Building the Fastest-Growing B2B Music Platform in the World with Paul Wiltshire: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll talk about building the fastest growing B2B music platform in the world. And to drop these vibe bombs, I have Paul Wiltshire. Paul is a music and technology entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience across music and media industries. He launched SongTrader in March 2016 and has since rapidly grown the service to over 750 ,000 artists and music creators around the globe. And today we'll talk about how wherever there is music, there is licensure, and how if you want to fuel growth, do something you love and are passionate about and owe so much more.

0:42And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Paul and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Fire Nation, it's time to stop guessing and start winning with a proven playbook. Inside the Freedom Circle, you'll have access to my step-by-step systems for creating offers, building processes, and driving traffic, all in just 90 days.

1:24Ready for freedom? Visit freedom-circle.com to learn more. Paul, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. That's a big question because, well, my history is probably against the odds. I grew up in a very small town outside the city of Melbourne in Australia. I was a high school dropout. and so I didn't have some of the tools entering the life as an entrepreneur that many others have so I would say that as a as a proof point that having an education may not be a prerequisite but I do practice an undying positivity and that focusing very very carefully focusing on on manifesting the right outcomes and backing it up with the right hard work is certainly the ethos that I follow.

2:29Now, today we're talking about building the fastest growing B2B music platform in the world, aka SongTrader. So before we get into some real specific details and a few things I want to discuss today, Can you give us some background about SongTrader? Absolutely. My earlier career was a songwriter and record producer. And I traveled the world working with many different artists making music and very much connected to the creative process. But that inevitably led to creating music rights. And one of the key areas of music rights exploitation and monetization is licensing. and I saw the world changing very quickly with the digital transformation in the early 2000s and it was clear that B2C was transforming but B2B was very slow to keep up and to just describe B2B it's the process of licensing music to businesses who use music for content like advertisers, brands, video games, platforms like Netflix and Amazon who all use music And so the genesis of the platform was to build a marketplace to bring the two creative classes together.

3:49On one side, rights holders of music, those who create music and own music, songwriters, labels, publishers. And on the demand side, multiple verticals of B2B music buyer from advertisers, brands, video games, filmmakers, anyone who uses music in content. Now let's talk about where SongTrader started. I mean, I kind of want that origin story. Like, what was that light bulb aha moment that you have? And then how did it evolve to where it is right now as we're talking here today? I think the light bulb went off when I noticed just how inefficient the process was. So music industry is quite complicated.

4:29It's a fragmented industry where multiple parties own music collectively. So one party may own the song another party may own the recording of the song and so that it's highly inefficient when anyone wanted to license music how to do that so the the real light bulb moment was this can all be done through technology and not only that it would be so much easier if anyone looking for music for a business purpose just had a simple way to discover it license it check out and use the music That really removes many hours, lawyers, and simplifies the whole process enormously. So the move was build it, and we focused on the supply side first, and then we focused on the demand side, and it's been an evolving product since.

5:21We're seven years or eight years young now. Wow, eight years young. And there's been mergers, there's been acquisitions, there's been that M &A activity from the past few years. Let's talk a little bit about that because I don't think a lot of our listeners really understand how that can really play a role in a company like yours. So, yeah, we've taken a combined strategy, really combining M &A to accelerate our vision. The music industry is evolving very quickly, in particular the space we're in. And so we've applied M &A to really accelerate our ambitions. And so what we've looked for through the process of M &A is acquiring companies that are highly complementary to the ecosystem that we're building.

6:05They either fulfill a tech need that we have and or bring customers with them to be able to accelerate a path that we're on, a particular path we're on. or we were acquiring businesses with substantial customer bases so that we could just accelerate the deployment of our products, expand the wallet of the customer that we're targeting. So M &A has been part of our ethos. The music industry, as I mentioned before, is very fragmented. There's a lot of opportunity in the market right now, and we will continue that path. Fire Nation, I really hope you do understand that when you start off on a journey, there are going to be twists, there are going to be turns, there are going to be partnerships and mergers and acquisitions that make sense and some that don't for various reasons.

6:53It's just a really interesting path that you are really partaking on when you start a venture similar to what Paul started now eight years ago. And we have a lot to talk about within the industry and other things along those lines when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business, and they are also our featured partner, HighLevel. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or a course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack.

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9:19Energy, focus, calm, recovery. Get 10 % off plus free shipping at tryqs.com slash fire. That's tryqs.com slash fire. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Now, Paul, projections are tough, but I'm going to ask you anyway, what is the future of the music and media industry? It's booming and it's going to continue to boom. And the reason being is that there is more and more use cases for music evolving every day. Every new app that comes out usually has a music component. We could go down the rabbit hole of speculating what the metaverse experience will be like five years from now, but one thing's for certain, it'll be full of music.

10:15And wherever music appears, it needs a license. There's a monetization aspect to that. So we've seen a transformation over the last 10, 15 years with the Netflix, the SVOD revolution, the UGC content revolution initially with YouTube, and now we see TikTok being an incredible force for music. This is not going to end anytime soon. It's just going to keep evolving in the right way. So one thing that I kind of want to get into is how SongTrader is specifically contributing to supporting artists and buyers. Talk about that process. We have to separate the two. So one of the key factors in what we do is around making music valuable for all.

11:06And it has two sides to that. from a rights holder or from an artist's perspective it's about protecting the value of rights and how we do that is we we segment our buyer audience into three groups which we identify as user-generated content small to medium-sized businesses and an enterprise and the value of music is different per use case and so by protecting the value of rights and segmenting the user experience, we're able to ensure that music is properly valued and properly, therefore, licensed. And that attracts more and more of the music supply. On the demand side, we are focused on ensuring that the buyer of music, the licensee of music, is getting the best music for their use case.

12:01And we use data and intelligence to ensure that we are matching the right music to their needs. And that creates a much better return on investment for music that's licensed rather than, for example, going to something and just searching static moods or genres or things and trying to make a subjective decision. So our team works across the board from enterprise right down to content creators on Twitch and YouTube. And our goal is to give them the best user experience so they get the most out of the music they use. Now, I love we gave a little bit of an aerial on this topic. Can you give a very specific example or two?

12:40We don't really have to use names if you're uncomfortable with that, or if you are, please do. But just some real specific examples about the ways that Song Trainer is contributing to supporting artists and these buyers. Well, for example, I can cite my own experience as a music creator going back 20 years ago. I used to make maybe two to three new tracks a week. And I was very much in the business. And even though I was making, for every 10 tracks I would create, only one, if that, if I was lucky, one out of those 10 would be commercialized and making some form of money. now with song trader all of the music you create as a music creator can be on our platform and then attracting uh the use of that music and they've and therefore creating a monetization path so that the industry's changed so much that that we're we're able to do that we've got some great stories where um you know we've had artists from very small countries that have almost no entertainment business upload their music and have them have their music appear in a major commercial and get transformational type fees for that for that use there are there are so many different use cases and the matching of a brand with an artist or a tv show with an artist and it's exciting we if you see a film and the end credits roll and you see your name there it's like i'm on that film that's an incredible experience it's uh there are so many great stories i could i could tell but it's uh it's uh it's a it's a wonderful world that we're in where we're unlocking um opportunity where there was uh very much gate a very much a gate kept type um environment uh previously in the industry is certainly where i grew up a question that's been on my mind for pretty much anybody that's in the music and the media spaces.

14:42How are NFTs going to play a role in the future of media? Have you gone down that rabbit hole? Do you have any opinion on this topic? It's a rabbit hole we can't avoid, right? I find it fascinating what's happening right now. There is a transformation going on now that I don't think is going to stop anytime soon. And NFTs create a really interesting way for another layer of monetization for artists. So I believe NFTs have the ability to be quite transformational for the creative community. I think we are seeing some very frothy times right now. So I think there will be some kind of subtle correction, let's call it, at this stage.

15:33But we are certainly looking at the space and how we can participate and add value to that. And it's a fascinating area. And we're actually building a number of products that are highly complementary to the space and Web 3.0 generally. So, Paul, let me hand you the microphone as we start winding down here. What is it that you really want Fire Nation to know about the fastest growing B2B music platform in the world? What do you want us to know about your industry, about your markets? Share that now. The music industry is a really exciting place. And music is such a personal thing. It's something that I imagine almost everyone in the world has a relationship with music.

16:19And that's what's so exciting about our business is that we're at the heart of matching that music to the businesses that deliver you those experiences. And it is a really exciting time for our industry at the moment. There is transformation going on everywhere. I think your audience would probably have read an article at some point about large investments going into music rights. that trend will continue. And the music asset class is becoming what I believe will be quite a highly traded commodity in the future. And that is quite a transformation from where it was 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago.

17:08And music is very much that. It's something that really speaks to our soul. And to be involved in something that's both my passion and, well, collectively my two passions, which is technology and music, to be able to fuse those together in one journey is exciting. And my advice to entrepreneurs is that if you really want to fuel growth, do something you love, not something that necessarily cerebrally makes sense. But do something that you're very passionate about because the forces will help you really drive that. That passion is key and that positivity is key. I think that's a great way to end the episode.

17:57I would love for you to share with our listeners the best way that we can connect with you, SongTrader, any call to action you have, any link that you have. If Fire Nation wants to learn more or just be a part of what you're building, what should they do? We've got a number of different sites, but one platform you can go to, obviously, is www.songtrader.com. We also have some great other businesses like tunefind.com, where you can search the world's, the history of world music being used in TV and film and gaming. There's another platform called pretzel.rocks that is focused on our user-generated content community.

18:38It's great for live streamers, great for anyone who creates user-generated content. But songtrader.com will get you to all those places. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with P-dubs and JLD today. so keep up the heat head over to eofire.com just type paul in the search bar his show notes page will pop up with everything that we've talked about here today and i just want to say paul thank you for sharing your truth your knowledge your value with fire nation today for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side thank you john hey fire nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by paul and fire nation if you've ever thought about creating a podcasts of your own, the podcast journal is for you.

19:24It is gorgeous. It is full leather and it will guide you step by step in both the creation and the launch of your podcast in 50 days. Visit thepodcastjournal.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software, say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Fire Nation, it's time to stop guessing and start winning with a proven playbook.

20:04Inside the Freedom Circle, you'll have access to my step-by-step systems for creating offers, building processes, and driving traffic, all in just 90 days. Ready for freedom? Visit freedom-circle.com to learn more.