Jack Diserens on LinkedIn: ‘Vulfpeck’ asked fans to exploit an error in Spotify It funded an entire… | 31 comments (2024)

"Community-led" growth works...Just ask the Grateful Dead 👇 As a band, the Dead achieved mass fame for their live shows rather than their studio records.Still to this day, they have fewer monthly listeners (2.8M) than Kid Rock (8M) and Sugar Ray (5M) 🤯 So how did they unlock viral community led growth?𝗕𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀. 🎙️🏴☠️ Each of The Dead's live sets is unique. No two are alike.And fans love this. It helps tell their fandom story.Ask any "Deadhead" about the bootleg that hooked them, and no two answers are the same…"Colgate University - 1977""The Spectrum in Philadelphia - 1987"Rather than ban illegal bootlegging ❌ ...The Grateful Dead leaned into it ✅ They roped off sections in the audience for people to set up recording equipment.Bootlegs were traded like holy artifacts 🕯️ Folklore spread. Fandom multiplied 📈 The results speak for themselves.The Grateful Dead grossed $115M on tour last year.They'll sell out 30 shows at the Vegas sphere this year.***𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻***Find unique ways to empower your community to lead your growth.It doesn't matter if you're an artist or a company.𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙.******𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eDCTFSCK

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✍️ New Investment Thesis:𝗕𝗲𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆✅ Myspace (Acq. NewsCorp) - Sued by Universal Music Group✅ YouTube (Acq. Google) - Sued by National Music Publishers’ Association (+Viacom)✅ Twitch (Acq. Amazon) - DMCA takedown lawsuit from major labels✅ Pandora (Acq. Sirius XM) - Sued by major music publishers ✅ TikTok - Not sued....but, ya know (Universal took major action)❓ Suno + Udio - The major record labels filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing them of using copyrighted music to train their AI modelsHistory has shown that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission when it comes to dealing with the music industry.Note: this is not to say that Suno and Udio don't need to figure out a way to fairly compensate musicians for their role in training their models...they 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼‼️ (and should look to examples like Jen Music AI for how best to do this)🤔 That being said – anytime an entire sector says ‘𝗜’𝗱 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗲𝗱, 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻’….you might want to take a cold hard look in the mirror and ask "Am I the problem?"

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Great companies steal winning strategies from [seemingly] unrelated ones ⬇️ 🏡 AirBNB copied eBay’s user rating system to build trust in the home rental space🎟️ ClassPass copied Netflix’s content library subscription model to disrupt traditional gym memberships♫ So what about music community platforms? While tons are trying to find the right strategy to unlock the full potential of music + artist communities...none have won the space yetLet’s look at 3️⃣ successful strategies from the winners in [seemingly] unrelated community verticals…and ask 💡 how it might apply to music communities.1️⃣ 𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗺 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 📽️ Letterboxd thrived by first becoming a ‘system of record’ for film lovers. Users document, track and review the films they watch, then the film community was born from interaction across these various user “collections”. [A similar strategy to what Strava did - first gaining traction thru users tracking runs]💡 Can music communities be born from superfans first building out a system of record? Maybe this system of record would be their evolving music taste or tracking unique collections?2️⃣ 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 🎮 Instead of creating ‘game-specific’ communities (which everyone was trying), Twitch focused on communities led by charismatic gaming streamers (a new category of 'creator'). Twitch then built community tools for this new group and the engagement exploded.💡 Should communities be led by artists (common assumption), or a new category of 'creator' - superfan moderators (the people who are great at driving engagement around music)...or maybe both?3️⃣ 𝗡𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗯𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 🏡 Nextdoor requires verified residency (through geo-location) in order to join your neighborhood on the app. This builds trust and encourages genuine interactions and local pride (while also avoiding spam).💡 It may seem counter-intuitive, but should music communities build a [non-monetary] barrier to gaining access - ie verified fandom? This would create a sense of pride and exclusivity, nudging the users to take more ownership.All in all, the winning music community platform might include:📝 a system of record for music fans🗣️ uniquely empowered superfan creators🔒 verified fandom 📚 But this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of possible strategies…and we’ve tried out a ton of them at Anthems Music Sharing Drop any relevant strategies from other companies you can think of below - or my DMs are now open if you want to brainstorm the rest.🏆 The winning music community solution is out there somewhere (probably in the place we least suspect) - 𝘄𝗲 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘁!

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These are 🤌 Highly suggest working with Jacob Leibowitz and Dark Green Design studios

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Artists shouldn’t run their own communities.Superfans should run them instead.The most prolific artist communities in the past 50 years belong to artists who tactfully empowered their superfans to run it for them.Whether it’s Taylor Swift masterfully sharing intimate details of her life with fans, sparking superfan “folklore” on the internet, or the Grateful Dead allowing bootleg concert recordings, leading to a viral community of fan sharing…these artists never ran their own communities; they uniquely empowered superfans to.Because each fanbase can be so different - general online artist community platforms have not had a great track record.One notable success story, however, can be found in an unsuspecting place: RedditToday, there are 150+ artist subreddits which have surpassed 50k active members.And yet how many of these larger subreddits are run by the artist?ZeroSuperfans create and run these massive communities. And they’re damn good at it too.Despite this common thread of ‘superfan led’ communities…we’ve noticed new “artist community platforms” launching every year.These platforms have led with the same mistake: a top-down approach ⬇️Top-down approach ⬇️: Launching a community with the artist (+ their team) as the founding memberA platform launches starting with an artist relationship. The artist promotes the platform to fans on socials. A small percentage of those fans sign up for this foreign platform, and even fewer retain.Two reasons the top down approach fails:1. Artists and their teams are usually not great online community moderators.2. This approach views all fans as the same. It’s the artist, and the fans. Two groups. Fans don’t want to be seen as just fans. They want to express their individuality. They’re not just a credit card.The alternative is a bottoms-up approach ⬆️Bottoms-up approach ⬆️: Launching a community with the superfans as the founding membersReddit was founded on this approach, with communities created by everyday people. Features like karma points and moderator roles were built to enhance unique user contributions. Users joined several communities, participating in conversations across their entire taste spectrum.TLDR; History shows that any successful artist community platform will embrace a bottoms-up approach ⬆️ led by empowered superfans.The key question is: “How do you get a critical mass of superfans to show up for a bottoms-up approach?”.My answer: Build a ‘trojan horse’ which gets superfans to show up for another reason.One approach: build cool ways for music fans to express their music taste.At Anthems Music Sharing, we've acquired over 2 million superfans without a single artist relationship by following this approach (see below)I’ve got a ton of learnings, and am now exploring ways to collaborate and help others build.DM me if you want to brainstorm ways to build a more equitable world for artists, led by superfan growth hacks 📈

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We launchedFanalytics.fmas a platform test for fan expression in November.It hit nearly 1 million users in 1 week. So why does this matter? 👇This matters because music expression can solve the chicken 🐔 or the egg 🥚 problem inhibiting Superfan platforms.What is the "chicken or the egg" problem? Said simply, it is when a critical mass of artists won't join a platform because there aren't enough fans there, and a critical mass of fans won't join because there aren't enough artists there.We've seen many platforms launched with the pitch: 'Our solution x will allow artists to make more money from their Superfans"Solution x is usually some combination of nft, exclusive artist content medium, merch marketplace, access to the artist, or paid artist community.While the benefit to artists is obvious (“more money from Superfans”)...the benefit to Superfans is usually overstated.So - what benefit would a Superfan want from a platform?To answer this - we can look at a recent trend: Vinyl's resurgence 📈This has been the comeback story of the century, and it has been led by Gen-Z - despite 50% of them not owning a record player.Gen-Z are not buying Vinyl to consume the music, instead, they are buying it to express their fandom. And this demand for expression is bursting at the seams.So - what would Superfans want from a platform? They would want new means of expression.We took a quick stab at this withFanalytics.fmSimply put - the website generated personalized mood boards for a user based on the artists they streamed most. It was a new way for Gen-Z to express their music taste.In the first week, these mood boards were shared to social media by over 86,000 people. It went nuts 😮So how could this solve the chicken or the egg problem in music?Well - for each mood board we showed the number of other users who also generated that artist and gave them the option to join a waitlist for a future community with them.The result? 📊# of Superfan sign ups on waitlists = 32,080 (>$5million in annual Superfan spend)# of Artists with a Superfan waitlist = 5,448TLDR; Build value for Superfans. Build innovative means of expression. The value for artists will then follow....lots more to come atAnthems Music Sharing

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Songtradr now hinting at layoffs coming for newly acquired BandcampHere were my concerns aboutEpic Games’ sale of Bandcamp and how it reminds me ofthe Last.fm acquisition#music #tech #superfans #acquisition https://lnkd.in/d2ndgBEV

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What does AI + Music actually sound like? 🤔The band Vulfpeck just released an original song where the lead singer might sound oddly familiar. That's because he's been "processed through a vocal model of young michael jackson". The result is pretty wild (link below).The creative possibilities for the future of music are rapidly expanding. It's not farfetched to envision a future grammy winning vocalist who has 12 tracks on their album with 12 unique voices...#AI#Music#MusicTechhttps://lnkd.in/e2G8KRRc

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❌ Misconception = "Build better music discovery products to grow the pie" ✅ Reality = Build better self expression products to grow the pie🗣 Don't give people a better radio...give them a better microphoneGen-Z is resorting to texting song links (est. 1994), and buying Vinyl (est. 1930) as their two technologies for music self expression today. This is a huge opportunity for new tech.Dan Runcie Anthems Music Sharing

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