Music is your passion. I get it.

And, if you want to keep it a fun hobby, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But if you’re thinking about making a serious go of it, you might want to embrace the business side of it too.

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I answer the question, “why business?”

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Recording a podcast episode away from home

00:43 – Why business?

02:07 – The music industry itself is a business

02:45 – Thinking like a business owner

06:05 – Two men are responsible for most of the top 100 hits in the last 10 to 20 years

08:06 – Freedom

09:47 – Why do you choose business?

Transcription:

Coming soon.

Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

Content marketing is an amazing way to build your music career or drive business.

Unfortunately, it’s easier to fail in your content marketing efforts than it is to succeed, especially if you don’t have a defined plan.

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share several things that holds people back from getting the kinds of results they’re looking for from their content marketing efforts.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – What is content marketing?

01:08 – Failing at content marketing

01:21 – Content marketing and long-term mindset

01:44 – Two ways content marketing can work

02:36 – The third approach that never works

03:10 – Achieving balance with your content marketing

04:05 – Just ship it

04:27 – Stop being a perfectionist

04:34 – Why ghostwriters are hired

04:50 – Unrealistic expectations around content creation

05:11 – The subjectivity of “perfect” content

06:12 – The trap of perfectionism

06:45 – Jack Conte and letting go of perfectionism

07:06 – Developing a content marketing strategy

Transcription:

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, then there’s a good chance you already know about my love of content marketing.

In case you aren’t sure what content marketing is, let me borrow an eloquent description.

Content Marketing Institute defines it this way:

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer actions.

If you’re creating YouTube videos on a weekly basis to attract an audience for your music, you’re leveraging content marketing.

If you’re podcasting to build an audience of musicians and music entrepreneurs like I am, you’re leveraging content marketing.

If you’re publishing daily articles to drive traffic to your website like Soundfly is, you’re leveraging content marketing. You can hear Ian Temple talk about this in episode 80 of the podcast.

Content marketing is effective. But over the years, I’ve seen plenty of people fail at it, or arbitrarily put a stop to their initiative because they don’t see an immediate payoff.

That’s actually the first issue I want to address:

Content marketing requires a long-term mindset.

Frequently adding valuable content to your site can help you get more organic traffic. If you’re serious about search engine optimization, then you simply can’t ignore the importance of creating content.

But for better or for worse, whatever actions you take to optimize your site today probably won’t produce results for six to 12 months.

I’ve only seen this work two ways:

Publishing on a regular schedule. It can be tough coming up with content ideas and creating something new every day, three days a week, once a week, or whatever the frequency. But if you treat every content piece like an experiment and track which of your experiments bear fruit six to 12 months down the line, you can get a good sense of what type of content attracts your audience and create more of it.

Publishing quality content sporadically. This strategy seems to work well for people like SEO expert Brian Dean. He doesn’t publish all the time, but when he does, he puts out posts that are jam-packed with a ton of value. He spends a lot of time researching keywords and ideas before he even dedicates time to writing the post. Then, he proceeds to market these posts with every bit of enthusiasm he can muster. That’s a key point.

Meanwhile, I’ve seen some people take a third approach, and I have yet to see this work. They stop and go, rinse and repeat. They publish a few pieces, try to measure their effectiveness, and then pause while they assess whether what they published worked.

Inevitably, these people get left in the dust because there are plenty of other people publishing valuable content on a more f...

What? It isn’t the New Year? Why talk about starting your year the right way now?

The reality is it’s never too late to get your year on track. And, if you’re not on track right now, this would be a good time to get back on track.

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I recap the various posts and podcast episodes that were published to inspire you in 2018.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Wrapping up the New Year content

00:43 – Why I put together inspirational content for the New Year each year

00:59 – Each post that was created to help you find your footing in 2018

01:51 – A recap of the New Year posts

02:01 – 2018

02:34 – Setting Your Defaults

03:08 – The Fewer The Options, The Better

03:36 – Closing the Chapter on 2017

04:02 – Reflecting on My 3 Theme Words from 2017

04:32 – What Did I Accomplish in 2017?

05:30 – 10 Things I Did in 2017

06:01 – 4 Impacting Books I Read in 2017

06:48 – How to Determine a Focus for Your Music Entrepreneurship Career

07:26 – Top 10 The Music Entrepreneur HQ Posts in 2017

07:45 – Were you inspired by any of this content?

09:00 – New resource

Transcription:

Well, it has taken a while for me to get through the New Year content here in 2018, but I hope you’ve enjoyed what I’ve had to share with you to this point. This podcast episode is the last in the series.

It’s already May as I’m putting this episode together, and it may be June by the time I finally get around to publishing it. My plan wasn’t necessarily for it to take this long but I had a lot of interview requests and thought it would be a shame to put off publishing the great conversations I was having.

I always like to front-load the year with a dose of inspiration, because it’s usually the time when we begin thinking about setting goals and what we’d like to accomplish in the New Year. There’s a natural rhythm to the year, and going with the flow keeps you moving forward at a faster rate.

I’m going to take a moment to mention each post that was created to help you find your footing in 2018, and these posts will be linked up in the show notes of this episode:

2018

076 – Setting Your Defaults

077 – The Fewer The Options, The Better

078 – Closing the Chapter on 2017

079 – Reflecting on My 3 Theme Words from 2017

081 – What Did I Accomplish in 2017?

083 – 10 Things I Did in 2017

084 – 4 Impacting Books I Read in 2017

090 – How to Determine A Focus for Your Music Entrepreneurship Career

093 – Top 10 The Music Entrepreneur HQ Posts of 2017

I would love to hear your thoughts on each of these posts. In case you missed these, here’s an overview of what I talked about in these posts and podcast episodes:

2018

In this post, I shared what I believe is going to happen in 2018 from a spiritual perspective, as well as what’s in store for The Music Entrepreneur HQ. I’ve already made some adjustments around what I’m working on and what I’m looking to accomplish, but I would say I’m happy with the progress I’ve been making.

Making predictions is kind of fun, and even if you aren’t right, people tend to enjoy reading what you have to say about things to come. I think what I said about 2018 in this post is valid, but you’d have to read it for yourself to see if it resonates with you.

076 – Setting Your Defaults

While I do believe in the power of creating and sticking to a routine, it takes considerable discipline. Though I always get a lot done, I haven’t had much success with keeping a regular routine in the last year or so.

So, here’s a different way of thinking about planning and scheduling. Setting your defaults helps you eliminate the energy you might otherwise expend on determining what to do with your time daily. If you have a predetermined default for your day or for specific time blocks in your schedule, decision making becomes much easier.

077 – The Fewer The Options, The Better

Content, content, content. There’s so much to consume and so little time. Aren’t you glad you can listen to this instead of reading it?

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share the top 10 posts on The Music Entrepreneur HQ from 2017.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – We publish a lot of content at The Music Entrepreneur HQ

00:42 – 6 Things I Learned From Believe in Yourself by Joseph Murphy

01:17 – 10 Jaw-Dropping Music Industry Stats [INFOGRAPHIC]

01:46 – How to Earn Money from Affiliate Marketing for Musicians

02:25 – 9 Ways to Make More Money in the Music Industry

03:01 – Top 10 Free Music Apps for Android 2017

03:29 – I Asked Jack Conte About Success… Here’s What He Shared With Me

04:10 – 10 Tips for Beginner Guitarists – Do’s & Don’ts

04:41 – Ari Herstand’s Song or Album Release Checklist

05:15 – How to Become a More Confident Musician & Living the Entrepreneurial Life

05:58 – 6 Impacting Books I Read in 2016

06:22 – What was your favorite post from 2017?

Transcription:

Each year, we publish a lot of content at The Music Entrepreneur HQ.

But there are always a few posts that stand out among the 100 or more posts that go live on a yearly basis.

This is because the subject matter of these posts resonates with you in a way that other pieces simply don’t, or because you derived greater value from them.

2017 was no exception – certain posts had greater reach than others, and in this podcast episode, I’m going to highlight the top 10 posts from 2017.

1. 029 – 6 Things I Learned From Believe in Yourself by Joseph Murphy

To this day, the most popular post on The Music Entrepreneur HQ is 6 Things I Learned From The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy.

So, I thought to myself, if people like to learn about Joseph Murphy and his works that much, I should share more about the topic.

That’s exactly what I did, and not surprisingly it emerged as the top post in 2017.

The next step for me will be to write a book on the topic of the subconscious mind, but I’m not promising anything in the immediate future.

2. 10 Jaw-Dropping Music Industry Stats [INFOGRAPHIC]

I had a feeling this post would catch on, even as I was writing it. Compared to other industries, it seems like there isn’t as much transparency in the music industry, making relevant stats harder to find.

When I was researching and putting together this content, I knew that I wanted to turn it into an infographic, something I finally did here in 2018.

If you haven’t seen the infographic yet, it’s worth revisiting this post just to have a look.

3. 042 – How to Earn Money from Affiliate Marketing for Musicians

Based on the popularity of this post and some coaching requests I’ve had, I’m thinking about creating a course on affiliate marketing.

Since affiliate marketing involves promoting a product you didn’t have to create and earning commissions on it, there are a near limitless number of opportunities to explore.

I believe it’s a revenue stream many musicians and music entrepreneurs aren’t thinking about, so that alone makes it a topic worth covering in more detail.

I’d also like to prompt you to check out episode 89 of the podcast with Brian Poillucci of EVO Band Apps, as you might be interested in leveraging his app to create your affiliate income.

4. 9 Ways to Make More Money in the Music Industry

There was a contract writer I’d hired to put this post together, and she clearly did a great job.

The topic of money isn’t always one artists like to broach, because it tends to be a personal and sensitive matter, but it’s clearly an important topic based on the number of people who read this post, which offers a good introduction to the various income streams available in the music industry.

If you want to learn more about managing money, you’ll want to keep an eye out for the bonus content I’m creating for The Essentia...

These days, recording project related data doesn’t get captured the way it used to. This leads to incomplete metadata and a loss of opportunity for those involved in the recording process.

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, Deborah Fairchild of VEVA Sound shares about how easy it can be to collect the right data with their Studio Collect plugin.

Download the PDF Cheat Sheet

Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Introductions

00:24 – What is VEVA Sound?

01:52 – Why is metadata so important?

03:51 – Why aren’t studios collecting recording data anymore?

09:33 – What are some common mistakes engineers make in recording data

11:14 – What have you seen people do with collecting data that surprised you?

13:20 – How does the Studio Collect Suite plugin work?

15:43 – Do you need a plugin like SCP to begin collecting recording data?

16:37 – How can metadata help with monetization?

18:18 – Where do you see things going next with metadata?

19:44 – What advice do you have for audio engineers?

20:50 – Conclusion

Transcription:

David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with VEVA's executive vice president Deborah Fairchild. How are you today, Deborah?

Deborah Fairchild: I'm doing well. Thank you. How are you?

David: I'm great, thanks. Thank you for asking. So tell us a little bit about VEVA Sound and what you do.

Deborah: So, VEVA Sound is an asset management company that we started 16 years ago in Nashville. And we're the bridge between recording studios and the creatives and content owners. So we work with a lot of the major labels in the US and Europe, and Universal, Sony... Companies like that, as well as people like Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks, that own their masters, we can handle the catalog transfer, legacy equipment. So we have a collaboration with Blackbird Studios in Nashville where we pretty much have every piece of machinery available from every format that music was created in. But through the years, the past 10 years, especially we've focused in on everything is already digital. So there's a lot that goes on in the back end. You know, all the files, being on servers and recorded in studios and different houses and things like that. We facilitate the collection of the metadata and the audio files, and then provide it in platforms where companies and entities can utilize it and re-monetize it and repurpose it. Sorry, that was a little long winded?

David: No, that's very helpful. Why is metadata so important? And why should credits be collected during recording sessions?

Deborah: So, it's interesting... I've always been fascinated, I've been doing this now for 15 years, and everyone at VEVA has an engineering background. And we've all went to audio school and have worked in studios and part of the creative process. And what we found in our work that we do for the record labels and things like that, but for whatever reason, the concept of collecting your credits, while you create your your music is something that's been lost in the digital age. So previously, like when we've done transfer work, we were literally scanning track sheets that have all of the instruments and who played on it, and what studio they were in and the date and all kinds of information descriptive, and technical metadata about the recording. And when things have gone digital, it's really something that has been left behind. So what ends up happening is because of the way the fragmented recording process occurs, which is also really cool, you know, I can be in London and send files over to LA. And depending on the file size, they can have it in 20 minutes and download it and start working in LA on the same project. So everything is so fast paced, and people are forgetting that they need to, you know, write down who is there. So then eventually upon release, it can be discoverable and available to consumers. And so we're really hoping with the plugin we've created, it'll the ease of access to actually gather this data c...

Do you wish you could work with Nashville session musicians on your next release? Are you having a hard time finding the right kind of players for your recording project?

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I talk to Andrew Galucki of Nashville For Hire, who shares about working with session musicians and the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial life.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Introductions

00:32 – What is Nashville For Hire?

02:48 – Country music

04:28 – Visiting Nashville

05:07 – Networking

07:11 – How do you determine your focus?

11:02 – Self-inflicted pressure

13:01 – Finding quality session players

14:59 – Second guessing your purchases

16:00 – Isn’t it expensive to hire quality session players for your project?

18:04 – What is the biggest advantage of working with Nashville session musicians?

19:11 – Delegating and trusting others with work

21:43 – How do you market your business, and what channel has worked best for you?

30:21 – What is the biggest challenge of selling to musicians, producers, and engineers?

33:45 – Adding value vs. fly by night

35:05 – What are some of the biggest struggles you’ve encountered as an entrepreneur?

38:57 – Focus and adapting your approach

41:16 – What are some of the biggest victories you’ve experienced as an entrepreneur?

44:09 – Comparison and entrepreneurial insecurity

44:57 – Which books have inspired and helped you on your journey?

50:15 – Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz and Steve Taylor

51:24 – What tools and apps are you using to run your business?

Transcription:

Coming soon.

Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.

Have you decided on a direction for your music entrepreneurship career? Are you being as effective as you can possibly be?

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share how I’ve decided on a direction for my career, and what you can do to achieve clarity and focus in your career.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Who do you learn music entrepreneurship from?

01:14 – Irons in the fire

02:08 – What you’ve told me I should be doing with my time

02:54 – Why I enjoy having multiple pursuits in my career

03:13 – 2017 income analysis

04:12 – What you can learn from analyzing your revenue streams

04:32 – Which income sources should you grow?

05:48 – How to spend your time

06:08 – Generalist vs. specialist

06:55 – If you were me, which income sources would you focus on?

07:50 – Questions you can ask to determine a focus for your music entrepreneurship career

Transcription:

A lot of you come to me with questions about my credentials and qualifications in the music industry.

I don’t like making the podcast about myself, but these are fair questions to ask, because if you’re learning from someone that doesn’t have results or isn’t at least on their way to achieving the kinds of results you want, you could end up spinning your wheels or wasting your time learning from them.

All along, I have been quite transparent about where I stand regarding various aspects of my career.

On the blog, I’ve talked about 21 ways I’ve made money in the music industry. That number continues to rise, and I have no doubt it will keep going up.

I’ve also talked about the fact that I work almost exclusively from home. Some of the community work I do gets me out of the house and into music venues and other spaces, and I also have the occasional meeting. But aside from that, I’m not required to go to a specific workplace to do my work. I don’t actively brag about this fact, but it was a huge achievement for me personally in 2016.

Additionally, I’m the kind of person that craves variety in life and likes having a few irons in the fire.

I recently met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in about seven years, and he said to me, “You’re the kind of guy that if one thing doesn’t work, or if you get bored of it, you always have other projects ready to go.”

He’s right.

I’ve started many blogs and websites with various product and service offerings. A few years ago, The Music Entrepreneur HQ was just one among many. I decided to stick with this project because I’m passionate about music, creativity, and business. And, to be fair, it was the business unit that was producing the best results.

After spending years spreading myself out and trying different things, I decided to dig in and get focused on this project.

If I wanted to be doing something else, I could be. But I think it would prove difficult to find anything quite as fulfilling for me.

So, that brings me to an important point. Many of you have suggestions about what I should be doing with my time to prove my worth as a music entrepreneur.

Some of you say I should be making and releasing more music.

Some of you feel I should be talking more about sync licensing and placement opportunities.

By the way, I don’t know everything there is to know about the music industry, which is why I often bring guests onto my podcast to share about subjects I know nothing about.

And, some of you believe I should be creating a university level education for music entrepreneurs.

These are all valid pursuits, and I think there is value in all of them.

Rest assured, I have no shortage of ideas of what to do and what I’d like to do in the music industry, and some of the things just mentioned are on my radar.

But going back to what I was saying earlier, I like having multiple pursuits. I like the fact that my life doesn’t revolve around recording and publishing music, live performance, or session work.

Musicians must start from scratch every single month. Streams, music sales, merch sales, and paid gigs rarely happen on autopilot, and must be actively pursued. But what if there was a way to generate a predictable monthly income without having to chase after it?

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I chat with Brian Poillucci of EVO Band Apps, who shares about the power of his new app that can help you monetize your music like never before.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Introductions

00:24 – What is EVO Band Apps?

03:58 – We’re all in the content business now

08:31 – Relationship marketing

13:35 – The recurring business model

16:40 – Building your email list

18:25 – Automating fan engagement

21:35 – What monetization opportunities are musicians missing out on?

28:07 – Affiliate marketing

31:57 – Creativity and business: are they in conflict?

33:51 – Musicians will buy what they perceive as being essential to their career

35:35 – Final thoughts

Transcription:

David: All right. Today, I'm chatting with founder of EVO Band Apps, Brian Poillucci. How are you today Brian?

Brian: Doing really good. How are you doing, man?

David: I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. Let's get right into this. What is EVO Band Apps?

Brian: Oh, well, that’s kind of a long story in itself. Long story really is I am a digital marketer by trade but really, I'm just a guitar player and an audio engineer, right, at the end of the day.

Recording my first album got wicked into the studio side of things. I wound up going to school for audio engineering and that's where my passion laid and was but years ago trying to make money.

And we know the recording studio business has changed. I'm sure I've heard other episodes, and other people, the whole recording structure and business has changed so you don't need to come to the studio and pay me anymore basically of recording music.

So, back in 2008 we tried to figure out how to keep the studio business really going and that led to a lot of online mixing and mastering, which I started dipping my toes into the online advertising world in general.

That did well for a while, but it turned into me helping other friends evolve and adapt especially as a digital guy, right? We’ve as musicians, we've all lived through the analog to digital change, right? We all went from the tape to the decks and hard drives we’re on now. It's the same thing in business that's evolved.

Helping other bands and friends and people with their online marketing. I was doing my business to try to keep going. I started making more money helping them as a freelancer really going and that's really where it took off into training and I educated myself and dove in really heavy into the digital marketing world.

Fast forward, probably about six years now we've got a lot of small business clients. We've built websites, Facebook ads. We do over $4.7 million a year in other people's ads. Facebook, which is the place where fans need to be.

But that all evolved into how do we take the same strategies, the same models, the same things that are working for all my other clients, righ?. The podcasters with the membership groups, the Twitch video game guys with their subscriptions, the vloggers in YouTube where every day at work it seemed like I was going, "Damn. If only a band was following these same strategies, the whole industry would change."

Luckily now, there's a lot more of these guys like you. There's a lot of great resources, including even the other guy Indiepreneur, with that guy Kyle and how he's teaching people really great complex sales funnels for their finding fans with Facebook ads.

You're starting to see more guys like you guys come out and you're starting to see more real case studies and proof of people leveraging these same tools and strategies. Even the Patreon model for example of charging memberships.

Marketing is a critical piece to the success of any business. If you can get your marketing figured out, a lot of other pieces tend to fall into place.

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share two dangerous mistakes musicians and music entrepreneurs make in their marketing, and how to mitigate them...

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Critical mistakes musicians and music entrepreneurs make in their marketing

00:19 – Mistake #1: building entirely on rented land

00:35 – The dangers of building on rented land

01:43 – The critical importance of building your own website

03:19 – Mistake #2: single source dependence

04:17 – How I’ve mitigated the risk of single-source dependence

06:03 – The solution to single-source dependence

Transcription:

There are a couple of critical mistakes many musicians and music entrepreneurs make in their marketing.

The first mistake is building their business entirely on rented land.

Rented land includes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t utilize social networks in your marketing. I use social media to promote The Music Entrepreneur HQ in a variety of capacities.

But the problem is that you have no control over whether your account gets shut down.

Some people have built entire businesses using Facebook groups. And, while Facebook groups are fantastic tools for creating community and engagement, if Facebook decides to shut you down, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Furthermore, it may not be as result of you doing anything wrong. Someone in your community could end up violating Facebook’s terms, leading to your group’s termination. You have no control over that, and if your group was monetized, you instantly lose all that money.

What happens to your community then? Do you have everyone’s contact information? Are they on your email list?

Unfortunately, all too often, the answer I hear back is “no”.

It’s important to acknowledge that this isn’t anything new. As MySpace started declining in popularity around 2009, and Facebook became the default social network for social networkers, no one got to keep their friend’s list they’d worked so hard to build.

We need to learn from history and not repeat it. If you want to build your business and keep your business, you can’t build entirely on rented land.

We need to learn from history and not repeat it. If you want to build your business and keep your business, you can’t build entirely on rented land.Share on X

I feel like I’ve harped on this issue for years, but it’s why I’ve been saying you need to build your own website. By the way, no, I don’t recommend using Wix or Squarespace.

There are only two ways of going about it that I recommend:

Set up a hosting account with Cloudways and use WordPress to build your site.

Set up an account with Bandzoogle and build your website there. Their tools are incredibly easy to use.

Why do you need to build a website?

Because your website is not rented land. You own it.

You can direct people to your website to buy your products and sign up for your email list. Your email list, like your website, is also yours – nobody else owns it.

I’ve heard people say email is dead, but that idea is entirely unfounded. You can get a much better response rate from your email list than your social media followers, guaranteed.

I don’t understand why there is so much resistance to going through these steps. It makes perfect sense from a business perspective. You should prioritize what you own over what someone else owns.

Yes, you should partner with powerful allies such as Facebook, but at the end of the day they will never be as invested in you as you are. They could care less if you lose your business overnight.

Many people tend to think of their most popular social media account as the central hub for their content. Stop that. Instead,

What is music entrepreneurship? Should musicians see themselves as small business owners? Is it more empowering to think of yourself in this way?

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I read an excerpt from my new book, The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – The release of my new book

00:58 – Where you can learn more about the book

01:15 – Excerpt from the new book

Transcription:

David Andrew Wiebe here. I'm not sure if you knew this but I recently released a brand-new book on April 1 called The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship: 2018 Edition. The reason I quietly released this new book is because it is a shorter work compared to The New Music Industry.

I also didn't want it to overshadow all the work that I'd put into Flashes of Elation, which is still forthcoming. But I am planning to release more shorter volumes like this one to test out a few ideas. But I think this is a very important work because I don't see too many books out there about music entrepreneurship and I kind of wanted to put my stake in the ground and say "Hey, this is what I'm about."

So, you can go to davidandrewwiebe.com/musicpreneur to learn more about this work.

In today's episode, I'm going to read the introduction, so you can get a feel for it. If it's something that you want to pick up, you can go to the link I just mentioned.

So, here's a little excerpt from the book. I hope you enjoy it.

Introduction to The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship: 2018 Edition

Increasingly, the term “music entrepreneurship” is coming into more common use.

In the last few years, many colleges and universities have been launching music entrepreneurship programs, none of them completely alike. I did a bit of research, and what I found was that the frequently covered subjects include, but aren’t limited to:

An introduction to what music entrepreneurship is.

The skill set you need to develop as a music entrepreneur.

How to work with others.

How to present yourself – etiquette and professionalism.

Developing a repertoire.

Auditions, competitions, and festivals work.

Setting up a private studio.

Social media.

Event planning.

Theatre management.

As I look at this list of topics, I can’t help but feel puzzled. Some of them are sensible, and even important subjects to cover. But I feel that curriculum developers are a bit confused. Some seem to equate business with having a job. Sorry, what? I thought we were talking about entrepreneurship!

Some schools are even covering topics like “social media in the digital age”, which I don’t even understand. Did we have social media, as we know it today, before the digital age? Fax machines, maybe, but social media? I don’t think so.

Did we have social media, as we know it today, before the digital age?Share on X

But most experts, course developers, and professors seem to agree – “music entrepreneurship” means many things to many people, and on this point, I concur.

In case you don’t know, I’ve been running a site called The Music Entrepreneur HQ – a site that has its roots in a podcast I first launched in 2009, simply called David Andrew Wiebe Podcast (today, I have a podcast called The New Music Industry Podcast). More to the point, I’ve been exploring the connection between music and business since 2011.

A prospective investor in my business once said to me, “You need to offer a university-level education for your customers.”

As I thought about that, I realized how disconnected he was from my vision. I have never wanted to develop a university-like system with my resources – especially looking at what’s being taught in most music entrepreneurship courses. I’ve always wanted to create better information and facilitate independent thinking in the process.

I believe that music entrepreneurship is a movement toward innovation, not away from it!