Freeing up your time won’t just make you more productive; it will also help maximize the skills and strengths of everyone on your team — including you.
…. It’s no surprise that artists and entrepreneurs alike frequently turn to crowdfunding — it works.
Crowdfunding campaigns raised more than $60,000 every hour in March. That’s a huge network recognizing and supporting individual projects and careers.
But it’s not just the initiation stage of a project that can benefit from a crowdfunding network. By using crowdfunding to spread the word after you’ve completed your project, you can turn your fans and partners into a massive marketing team and drastically increase the reach of your brand. This tactic is called kick-finishing, and it’s exactly what my musician friend Brent Bourgeois is doing with his new album.
Brent Bourgeois and the Origins of Kick-Finishing
Brent is a rock musician based in the San Francisco Bay Area with an extensive career in performing, songwriting, and producing. In the ’80s, he was a founding member of a fantastic band called Bourgeois Tagg and has since collaborated with numerous other talented artists.
Once you’ve embraced collaboration as a means to achieve your highest potential in your project or venture, at some point you might start to see potential for more formal partnership.
Entering into a Join Venture is not something to undertake lightly. It is a major decision and requires careful consideration. Here are some of the basics of how Joint Ventures work and some key points to keep in mind when considering whether or not it’s the right move for your business.
The ultimate goal of embarking on a JV is to expand your business, whether by developing new products or moving into new markets. JV’s are particularly relevant for those hoping to expand their business overseas.
No matter the size of your business, Joint Ventures can be utilized to strengthen long-term relationships or to collaborate on short-term projects. A joint venture enables you to share risks and benefits with a partner and can supply you withaccess to established markets and distribution channels, more resources, greater capacity, orincreased technical expertise.
Entering into this type of collaboration with another business is complex; building the right relationship takes time and effort. If you do not have a clear understanding of the goals and the way value will be shared moving forward, a Joint Venture can burn you in the long run. (Just ask IBM when it partnered with Microsoft in the early 1980’s.) Success in a JV depends on the right relationship, a clear and thorough understanding of the goals, and effective communication of the business plan. Here are a few things that could be deadly to your Joint Venture:
> Goals are not 100% clear
> Different objectives among respective partners
> Friction and poor cooperation due to different management styles
> Insufficient leadership and support in the early stages
> An imbalance in levels of investment, assets or expertise brought in by respective partners
Flexibility is at the heart of what makes a JV such an attractive option. For example, a JV can cover only part of what you do and have a limited life span, therefore limiting the commitment and exposure for both parties; or alternatively, you might decide to set up a new company altogether to handle a particular contract.
To help you decide what form of JV would best serve you, ask yourself how involved you want to be in managing it, and consider what could happen if the venture fails.
Understanding how much risk you are prepared to accept is a key element of choosing the right JV approach. Take the time to develop clarity around this central question and you will thank yourself down the road!
Until next time, Kelli Richards
CEO of The All Access Group, LLC
PS: The right mentor will also have the right CONNECTIONS to move any effort forward. Be sure to ask who they think they can bring to the table around advisorship, possible collaboration and even funding.
In this era of rapid innovation, a new technological breakthrough can shake an entire industry in an afternoon, and consumers are hungry for the most advanced gadgets available. Businesses are constantly expected to be at the forefront of emerging technology.
As an industry insider – on way more than one level – it’s hard to take Pete Townshend’s comments as anything more than another great artist railing at the system. Look, in the end, we all have to admit that the system is broken. That’s one thing that Townshend got right in that interview. After that? Well, it’s all up for debate. But the fact that the debate was called to the floor again, that’s a good thing.
Let’s look at what he probably got wrong. Apple is not the villain here. In fact, probably the opposite. Apple is responsible for 75% of all LEGAL music downloads. And there’s no way that this makes them a vampire. It makes them a hero, of sorts. By creating a closed system, where one download went to ONE machine, Apple stopped the bleeding of way more than royalties. It addressed a cultural shift that it was OKAY to steal music. “Sharing.” So there’s something else that Townshend got right in that interview. Stealing and sharing are not the same thing – and the mere idea that music should be free is an utter insult to the millions of people who give their lives to create it.
I should disclose here that I was part of Apple way back when and helped launch digital music before it broke wide open, but my 13+ years in digital consultancy have certainly shown me every side of this equation (and argument).
Whether or not music should be free has gone where it belongs. It’s gone to artist-controlled DIY. DIY creation and DIY distribution. The indie artists have unlocked the code. Give away great material to build a tribe, and get that tribe to adore you. They’ll show up with the money, for sure, but only after the love affair has begun.
Here’s the other problem with Pete’s point of view – it assumes that Apple controls the digital distribution industry, and quite simply, it does not. In the world of Spotify and MusicShark and locker systems, Apple is only one giant float in the parade. Let’s clarify, they may even be leading the parade, but after a brief initial claim to the universe, way back when, they’re far from alone. Having said that, it’s obvious that the consumer, overall, loves Apple. Quite simply, in the words of futurist Gerd Leonhard, it’s easy. It’s a plug and go solution. It meets busy consumers where they want to be met, and serving the consumer IS the end game on the business side of music (and anything digital).
The artistic side? Producing great content and hiring mentors to aide and abet that? I wish I could ask Townshend why that is at all iTunes’ responsibility. That is a model that we see fading at every label, sadly (& that’s me wearing my hat as a former A&R exec at one of the majors). From this insider’s viewpoint, however, it will fade, but not die. There is a space for grooming artists, from a label’s point of view – otherwise we end up with the music industry’s version of Yentl for every project. (The same Editor, Producer, Writer and Actress, if you needed me to spell out that comparison.) Without label support, bands have limited objectivity of their work, at best. But we KNOW what percentage of artists get signed. So this new world of digital DIY is an amazing opportunity for artist AND consumer. Which brings us to Townshend’s issue with gatekeepers – one that social media and DIY will summarily trump, given enough time. Spaces like iLIke and Facebook will level the playing field.
Finally, it’s NOT Apple’s job to bridge the gap between labels and DIY. They are, like it or not, a retailer. Why should they be expected to fix what’s broken in music? The business model for direct sales/acquisition of recorded music in the traditional sense is collapsing.
But with all of the GREAT minds in the digital and music space, of course we’ll find a new model. Music does far more than soothe the savage breast, it is the most vital language of unification. Ask the millions of Chinese listening to Gaga or Beiber – or just look at the worldwide recognition of Mozart. Or the global domination of Idol.
Yes, there are definitely parts of the foundation with cracks, or worse, but I have full confidence from my life experience of consulting with the industry leaders and artists, that we’ll find a new and more powerful model to propel us forward. Until then, in the immortal words of Sonny and Cher, the beat goes on.
Kelli Richards CEO
The All Access Group, LLC
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