, people kind of had less to choose from to listen to. Everybody kind of has the same favorite artists from those decades that they've listened to enough to reach a billion streams. Yet now that people have more choice and things are fragmented more, their favorite artists and songs today are more varied. 

[00:20:39] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think there's something there because if you think about it, the lists are quite similar. And I think even if you look at YouTube's list, which I think even though YouTube's list is less reliant on radio, the biggest songs they have from the 80s and 90s are still the same songs that people have heard in bars and in stadiums and in TV commercials for decades now. So there's consistency there. Things do start to get a bit segmented to your point of where things are right now. So both of these platforms, in many ways enable the fragmentation of fandom. Their algorithms made it easy for people to have their own circles. So I do think that that piece of it is true. So I think that's a good point. 

[00:21:18] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. Okay. I'm glad I could put that into words 'cause it was one of those things where I had this thought and was like, does this make sense? 

[00:21:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Oh, yeah. 

[00:21:25] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. Fascinating.

[00:21:26] Dan Runcie: Another thing too, that stuck out, this stuck out a bit more on Spotify's playlist than others, but how certain songs have shifted from when radio, for instance, was more playing songs that I think people more often wanted to hear in their cars. But Spotify, it's on-demand, it's everywhere. I think, for instance, workout music is something that we've seen a pretty large uptick on with Spotify. A song like Eminem's Till I Collapse, which is in the billions playlist for Spotify, I don't think I heard that song once on the radio. Maybe I'm misremembering things just relative to how big Eminem's hits were in the early 2000s. But that song is one of his most played songs. And I think it's because it's a song that a lot of guys listen to when they want to work out. Maybe it's something that they also will play, like, I don't think they to like LA Fitness necessarily like on the speakers, but I think it's more so of like a, no, let me go listen to this while I try to, you know, set PR on the bench press or whatever. So I feel like there's things like that, also seasonal music, right? Of course, just Mariah Carey and some of the records and accolades that All I Want For Christmas Is You has continued to reach and all of the remixes and versions she's done of that song, like that doesn't happen without streaming, right?

[00:22:41] Tatiana Cirisano: I was going to say September was also on there, which, you know, every September everybody starts to sing. That is a seasonal song. So, yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And I also noticed that both lists had a lot of, like, upbeat music, like what you're saying, like stuff that people work out to. And I feel like it's for different reasons. Like I'm Spotify, maybe those types of songs dominate because like you're saying, they're the things that people put on in the background of something. Whereas on YouTube, the reason might be because those tend to have more vibrant videos. Like, I feel like more people are likely to watch videos for, you know, an upbeat reggaeton song than like some acoustic, I don't know, Taylor Swift song, even though she's a massive star. Like, overall, you know? And on that note, I don't know if this is just my, you know, anecdotal takeaway, you'd have to, again, like actually go through all the songs and do some data crunching. But I felt like Spotify had actually more varied in terms of like upbeat songs were on there. But also a lot of, Coldplay, a lot of like earlier Ed Sheeran, like, those more like, not so upbeat, more acoustic songs, whereas YouTube barely had any of those because again, I think there may be less likely to be something people watch the video of. I don't know. But that was interesting just how uptempo the two lists were. 

[00:23:59] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I would need to go back and check to see if like a song like Coldplay's Yellow. Is that on YouTube's list? 

[00:24:08] Tatiana Cirisano: It's on Spotify's, but I don't think it's on Youtube's.

[00:24:10] Dan Runcie: And that would speak to that, right? It's a more somber video. I'm pretty sure Chris Martin's head is laying like sideways on the pavement in that video, right, or on the bed, if I remember correctly. So yeah, it's just not going to be as, I think, yes. Like, if you have five minutes, like, this is the thing that I want to be able to get to. So yeah, it's such a fascinating distinction. And I think with it, it's clear that with both of these platforms, the two of them are really trying to compete more and more with each other, with both Spotify trying to get more and more international, YouTube trying to have more and more influence just in terms of the overall revenue that they generate for the industry. So I do want to talk about the two of them as companies distinctly, but before we get there, I think that the international piece and just how revenue is generated for each of these streams or each of these views will be an interesting distinction over time because, especially with Spotify, these streams that the artists are generating don't necessarily get weighted the same in terms of the pro rata and the pools that they get put into and then getting separated. So if one artist has a bunch of streams from a bunch of their fans, but a lot of their fans are in places where the subscriptions cost $2 per month to subscribe to Spotify, or there's a over index of free accounts versus paid, like these numbers don't necessarily reflect that, which is fine. I think we're just trying to get a gauge for what listening looks like. But the revenue may actually look very different for, let's say, thinking about like one of these, you know, 80s or 90s radio hits. The person that's listening to that account may be more likely to be paying 10 or maybe soon $11 a month for Spotify subscription if I'm just thinking about what that consumer may be like and therefore essentially getting more revenue per stream than some of the newer artists that may have a younger aboard international fan base. So that was another point that I thought was interesting. We won't have that data, but just based on inference, I feel like that's a trend in terms of where it's going. 

[00:26:14] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, that makes sense. And I also wonder, like, if short form video becomes the more dominant form of consuming video, and the people that are watching music videos on YouTube shift to watching 32nd videos that use music on shorts, like, what will that do to the revenue mix? And it'll also depend on if the way that UGC platforms payout to the music industry changes where it's no longer this, you know, blanket payment for uses and is more per use. I think there's a lot that could get shifted around there. And I wonder if, like, does that mean YouTube is sort of cannibalizing its own, one of its own sources where people that are watching music videos are now going to shorts instead? Or is there an opportunity? Like, I think there's an opportunity for both. But I guess these are just questions that come up in my mind when I think about it. 

[00:27:02] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's like in some ways it's similar to when Instagram adds stories, right? You're trying to get a sense, is this additive or is this going to take away, And I think YouTube's goal is that would be additive, but you're bringing up, I think, a valid thing where it's a little different with music and how you're registering streams. And I do think that there's a certain number of people that the better and better that shorts get, there's going to be less desire to go check out the actual video. And if these songs aren't registering, I think at least for a stream or a view, it's 30 seconds of listening needs to be registered, at least to be counted as a stream. Then if that doesn't happen on a short end, you're just getting these clips, then how does that impact the actual artist themselves, right? 

[00:27:47] Tatiana Cirisano: No, you put it really well. Like, the better that shorts gets, the more it might actually threaten people going to YouTube to watch the video.

[00:27:55] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So many interesting, I think, things to just dive into with this. But I think it's a good point to just talk more broadly about Spotify and YouTube in general, just in terms of where they are, how both of them want the other one. And I think based on these blog posts and based on a number of the letters that, the emails that you'll see from Lyor Cohen when he's describing where things are with YouTube. There's clearly a goal to, you know, establish itself as the leader in the market. And I think the growth has been pretty strong, but of course Spotify, I think still with nearly 200 million paid subscribers is definitely, you know, I think leading on that front. But where do you see this play out in terms of whether or not the trends and clearly what these playlists tell us about the tendencies of these two companies and also where things are going and who we think will be more or less dominant, let's say five years from now? Let's not say 10 years. I think that's a bit too far out, but let's say five years from now. 

[00:28:51] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. Well, I've written about this, I've written a couple of blogs about this, but I think that YouTube does have a lot of advantages, especially for just where the music landscape is going. So one is that, in the streaming world, there's so little differentiation, right? All the DSPs kind of offer the same experience, the same catalog, the same price. But YouTube actually has a differentiating factor in that it's an audio-visual platform, and that they also have shorts, and they kind of have this ecosystem of apps that feed into each other. And that's sort of the second advantage, is that ecosystem aspect where, you know, based on our data, new generations of fans are really looking for more ways to actively participate in fandom and, you know, not just listen to a song, but create content around it. And YouTube has that it has this, you know, creator proposition. In many ways, YouTube was the first, arguably the first, you know, creator platform. The first place that you could post video content online and build a career around it. So, fans want this, but also artists need more ways to directly engage with their fans and monetize and actually not just be discovered, but sustain fandom and build communities. And that's the thing that I think so many social platforms lack, is they can help artists get discovered, but it's still really hard for them to connect the dots. So when you have YouTube, if you think about like the journey of, a fan through the ecosystem, you know, maybe they discover a song on shorts, and they can actually just click it and go straight, you know, go straight to the artist's YouTube page where maybe they watch the video that just came out and then they can go to YouTube music and stream the song, and it kind of creates this more frictionless experience. So I think we're already seeing a lot of consumers spend more of their music time on platforms that let them play around with the music, like the TikToks of the world and the shorts of the world. So if you have an ecosystem that combines that with streaming and the ability to just go seamlessly from one to the other, I think that's really powerful. And that's also why, you know, ByteDance launching a streaming service could really change the game. I think ByteDance and YouTube have a lot of the same advantages in that space. So I think YouTube is well positioned for the current era and what both artists are looking for and what fans are looking for, I guess is how I would frame that.

[00:31:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think that YouTube's biggest advantage with this is that A, it still is under a much larger company that prints money from search, which is Google, right? So the fact that it in itself is the second largest search engine, largely because of Google, I think that piece of it will serve well. And I think secondly, the fact that when there's so many more things competing for your attention, whatever can make that have less friction, it can make it easier for people to access that platform as we've seen based on the rise of TikTok, I think those platforms do tend to win out in this area where you're ultimately trying to either capture or monetize attention. And the way that streaming is going, even though I know it can be lucrative for artists that own their assets or have favorable terms, it is a bit more of a measure of capturing attention for a lot of artists and being able to essentially market and position themselves out there to share what they have so that they can monetize elsewhere. And I do think that, I know I've talked about this previously, but just Spotify may be in a little bit more of a difficult position just given the fact that its ultimate goal is still to try to get more monetization from its non-music audio, whether it's your podcast or your audiobooks and stuff like that.

[00:32:41] Dan Runcie: And I think that is a little bit of a tougher bet relative to YouTube, China. going with shorts and essentially try to compete more directly with TikTok or just other things in general that are making it easier. That said, I still think that Spotify is more strong from a product perspective of actually being able to, you know, ease of use of listening, being able to find and skip to the song, and being able to listen to a song on my phone you know, turning off the screen and then putting it in my pocket. And I know that YouTube does now allow you essentially to do that if you pay for subscription, but I think the friction, at least in the consumer's mind, is a little different than it is with doing that with Spotify, even because you do that with Spotify for free account especially. So I do think that there are some pros and cons there, but to your point, I do think that because YouTube is moving more in the direction of creating less friction for people to use its product and just the fact that it's visual, it's engaged, and to your other point, it's a bit more directly connected to fans being able to actively choose what they want to listen to, like the data and all those things are going to be more impactful and insightful there.

[00:33:48] Tatiana Cirisano: Right, Right. So I think artists will kind of go to wherever the fans and the remuneration opportunities are, and I think YouTube is right now, providing more of that than Spotify is. Like, Spotify is a place where you can monetize scale, but you can't monetize niche. And YouTube is an ecosystem where you can monetize both. And I think there's no reason why streaming services in general shouldn't be a place where you can monetize both. But we haven't really seen that happen yet, and I think YouTube is moving in that direction. So I guess I come at this question because of the work that I do from such a perspective of what do the artists and the fans want. But of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that alone isn't going to, you know, make YouTube overtake Spotify. So I guess I'm a little bit biased just based on the work that I do. 

[00:34:38] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I could see that. Because there's just so many other, there's just so many factors at play here. It's such a dominant position and at the end of the day, nearly 200 million people in the world are paying for the service and that is much higher than a lot of these other services. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out though. I feel like to some of the points you brought up earlier. Just going back to the Billions Club, if we had this conversation two years from now, I'd be interested to see, one, which old songs creep back up and which songs that have come up recently end up rising up and hitting those places, and does it line up with a lot of the points that we brought up here? So I'm excited to see what that looks like. 

[00:35:15] Tatiana Cirisano: No, me too. And also what the pace will be like? Will there be just way more songs that have hit a billion streams in a shorter amount of time, or will the opposite trend happen because of fragmentation? Like, I'm not, I'm not really sure. So yeah, as always, excited to see definitely what comes next. 

[00:35:30] Dan Runcie: Well, Tati, this is great. Thanks for coming to share these insights. And I think now I got to go back and count how many Crazy Frog videos there were on YouTube's list because when I saw that, I'm glad you brought that up. I was just like, my goodness, I forgot all about this trend. 

[00:35:45] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, at least in that ratio, you know, we have confirmed YouTube wins. 

[00:35:49] Dan Runcie: All right. Before we let you go, what do you have coming down the pipeline? Are there any upcoming research or any recent things that you've put out that listeners should keep an eye out for?

[00:35:58] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, I would say coming up one of my favorite things that we do at MIDiA Research is our predictions report where every year, at the end of the year, we put out predictions for the coming year. And we also rate ourselves in terms of how much we got right from the past year. I believe our success rate is somewhere above 80%.

[00:36:16] Dan Runcie: That's legit. 

[00:36:17] Tatiana Cirisano: That's great. But yeah, so we always do I believe we always do a free webinar on that. It was free last year. So look out for that because it's a great chance to interact with us even if you're not a client. And it's a lot of fun. 

[00:36:30] Dan Runcie: Awesome, we'll look out for that and, yeah.

[00:36:33] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah.

[00:36:33] Dan Runcie: We'll have to see. I'm curious about what the hit rate will be this year. So definitely let us know what the success rate is...

[00:36:39] Tatiana Cirisano: We will.

[00:36:40] Dan Runcie: from the ones you made last year, heading into this year. 

[00:36:42] Tatiana Cirisano: Awesome. Thanks, Dan. 

[00:36:43] Dan Runcie: Awesome. Well, thank you. This is great. 

[00:36:45] Dan Runcie: All right. Hope you enjoyed that first part with Tati breaking down the Billions Clubs. Here's my chat with Glenn Peoples.

[00:36:53] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Glenn Peoples with us who is from Billboard, and he just released this Global Music Index, which has stated that music stocks are down 44% this year, twice as much as the market. And Glenn, it'd be great to start here. What's going on? Why are socks down in the music industry?

[00:37:13] Glenn Peoples: Hey, thanks for having me. Well, stocks are down in general. So it's not that just music that's having a tough time at the stock market. You know, a big component of the Global Music Index, which I created for Billboard is Spotify. And Spotify has had a tough year, just like Netflix has had a tough year. There's, I think, enthusiasm for streaming stocks was high at the beginning of the pandemic and dropped quite a bit since then. And investors are not looking at growth so much as looking at margins, looking at profits, and so they're expecting a lot more from streaming services right now. So it's a tough time to be a streaming service, whether you're Netflix, whether you're Spotify. You could say, well, the investors got carried away. They were overvalued. Yeah, maybe so. It's just been a tough year for streaming services and when Spotify is that big of a component of the index, it's down, well, as of yesterday, it's down 60% for the year. And so that's a lot of market cap that's gone and that's dragging down the index. And that's the short version. 

[00:38:17] Dan Runcie: Right. So of course, it's a value-based index. Market cap is what defines it. And just so listeners know, how big of a factor is Spotify? Like, how much is their stock and their market cap weighted in terms of the overall index?

[00:38:33] Glenn Peoples: I would say it's probably, again, this is just ballpark. It's probably about 15% of the value of the index. It was a lot more obviously. I would say right now at its current price, it's 10 to 15%. Universal Music Group is the biggest component of the index, and there's some other companies just a handful that really stand out above everybody else. Live Nation, Warner Music Group, Sirius XM are some of the big ones. 

[00:39:02] Dan Runcie: The thing that stuck out to me about it is that, of course, Spotify stock is a huge piece of it, but even if you were to take out Spotify, the non-Spotify stocks in that index still are down more than the overall market has been this past year. So it also makes me think that there may be something going on that's a bit deeper than just streaming. 

[00:39:23] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, it's not just streaming. You know, a lot of music companies had a great 2021 and I think that they just had further to fall. So there were some really high valuations and it just sets these companies up for a pretty big fall when investor sentiment turns and the market turns. And ever since the Fed announced in, I believe, December, that it was going to start raising interest rates. You know, stocks have started to fall and Spotify definitely started to fall then. And it's been a long, what is that, roughly 10 months since then. Things have calmed down a bit, but stocks are, boy, they're really having a tough time. It's really volatile a lot there. I think there's two ways to look at it. One is what's the value of the stock? What's the value of the company as valued by investors? And what's the potential of the company based on the company itself and the intellectual property it has? And those two don't always line up. You know, Spotify I still think is a very good company. I think it has a lot of work to do, but it's growing at a good clip and I think they have good people there. But when you are a streaming stock and you're facing really a once-in-a-generation kind of environment with very bad inflation you know, crazy, I was about to say unemployment, but unemployment is not that bad. It's just a very strange time in the market and a very strange macroeconomic climate. And you're seeing good companies have very difficult times with their stock prices. You know, Universal Music Group is down. But the market is down overall and Universal's not going to escape the just general downturn of the market. That's saying something because Universal is the biggest music company out there holding up market share very well has a big share of the top 10, any given time, big artists. But you can't correlate stock market performance with company performance just perfectly. It's a very strange time in the macroeconomic climate right now. 

[00:41:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The interesting thing with the major record label stocks, and even some of these other companies that, yeah, even though they may not be streaming services themselves, when streaming makes up such a high percentage of the overall revenue for this entire industry, then Spotify's stock is in many ways going to be at least somewhat correlated to what we see with Universal given the fact that these companies have equity in each other, they're so dependent on each other, so a lot of that is given. You mentioned Live Nation earlier, and I think that their stock is interesting, too, because even though it isn't directly tied to streaming, that stock had hit record highs in the middle of the pandemic when there were no shows going on. So that just spoke to how much of a disconnect there was if you looked at how the company was actually doing in 2020 and even in 2021 when there were nowhere near as many shows as they had had in 2019, but they now are actually being able to realize more of that revenue. But the stock has adjusted in a lot of ways since. So there is a bit of this disconnect. I think there was just a good amount of excitement as well about what's happening in music as an investment class. Specifically, you looked at all of the catalog sales and the booms that happen thanks to the low-interest rates, and they're no longer low anymore. So you're also seeing that play a factor in, and you've also heard some of the acquirers of those catalogs expressing a bit of disappointment that the returns aren't quite what they thought the returns were going to be as well. So some of those things, I think, Brought some of the temperament and a lot of the companies that are in your index down to, I don't want to say necessarily down to earth, because I think there's still plenty of room for growth for a lot of them, but it's clear that we've moved past that era of the pandemic when things were just high for the pure speculation of where it could be in a few years.

[00:43:15] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, I think the honeymoon is over for a lot of music stocks. You know, music as an asset class was really attractive. And, you know, look, just the fact that Universal is public and Warner is public once again, and there are numerous streaming services from Tencent Music and Cloud Music in China to Anghami and Spotify and Deezer. There's a lot of music companies that are publicly traded right now and that says a lot about music as an asset, as a segment, set aside the problems it's had in the last year. So music companies had a great 2020 and 2021, and it's been downhill since then. But the fact that there are a lot of publicly traded music companies right now, and so much investor interest in music catalogs like you mentioned, I think says a lot about music as an asset class, music as an investment in general. Look, five years ago, how many publicly traded music companies were there? I mean, Spotify has been public for about five years. Pandora was before it was bought by Sirius. You know, but you didn't have Tencent, you didn't have Cloud Music, you didn't have Anghami, you didn't have Deezer, you didn't have Reservoir Media, or Believe. Warner was private. Universal was private. So the fact that Wall Street has taken a liking to music, I think says a lot despite what the stock prices say right now. 

[00:44:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I agree. The fact that this wasn't even possible, just shows what's happened. And a lot of companies, even outside of music, are starting to have money at least level back off now that the pandemic is over, now that the quarantine highs for a lot of these stocks are over. I'm interested to see where did things go from here, because I still believe that there's a ton of potential in each of these companies if the expectations and if the investors expectations of the market are where they need to be. I still think that music is a hot and a popular asset class, especially for investors. But is it 30 x value? Is it 30 x multiples for some of these catalogs that just bring 'em to certain valuations, or does it need to be more level? Because I do think that there's still plenty of value if those multiples and a lot of those things are where they should be. And even thinking about whether it's live entertainment or streaming in general, I think there's still plenty of room for growth. There's still a lot of opportunities there, but it's just being able to get a clear idea on, what is the actual TAM? What is the actual total addressable market for these areas? And I think if anything, you saw that challenge happen with a lot of the discourse around Netflix and what the future is there, you started to saw things drop right around they had, you know, around 220 million subscribers. I think Spotify was likely asking similar questions, too, and I still think there's growth, you know, for the right price there's always going to be something, but what that price would be and how many people are willing to pay for it, knowing that, of course, if it's a paid product, you're not going to hit all 8 billion people in the world. But there is some actual number out there. So I think the more clarity that there is on that, and of course that's part of the game to figure that out, but the closer that you can get to what that actually is, the more that investors can make sound decisions. 

[00:46:25] Glenn Peoples: Yeah. You know, as we're talking now, there's a lot going on. We're a couple of hours away from Spotify releasing third-quarter earnings, which will, I'm not sure how much that'll say, look, that's backward-looking, but the company will take the opportunity to talk about a lot of things investors and analysts are curious about. Yesterday Apple announced it was raising prices for Apple Music and Apple TV Plus, and the Apple bundle. And YouTube premium prices went up as well, I believe, for the family plan only. And what do we see today? What we see Universal shares went up almost 12% and closed. They're trading the Netherlands, so that's already closed. In the middle of the day, Warner Music was up 7% to 8% at its best. Believe was up. Hipgnosis shares were up about, and those closed, that trades in London. That closed up about 8% I think. So investors, I think, get the news that they've really been waiting for, that prices are finally going to go up. You know, Netflix has raised prices. Pricing in streaming video on demand is a lot more flexible than it is for music and music prices have barely budged in over a decade, and executives have been saying for months and for years that prices will go up. But they haven't. 

[00:47:45] Dan Runcie: Why do think it took this long? 

[00:47:47] Glenn Peoples: Well, I think, companies were much more concerned about growing the market than maximizing revenue per customer. Is it more important to get the customer in the door or to charge more per customers is the question, and I think that they've been much more concerned about building the customer base and building relationships. And then at some point, it's a timing issue. When do you raise price? When can you do it without turning people off? And I think what we see these days with inflation is what it is, is companies might feel a little more emboldened to just raise price and think they can get away with it. Name one price that's not up in the last year. Except music streaming, it seems like everything else is up. And so somebody had to be, you know, first to do it and YouTube and Apple did it, which could embolden Spotify to do it finally. And I think my impression of Universal's shares going up almost 12% is that they think Spotify's going to raise prices as well. That doesn't seem like a bump just from Apple. That seems like a bump from broad price increases across the board.

[00:48:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I would agree. I think that it's going to happen and the reason why I think it probably hasn't happened until this point I was talking to Will Page about this, who is a former chief economist at Spotify. And his perspective on it was that the difference, and it was mine as well, the difference between why a company like Netflix would continue to increase prices but Spotify hasn't a bit in line with the type of content that you're getting. In a lot of ways, Spotify and Apple are offering a lot of the same thing. Sure. I know Spotify has its podcasting, Apple has its podcasting and non-music audio, and we'll talk about that in a second. But I think when they're all offering the same thing, then there's a bit more pressure to try to offer price discounts and bundles and stuff like that as opposed to Netflix or some of those companies offering differentiated content. So you're more buying into something that you're going to get on Netflix that you can't get on Hulu or on Disney Plus, or on HBO Max or one of the other services. So I feel like there's a factor of it there. And I remember a few years ago there was some tests about it and some discussions where in Europe they were exploring what. 12.99 would look like, or maybe it was 13.99. But I didn't hear anything necessarily come definitive from that. Maybe it was 11.99, but there was some price increase that they were exploring in Europe. So it feels like it's inevitable that Spotify will join in and yeah, if your price is going to increase 10%, then your stock price will likely increase around 10% as well.

[00:50:22] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, that makes sense. Most people look at how much revenue a company takes in every month. ARPU, average revenue per user, Spotify considers a metric lifetime value. And so it's not focused solely on price. Price plays into lifetime value, but so does churn rate, and the family plan is something that is reduced churn rate. As churn goes down, lifetime value goes up. I mean, for a subscription business, what you don't want are people coming in and out and churning in and churning out and taking time off or just leaving the subscription service for good. So if you cut down churn rate, the value goes up, and that's more value to creators. That's more value to publishers, to record labels, and to Spotify without raising price. If you can work on lifetime value without having to raise price, that might be the low-hanging fruit that you do in the meantime before you consider raising prices. And now it appears like everybody's to the point where they say, okay, now we can raise prices.

[00:51:22] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. I think the fact that we're here says a lot. So we'll continue to see, and I'm sure that the next price increase after this probably won't take this long if this is the one that got us here. The thing with Spotify though, is I'm sure we'll see what investors feel more broadly about the company's strategy because non-music, audio and podcasting specifically has been part of its big bet on how it can have better margins, how it can just essentially make more money and have something that they can continue to grow. But there's been a lot of pushback. There's been a lot of canceled shows and studios, and some of that's standard for the industry. But some of it also feels like there's more and more question marks on, okay, they've spent billions on this. Is this going to work? Is this going to take off the way that they expect it to? What's your current take on the future outlook for Spotify's non-music audio strategy? 

[00:52:16] Glenn Peoples: I think it's a good strategy. You build up a platform starting with music. You attract hundreds of thousands of users and then you turn it into an audio platform that's not just music and you introduce spoken word content. I think it's going to take quite a few years. So I think expecting changes, you know, we're only two years into some of their acquisitions for podcast studios and for platforms such as Megaphone. I know investors might not want to wait five years, but it's going to take a while. And, you know, long-term Spotify thinks that they can get some pretty good margins out of podcasts, margins that exceed what they get from music. They think that they can get the math when I look at audiobook margins, they bought an audiobook distributor called Findaway. And I think as retailer and distributor, Spotify gets about 60% of sales. Audiobook download margins are pretty good and that's about double what they're going to get for music. How much business is out there for audiobooks? Yeah, I mean, right now probably not that much, but over time I'm sure they can build it into something much more considerable. And, you know, if it's 60% gross margin, that's really good. You're not going to get that in music. You can build a platform based on music, but then eventually you got to go looking elsewhere for margins. And so I think it can work out for Spotify, it's just going to take a while and some people might not have much patience. I get that. But it's going to take a while. 

[00:53:41] Dan Runcie: It's something I've thought a lot about because I understand that podcasting itself is something where the audience takes time to build. You want to be able to see these shows grow over time. But I also think that so much of their biggest growth has come from acquiring shows that are already popular. And I know they've made big acquisitions, whether as with Gimlet or with The Ringer, or they have the exclusive deal with, or the licensing deal with Joe Rogan. But how many others of those are out there that they haven't necessarily had? Are there going to be more in-house ones that can build up? Because I feel like one of the challenges I've seen with the strategy is that they've had a lot of money spent on getting these big-name celebrities to then have shows where they have other big-name celebrities as guests and things like that. And a lot of that is antithetical to what's made so much of podcasting be effective for a lot of folks. And sometimes it works well, but a lot of times it doesn't. And it's content. You do have to make some bets, but I'm interested to see how many more of those wins that are going to be out there for them, because that's the piece that at least gives you some bump 'cause at least we've seen the numbers and successes from the popular acquisitions, the shows that they've had. It's the in-house development where I think by nature there is a natural, whether it's just the likelihood of success of you're starting anything new, not everything is going to take off, but the real success metric will be, okay, two, three years from now, we're there Spotify originals that are at the top of the charts and are creating and demanding that audience the same way that some of these other shows, whether it's outside of the network or some of the ones that they've acquired are able to do?

[00:55:23] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, it looks to me like they have kind of a three-prong attack where they spend mightily for somebody like Joe Rogan and that's not going to last forever. That licensing deal will be up, I don't know, maybe next year. And what do they renew or do they go spend a lot of money on somebody else? I mean, Joe Rogan brings 'em a lot of a lot of listeners I'd wager. So they have a very small number of really big shows, and then they have a lot of in-house shows with Parcast, The Ringer, Gimlet, and they can go acquire some other ones. And then they have a lot of DIY stuff. And then you get into the long tail. And this is where I think there's a lot of potential to monetize listening just like there would be in music. They bought a platform called Anchor. That's a podcast creation and distribution. Megaphone rather, is more the distribution tool. And so they have the infrastructure in place to let people create shows, distribute shows, and now they can monetize those shows. Now, do advertisers want to monetize or advertise against, you know, podcasts nobody's heard of. Not sure exactly how that's going to work. You might be not getting good advertising dollars on some of the shows, but to the extent that you can monetize the long tail podcast, Spotify is building that. And if anybody can do it, it looks like they could. So it's not about Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan might have been something just to get his podcast business off the ground, a very expensive way to get his podcast business off the ground and get it noticed by listeners and noticed by advertisers. And they might not, you know, have another Rogan after that deals up. But there's a lot of stuff out there to acquire. You know, Spotify, you take a look at the top 50 or a hundred shows. Spotify is Rogan and Call Her Daddy and maybe one other one. But there's a lot of stuff out there that they could go after. But again, this is kind of the long tail and maybe the midtier stuff that would be in-house productions. I think that really is the test of how they're going to do in podcasting at scale how can they monetize the long tail of podcast? 

[00:57:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think the other thing that's an advantage for them is the advertising business and being able to not just offer, but sell better data to advertisers on who's actually listening to podcasts because outside of Spotify, using podcasts downloads, or relying on some of these third-party tools to be able to tell you how well a show's actually doing is not the best way to actually determine if people are listening. There's so many shows out there that now have ghost downloads from people that we're downloading and subscribing to these shows back in 2014, 2015, 2016, that are no longer listening to those shows, but because of the metric of downloads, It's essentially an RSS feed. They don't know if you and I are actually listening to a show versus it actually being downloaded. I'm talking about more from Apple Podcasts and from other places outside of Spotify itself. Spotify's advantage is the fact that it can provide data just as precise is what it does in streaming, essentially. Are these people listening for at least 30 seconds? Are they going and listening to the middle? And I know some of this exists with Chartable and some of these other tools, but that's the advantage that Spotify has. So if you can essentially have that, offer that to your advertisers and then say, hey, this is the better data to base it on, not self-reported podcast downloads, which is a very tough metric to use if you're trying to base that purely on advertising. This is how you can ensure that you're reaching the right people. And I do think if you have enough of a catalog there and you're able to monetize enough, then in principle, you could then pull the advertisers yourself. And if you pull them, then I think that helps also attract the shows. And you can become not just the dominant platform, but the dominant platform that can monetize as well.

[00:59:08] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, well see. You have a lot of insight. You're a podcaster, so you have a lot of insight into what Spotify's doing. As a podcaster, how is the platform for you? Do you get a lot of listeners from Spotify? 

[00:59:18] Dan Runcie: There's other platforms that I still get more listeners for. Like, I still get more from Apple Podcasts, I would say. But it's up there though. It's interesting because even though I get more listeners from Apple Podcast, if I put a link in my newsletter that has the Apple Podcast link or the Spotify link of where to listen, more people click on the Spotify link. So that also makes me think, okay, one of these is measuring what's already been there, people that could have been listened to my podcast since 2019 to prove my point when I started it, versus what's capturing things now. And I think as we're just seeing Spotify continue to grow and we're seeing more and more stats of how, I forget the exact metric, but them becoming one of the more popular places for listeners to listen to a podcast. The data that I'm seeing on my side, even though I haven't precisely calculated it, more so a gut check of when I'm checking my newsletter analytics, I'm like, okay, I can see where this is trending.

[01:00:12] Glenn Peoples: I think it helps Spotify that they're just an innovative company that is always improving the product, right? So, you know, who knows what they'll end up doing with podcast. They could revolutionize how we listening to it. 

[01:00:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The other thing, too, that made me think of it, you mentioned audiobooks earlier, and I feel like there's an opportunity for innovation there because audiobooks themselves, I think to date have in many ways just been looked at as another channel that's a companion to people either buying a physical book or downloading something on a tablet to read. But how can the art of creating an audio podcast feel similar to these high-production podcasts that we hear that sound like they are, you know, made by multiple people in a studio show? I think Malcolm Gladwell did something like this with his most recent book the Think Like Strangers, I forget the exact name, but something like Strangers where it sounded like his podcast does. You know, it's high produced, you can get a bit more variety. It's not just some voice actor that they paid, you know, some flat fee for, and then that's just what's uploaded as the audiobook. So if you're able to create that as its own unique experience, I think that there's an opportunity there with audiobooks. So I'm interested to see if the art and the content itself around those will continue to improve.

[01:01:31] Glenn Peoples: I would love a company like Spotify to breathe some life into audiobooks. I used to do a lot more audiobooks than I used to. And you know, what's changed? I think what's changed is just the podcast platforms that are available that make it easier to listen to and find podcasts. I'm not much of an audiobook buyer anymore. But I would say that my audiobook listening has been cannibalized by podcast. 

[01:01:54] Dan Runcie: And I think some of that, too, like if it's in the same app, it's something that you're already using. I feel like there's an opportunity there because although it's been a while since I've used the Audible app, I have to imagine that the Spotify app is much less friction to be able to be like, I want to listen to this. Boom, here, let me click and listen to the thing. And it's a game of, yeah, how can you make it as easy as possible for the consumer. So yeah, it'd be interesting to see how that space develops. The last topic I want to chat about though before we end things is TikTok. I know you've written about this recently. TikTok has been trying to get into a number of areas, specifically streaming, and I'd be curious to hear your take on them, not just their potential in streaming, but what their strategy is overall in music and how you see them working, either not just alongside, but also competing with not just the streaming services, but other companies that are part of this, that are part of this chain of the, you know, music ecosystem.

[01:02:53] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, I think TikTok is fascinating as far as TikTok launching a streaming service. I mean, that makes perfect sense. I mean, why would you not? TikTok sends a lot of traffic to streaming services. If you could keep people on the platform, or at least on an app from the same company, rather than sending them off to Apple Music or YouTube or Spotify after they see a video on TikTok, I think that's probably a better, I would say, it's a better listener experience. But you know, what we've seen over the years is people use the apps they want to use. You can't force-feed people an app. You can stick it on a device. It doesn't mean they're going to use it. People will use what they want to use and TikTok would have to build a pretty amazing music streaming platform for people to use it. And I guess the question is could they grow the market rather than just take customers away from the Spotifys and Apple Musics in the YouTubes? Yeah, I guess so. There's always that, but I always think of it as more of a zero-sum game that TikTok would be taking business away from others. On paper it makes perfect sense. You know, Billboard's done a really good reporting, had some really good articles about the impact TikTok has had on the business. You know, most recently there was an article about how it's just kind of, thrown A&R executives' lives into disarray because it's, it's very hard to capitalize on TikTok success, which everybody wants. It's much more random than sending something to streaming services or sending something to radio and promoting it. It's much more grassroots and not so top-down. So it's unpredictable on what's going to hit. And that's not a good way to promote music, not knowing what people are going to end up listening to, so it makes labels' lives difficult in that aspect. On the other hand, I think labels are probably pretty happy that there's an app out there that customers want to spend a lot of time with and potentially spend money on, and that they are licensing music too and they'll get royalties from. So, you know, labels don't build these platforms themselves. They have to count on other companies to do that. And I read articles every now and then that says that TikTok is going to be the death of labels. Now labels have to partner with these platforms. That's what they do. They don't build the platforms themselves. And TikTok has a great platform. And so it's another one to work with. The question is, is it ultimately good for the labels? Yeah, maybe they honestly don't have a choice. They have to work with TikTok. They have to go where the consumers are. But I think it's ultimately probably a net win even though it's, really thrown things into disarray and changed how people discover music, and it's just not as simple a path as it used to be in promoting music and get people to listen to it.

[01:05:28] Dan Runcie: You brought up a few things that I want to circle back on because I think they're important to highlight. One, if you look TikTok's overall strategy, I agree this is something that they should naturally do. If you're the person that has the top of the funnel, then you would want to identify ways that you could do it yourself instead of having another app that is relying on yours to capture that same traffic and to capture that same business opportunity. That said, does that mean that you will succeed? Not necessarily. I think as we both understand and see, it takes a lot to have a platform that gets to where Apple Music has gotten to, to get to where Spotify's gotten to, even where Amazon Music and some of these other digital streaming providers have gotten to. It takes a considerable amount of time to get there. So being able to do that effectively and being able to necessarily grow the market and do that, I think it's tough. Are there regions that TikTok is going to reach that Spotify and Apple have not already spent millions of dollars trying to reach? Probably not, which does turn it into a bit of a zero-sum game. And then are you going to be able to try to offer it at a different cost? Are you going to try to do any of these things that really make it stand out? Not necessarily. And I think one of the bigger challenges, too, is just the consumer behavior that someone has when they're going into TikTok. It has grown as fast as it has because it's an app that doesn't require much active engagement. You can sit there and passively scroll through everything. It's a very passive entertaining experience. Streaming is not that. You have to go and find who you want to listen to. Even if you want to go check out the latest album, you have to go type in that person's name unless they're the biggest star in the world, and they may happen to be on the app when you open it. You got to type in the person's name to figure that out. So shifting that consumer mindset, I think is tough if that's what they're used to in your app. So I think that piece of it is going to be a bit of a challenge for them. And I think in general, we're kind of seeing TikTok adopt a bit of that Facebook strategy, where Facebook is a company that has tried to do any and everything because they're like, hey, we have billions of users. We are the biggest platform in the world. Let's try to do all these things. And more likely than not, Facebook doesn't succeed at a lot of these things. It's more likely to succeed at the things that are naturally aligned with why someone would want to be on Facebook to begin with, and whether it's Facebook's dating services or any of these other things that just didn't necessarily take off the way it could, I think that there could be, you know, some similar type of risk if you're thinking about TikTok. Even though it is aligned with music, even though there's a lot of these things, the mindset that a consumer has when they are going into a streaming service that requires on-demand activity is very different than a passive social media experience.

[01:08:13] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, I think those are really good points. There's no guarantee that TikTok is going to make a winning music subscription service if that's what it chose to do. It's just not that easy. I mean, there are companies with big head starts who have built really good apps and have a lot of momentum. And you know, the thing that I've noticed over the years with subscription services and music streaming, in general, is that you have to have an excellent product. Having a pretty good product just doesn't cut it anymore. And there are a lot of music services that have been pretty good that have just gone out of business 'cause pretty good doesn't do it. With ByteDance and with TikTok, you have to assume that they could put together pretty good service. I would bet, better than average. And can they do better than that? Possibly. And what could they do differently that would transform it? And maybe that's the question. Do they need to do a transformative subscription service? Or can they just do something that's a little more traditional and not try to build a new mousetrap? Maybe that's the better option. You know, I'm not sure, but I think, people shouldn't expect that TikTok is just going to clean up the competition because they have a very popular short-form video app. That's just a different experience than what they would be getting into. 

[01:09:22] Dan Runcie: Agreed. Streaming is a very different game. It'd be interesting to see how it plays out. But Glenn, before we wrap things up and let you go, how do you think the Global Music Index that you created, how do you think things will look at 2023? What's your take on how you think certain things will play out in the index?

[01:09:39] Glenn Peoples: There's so much negative forecast out there for 2023. There's a lot of economic experts saying that there's going to be a recession in 2023. You know, normally I would say, boy, probably pretty good. You know, the time to buy a stock is not when it's high. It's time to buy is when it's low. So right now the index is starting from would be starting year at a pretty low place. It's just that they're pretty dark clouds on 2023. It's really hard to say how it's going to play out. There's just a lot of really bad expectations for next year. So I think that as far as these stocks have fallen, they're not out of the woods yet. And I don't think we can assume that they're going to turn around and start growing next year. But if you look at 2022 as kind of a correction to maybe some stocks that were overvalued, then they're starting in a better place.

[01:10:27] Dan Runcie: That's true. Maybe the overvaluation may have some, or the overvaluation of the overcorrection rather could lead things off to a good start. So it'll be exciting to see for sure. And we'll definitely be keeping an eye on the index itself. Once again, good job creating that. I think a lot of people were looking for a way to just capture everything that's going in the industry. So it'll be good to continue tracking it. And Glenn, thanks for coming on. It was great to touch base on so many important topics, and I'm sure we can have a similar conversation like this soon. 

[01:10:54] Glenn Peoples: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. 

[01:10:56] Dan Runcie: Thank you.

[01:10:59] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Megan Holston-Alexander is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz Cultural Leadership Fund. It’s the first VC fund that raised money exclusively from Black leaders — from entertainment to sports to business. The fund co-invests with a16z’s other funds and has raised more than $60 million across its three funds to date.

The overarching purpose of CLF is to create generational wealth opportunities for Black communities. It’s a two-pronged approach. The first is getting Black dollars directly on the cap tables of high-potential startup companies. And the second is creating a pipeline for more Black talent at early-stage companies. 

Megan joined me on the show on the heels of hosting the first-ever Cultural Leadership Summit and announcing CLF III before then. Here’s everything we covered during our conversation:

[2:39] Takeaways from the Cultural Leadership Summit

[5:19] Building despite economic uncertainties 

[7:36] High-worth individuals also affected by macro economy 

[9:05] How has the Cultural Leadership Fund evolved?

[14:54] Difference between entertainment and executive LP’s

[17:16] Web3’s knowledge imbalance  

[19:16] Megan’s interest in DAO’s

[20:58] Will CLF’s investment model change?

[22:42] How CLF used relationships and trust-building to scale its operation 

[28:35] Megan’s vetting process with LP’s

[36:02] How VC industry at-large can create more opportunities for black founders and talent 

[39:15] Has the Bay Area lost its monopoly on tech? 

[44:59] What CLF is focusing on in 2023

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Megan Holston-Alexander, @meghalexander

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Megan Holston Alexander: What we hadn't considered on the executive side is, while the athletes and our kind of entertainers can partner on different things or, like, help them go into new markets, when it came down to, like, core operations or how you should run on your board, or how to think about hiring X, Y, and Z, our black executives, like, hold that information, like, in the palm of their hands. These are people who've been, you know, operators for 20 or 30 years, and so they brought kind of an additional level of skill and kind of insight to bolster what our other LPs on the more kind of athlete or entertainment side were doing.  

[00:00:40] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:01:01] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Megan Holston Alexander. She's a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, currently leading its Cultural Leadership Fund. And to date, this fund has raised over 60 million, invested in over 300 Andreessen Horowitz portfolio companies, and has brought over a hundred black leaders into this space. I'm talking to Megan right after the Cultural Leadership Fund hosted its first-ever in-person summit. It was a pleasure to attend that summit myself and meet so many of the people that are friends of the fund, LPs of the fund, and really make it what it is. So this conversation, we talked a little bit about what it was like bringing that event together, especially after the pandemic. We also talked about how events like that fit within the fund's overall strategy and how that strategy has evolved over the past few years. For a little bit of background, the LPs in the Cultural Leadership Fund are all black, and it is one of the first funds to have ever done that in the VC space, and specifically, to date, a lot of the investors had been athletes and entertainers, but Megan talked a little bit about how they've expanded to bring on more black executives, what that looks like, and how that ultimately helps support the goal of the fund even more. One of the fund's other goals is to increase the amount of black talent and interest in tech. So we talk about what some of the opportunities are, what some of the challenges are, and what the VC community can do to help improve this even more. Great conversation, so many insightful points that Megan shared. I enjoyed this conversation and I know you will too, especially if you are an investor or you're a founder yourself. Here's my chat with Megan. 

[00:02:39] Dan Runcie: All right, today we have Megan Holston Alexander from Andreessen Horowitz Culture Leadership Fund, and first, I got to say congratulations on an amazing summit. It was a great event to be a part of and to attend. How does it feel for you now being on the heels of that and just seeing the impact of everything? 

[00:02:57] Megan Holston Alexander: Yeah, so thank you so much for coming. It means so much that people would be interested enough and engaged enough to spend time with us away from their, you know, everyday grind. But we're really pleased with how it turned out. We were motivated because so many of our LPs had said to us, we want to get together, we want to meet each other, we want to meet the founders, we want to meet the investment team. So as an LP and kind of partner summit, I think it had the intended effect and it seemed like people really enjoyed their time, but also learned a ton. So I could not be happier. I will say I was telling myself that after it was over, I was going to have so much time to, like, get so much other stuff done, but, like, it just never, it never stopped. So, we were really proud of what we were able to put on.

[00:03:38] Dan Runcie: 'Cause I'm sure an event like that makes you think about what else you could do, right? I'm sure you had a bunch of people buzzing with ideas on what other in-person events or what other things could look like, too. 

[00:03:48] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. And that's always the hope, right? We bring people into a room together in hopes that, like, we can help some serendipity happen. So many people in our network work on similar things or adjacent things or things that would have a really nice kind of partnership together. And so anytime we get to make those introductions, our hope is that people will be buzzing after, and have ideas for events and programs and partnerships. So we'll see what comes out of it. 

[00:04:12] Dan Runcie: And I imagine that a lot of this probably had been in the plans for a while. It was just a matter of timing. So much of CLFs rise and growth had happened during the pandemic as well. And it was just a matter of, okay, when can you bring people together safely to make something like this happen? 

[00:04:28] Megan Holston Alexander: Yeah. Yeah. And when I say it was three years in the making. I am not kidding, because we were planning actually to host the first summit in 2020. So we were in process of like, you know, picking out venues and cities and where we wanted to be. And then, like, so many people when the pandemic hit that spring, it just kind of cleared everybody's calendars. And so it's nice to know that 2 and a half years after the original that the motive was still the same and the demand for what we were building was still the same that we got to put it on, I think, even better than we could have hoped in 2020.

[00:05:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I agree. And then looking at, now, you, of course, get to have it on the tail end of your announcement for fund three. You've now raised over $60 million for this fund. What was it like raising in this climate though, just given where things are with the market and how things have been so far in 2022? 

[00:05:19] Megan Holston Alexander: Yeah, totally. Totally. So when it comes to like the market environment, you just never know what's going to happen and unintentionally, you know, I actually got to raise ahead of kind of the market changing earlier in the spring. And that was actually because I was expecting and planning to be a new mom. And the firm was really supportive of that. And they said, okay, kind of up to you. Do you want to do it before mat leaves? Do you want to wait until the fall when you come back? And me being like, I don't want to think about this while I'm trying to raise a baby. I was like, Let's knock it out early. So lucky enough, you know, I was able to close that out before people really started tightening their belts. But, you know, as a firm, we really believe that, you know, no matter what the economy looks like, what the macro, you know, face of the world looks like, builders are always building. And even more so, during times when they can be home and spend time thinking about the problems that they want to solve. And so our hope is that, you know, even in moments like that, we can still really rely on founders to keep, you know, pushing great, great companies out. 

[00:06:17] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I like to think of these moments as well as when you do start to filter out some of the companies or ideas that maybe were a bit more fleeting, and you can focus on the real things happening, you look at the last economic downturn that we had, and all of the companies that came from that timeframe, too. So I feel like the call to action for so many fund managers like yourself, you mentioned the LPs or even to others is, like you just said, people are still building, and if anything, it's the real companies that are going to come out of this timeframe.

[00:06:46] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. And then a piece that I would add onto that is in these moments, while we know that like great companies will be built, we don't truly know what they are because people do build for the time and you don't know what kind of instances will be, like, permanent behavior changes or what things are like, just for now, it seems like it's a, you know, a really good idea, but in six months people won't behave the same way. And so the hope is that you just always try to lean in the things that you think will have kind of staying power. But you just try to do risk reduction. 

[00:07:15] Dan Runcie: Right, Right. And I assume, too, from a fundraising perspective with you and this fund specifically, because a lot of the LPs are high net worth individuals, some of their willingness to invest in funds hasn't necessarily changed as much as some of the more institutional investing in things that we've seen in the past year or so.

[00:07:36] Megan Holston Alexander: Yeah. So actually I might argue the opposite. So when you're dealing with individuals, right, in their personal wealth and people who are really new to venture, right? That's a really, really scary moment because venture is a long-term play, right? It's not like you put your money in and then two or three weeks later, you can be like, Hey, Megan, where are my dollars? And so making a long-term commitment like that during a period of economic uncertainty is actually more difficult for an individual than it would be for an institution because one, it's not any particular individual's capital, but also institutions have much kind of more thorough game plans, right? They know what percentage they're putting into venture versus private equity versus, you know, bonds or whatever the case may be. So they're kind of more consistent and they understand that the market kind of goes up and down and that there will be moments like this, and it's actually a little bit more difficult when it comes to individuals to kind of get them over that hump.

[00:08:30] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's fair. Because I do think that even in some conversations I've had with folks, things like the price of Bitcoin or the price of Ethereum having a pretty impactful influence on what their net worth is and their own willingness to invest in particular things. 

[00:08:46] Megan Holston Alexander: For sure. 

[00:08:47] Dan Runcie: And for you with this fund, specifically, now fund three, but the fund itself has been around for a few years now. Do you feel like the vision for the fund has evolved at all in that time? I mean, I feel like the core mission is the same, but have any of the ways that you've either talked or pitched the fund evolved in that timeframe? 

[00:09:05] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. So I think you're right. We've kept our two kind of core missions the same, but what we do understand now is there are a number of different ways to execute on it. So if you will bear with me, I'm happy to share kind of two, you know, how that looks on both missions. So on the first mission of connecting the world's greatest cultural leaders to the best new technology companies. You know, historically we set, you know, athletes and entertainers and musicians, people who, from, you know, a large scale of consumerism have contributed to cultural change. But over time we've realized black executives also have like a really, really huge impact on this space. So people who are in leadership roles at Fortune 100 companies, or even at startup companies, they can have a huge impact on culture and consumer behavior more generally. And so we wanted to be sure that we really leaned into bringing in more black executives into the fund than we ever had before. And that has proven to be really helpful for the firm because they end up being, you know, equally if not more useful to the portfolio than the musicians and the singers, and the actors, et cetera. And so we have really enjoyed kind of expanding and involving that side of the network. And then on the second side of getting more young African Americans in tech, you know, fo fund one, we committed all of our management fees and carried to, like, one set of organizations. We picked them in the beginning and wanted to support them through the life of the fund. But what we realized by fund two was like, well, that doesn't really give us an opportunity to invest in new non-profits that are kind of on the cutting edge of technology, right? As things are growing and changing, we want folks who are being innovative on the non-profit side as well. And so what we did for fund two and now for fund three is we opened up kind of the spectrum of what we would support from a non-profit perspective to kind of match where we thought the technology world was going. So for fund one, you see a supporting kind of big well-known organizations that have proven over time if they are directly putting black folks into the pipeline for technology. But now we're saying like, okay, how do we add to this? Well, Web 3.0 is a huge thing, not only as a space for investment for the firm, but also generally of wanting to be sure that black folks don't get left behind in this Web 3.0 revolution. So we support organizations like crypto tutors that is meant to do just that, and that's not something we would've had insight into in that first fund. Gaming is also a new, huge area in technology. It is now, I think, you know, people play games more than they watch TV based on current research. And so how do we ensure that black folks are being supported in the gaming industry? So now we support black and gaming. We support the Black Collegiate Gaming Association. So just ensuring that our philanthropic efforts can support and are aligned with what we're doing as a firm and where technology is going overall. 

[00:11:51] Dan Runcie: I actually want to talk about each of those two things separately. Let me go back to the first one. 

[00:11:55] Megan Holston Alexander: Let's do it. 

[00:11:56] Dan Runcie: I think it was really interesting what you said about athletes and that sector around sports in general, if I heard you correctly, them being but not even more influential or helpful for the fund overall, but maybe relative to some of the other folks, whether it's your LP such as your musicians or entertainers. Did I catch that right? 

[00:12:16] Megan Holston Alexander: If I'm hearing what you're saying, you're saying that I said that the athletes are not as useful?

[00:12:20] Dan Runcie: Oh, the other way around. Like, more useful than, like, some of the others that work with the fund?

[00:12:24] Megan Holston Alexander: Well, I was saying, from the executive side, did I say athletes and not executives?

[00:12:28] Dan Runcie: I think it was athletes.

[00:12:29] Megan Holston Alexander: Maybe I misspoke. But what I was essentially trying to say is from a cultural leadership perspective, historically, it has very much been athletes and entertainers and we wanted to involve, we wanted to evolve our kind of mission overall to include more black executives.

[00:12:45] Dan Runcie: That was helpful. Yeah, 'cause I was curious to tap into more about like, why that is and how that's impacted the fund so far. 

[00:12:52] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. Because I feel like, everybody thinks that when you bring on like just a celebrity, everything skyrockets, right? That it's just like, ooh, if you put this name on there, things just grow. And that's not always necessarily the case. We've, you know, really supported our companies in being thoughtful and strategic around the ways in which you use a celebrity. And we've also been, you know, in deep conversations with our kind of LP network and our network at large about wanting to be more than like a disengaged kind of passive investor. And so they love partnering with the portfolio companies, et cetera. But what we hadn't considered on the executive side is, while the athletes and our kind of entertainers can partner on different things or like help them go into new markets or help them with the launch of a new product, when it came down to like core operations or how you should run on your board, or how to think about hiring X, Y, and Z, like, our black executives, like hold that information like in the palm of their hands. These are people who've been, you know, operators for 20 or 30 years, and so they brought kind of an additional level of skill and kind of insight to bolster what our other LPs on the more kind of athlete or entertainment side were doing. So now we have this really robust group of black cultural leaders who can help in a number of different areas.

[00:14:07] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Yeah, I mean, we see the influence, we see how influential they are in all of these sectors, and if you're thinking about just like how your fund is structured, I know that you do have different folks on the team focused in sports, focused in entertainment more broadly, and I feel like eventually having, you know, whether it's even more of those or just being able find the best ways to lock in on talent, because I think we're seeing this more and more. I think a lot about like, let's say like 10-plus years ago when we saw the era of a lot of artists being named as creative directors for particular companies. And some of those turned into, you know, really flourishing partnerships, and some of them necessarily didn't. But now, and I feel like your fund was timing this. You captured this moment where we're seeing more than that. 

[00:14:54] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep, absolutely. And it's not just because you know, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And it's not just because, and not only because, you know, athletes and kind of other entertainment folks want to be more engaged, but quite frankly startups are requiring it. They don't want you to just let your name on something and then you disappear and like, you know, take the money and run or whatever the case may be. And so what we're trying to do is really build up to kind of core groups of people who are interested in each other and want to work together. And so there should be an equal expectation when we bring our LPs in and on our startup side that the startups want to work with these LPs and they've been thoughtful about how they want to engage with them, right? So if you want a particular person, why, right? Why is this person the best fit for your company? And so we really challenge our companies on that, where it's not just like, you want to get the biggest name, but the person who will actually be most influential for the product that you're building. And on our LP side, we say like, okay, what is it about this company that makes you most interested that you want to bring to the table? So it really is about working together. We are trying very hard not to make it where it's just like, kind of one-off, really transactional doesn't make a lot of sense 'cause those tend to be the things that don't work out. We try to be thoughtful on all fronts. 

[00:16:11] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. 'Cause it's like, otherwise, then it would just be like an Instagram ad or something like that, being like, oh, hey, go sponsor this product. And like, that's not what this is about. 

[00:16:21] Megan Holston Alexander: And it doesn't make sense. Like, make it make sense. That's the most important thing for us because those are what can be fruitful. And then say it's something that, everything doesn't always work out, but if you went into it with the right intentions and everybody did their best, like, that's all you can hope for. And then those people usually want to work together again, even if it didn't work out. So we really do take this long view on relationships, not just as a firm, but as a fund and the way in which we interact with people and hope that they'll interact with each other. 

[00:16:47] Dan Runcie: Right. And then at the second piece of what you were talking about, you talked about investing in companies that are ultimately helping to either further access or knowledge. Web 3.0 was an example and wanting to make sure that black talent doesn't get left behind in this space or in other spaces that may emerge. Where do you feel like things are right now? Do you feel like folks are on board? Do you feel like there's still a huge opportunity specifically with when it comes to Web 3.0 and black talent? 

[00:17:16] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. I think until we get to a place where we feel like we have like, peer across the board equity, there's always work to be done. And being like an HBCU grad being from, you know, born and raised in Alabama, I have a very core sense of like what inequity looks like and how, what are the ways in which we can try to approach solutions to that problem. And so I think I'm lucky enough to have you know, that, sort of background where I can bring an interesting perspective into how we solve those problems. But I am finding that Web 3.0 overall has a lot of opportunity. One, because, like, nobody's an expert, right? Nobody's been doing Web 3.0 for 30 years. It is relatively new, right? There's people who've been doing it for the last 10 ish years, and there are a few people who are just really hardcore, but there is so many of our Web 3.0 companies, because there is just like a lack of, expertise in the space, they're just excited to get people who are interested and passionate about Web 3.0, right? So you kind of get to jump over this need for a long period of time having worked in X, Y, and Z or Web 3.0 in this case where you get to just work off of passion and start building the product. So that's one of the things I love about Web 3.0. The hard part is that there's a knowledge imbalance, right? It takes a lot of reading. It takes a lot of listening to podcasts and going through the a16z canon that a lot of people just don't have, right? The information is there, but everybody doesn't have time to read hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages on Web 3.0. And so the kind of that asynchronous ability to get information, I think, is where we have to fill in the gap. What is the answer to that? I'm not completely sure, but organizations like crypto tutors that I mentioned earlier, are making content easy, accessible, fun, really big on entertainment. And so while I think the opportunities are there for the roles, I do think we need to fill in the knowledge gap in terms of who gets the knowledge.

[00:19:09] Dan Runcie: Agreed. And for you specifically, which areas of Web 3.0 are exciting you the most as an investor? 

[00:19:16] Megan Holston Alexander: Whoa, well, you know, with CLF being a co-investment vehicle inside of the fund, I feel like I get lucky enough where I get to see all the cool stuff, but I don't have to make the strenuous, anxiety-ridden decisions about, you know, which ones to pick. I just get the benefit of spending time with them all after the fact. And so for me, I am most excited about and I'll just say the one piece that I've been looking into a lot lately is like, DAOs. I love this concept of like governance and people getting to vote on what they do with capital and making decisions of that, like, things to buy and things to sell. I think the way in which communities are being built around kind of DAOs and that type of governance is really interesting. 

[00:20:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. I think some of these conversations, whether it's DAOs buying sports teams or Dows trying to get involved with different things, we'll see. I think, like anything, we're in the early days and some of these things will come to fruition but there's definitely something there. Just looking at how decentralized so many things are becoming then I think a lot of those things do need to. 

[00:20:20] Megan Holston Alexander: Agreed and I think there's pros and cons of everything, and I think that's one of the things that, you know, gets missed in the hype cycle. There are things that will be really great about web 3.0 and there will be things that don't work out in the way that we hope, but in the end, we hope we shake out with the best kind of the pack. 

[00:20:38] Dan Runcie: Right. And then you mentioned it earlier about just the way that CLF invests and you co-invest. So you do get to see all the things that come through and you're not necessarily picking or, you know, making them the investments yourself. But do you think that's something that may change with either the vision or the evolution of the fund itself, where you would be making those investments? 

[00:20:58] Megan Holston Alexander: You know, we, at the firm, we never say never. We don't know what the future holds, but I think right now, the way that we've structured it, you know, we've got two really core goals at CLF, and the first is like getting black dollars onto the cap tables in Andreessen Horowitz companies and the more that I can do that, whether it's through co-investing or otherwise, I think that the structure that we have right now is one that works and that I'm I'm really pleased with. And then in that second mission or actually still the first mission, but the second way that we execute on it, right, so CLF has a fund and dollars out of that fund go into kind of the deals across a number of the funds inside of the firm. Not all of them, but most of them. But then the second thing that I get to do and spend a lot of time on, because I don't have to do, you know, a ton of that behind the scenes like diligence work, et cetera, is get additional strategic rounds for our portfolio companies. So not only is our LP base as a whole represented on the cap table, but anytime that there is a really thoughtful or smart partnership or somebody wants to add an additional strategic capital, we now can give even more black people on the cap table. And so I really enjoy spending my time doing that and I want to keep at it, but the firms, we never say never to stuff. Who knows? If it ever makes sense, we'll see. 

[00:22:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And then I think too, you mentioned this a few times just in terms of how the firm is structured in terms of building and investing in relationships. And I think this is something that I know you've talked about in other interviews, something that rings true with a16z overall. Can you talk a little bit about the way that you have the divisions or the way that you have the different verticals for, whether it's entertainment or sports and some of the events that you attend as well, and how that helps the overall mission? 

[00:22:42] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. So for CLF, you know, historically when probably two years ago when it was just me and Chris the two of us, we did everything right and we realized that if we really wanted CLF to scale and to grow and to really have an impact on the communities and generational wealth, we needed to scale what we were doing. We need to get more cultural leaders involved. We needed to be able to make more kind of partnership introductions, et cetera. And so the way that, you know, made sense was, okay, we've got these cultural leaders. How do we bring together the best at what they do in order to help manage these networks? So we brought in folks like Derek who have been on the management and agency side for a number of years to manage the entertainment vertical, right? So when you have one thing to focus on and it's only entertainers, you can make much more kind of clear and thoughtful decisions around who to introduce to whom or who to bring into this company, or when a portfolio company says, I need this type of person, you can make a quicker decision. We brought in Deb on the athlete side. She was a manager at Rock Nation Sports for a number of years, so she really just has the depth of knowledge. And not only that, they both have this really interesting knowledge just about who players are, but how we can structure deals with them, right? This is what they're used to, and now we're bringing in this tech side, how do we make those deal structures match, or how do we make it more, you know, favorable to everybody involved? And so they brought another level of rigor to the deals and the strategic rounds that we were putting together that we needed a lot. And then both Julie and I work on the executive side, which I said is burgeoning. And so we really try to specialize. One as a firm, right? We've got a crypto fund and a bio fund, and people who are specialized. We do the same thing inside of CLF. We try to have people focus on a swim lane. And it's proven to be successful. So far, we're really pleased with that decision. 

[00:24:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think it's effective and I think the names that you've been able to have as LPs in each of the rounds speaks to that too. And at the end of the day, especially in these industries, of course, I know relationships drive everything, but I think it's more so in these industries because especially with some of these high net worth individuals in entertainment, there's so many people from coming out of the woodwork who are trying to swindle them out of stuff or trying to propose them the most horrible deals and investment opportunities. So I think that's where the value add is here, as opposed to, or even more so than someone else who, you know, isn't in these fields. So they're not necessarily getting as much of the crap, if you will, from the proposals. So being able to sift through the good ones.

[00:25:12] Megan Holston Alexander: I think you brought up a really good point. And I think that point is trust, right? So when you have people coming out of the woodwork, like you said, with investment opportunities, I got a good investment opportunity for you. But that person has no real background to be able to speak to like kind of whatever that item is or whatever that company is. We try to really mitigate the risk for our LPs and, and kind of partners that we bring into rounds for CLF, like, we never bring deals to people that we haven't invested in ourselves, right? We feel like how can we tell you like, you should invest in this, but like we didn't do it. And so people know that anytime we bring something to them, it is fully invested through Andreessen Horowitz, like, process, deal team, GP, et cetera. And so we try to, you know, really eliminate risk for them. And obviously, we always have them, you know, do your own research. Here is the information you make the decision for yourself. But we just pride ourselves on building trust with people because if we mishandle people and we swindle people, like that gets around and then that doesn't benefit us, right? If it goes around like, oh, those. sneakers over there, a16z are doing that. But we feel like we have really put forth a concerted effort that people know that they can trust us and they share with their friends that they can trust us. And that really is I think how we try to maintain and engage with our network. And so far, you know, that network has been able to grow and we always say, you know, we're not going to sacrifice a relationship for a quick buck that's just not our style. That's not what we do. I hope that that is kind of what's making the rounds. But so far it feels like people really have built a lot of trust in us and we don't take that lightly.

[00:26:53] Dan Runcie: And I do think that information and understanding of these things has just gotten better in decades overall. And couple that with the fact that this is venture capital. Of course, it's a risk. Most of the companies that we're investing in probably aren't going to take off, but the ones that do are going to hit. And you're doing it with a firm that has a track record in this. So I feel like there's so much transparency. 

[00:27:16] Megan Holston Alexander: Well, I don't think I'm allowed to agree with that, so I'm just going to say okay.

[00:27:20] Dan Runcie: Fair enough. Fair enough. And I think the difference there though is that I think about so many of these athletes, whether it's you get pitched on like opening restaurants with their name and all these other things that you know are just dated things. Of course, those things can still work. We've seen them be effective. But we've come a long way. 

[00:27:39] Megan Holston Alexander: And then one of the other things is, you know, we tell people, you know, that invest in our fund to please consider us a resource when things like that come up, right? We say we're a VC firm in your back pocket, right? So if something comes your way and you want us to, like you have questions about it, you know, obviously we can't tell you what to do, but we can help you figure out what are the right questions to ask when these opportunities come in front of you. And so that education piece that we do, I think is really valued by a lot of the folks who trust us with their capital.

[00:28:10] Dan Runcie: And then with your LP specifically, is there anything that you're specifically looking for from a vetting process? Like, not necessarily talking about like commitment levels or anything like that, but more so things that you're looking for 'cause earlier we're talking about, of course, we've come a long way from the celebrity investors slapping their name on things. But I'm sure there are probably still some out there that may want to do that. And you're making sure that that's not who you're attracting. 

[00:28:35] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. I'm trying to tell you all my secrets. You know, the most important thing for us is that we have LPs who want to engage. We want people who are willing to like, you know, hop on a call with us and share their interests or if, you know, you join the fund and you are entered in particular deals or we, you know, come across a company that would be a really great fit for you to talk to, maybe just have a 15-minute conversation with the CEO. There are people who love opportunities like that. So people who want to engage and want to learn and spend time with us and spend time with our LPs is who we try to really, really lean into because it's a symbiotic relationship, We want to support them. But at the end of the day, like our largest goal is to support our portfolio companies and whether it's the a16z team, whether it's our LPs, like it's all hands on deck. And so I love people who come in and have a genuine curiosity and they're excited about technology and innovation and they want to play a role in things that are being built. And so, we love those conversations and you can kind of really tell, like I've had people who you would never think, people who you would think would be super disengaged. Like, that person is interested in tech who are, have gone down like the Web 3.0 rabbit hole and they're like, ooh, and I'm going to do like a token that has this, and then I'm going to give it to my whole community back in Texas or whatever. Like, really is just a really, really thoughtful people. You don't have to be an expert. Like, that's not what we're looking for, but we just look, want people who want to be involved. 

[00:30:04] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. That makes sense. Shifting gears a bit on the talent side of things. We talked about it a little bit about how important it is to the fund to be able to just help develop this space and obviously your fund's doing its part. We talked about some of the areas that you're looking to invest in, how you're looking to just elevate this space overall, what do you think the rest of the VC community and landscape needs to be able to do to ultimately get things to where it should be. 

[00:30:31] Megan Holston Alexander: Sorry, when you say get things to where they should be, you mean in terms of like talent as an employee of companies? You mean talent in what way? 

[00:30:40] Dan Runcie: So I'm talking about talent in terms of whether it's black founders who are leading companies or black talent that are just interested in the space that are either going on to get jobs in the space or to work for other established companies, overall investing and then just being able to grow and see more black talent in tech.

[00:30:59] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. So I'll start by saying there's no one way to do it. I think there are a number of different approaches that people can take. But I usually divide it up at least of this industry into three things. One, funds can, or you know, firms can support black founders, right, by putting capital directly into their hands so that they can build their companies. Two, they can help more black talent get into early stage companies, right? So, employee 10, employee 15, employee 20, because we know that early employee equity can really change a life, right, when a company has a liquidity event, whether it's an IPO or a sale that now that person has capital to start a company or to angel invest in companies and kind of create some generational wealth for themselves. And then the third thing is getting more black dollars on cap tables, right? So ownership stakes, not just monetizing on a platform, right, for all of the amazing things that we're creating, but actually having its ownership in the platform to create generational wealth. And CLF focuses on those last two, but there are a lot of firms, again, focused on, you know, funding black founders. I think kind of focusing on those three core areas can really create economic, you know, extreme economic kind of opportunities for the black community. And so, you know, with CLF focusing on those last two, I think we've got a really special niche that we get to support in a number of ways, which I mentioned before.

[00:32:26] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like the closer that, or at least the more people, whether it's in this generation or in, you know, people that are a little bit older that are still trying to do it, being able to just get more focus on building generational. And just the knowledge and the mindset of it. I think all those things help. I think we're seeing more podcasts, more shows, more content from black folks that are specifically focused on this, which is great. I think, you know, there's never too much of it. So personally I think that I would love to be able to see more dollars and more hiring that happens in these places too 'cause I think we saw, especially in the past couple years, there was so many press releases that came from particular companies, and I think I saw recently there was a big tech founder that just announced, you know, a $400 million fund to invest.

[00:33:16] Megan Holston Alexander: 400 million. Yeah, yeah. 

[00:33:17] Dan Runcie: But like, wanted to be able to actually see the results from those and being able to see the impact and being able to see people, you know, become their own Robert Smiths that can then, you know, pay for, you know, tuition for a future class. The more of those we see, and it's not just the one, you know, few names we already know would be great and I think those things will happen, but ultimately I think that's what so many of us want to see in this space. 

[00:33:39] Megan Holston Alexander: And there's so much embedded in this conversation, right? And I'll go on a little bit of an aside because I think one, we have to understand that like when we think about the future and black equity and empowerment, some people still don't care. Like, there are a lot of people who just do not care. It's not their problem. They don't want to help solve it. And then you have people who kind of commit to things but have no follow-through. And that's what we saw a lot of over the last couple of years. Like, after the murder of George Floyd, all these companies were like, yes, we're going to give this, we're going to do this. And then the follow-through two and a half years later is just not there. And then you have the people who are really, really committed but don't understand the expanse of the black community and think of it as a small sliver, like, really high, like, accelerators that they would want to support who still go to like a very specific set of schools, right, the talented tenth of the black people and are willing to support that. But then there is this holistic perspective around, like, non-monolithic blackness and how do we encourage economic empowerment and growth across the community as a whole? And that's what I want to get to. When we think about HBCUs, there's over a hundred of them, right? And how do we support more of them as opposed to like the same ones that get, you know, a ton of shine. Mind you, when it comes to HBCUs, like, they don't work outside of the community, be like, we depend on each other and we rely on each other. So, you know, I want to get to a more comprehensive perspective on, like, what supporting black economic empowerment looks like from a long-term perspective. So I think we'll get there, but there's a long way to go. 

[00:35:25] Dan Runcie: What you just said reminds me of, there was one of the tech companies that announced that they were going to have a black board member and that someone was going to take their seat away and they were going to make the opportunity for a black board member. And people were very curious, okay, who should it be? And to the point that you're making, who can we elevate to that point? Who could we provide an opportunity for? And I think they ended up choosing one of the most successful and high-profile black founders in this space. And while it is great to see that person in that role, that wasn't creating a necessarily a new opportunity in that same type of way, and it goes back to the talented tenth thing. 

[00:36:02] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. We're here. And you know, I think you bring up a good point when, and now we're about to get into black history, but that's okay 'cause this is for the people. Conceptually, when you think about the talented tenth that's, you know, W. E. B. Du Bois and, like, his concept from a sociological perspective, and you think about who he was at tension with the most, Booker T. Washington and this concept of the Atlanta Compromise. Two very powerful black men, the founder of Tuskegee University versus, like, the first black man to get a PhD at Harvard. Conceptually thinking there are multiple ways in which the black race can succeed. And I think that's still very much the case, right? So, you know, W. E. B. Du Bois is very much like, we should be going to college. We should be getting these advanced degrees. Like we can have these like high power jobs, et cetera, and be in government, but Booker T. Washington is like, our people down here, don't even have running water, right? We should be focused on trying to get like basic level of education, jobs that provide us, like, a source of income that's steady, et cetera. So my point is, you know, reasonable people can disagree to what the solution is. And, again, I think there's multiple approaches and so I think if we can, you know, not just go one route, right? It can't always be about only the talented tenth, but kind of like also bring up a pathway where in Booker T. Washington space, right? That's why we'll have all the like, black agricultural people. Tuskegee is, like, the best university for, like, mechanical engineering and industrial engineering. And that's all like thematically with Booker T. Washington. So there's room for both. We just have a habit of focusing on one. Ali went there and went into a total black history tangent. 

[00:37:38] Dan Runcie: We could do a whole episode on that. But I'm glad you brought that up 'cause I do think that analogy and just, it ties so much of this together and ultimately the purpose of the fund and what you're trying to do. When I think about the nuance of all these conversations and the comprehensiveness of it what people need to hear so thank you for that.

[00:37:56] Megan Holston Alexander: Fun fact. I'm actually a sociologist by trade. It was my undergrad. My undergrad degree, I got a Master's in it. I went to get a PhD, dropped out 'cause I hated it, moved to California, and got into tech and my dog is actually named after W. E. B. Du Bois. So fun fact for the people out there.

[00:38:14] Dan Runcie: Still fresh, I mean for some of that, you know, I'm sure the sociology degree may have been, you know, some time ago, but still fresh. You still got it. 

[00:38:21] Megan Holston Alexander: It's good stuff. I love social interaction and studying how people engage with each other. So it's my secret passion. I'm a sociology capitalist, I guess so. 

[00:38:32] Dan Runcie: Of course, no, I think that there's some term there. But shifting gears a bit though, this is also somewhat on a sociology perspective, especially among VCs, the concept of where to live and where people are investing in has just been a bigger discussion ever since the pandemic had started and you are someone that lived in the Bay, you've recently moved to Alabama. And it'll be great to hear two parts. One, not just why you made the move, but also what is your take right now on the Bay Area, on San Francisco, because it is such a polarizing discussion point, especially from whether it was even people I talked to when I was at the summit or in so many conversations, for me as someone that still lives here.

[00:39:15] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. So it's polarizing for a lot of people, but my feeling is clear and I've always felt that, like, talent is truly, truly all over. So I moved to Alabama because, you know, I got two little babies and, you know, my parents are getting older, and I wanted to be able to have my kids spend time with them and to go to Mimi's house, and Mimi to be able to come to their school stuff. And so, you know, the pandemic really allowed us the opportunity to do that because as you know, Andreessen Horowitz moved to the cloud. Prior to the pandemic, we were very much a, you know, in office culture as most firms were. But you know, much to the credit of our leadership, they saw how much flexibility people had while still being productive and wanted to be sure that, you know, people were able to maintain that. So I'm really grateful for it. But, you know, my stance has been the same. I've always felt like people, smart people come from everywhere and they can be everywhere. I used to get really offended, actually. So I went to an HBCU undergrad. I went to Clark Atlanta, but ultimately got an MBA at Stanford. And somehow after I went to Stanford, everybody starts, like, picking up the phone for you, right? And then they'll, like, respond to your emails when they, you know, see a certain thing there. But people are like, oh, I see you went to Stanford. Like, you must be smart. And I'm like, I was smart before I went to Stanford. I was smart in Alabama, you know what I mean? And so I've always conceptually believe that, you know, yes, people get these extra markers, but that doesn't necessarily determine, like, I didn't go to Stanford and get smart. I didn't go to Stanford and get some magical thing that makes me, you know, smarter than everybody else. And so I've just always been a believer in, you know, talent being everywhere. As far as like the Bay, in particular, I do think, you know, something special happens when you can kind of create some serendipity and put people in the same place. It's not that like, oh, you know, everybody was just born there. They're very smart. It's like, no, like, people were actively coming there to join companies, et cetera. So you did get this great critical mass of people living in one place, especially when offices were in office culture. But now kind of that disbursement has happened and I think it just shows people that like, yeah, people who are interested in tech and building things. Also, they desire to live outside of the Bay Area for whatever reason, whether it's family or friends or I want to live near Warm Beach. Whatever the case is, I just think, and again, have always believed that you can live anywhere and be smart and productive and happy.

[00:41:38] Dan Runcie: And I think a lot of this was inevitable. We knew that as technology got better and better, the power of conglomeration, especially from a physical location perspective, was only going to lessen. I don't think it necessarily goes down to zero. There, of course, is benefit and why people live in particular places, but I do think that what we saw the past 15 years up until maybe the past two years was at least like the last wave. And you saw it before, whether it was with, you know, the auto industry or the Midwest of all these other places. Like, we've seen this happen time and time again. But what's different now is that things are so fragmented and it makes me think a lot of things we see in music as well. We saw so many areas that were just such culture beds for where the new hot sound was coming from, where the hottest music was. And I think we still see a lot of that. But we're starting to see even that spread out of it too. So this is happening across the board. 

[00:42:31] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. I agree. And, you know, I think as long as companies support their employees' needs in whatever it is to be productive, I think we'll get to the right answer. So for example, our firm allows you, if you want to go to the office, you can. There's, like, no office that exists, so, like, you can't get interaction if you desire it. But not requiring it allows both types of people to be happy. And quite frankly, like, most people don't even know I live in Alabama. Like, I'll be on the phone with somebody from work and I'll like, no, I'm in Alabama. And they're like, oh, how long you visiting for? And I'm like, no, I live here. And like, everybody's eyes bug out and they're like, what? You can be equally as productive and no one have no, you know, no idea where you are.

[00:43:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think that, and it's interesting, I've heard, you know, from some founders that are trying to go back in the office, some founders that are, you know, doing things remotely a hundred percent. And part of it is all that works for you, but the fact is we have options now and that's basically it.

[00:43:30] Megan Holston Alexander: And I appreciate, again, the flexibility of so many companies to, like, actively buck against what the normal used to be, because I think it would've been really easy or conceptually easy to say, like, we're going back into the office. Like, that's what it is, and, you know, that's the end. But for all the companies that are like, hey, the world is changing, let me adapt. I and I know so many other people are really grateful for that. And me as a new mom, the flexibility it's given me is just huge. 

[00:44:00] Dan Runcie: Right. And to tie it all in too, it just allows the greatness and the genius to come from so many other areas that aren't filtered by all of the other things that let people pick from the pools of talent that existed before.

[00:44:13] Megan Holston Alexander: Agreed. The CLF team, at this point, I don't think anybody's in the Bay.

[00:44:17] Dan Runcie: Makes sense. 

[00:44:18] Megan Holston Alexander: I knew we've got New York and Miami and LA. Okay, wait, no, we do have one person in the Bay. But the fact is that this team, CLF as it is now, could not have existed if we could only be in Menlo Park. 

[00:44:31] Dan Runcie: Right, right. No, that's a good point. That's a good point. All right. Well, Megan, this is great. Covered a bunch. We got a deeper look behind the fund. Everything that goes behind the work you're doing.

[00:44:41] Megan Holston Alexander: Wait, we're not done, are we? 

[00:44:43] Dan Runcie: We're getting to the tail end. We're going to the tail end. Oh, you got more? 

[00:44:46] Megan Holston Alexander: You couldn't convince me that that wasn't only 20 minutes.

[00:44:50] Dan Runcie: No, we definitely, we definitely had some good deep dives in here. This was good. But no, before we let you go though, what's one big thing that you're excited for 2023? 

[00:44:59] Megan Holston Alexander: One thing I'm excited for 2023 for the fund, I am really excited to continue to, like, bring people together. In the last two and a half years, we haven't been able to do that, but CLF as a fund and as a network really relies on putting interesting people in a room together so magic can happen. And you probably heard me saying it's all around like the summit a few weeks ago. Like, my favorite part of my job is when, like, I know somebody and I know somebody else and I see them and I'm like, ooh, they need to talk. And I'll bring them together and I'll say, like, I don't know what's going to happen here, but y'all need to talk and whatever happens, give me my credit. And then I walk off. And then there's like all this like zhooshing and this magic that happens. I love those moments. So hopefully I can get to create more of those in 2023 with the awesome team that we've built at CLF.

[00:45:50] Dan Runcie: Well, we'll definitely be looking out for that for sure. Megan, thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for coming on. 

[00:45:56] Megan Holston Alexander: You as well. Thank you. I appreciate it. You're doing something very amazing with Trapital, and I mean, I just feel honored that you wouldn't let me be on your platform. 

[00:46:04] Dan Runcie: Of course, these are the conversations you want to have. Thank you. Appreciate that. 

[00:46:08] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

At the top of the episode, I talk about Trapital’s new Culture Report and our opening section on hip-hop’s “decline.” This report is sponsored by DICE, and it was a great chance to chat with DICE President Russ Tannen about the future of ticketing and live events.

Russ moved to New York City in 2021 amid the pandemic with one lofty goal: grow the music ticketing platform’s business inside the competitive United States market. If that wasn’t challenging enough, this was all while live musical shows were still hard to come by. More than a year later, DICE is still in growth mode, not only in the US but with aspirations for other international markets too.

Russ was a day-one employee of DICE when it started in 2013 in Europe. What separated the platform then — and to this day — is its laser focus on the music fan. Unlike its major competitors, DICE is as much a discovery platform as a point-of-sale. Using the app’s own internal data, fans are recommended local shows to attend. 

The recommendation system was created with the intent of improving the live music-going experience for fans. This same reason is also why the ticket price you see on DICE is the final price, no extra fees added at check-out. DICE tickets also can’t be resold outside of its app, ensuring true fans, not ticket scalpers, will have first access to see their favorite artists. 

Russ joined me on the show to discuss the inner workings of DICE, from the app’s unique benefits for fans, artists, and venues alike to its overarching growth strategy. Here’s everything we covered:

[0:35] The Culture Report

[13:01] DICE entering the US market amid pandemic

[15:26] Competing against other ticketing platforms

[19:58] Re-wiring consumer behavior around attending events

[22:15] Prior partnership with Kanye West

[23:37] Has there been any artist pushback?

[25:16] Showing ticket price upfront, not at checkout

[28:10] How DICE deals with ticket-buying bots

[35:57] DICE’s investment in data science is paying off

[35:37] Partnering with Ice Spice

[38:21] Early signals that an artist is on the rise

[40:22] Correlation between social media and streaming numbers on ticket sales

[43:16] Differences in ticketing in US vs. other markets

[46:18] Sales strategies for low-demand shows

[48:46] DICE’s plans to tap more into Latin music market

[52:27] Expansion is DICE’s primary focus in 2023

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Russ Tannen, @RussTannen

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Russ Tannen: At one point I was booking in London a 150-capacity venue, and I thought it was amazing when 400 people would show up for the hundred 50 capacity show, and we try and cram them all in. And I always saw that was an amazing sign. Those shows were always free, but obviously, now we are ticketing around the world, many of the best 100 to 200-capacity venues that exist in some of the best music cities in the world. So what's fascinating for us is to not just be speaking to the people that are running and booking those venues, but to be looking at the data of, okay, which shows sold out on and out at that level, and who's got the biggest waiting list at that level. And we see a complete global picture of that.

[00:00:42] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level.   

[00:01:02] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Russ Tannen. He's the president of DICE, which is a ticketing platform for live events that's working to make ticketing fairer for fans of live music. They're also working to make sure that there's personalization, so that fans have a better understanding for the music and the concerts from the people that they want to be able to see. And they've been using a ton of analytics to address some of the challenges that the live entertainment industry has faced over the years. DICE is one of the presenting sponsors for Trapital's 2022 Culture Report that is out and available. You can get that on the Trapital website or if you're on the email list. And it was great to talk to Russ about some of those findings and also get a better understanding for the main problem that DICE is trying to solve. There are several aspects of the live ticketing business from scalpers and bots that are raising prices, with artists and fans not necessarily being able to have the most direct connection possible, and fans not always necessarily knowing what concerts are in their area, other people that they may want to see, and being able to get personalized recommendations there. So Russ really brought us under the hood, painted us a picture of what the events business looks like. This is a company that started in the UK, was able to get a good amount of market share there, and is now expanding into the US. So we talked about how they're focused on the venues, specifically, that have capacity from 200 people up to 10,000, what that looks like, what the opportunities are, what some of the challenges are, and what he's ultimately looking forward to most. Here's my chat with Russ.

[00:02:36] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Russ Tannen, who is the president of DICE, a company that is on a mission to help solve a number of the challenges right now in the ticketing and live events business. And I give you a lot of credit because this is a difficult business for a number of reasons, and you're entering a US market where I think there's so much opportunity for improvements with things. So it would be great to hear from you all, and for the folks listening, what your strategy is and why the US market's been so important for you.

[00:03:08] Russ Tannen: Thanks Dan. Thanks so much for having me on. It's really good to meet you and to get a chance to have this conversation. I don't know why you think it's difficult. It's it's been so straightforward. It's been such a breeze the last nine years. No, it's definitely complicated. Before we jump into it, and I do want to tackle that one, I wanted to ask you a question first actually. What was the first concert you went to, Dan? 

[00:03:27] Dan Runcie: Ooh, the first concert I went to. So I am Jamaican and my parents are Big Harry Belafonte fans, so I must have been nine or so, and we all went as a family to a Harry Belafonte concert. I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, so he had come through, so that was the first one. 

[00:03:44] Russ Tannen: Wow. What was the first one where you, like, bought a ticket or you were, like, going with your mates and you were, like, excited to go? 

[00:03:49] Dan Runcie: Okay. The first one where was actually, like, me going, it was a 50 Cent concert. He had come through, they had this concert venue, the Meadows in the Hartford area. So, yeah, we went to that. This is like right when he had, like, blown up. 

[00:04:00] Russ Tannen: How was it? Amazing? 

[00:04:02] Dan Runcie: I mean, at that age, it was amazing. I thought that it was the coolest thing ever. I mean, this was the person that everyone was talking about, Oh, you know, he got shot nine times. He's this mythical legend. And then you get to see him in this venue. And of course, you're also, you know, you're young, you're with your friends, you're finally, like, getting out, like, people are finally starting to go different places. So I really enjoy that. And yeah, I mean, that was with my own money for the first time.

[00:04:25] Russ Tannen: Yeah. I love thinking about those memories. I found a picture of me going to my, like, first proper concert, which is, like, I used to have hair, obviously, when I was a teenager and it was, like, dyed green, and we were going to see Deftones and Linkin Park play. They were playing in London. And I remember just being with all my mates going, it was like the most exciting thing ever to, like, go to that show. And I love like, thinking about those things and that feeling and that emotion 'cause I think, like, if you have, like, a really amazing experience early going to a concert and feeling all of those emotions about going to see live music, then it can really stay with you, like, your whole life. And I think a lot of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to capture is that feeling for as many people as possible and to get more people having those types of experiences, like, more of the time, really just spending less time at home. Like that's what we're really, that's what DICE is all about. Like, more than being an app or being a company or all the other things that we're doing, like, it's really, like, how do you get more people to feel like they're going to the 50 Cent concert and just, like, this is it, like, but thanks for sharing that. 

[00:05:26] Dan Runcie: Oh, definitely. 

[00:05:27] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I moved to the US in April last year. So I'm joining on the call from New York at the moment. And we already had a presence here. We'd been building up the business in LA for a few years before, and obviously, the pandemic hit. And I think coming out of the pandemic, we realized that there was an opportunity to start working with a number of partners in New York and really focus on our growth here and building out a team. So when I got here in April, there were three people on the team here. We've built that out to 70 people in this office and a hundred people in the US team overall with other little posts in Miami and Nashville as well as the team in LA. And, yeah, I think it's an extremely competitive market, obviously, but I also think that one of the great things that the pandemic really showed us was just how big and how strong the independent music scene in the US really is. And a big part of that, I think, was the work that Dayna Frank did and founding NIVA and really uniting all of those independent venues together to lobby for the grants that they got to keep the businesses going. And I think that that was just like a really interesting thing t o come out of it and something that will go on for a long time and last for a long time. Now, that organization, and I think it helped to show everyone, you know, how strong the independent music scene is here and what a large opportunity for a company like ours that works only with independent venues and promoters has to build, you know, a very big business here, too, and to support all the artists that are playing in those venues. So we really focus between. 200 - 10,000 capacity. Those are the types of venues we work with. And for people that are listening that don't know what DICE is, you know, we're a mobile event discovery and ticketing app that's working directly with venues and promoters to, you know, increase sales for those shows and to do all the things you'd be expecting a ticket company to do. So, yeah, but that's really where we play. It's a very competitive space, but it's a bit different to thinking about arenas and stadiums and you know, maybe that part of the live business. 

[00:07:19] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. I do think that, of course, that you have, whether it's ATG or Live Nation, having those arenas and stadiums and a lot of the partnerships there, the independent opportunity is much more flexible and I think there's less pure ownership there from a lot of the big players, but I do know that there's still competition from, whether it's your folks like Eventbrite or others. How have you been able to work and gain market share given that dynamic with some of the other players from that 200 to 10K capacity venue? 

[00:07:51] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I think that we've been going for nine years now. And we had originally worked as promoters, we'd also run venues. We were working in artist management before starting DICE, and I think we had a number of different perspectives from day one in building the company and the kind of foundational things that we focused on were probably a little different to someone who's maybe more coming from a technology background and seeing a market opportunity and looking at how to build for the venue client. Whereas we always kind of still had a management hat on the whole time. And also we're really thinking about how to build for the fan, and we've had this kind of laser focus on building for the fan experience and that started all the way back with making it a completely mobile product, making the actual purchase of the ticket extremely easy, always showing the full price upfront so you don't get that sticker shock at the end of the purchase when it's suddenly more expensive, stopping the tickets from being sold on resale, introducing functionality like the waiting list where if a show sells out, you can join a waiting list and if tickets get returned to that waiting list, you can just pick them up at the same price. All these things that we did very early that just built a lot of trust very quickly, I think, with fans to become like their preferred platform for tickets and then through time thinking even more about social functionality connecting with your friends. We talk to fans all the time and fans would tell us the number one reason that they wouldn't buy a ticket for a show would be that they wouldn't know who to go with. But we would know that from all the fans that we had using the product, that there must be some that were already friends. So we made it so you could connect with your friends through the app, through your contacts, and then on an event level, you can actually see who from your friends is going to the show, who's been to see that artist before, who's saved that event? You can also go on a view where you can just pick, so me and you could pick this page where it will show us events to go to together based on both of our musical tastes and shows we've been to before. So there's all these things that we've built that are really just nothing to do with the person sat at the venue who's the ticketing manager, and they're all about the real end consumer being the fan. And I think that's just been a different approach to most ticket companies in the US previously that have built been more transactional. And so when we pitch, it's all about how do we actually significantly change how people are discovering the events at the venue and how do we increase the number of shows that they're going to by focusing all of their experience on the actual ticket purchase. And that's really paid off and that narrative is paid off. And when we think about a city like New York, where, you know, last when I got here, it was still events weren't happening. So obviously, you know, the number of users on the app was extremely low. We only had a few partners signed that think people were starting to think about putting shows on sale, but it was really early days. We were really selling a vision of what we could do in terms of driving sales and making people go to more shows. But now that we're 18 months in, we can see, you know, over a million people in New York City using the app every month. We can see over 40% of sales coming through discovery, which is sales that we are driving. That's really significant for the venues and promoters that we're working with and of course for the artists playing those venues. So I think that New York's a great case study for us, and we're excited to do it even more across the rest of the US and also around the world. We're already in London and Spain and Germany and France and Italy, so, yeah, we're just getting started really.

[00:11:17] Dan Runcie: Let's talk a bit more about that consumer behavior aspect of this because this is where I think you make the distinction. So many of the other events promoters, it's more focused on their relationship with the artist, right? They're essentially the end consumer or the venue itself. But then it's the fan that then sees the after effects of it, whether that turns out in how tickets are resold or how they're initially sold and offered in the first place and the fees and all the other things that come up. And you all are making it more so of the destination for someone that wants to come to a show and wants to check that out, and by also with some of the other measures you mentioned, not having scalpers, resale value or resale, in general, going directly to someone on the waitlist, how do you feel like this piece of it has been? Because I think so much of this is just rewiring the psychology of how consumers think about attending live events. So of course there's the business aspect of it, but there's also a bit of retraining the customer because I think for so many years we've been trained to follow the way that it's been.

[00:12:23] Russ Tannen: I know. I also think that everything is always in flux, right? And everything's always changing and shifting. And I think that the moment you stop innovating is the moment you start, like, failing, right? You've got to keep kind of pushing things forward and thinking about keeping the right north star, I think. And for us, keeping the fan experiences a North Star has been the thing that's really led to, I think, a lot of our success. And I think that with the resale piece, that's a really interesting one, how that's evolved even in the last kind of nine years since we started. And I think where we're at now is that we are so at odds with how, you know, some of the other ticket companies are doing it with integrated resale and this dynamic pricing debate that's obviously going on at the moment. And we're really at the complete opposite end of that, where we really believe that if you really rip off fans or give people an experience or perception that they're being ripped off, then the next time they think about what they're going to do with their spare money to spend on social activities or with their free time, they might not pick going to a concert, and we think it's such a short term view to be doing those behaviors. And I think definitely in the sort of capacity size of shows that we're doing and the types of independent festivals and promoters that we work with, it's just not what people want either. So when we are pitching to those partners or talking to artists even about how we do things, which is really about stopping the resale of tickets and having this completely fair waiting list platform, then a lot of them love to hear that, and that's what they want to be pitched. They don't want to be pitched that we've built a system that could squeeze every dollar out of a fan who can happen to afford it. So I think that's a better approach to be doing it. I think, like, with the resale piece, especially, a lot of the early success we had with artists was also on the fact that we could stop the resale of tickets. I was just thinking of when we worked with Kanye on the Project Wyoming launch parties around the US, it was very early for us when we just launched here. And, you know, that was one of the massive reasons that he actually wanted to use the platform was to stop the resale of tickets. So there's been lots of case studies like that that we've had where just really big artists are trying to use us just to stop resale, and I think it's a misconception that, you know, larger artists are actually all trying to just make as much money as possible from the fan using that dynamic pricing or participating themselves in resale. 

[00:14:39] Dan Runcie: How did the Kanye partnership develop? 

[00:14:42] Russ Tannen: It was really very last minute and unexpected, and it was all happening from LA, and Andrew who's on our team and was in LA at the time, running there and setting up the business there had a call very late. And so it all happened while we were asleep in London, and he'd been told to set up some links, no event details, all super secret. And then we were all in a meeting the next day and I remember him texting us saying, go to kanyewest.com, and it rerouted to a DICE ticket page for the show. So it was pretty wild. But yeah, it was via promoter that we'd been working with in LA who'd been sort of brought on to find you know, locations for those shows and stuff. And there's been lots of other examples of that, but great example of a large artist using the platform for protecting their fans, and, yeah, it was just a good one to do. 

[00:15:27] Dan Runcie: Do you ever experience or see any type of pushback from any artist specifically? Because one of the underlying things about scalpers is that a lot of times it's the artists themselves who also benefit from the secondary market, just with the price that is seen as what people perceive as the value for going to a particular show of theirs. And also, since some of these artists have also participated in buying their own tickets and selling them on the secondary market. Have there been any artists or instances where artists have had any pushback on that? 

[00:16:02] Russ Tannen: No. Like, the way that we see it is we really focus on attendance. So by having the waiting list, we're making it easy to return a ticket if you can't go, then we're going to be very, very close to a hundred percent attendance on any sold-out show. In fact, what we normally see is about a 15% increase in attendance when a venue switches from a traditional ticket company to DICE, which makes a big difference when you're in the room. And I think the artists get that. The other thing with the waiting list data that we have is that you can really see the true demand for an artist. So an example recently in London would be with Little Simz, where we did this small show and we had 11,000 people on the waiting list for her, and it's just, it was so easy for her to add another date on that show. So there's been thousands. We've had millions and millions of people on the waiting list and millions of tickets returned. But the really exciting story, I think is always when an artist sees those waiting list numbers building and actually adds a second date, and that's when they're really making money. That's a better way to do it, right, really fulfill the full demand, actually have the right number of people in the room, not just a load of tickets unsold on secondary, or use that data properly to make sure that the next show on the tour is going to be the right size, so not missing opportunity on the next go-round or on the next album. And that's one of the data pieces that we really pioneered and a lot of artists have used very successfully at this point. 

[00:17:22] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. On the pricing piece of things, does the fact that the ticket price, once it's set is not going to be any higher and it's not going to change, does that change either how you or the artist think about what that initial dollar amount should be relative to what they may do with a more traditional platform?

[00:17:41] Russ Tannen: Well, I think that the way that ticketing fees and fees in general on to tickets has kind of evolved, has made it sort of less relevant, I think, to have it kind of separate. It's kind of all part of the pie in a way. And we just always thought that the best way to do that was to show the fans the full price upfront and explain that that includes any fees that related to the ticket. We also fight to keep fees kind of as low as they reasonably can be. So we hope that, you know, the tickets are as low as they can be, but the idea of a face value ticket in a world where that ticket is not available at that price anywhere, there's no box office to go to to buy a ticket from. There's no, you know, that ticket is never available at price. So to show that price anywhere to us feels a bit disingenuous to fans and really the, I guess, the theory is that you hook people in with the lower price, and then you just sort of surprise 'em at the end and they won't care because they're already down the journey. What we decided was that actually fans are smart, and once you've been to one show, you know that's what's going to happen. So it's better just to be upfront with people and say, look, this is the full price of the ticket including any fees that need to be added. And, you know, that's it. That's the price you're going to pay at the end. In terms of how that informs pricing, you know, we don't actually inform pricing ourselves. That's always down to, you know, the venue promoter, agent, artist. And I don't know. I don't know, maybe sometimes, because we see shows coming through now where they'll say, actually, let's put it up in 10 and make sure that that includes any of the fees. Or let's put that up for 20 or 30 and make sure that includes all the fees. So maybe a little bit is starting to happen. And, you know, I hope that's the way that that it goes 'cause people should really always be thinking about the final price that people are really going to pay. And, you know, that's another thing that fans tell us all the time that they like about the platform. It felt a little bit, I think, to begin with, counterintuitive to show people a bigger price. Like, it feels weird, almost, like, to start, but then actually if you speak to fans, then they'll say, no, It's better to know. Be upfront. How much is it going to cost me? Don't surprise me at the end. 

[00:19:38] Dan Runcie: And this extends industries as well, right? It's like the Airbnb thing. No one wants to be surprised to see the price double because of the cleaning and service fee ends up being twice as much as the rental. 

[00:19:49] Russ Tannen: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's just the way that we think things should be, you know, so it's a change. Like, it's been one of the big things we talk in length about with partners, especially new partners coming on board. They've done it a certain way for a long time. But actually, you know, there's all types of legislation getting passed now to actually enforce upfront ticket pricing. And I do think this will be the way that everyone does pricing for ticketing, you know, over the next five years or so. 

[00:20:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it'll be fascinating to see how that all develops. I know that DICE has invested heavily in analytics and how you think about offering the best service, and so much of this also ties back to ensuring that consumers themselves are the ones that can get their hands on tickets. So how do you address bots? Because I know that's an ongoing concern for ticketing.

[00:20:35] Russ Tannen: Yeah, with bots, in particular, we were very fortunate that we started the company when we did, and we built this from scratch as a mobile company. The main thing for us really with any bots or any really anti-secondary measure is that for the most part, you know, everything is happening on mobile. We actually have two of the founders of Google Deep Mind were seed round investors of ours. And very early day,s we were terrified that one of the reasons that the company would fail would be that we would crash on a big on sale. And we used to call it the Radiohead test. Like, if we could survive a Radiohead on sale, we could survive anything sort of thing. And we actually worked and we had our CTO at the time go into Deep Mind and like work with a couple of the developers there, thinking about the architecture that would support, you know, hundreds of thousands of transactions to support on sales, but also to think about how we could protect against, you know, fake people trying to buy tickets. So we've done a lot there, a lot around security. And yeah, we haven't had a problem with it to date. So we hope that that continues. But I think, honestly, the biggest thing is that we've built this all ourselves. We have this huge, amazing product team who blow my mind every day, every year that we do this. And yeah, I think that they've built something really special. That's not something like many other ticket companies have been building on the same, they've been building on the same platforms for many, many years. And I don't think it's as, new or as, you know, as capable of handling some of these bad actors as we are.

[00:21:59] Dan Runcie: And I think, too, on the analytics piece, you've also used a lot of that to inform how you think about whether it's helping artists or venues or promoters think about capacity or other dynamics involved with selling a show or with putting a show on together. Can you walk us through that process and how that informs the end product that the consumer sees when they go to a show?

[00:22:22] Russ Tannen: Oh, totally. Yeah. Our first hire was a data scientist, so I don't know. It's, like, we're starting a ticket company, what do we need? Okay. Like you might think, I don't know, someone from another ticket company or, you know, an operations person or like someone from a venue. Like, we were like, no, let's hire a data scientist first, 'cause we knew that our superpower would be personalized recommendations and building an algorithm that was extremely sophisticated, that was going to show people the right shows for them., Shows that we know that they like and shows that we think they're going to like at the right time. And, yeah, so we hired this amazing guy, Greg, who still works for us and, shout out to Greg, and he's been part of the team now for many years that's been working on how to ingest all the different data points we have, starting with our onboarding process, which is all about you know, syncing with your music library, but also, you know, onboarding process, showing you different artists and genres and everything, and then starting to record all of your different behaviors in the app, which shows you're going to what you've been on a waiting list for, what you've saved, what you're browsing a lot of, and using all of that to inform your discover page, which is really the heart of DICE and the home screen when you go in there. And when we have like a critical mass inventory in a city that we're in, like, in London or Paris or Barcelona or New York, once we have that inventory, then you have an extremely personalized experience that feels almost as personalized as your streaming experience can be where there's enough inventory that you're going to see things that you're really passionate about and excited about. And we're going to package that up in different ways for you. We're going to show you things that your friends are going to, we're going to show you the genres you like, your favorite artists. We're going to show you things from your music library. We're going to show you all the shows that have been announced for you from the last seven days. Fans are always missing these announcements because there's no coordination between venues or promoters on when things announce. It's just all getting announced all the time, every day, hundreds of announcements. So, when you're looking at putting up, like in London, we're maybe 1500 a month. In New York, it's not far from that either. There's so many shows, right? Like, how as a fan are you supposed to filter that? So we filter for them using the data and the algorithms that we've built, so that we're only telling them about on a Thursday, here's the shows that announced to you this week. And that's really where all of that. You know, that's the biggest piece from a fan perspective of where that all that investment that we've made in data analytics really comes to life, away from the numbers and the stats and everything. That's, like, the real-world use of it. And that's what's driving, you know, that massive percentage, that 40 percentage of sales that we're seeing come from discovery and from the push notifications we're sending. And, like I said before, I think the person, the people that really benefit from that is the artist because that's just sales that are just happening organically through the product that we've built and not another post that they have to do or another ad they have to pay for, which always comes out of their pocket eventually. So, yeah, that's where that investment pays off. 

[00:25:09] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That 40% number is quite high, and it's impressive, I think, just given that this isn't something where people are necessarily consuming their product itself on the platform, right? And I think sometimes that discovery versus on-demand breakdown, you would likely expect that more from, as you mentioned, streaming something where you aren't consuming the actual product there. So the fact that you've been able to do that there is quite strong. And I do have to assume that given the investment that's been put into the data science and the fact that you can direct people and understand what people like, are there any desires or goals to be able to use the platform and the insights you have on these customers to offer them things in addition to concert ticket notifications or things like that, or other ways to leverage it knowing that you're reaching music fans?

[00:25:58] Russ Tannen: Yeah, there's two. There's two parts to that. One is, I think, uniquely with DICE, we've built it in a way that what we saw before was that people would discover the show in one place, then they would listen to the artist on their streaming platform. They would invite their friends through their messaging app, and then they'd buy their ticket from the ticket company. And what we tried to do was build that stack into DICE. So you're going to open DICE and discover the show. It's all integrated with Spotify and Apple Music to preview the artist, so you're going to listen to the artist in the app. You can invite your friend directly through the app and then obviously buy the ticket there as well. So what we see is more of the journey happening there. Obviously, the event itself happens off of the app, but a lot more of the actual process of the functional and the emotional parts of like, going to the show, like who you're going to go with, for example, that can all happen within the app and people just spend a bit more time in the app than I think that they would on a traditional ticketing site where it's more like search to purchase is the normal journey, I'm sure, almost all of the sales. So I think that's where we've managed to extend the amount of time people are in there. We are really excited about sort of commerce in general, and we'd made an announcement previously around merchandise and sort of doing more merchandise and things like that, and that's something you're going to see a lot more from us in the new year as well. So, absolutely, and that's something that we already do. We do some really interesting things with Rough Trade Records in New York and also in London where we'll do, like, vinyl bundles with album launch tickets and things like that. So there's already other parts of commerce kind of happening through the app. And ultimately I think the product is well-designed to make it very easy for people to buy things. So yes, whether we're selling them a ticket, or we're selling an artist something alongside the ticket, or we're adding something onto the ticket, I think that it's a natural progression for us and something that we're excited about exploring more. 

[00:27:44] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I know a lot of the data analytics discussion leads we've had here is focused more so on the consumer side. Does it inform as well things on the business side, such as the artists, thinking about what size venues that they may want to be in or the promoters thinking about how best to organize things?

[00:28:02] Russ Tannen: Yeah, we've been working, I'd say that there's definitely some artists and teams who have been really tapped into that. And, you know, we have a whole artist development team based out of London, New York, LA, and they're working directly with artists and agencies and managers on these data reports where we're really showing them not just where we're seeing a lot of activity from their fans, but we're doing things like suggesting support acts based on other shows that the artists' fans have been to see that might be smaller shows, or we're looking at what cities we think they should play there. We're doing a lot of that on a very kind of bespoke level with artists and also working with artists on getting them into more of the DICE venues and thinking about really make sure that from day one, they're treating their fans well and building that community on DICE, using that waiting list data to plan the next show. There's been lots of successful stories and artists that we've done that with, but just one that's top of mind, a New York artist that's coming up would be Ice Spice, who we're working with on just doing a first show somewhere, so it's not announced yet. But our artist team here is working closely with her team on planning something there, and I think that's really exciting, like, an artist that's blowing up, who's also really keen to make sure that the experience for the fans is going to be amazing from day one, from show one. 

[00:29:11] Dan Runcie: So with someone like Ice Spice who is clearly having a moment right now, what does that onboarding, the initial process, look like? Is it similar to the Kanye example where these things happen, or did someone on your team looking and scouting to see who's bubbling and then reaching out to be like, hey, let's make this happen?

[00:29:28] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I guess I kind of take it for granted now 'cause we've been doing it for so long, but, you know, we literally have a meeting that probably looks more like an A&R meeting at a record label where we are really saying, okay, what are people hearing? What arts are coming through? And that's how we've really, like, you know, a ton of artists now over the years, we've really identified very early as artists that we want to support and have worked with very closely on different types of shows that they want to do. Like, another example that's kind of top of mind would be someone like Cuco, who he identified very early and worked with on this huge block party that he did in LA a few years ago and continue to build that relationship with. But there's really, like, thousands of examples now, so, probably over a thousand artists this year. By the end of the year, it'll be over a thousand artists would have really worked with us very closely, not just on having a show through the platform, but whether we've informed which venue they play or which promoter they're working with or helping them with the marketing on that event or some other really tangible thing that we've done with them. And really that artist development team, I think is, part of kind of, like, the special source of DICE that's like just a bit different to what a traditional ticket company would do. And I really think the fact that we're able to do that is because of the brand that we've built around DICE, and it is a platform and a brand that I think artists do feel comfortable with and want to be associated with as well versus, like, maybe a traditional ticket company that wouldn't have that same kind of feeling to it. 

[00:30:46] Dan Runcie: Right. For the A&R piece of it, 'cause I think that's interesting and I think that it makes a lot of sense, what are the factors that go into the decisions that you're looking at? Because I know I talked to a few folks and there's been a bit of debate around which stats make sense to follow, which stats don't make sense, what's more signal versus noise, how do you determine that? 

[00:31:06] Russ Tannen: Well, I think, we obviously have, obviously, this really interesting data ourselves. So a lot of the venues we work with at the smaller level. And at one point I was booking in London a 150-capacity venue, and I thought it was amazing when 400 people would show up for the hundred 50-capacity show, and we try and cram them all in. And I always saw that was an amazing sign. Those shows were always free, but obviously, now we are ticketing around the world, you know, many of the best 100 to 200 capacity venues that exist in, in some of the best music cities in the world. So what's fascinating for us is to not just be speaking to the people that are running and booking those venues, but to be looking at the data of, okay, which shows sold out on and out at that level, and who's got the biggest waiting list at that level. And we see a complete global picture of that. So some of the data points that I think we are finding most interesting are actually the ones that we're seeing very early come from our own data. And then I think that that's always going to be the debate on the, you know, the taste versus, or the gut versus data kind of thing, and a lot of that comes from hiring amazing people, like, we have on our artist development team whose judgment we trust very much to pick the things out that are really going to cut through. But yeah, I definitely think seeing some of those early signals, which may, in the grand scheme of things, look quite small, but I think if you are playing a hundred-capacity show and you have a hundred people on the waiting list, that's a great sign because if you're already driving 200 fans to a show, and you are brand new then, I think that's harder than going from, you know, 3,000 to 5,000 and finding those 2,000 people, I think those first 200 is really difficult. 

[00:32:39] Dan Runcie: How important is streaming data or social media engagement or following in your analysis? 

[00:32:47] Russ Tannen: I have to talk to the team about how much they're tracking that. I think it feels more like, Ice Spice is a good example of this. So we are talking about Ice Spice, Morgan on the team who's working with her team is telling me about this track, and he thinks it's going to be big, and we're talking to them about doing a show. And then in the time from when we first started speaking to her team to today, you know, her Instagram following has gone from, you know, in the tens of thousands to in the millions. And so it's more like a, we're right about this one moment. It didn't matter a few months ago or whatever, that there was only 10,000 followers or whatever. We wouldn't have ignored it 'cause it didn't have millions of followers already. But I think that now it's more like, okay, yeah, that is a good signal that this is really going to blow up.

[00:33:27] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think just given that large number, it's hard to ignore that. It's been interesting though. I've talked to agents on this platform and they've said that they don't see as much of a correlation between streaming numbers and ticket sales. And of course, I think there's nuance there. Yes, someone like Drake or Bad Bunny that's doing 10 billion streams a year is obviously going to be in arenas and stadiums, but I think it was more so highlighting that some of the newer artists, it can be tougher because you have people that have, you know, so much of a strong following, but they may not necessarily have that following because of their music or because of other things about them. So, and I think we've just started to see more and more of that. So it does create, in some ways, a bit of a unique opportunity for the promoters or events companies that can be able to determine, yeah, like what is the true signal and what are the things that have less weight?

[00:34:19] Russ Tannen: Yeah. We really want to try and work with managers and agents more and more on providing this data that we see so that they get a sense of what is really happening 'cause it is just so different. I think if someone's put their hand in their pocket and spent $30 on going to a show versus hearing a track on a playlist, obviously, like, it's just not the same type of commitment at all. So we're working to keep growing that team and expanding the number of artists that we're having that type of relationship with. And, yeah, anyone listening who wants to get in touch with our artist team is very welcome to as well, and you can do that through the site. But, yeah, we are keen to be talking to as many labels and managers, agents everyone really who's interested in kind of digging into that, especially if their artists already have shows on DICE as well on in any of our venues. We'd love to get into that with them. 

[00:35:04] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Switching gears a bit, going back to the entrance and really expanding things in the US market, one of the things that stuck out to me from your past interviews was how you talked about how live events and concerts is much more of a localized business, and I'm sure that the experience that you all had in Europe and everything in the UK, there's slightly likely some differences considering things being localized, whether it's in New York City or some of the other markets here. What are some of those notable differences that you've picked up on in the US and some of the cities in the US as opposed to things in the UK? 

[00:35:41] Russ Tannen: I'd say that one of the biggest differences is more of a technical thing, I guess, for us, which is that in European markets, the people who actually control the tickets, it's much more spread. So on one show you could have 10 ticket companies selling tickets for the same show, and then it's really just like on the fan to have a preferred outlet or who's, you know, boosting their link the most, honestly. So it's a little bit different versus the US where it's exclusively with the venue. So every show pretty much has one ticket company and it makes the market difficult to break into honestly because of that. It's very binary. You're either working on the show or you're not. Versus when we started in London, we could say, hey, to a promoter, we want 10 tickets to the show, and we would be able to list the show. So if you were going onto the app, you could see all these amazing artists playing. But we didn't have more than 10 tickets sometimes or 20 tickets versus US, where you really have to have the whole inventory and you have to be in a position to do it. I also think that how the market worked in Europe was one of the reasons that we invested so much in the discovery piece because we were competing on every single show. We had to sell our allotment of tickets versus in the US. I think the ticket companies as soon as they've signed the venue, they're almost more lazy maybe about it. So they haven't spent so much on discovery piece. And I think that's why, you know, our discovery story here and the way that it's working here is kind of a rich one and honestly just better for fans. But we needed to do it that way around. I think it would've much harder to start here and then go into Europe. So I'm glad it works the way it did. But that's been one of the big differences. I think for us, really, we're just excited about finding all of the best kind of quality independent operators, whether they're promoters or venues, and really helping them grow their businesses as well. And we love venues that have just really well-curated programming, like, we love the programming. Elsewhere, for example, is another New York venue that we work with where super diverse, amazing program that just kind of ticks all these different boxes, but always hits this quality bar that just seems like almost impossibly high, like, every night. It's really special. So we are really, like, excited about working with people like that. And New York such, it's an amazing city for music. So it's nice that this is kind of our main base here at the moment in the US. 

[00:37:55] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And given that in the US, things are much more all or nothing, does that have any type of impact on how the tickets may go throughout the entire process? I know at least in the US, I've seen a few things. If a ticket is on for a while. And we talked a lot about scalpers and just their influence when tickets and the demand increases, right? We haven't talked as much about when the demand decreases 'cause I know that at times, I've seen things where artists will have their tickets go on Groupon and places like that where they'd be offered for a much lower price. How has that piece of it been in the US where, let's say there's a show that you've wanted to put on and if the resellers are needing to sell for the same price, but the demand itself may not necessarily reflect where it is, or if the artist is struggling to sell, how does the pricing dynamic impact that?

[00:38:43] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I think you obviously see that, and not every show can be a sellout with, you know, tickets being sought after. I think that there's different strategies around that always. I think that for a lot of our partners, they're more used to handling all of that themselves where maybe we might be able to work on doing like competition strategy or just doing discounts or looking at other marketing channels or extra support that we can give to a show, whether that's really checking that we've done and reached all of the different audiences we think might be interested in a show and really keeping that as mobile and really trying to stay away from email, honestly. I think that one of the changes, if you think about how event marketing has changed through the years from kind of posters to magazine adverts to heavy social media to email, I think those email days are very much on the way out and really focusing on our push notification strategy and just having a very sticky product that people going to keep coming into naturally to check. That's going to be the best way to really thinking about increasing sales on low-selling shows. I think it was also a really interesting summer for people just being very honest about their ticket sales. Like, there were literally artists just coming out and saying, you know what? We're canceling these shows. We haven't sold enough tickets. Like, that was kind of new. I think people haven't been that straight up before, but that was definitely happening a bit this summer. And I think that it was a hard summer for lots of artists and lots of events and also some people had some huge success. So it's definitely a kind of uncertain time still, only obviously one year or so out of COVID and shows being back. I think that people are still feeling some of that after effects. There was a, obviously, huge rebound last summer that we really felt here as we were putting together the team still, and then suddenly we had all these venues turning on and using the product for the first time. So that was an interesting experience. But this summer I think things kind of bounced the other way a little bit, and we're going to hit a steadier stride coming into the end of the year, and I think next year is one that people are going to find easier to plan for, hopefully. 

[00:40:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I bet. And I think that we saw a few things happen this summer. As you mentioned, there was some success, but I think it definitely was a bit subject to that power law, right, where the folks at the top were able to sell out and have their tickets sell for whatever the dynamic pricing set them at. And then a lot of the artists that were either your middle class of artists or emerging definitely struggled. But one area that I do see huge amount of opportunity is Latin America and in our Trapital Culture Report 2022, we talked a lot about how much growth Latin Music has had. Of course, Bad Bunny, but there's many of other artists as well. What does your Latin American strategy look like for DICE? 

[00:41:11] Russ Tannen: I saw that in your report and, yeah, it totally reflected what we have been seeing as well, actually pulled the stats to share with you as well as you've done such great work. So it was fun to kind of pull something back. So Latin ticket sales for us increased nine times in the past year, so, 829% 2022 to 2021. And Latin events listed on DICE have quadrupled 2022 from 2021. So we are absolutely seeing the same. It's obviously huge. We've been working with people like the Paramount in LA and for a long time, been working with lots of Latin artists. We just did a show last year with Karol G at United Palace, with the Cuco show I mentioned, we did Bad Gyal in Spain. And also we haven't touched on it yet in this interview, but last year we bought Boiler Room, and they've also had a lot of success with Latin and Reggaeton programming, and worked with many artists, especially at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, which was another one of the festivals we work with where we had Boiler on stage this year. And they had this amazing program there, which included lots of Latin acts. So I think that, yeah, like, I think the whole industry's feeling it. I think it's super exciting. I think it's so cool. And I think that people are still discovering a lot of this incredible talent, and it just feels like a nice moment to have that exposure. I think for us more on the venue side. We're also doing this big push into Miami, and we just signed our first venues in Miami. And we're really excited about building that up there. And we just signed Club Space there, but there's many, many more venues there that we're looking to sign. So yeah, I think this is just like an interesting time. We're probably a little bit further away from actually launching in Latin America itself. But, you know, our partners Primavera Sound are just doing, over the next couple of months, are doing their first festivals down there, which are selling really well. Like, they're going to be really, really well. So definitely got my eye on maybe trying to make it down for one of those and checking it out. But yeah, it feels exciting, doesn't it? 

[00:42:52] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it definitely does. 9x is impressive, and it's especially impressive because I think that a lot of the folks in the music industry are seeing the top line numbers on Latin, and they may assume, okay, well, yes, the Bad Bunny effect, his album is dominating. The difference for you all though is that you don't have artists that are like the Bad Bunny level. Well, I know you're working with them, but since you're primarily focused on that 200 to 10,000 capacity, it means that you're seeing this at that level, too. And that says, and I think that should instill a lot of confidence that this isn't just one or two artists that are pulling up everything. This is an entire movement. 

[00:43:30] Russ Tannen: It's a really good point. Yeah. I think that's a really nice way to look at that data. And that's, yeah, it's absolutely what we're seeing and I think definitely it's hitting that point where it's not just that kind of trickle-down effect, but it's also like this bottom-up ground swell of artists coming through. So, yeah, that's definitely the right way to think about that, I think, that's awesome. 

[00:43:48] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think that Africa, with what's happening with afro beats and some of the other sub-genres there, that's next up. It's only going to, I mean, it's already happening, but it's only a matter of time. 

[00:43:58] Russ Tannen: It's happening, yeah, yeah. 

[00:43:59] Dan Runcie: You know, we see those numbers start to have even bigger and bigger market share. 

[00:44:03] Russ Tannen: Yeah, it gets me excited 'cause we're, you know, it takes so much every time we launch into a new country, and we kind of have to do it kind of one by one, and it's a big focus. But we really want to build DICE into being a global business and be truly global. And that doesn't mean just the kind of markets that have this really established touring infrastructure, all these other things. We want to be everywhere and explore all of these different genres and cultures in a way that makes sense. And, yeah, we're excited to be everywhere in the next few years. But in the meantime, yeah, we are helping, you know, do what we can to support all different types of music and sub genres of music and subcultures within music, and we just keep an eye on what we think the next big thing is going to be as well. 

[00:44:42] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Well, Russ, this has been great. Before we let you go though, what's one big thing that's on your radar for DICE that you're focusing on for 2023? 

[00:44:52] Russ Tannen: I think for us the big thing for us next year is really going to be expanding across the rest of the country here. We are really excited to be in tons of cities, and there's so many amazing music cities in the US as you well know. And we're excited to keep building and be everywhere because we want to be sat having conversations with artists where we can talk about doing a full US tour with them, playing all in venues that we work with, and helping them to plan how to grow across the country. So that's going to be the big push for next year. 

[00:45:22] Dan Runcie: Nice. Exciting stuff. All right. Well, if people want to follow along with DICE and if they want to set up their own profile, where do they go? 

[00:45:30] Russ Tannen: They can go straight to dice.fm. So that's the best place if you want to partner with us, if you want to get in touch with the arts development team, if you are a promoter or a venue that wants to work with us, everything's there. If you want to buy tickets and play around with the app, then head to, you know, the app store, iOS, Android, and download the app and have a play around with it. And yeah, let us know what you think. And people are more than welcome to get in touch with me directly as well. So it's just [email protected] and they can email me directly. It's great. 

[00:45:57] Dan Runcie: Nice. Sounds good. And yeah, the next time that Kanye throws one of these impromptu listening parties or these Wyoming get-togethers, I'll look to see if I see that DICE redirect. 

[00:46:09] Russ Tannen: Yeah, oh, well, I'll let you know if it's going to happen. I'll give you the heads-up. 

[00:46:12] Dan Runcie: Right. Sounds good. Thanks again, Russ. It's a pleasure. 

[00:46:14] Russ Tannen: Thanks so much, Dan. Thanks.

[00:46:18] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.