Teamwork

If there is any one thing that has particularly stood out to me this semester, it’s that the team makes the startup.

Currently, in addition to scholarships, teaching lessons pays the bills. I teach privately and also at a few local music schools/stores. I manage and perform with my own personal band, and a few other local bands. I contract musicians for weddings, parties, and churches, and play a few classical gigs. These four streams are my only sources of income. Times are slim, but I am ok with this. I thank my lucky stars every single night that I do not have to have a day job in addition to going to school and pursuing my passion.

I am ready to take all these ventures to the next level. I will be moving soon to a whole new part of the country and a whole new scene. I am ready to pounce on this opportunity and hit the ground running. This is the whole reason I have pursued an arts entrepreneurship certificate.

Of course, I’ve drafted business model canvases, reached out to local contacts I hope to work with, and have even begun reaching out to wedding planners at my destination, but this class has taught me that the most important thing I can do to take care of my businesses is make a solid team.

Music studios always make more money when they have teachers who work together. A band is only as good as the cohesion between their players. Regularly rehearsing brass quintets get significantly more gigs than individual contractors.

As we present our venture this coming Wednesday, I will be very proud of our idea and the work and research we’ve put into crafting it, but I will mostly be proud of my team. I have learned an obvious lesson: humans are the business’s most important resource. You can’t have an excellent business without excellent people, period. While having good musicians in my band will obviously be important, it is even more important to find people who believe our cause and our music. I must find good teachers, but it’s even more important to find people who are passionate about my studio. It was so obvious, but I never would have truly bought the idea until I took this class.

People are the key to success. I am sure of it.

…and as always, thanks for reading!

-Will VI

Now or Never

 

It’s crunch time ladies and gentlemen.

We are counting the days here as I warily watch all these impending deadlines creep up. As long as we stay true to our four-week plan, all will be will.

I’d love to take this opportunity to thank the people saving my life right now. My team is made up of such an awesome and varied group of people, and all our skills come together to balance and work together. There is no way I could be organized enough to make these details come together by myself. Their help and patience with me has been legendary!

Joanna, Huixian, and Sam, if y’all are reading this, you all rock and I owe you the world! Y’all are incredible and I’ve had so much fun working with you this semester! 

The 3-year plan has been occupying our days and nights. So. Much. Research. Every number needs to be justified. Every rate and ratio must be explained. The nice part is that the more details that come together, the more faith I have in our venture. I understand why this plan is so essential for investors now, as the research really solidifies so many of our suppositions.

I have reached out to a marketing company to get some rates for advertisement design. I know nothing about design or marketing, but I know I am in the minority regarding this on my team. It makes perfect sense to add an ad design service to our service, since our team is so knowledgeable on the topic! Once the marketing team gets back to me regarding design rates, we will have a ballpark on what to charge our patrons.

Between Huixian’s experience with social media creation, Joanna’s awesome knowledge on accounting and her stellar organization, Sam’s excellent technological prowess, I could have not been luckier to have a team like this. These past few weeks have cemented my theory that the most successful startups come from varied teams. The vaster the skill spread, the better chance some of those skills will come in handy. Lean startups are all about what you start with, and we are so lucky to have been dealt a pretty good hand.

 

Lets take it home!
… and as always, thanks for reading!

 -Will VI

Progress

We might just be able to swing this.

This week I interviewed and re-interviewed non-musician artists. Some had expressed interest in our venture before, and others had not. I specifically tested the viability of having sponsored curated content on our website.

I personally was very worried about having any sort of promotions on our website. How could we justify having users pay for an online service while still displaying ads? Luckily, I remembered our value propositions and had an epiphany. As long as we stay true to our values and our users, I think we will be in the clear.

As I was re-interviewing a photographer I met at Mesa Spark Festival, I remembered that it was he who recommended that we take our venture in a social direction. He specializes in artist and art photography and connections between artists and himself fund his entire career. He couldn’t think of a better business to support his work and has been a supporter since the beginning. During our conversation, he expressed he wouldn’t be against promotions, if and only if they applied to artists.

This is gold to me. What if we allowed, or even encouraged artists on the website to advertise themselves? What if we allowed special rates for those already on the site?

Again and again, everyone I interviewed was ok with ads as long as they applied to artists. Two interviewees even mentioned that they only wanted to see promotion for local opportunities and artists. People want to see promotions for things they actually might be interested in.

I am beginning to think that our firm needs to add “local” to our values. As a wise woman once said, “When you market to everyone, you market to no one.” Lets market to our own back yard. It makes both the advertiser and those advertised to feel special and tailored, without all the nasty data mining like our competitors. It makes the content relevant.

 

As long as we remember our values, all will be well.

 

… and as always, thanks for reading!

 -Will VI

Fear and Uncertainty in Tempe, Arizona

Now, I am worried.

Our venture has pivoted once again. We have now begun strides in a social media direction. In the wake of recent scandals regarding a certain social media giant, now might be the perfect time to jump in this red-ocean market. We still intend to focus on the connecting artists with patrons/vendors side, but at the moment this social media aspect seems to be our chief focus.

Only one problem: Most social medias make their money through advertisements. Not just any advertisements, but ones hand picked by complex algorithms that feast upon the information of the users. To employ such a tactic couldn’t be more against our values, most notably our focus on transparency. Wouldn’t it be a shame to try and fill the void, and end up still making the same sins as our predecessors?

All this leaves us with a dilemma. Quite a funny and embarrassing one to put to words, but here I go: Where is the money coming from? Ads are a no-go. According to artists whom I’ve personally interviewed, they have no interest in paying for a service like this (sort of… I’ll explain below). Venues and contractors have no need for a service like this, as they have little difficulty finding artists as it is. As a friend and mentor of mine whom I interviewed yesterday stated, “Will, you know this is a saturated market right? There is no shortage of artists…”

I am worried we’ve put the cart before the horse here. My interviews with venues/patrons/contractors this week has not left me with much hope.

Some of my partners have expressed that their interviews have yielded different results with the artists side. They say their artist interviewees would be interested in paying to use the website. The artists I interviewed did have their eyes light up at one prospect I mentioned. They would be willing to pay if they got a gig out of it during some sort of trial period.

Perhaps we should run with the “free until you’re gonna be making money off of it” model? Perhaps some sort of transparent healthy arts based adspace? Perhaps there’s no money in this at all?

 

Less than three weeks till launch. Oooooh boy.

…and as always, thanks for reading!

-Will VI

ART is at the center of PARTY

We are the Party Brigade – We put the ART in PARTY.

The Party Brigade is a team of arts-focused event producers who generate socially connected and creatively expressive events for students on college campuses. We curate immersive social gatherings with interactive art projects and performances within a fun and inclusive party environment. Woven within our offering, we also promote positive party culture, consent culture, and mind/body wellness. Our team produces turn-key art parties for student engagement coordinators and student living communities while working in partnership with student organizations. The Party Brigade includes ambassadors who help set the vibe, engage with participants and cultivate a fun, safe and inclusive environment. We also discussed guerilla-style approaches to our marketing, such as marching through campus with a megaphone and a parade of characters leading to the event.

I met with the student engagement coordinator for Herberger Institute this last week as well as the new coordinator for the Arcadia living community. I told them about the project, our messaging and our motives. They loved the concept and felt that it was a unique approach to producing student events that can provide value for universities through offering a healthy party alternative to drinking culture. Unfortunately, the mural project is not feasible for this semester, but they provided some great suggestions and alternate contacts that we can reach out to. They felt that arts-focused events for students outside of the school for design and the arts would be most impactful, though it could be harder to attract interest. They suggested that offering events during Welcome Week and freshman orientation could be appealing for campuses.

One of the most valuable pieces of feedback they provided is to consider the measurable learning outcomes for students who participate. This is essential for events that would be hired and paid for by university funding. If communicated and assessed well, it will be a great selling pitch as well. We need to have a plan for assessment which has to link back to our learning outcomes. What did the student get out of it? Can they integrate what they are learning into their social or academic life? If our learning outcome is to provide a socially-connected space and creative outlet, we could ask: Did you feel connected to other people? Did you meet someone you hadn’t met before? Did you feel you had a place to participate in something creative? I would love to find a creative approach to assessment, but it’s helpful to start considering this now.

The next step is to go back to the drawing board and assess our plan of attack. We need to hit multiple contacts and assess our best opportunity to produce something before the end of the semester. One of our largest barriers is funding, which we will need to have covered by whoever we partner with or produce for. We have about a month to get our venture off the ground with a pilot event. We need to book the event, find a venue and a partner. Here. We. Go.

Party with purpose

We started making progress in defining our enterprise last week. Once we realized that our only option for a minimum viable product is to produce an actual event by the end of the semester, we went back to our inventory of means to brainstorm what would be feasible, scalable and repeatable within our timeframe. In our research, we are yet to find a venue to partner with in Tempe to host an all-ages nightlife event, so we shifted our focus to on-campus events. Most public universities pay companies to produce events for students throughout the year, so that could be our revenue model, rather than doing events that students pay for. Often, these large events are focused on a B or C-level concert or dance party. To differentiate, our company can offer more frequent and intimate arts-centered events for students.  Our events will be interactive and participatory, inviting students to contribute projects or learn a new arts-related skill. The art projects, performances, and workshops can rotate per event, but the environment around the projects can maintain a celebratory party environment with music, food, drinks and visual aesthetics.

Our discussion sparked an idea from a meeting I had attended earlier in the week. I know a woman who works with student engagement for Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts as well as the related on-campus student living community, Arcadia. They recently prepared a 100×9’ wall along one of their buildings to have a mural painted. They’ve purchased the paint and they are looking for the right artists to lead the mural project while working with students. This could be a good opportunity for us to host an arts-centered event on campus. We can take a painting project and make it a party, giving students an opportunity to connect with each other and do something creative to take their minds off of classes for a while.

Tomorrow, our team is going to meet at Best Hall at the Arcadia community to visit the site and talk to students in the area. If the mural project doesn’t work out, the community could still be a great place to host an event. Megan wasn’t able to schedule a call with me yet, but I should be able to connect with her this week to discuss the idea and receive feedback. As another option, we will look at the Student Pavilion for hosting the event. Tomorrow, we will run our identity branding by some students and develop our philosophy, messaging and norms.

More clarity through interviews

Last week in class, my group was able to further define our value proposition using some insights from my previous interview with Z. Our new model is a business that serves artists by identifying what’s marketable in their skillset and then finding interesting, new areas where those skills could be applied to create out-of-the-box opportunities. Using Z as an example, we thought of a situation where we could match Z’s salsa dancing skill with a party company and have him perform/teach at a bachelorette party.

This week, I interviewed another Latin dancer, P, and asked what he thought of our new proposed value offering. P lives in Phoenix and is in his mid-20s. A few years ago, he began teaching salsa and bachata, and two years ago he started his own dance company. He is putting himself through school with his dance company, by teaching dance, and by driving for Uber. Good news! P was interested in the proposed idea, and he offered several valuable insights:

 

Interest level

“I think it’s a great idea – yeah, I would definitely use that. I’m limited in what I can do right now. I’m only accessible to privates, teaching choreos, and doing quinceaneras, weddings, and dance events. Sometimes there’s ways I don’t even imagine to express the art that I do in different ways. It’s good to have a service that helps you expand your ideas of ways you can use your skills.”

Pricing

“As an artist, I don’t have a huge budget. I don’t just dance to make money, but I would be willing to pay for it IF I saw that it worked at the beginning. I would be willing to try it if there was like a 1-month trial or something and then I see there’s income. The investment would pay for itself.”

Interest in yearly subscription model

“You never know if the business could slow down. If it was monthly payments, I would be more hesitant. Maybe a year? I’d want a month of free service to see if it works. It depends. A percentage, or a yearly thing, but not a monthly thing. There could be some months where you can’t afford it because business is slow. A yearly subscription feels like a bigger impact, or an investment. You already invested, so you’re looking at it for the long run.”

 

I thought it was really interesting that P preferred a yearly subscription model to monthly. I would have guessed before this interview that paying monthly would seem less intimidating than paying up front for an entire year. P also expressed interest in a percentage model. Overall, one of the points he most emphasized was the need for proof of our business’s ability to provide him with gigs, especially through a free trial period. This is a point that I believe we mentioned in our group, but I think it’s something we should focus on further after interviewing P. In all, it seems that we’re on to something with this value proposition – I’m excited for the next few weeks as we dive deeper into development!

 

–Sam

 

Connections

I have been interviewing some potential clients and the results are confirming some of my fears.

This past weekend I performed multiple gigs at different venues in Phoenix. This gave me ample time to chat with the contractors that booked the acts. I quickly steered the conversation towards our purposed venture of pairing unique artists with unique opportunities. The feedback was mixed.

At one of Charlie Levy’s major venues in the valley, I asked if an artist’s finding service would be valuable for their business. The response was generically that they were always looking for new and fresh talent. I then inquired if they had any shortage of fresh talent. After a bit of silence, the answer was not really. People were always trying to play at this venue, so it wasn’t really an issue to find new acts. Speaking of new acts, I asked if they’d ever consider live art perhaps alongside the musical acts. He said they’d tried something involving multimedia before, but not quite like that. He’d have to ask his superiors, but it wasn’t impossible. I then asked if he thought the venue would pay for a service that could help them make these unique art experiences happen. With a pause, he said most likely not, since in general, people paid to use the space, not vice versa. I’m paraphrasing, but I remember a phrase close to “the money flows towards [the venue], not generally away from it.” Although they hired acts, they never really have trouble finding acts to hire.

The other contractor I interviewed had similar answers, but with a little more positivity regarding the mixed art.

A service that connects two people must insure that there is value in the connection for both parties involved. While artists do want opportunities to share their art, I do not know if venues are in any desperation to find more artists. I obviously only looked at a few possible clients in just one sector, so I can’t speak for other opportunities, but I do feel we need to tweak what we offer. There must be value for both sides of the connection, or else neither party will use our service.

 

… and as always, thanks for reading!

 -Will VI

Bad News and Good News

Last class I left my team and class high and dry. I have been traveling around the country for graduate school auditions and making questionable decisions regarding sleep and food. Now I am paying the price. My return from Milwaukee was plagued with a stomach bug that would not let me free of its’ grasp. I deeply regret being unable to meet with my team during class hours, and pray I am not too underprepared for the times to come.

On the upside, my travel to music schools across the country has given me an excellent audience for pitching the artists’ branding service!

(I will not be outlining the service itself in this blog, as I still have some questions about intellectual property and what details I have a right to share. Plus, I can’t have any of you stealing it, now can I?)

I have reached nearly 50 people between my survey and my face-to-face interactions! I plan to get this number over 50 by Wednesday. This number might not be huge in the grand scope of things, but for me, this is giant, especially coming from what I thought was a failure of an outreach program.

In addition to recording musicians’ level of interest, I also recorded their likelihood to pay for such a service. Something extremely interesting happened here. Without any knowledge of other survey results, multiple musicians told me they would be willing to pay if they saw results. As it stood, it was difficult to see value in something that had no proven success. How would we be any different from similar sites (that have little to no effect on their career) like linked-in or other gig-finding websites? At least those are free!

I could not have asked for better feedback, and by the 2nd time I heard this, I realized this should be possibly a feature I should ask in my survey. If this measurably improved your career for free (got you a gig, got you an important contact), would you consider paying for it? The answer was an overwhelming yes. I must convince my class of the gravity of this discovery.

Another notable discovery of my surveys was the relationship between age and skepticism of my idea. One music professor even went as far as to say this type of service has been promised again and again, first through the union, now through the plethora of gig-finder sites. It’s nothing new and “reeks of promises that cannot be fulfilled.”

It is hard being a working artist. Admittedly, I myself would be skeptical of a service that claims to do all that ours does. If there were an easier way to get artists gigs, wouldn’t it be happening already? What are we doing that hasn’t been done before?

 

Amid the skepticism, I have a good feeling about this idea. If we can pull this off, it could be an amazing utility for all artists.

 

… and as always, thanks for reading!

-Will VI

Know Thy Team

How will we integrate the arts within nightlife in the Phoenix valley? This is the question my team is looking to answer through the development of our enterprise. As a class, we grouped our previous ideation concepts into themes, then ranked our individual interest in each theme, leading us to three small teams. Arts in nightlife came through as one of the top three. This is an area that I live, work and play within on a regular basis, but I want to be careful that I don’t drive the vision too far towards my specific interests. If we continue to focus on nightlife, I’d like to ensure that our concept bridges the interests and skills of my teammates, Will and Leah. This is my first class with either of them, so I don’t know their backgrounds very well. I’ve learned a few things about each of them in class, but it feels surface level. Leah has mentioned healing, wellness, and meditation during our ideation phase. Will is a musician and seems to have some great connections in the valley with other musicians and venue owners. Can we develop a concept that incorporates wellness with music and nightlife? What are the needs and challenges of our local musicians in nightlife? What are the wellness needs of participants of nightlife events?

We discussed opportunities for nightlife events or services that focus on 18+ audiences, since there are limited nightlife venues that serve college students and young people under 21. This is an underserved market, especially near campus in Tempe. We also discussed developing a Music Walk that would spin off of the First Friday ArtWalk. Since most ArtWalk events end at 9pm, there is an opportunity for the event to shift towards a music focus. I’m interested to see how we can simplify some of these ideas and make them more focused. I think it could be beneficial for us to go through an expedited ideation process with the three of us. If we can invest some time to get to know each other, it will help us understand what assets each of us can bring to the table and where our areas of interest intersect. Sounds like a good opportunity to go out one night, listen to some live music and exchange stories and ideas.