Artist as Entrepreneur
Austin Convention Center, Wednesday, March 18
While artists drive the business side of their careers now more than ever, navigating through the intersection of art and commerce for bands has become a complex balance of strategies and available tools. Gathering some of the leading music entrepreneurs of the digital marketplace, including CD Baby founder Derek Sivers, TuneCore CEO Jeff Price, and Sonicbids creator Panos Panay, Wednesday afternoon’s panel acknowledged that the enthusiasm over today’s DIY capabilities has run into a wall of reality for acts trying to manage the entirety of their music, brand, and careers. “DIY should stand for ‘decide it yourself,'” offered Sivers, while Adam Lewis of the artist development company Planetary Group stressed the necessity of bands initially building their own careers and outsourcing the workload only when they can specifically define their needs and articulate them. While artists today have access to all the tools to successfully market, distribute, and promote their music, perhaps the best lesson gleaned from the start-up gurus is for artists to educate themselves in order to delegate those responsibilities as needed. Keeping control of your career doesn’t require doing it all yourself but rather organizing a strategy to achieve your goals before building the team to help implement it.
This article appears in March 20 • 2009.
