Artists By Fans is a company I’m developing to change the way music artists and fans connect and grow together. I’m a big music fan, and EVERY photo in here is one I’ve taken at a show I’ve attended.
This is a red-eye shot I took of Lady GaGa back in 2008 before she was known to the universe. I dragged a few of my friends along, saying that she would be BIG. I was right and to this day I feel lucky that I was able to experience the beginning of her career.
This is 2013. Lady GaGa is well know and this is the best seat I could get. It defies my sense of what I want as a music enthusiast, but this doesn't mean I am less of a fan.
In fact I went to her popup promotional event in LA the other week…
and JUST just bought tickets to see her next year, but it means that it feels different and I valued that earlier closer connection even more.
I had lost touch with many of the feelings a music enthusiast values:
1. The excitement of seeing someone new who you are excited about
2. That sharing component — I’m the first of my friends to discover what’s new and exciting, and love sharing with them. I dragged them to the Lady GaGa event.
3. I liked having the insight into new artist, and feeling like I was one of the early supporters and first fans of an artist I believed in.
1. The excitement of seeing someone new who you are excited about
2. That sharing component — I’m the first of my friends to discover what’s new and exciting, and love sharing with them. I dragged them to the Lady GaGa event.
3. I liked having the insight into new artist, and feeling like I was one of the early supporters and first fans of an artist I believed in.
HOWEVER, there are many obstacles that get in the way:
—Ticket giants hold tickets hostage based on corporate partnerships
—Ticket giants hold tickets hostage based on corporate partnerships
—Scalpers are the worst. I can give you a recent example with Lady GaGa just last week. I tried buying tickets to her show in New York and within 5 minutes they were already selling for 5 times and up from the face value, while I was not able to get a single one.
— Labels have the money to dump into a project they really think will pay off. The AxF platform is an equalizer that is driven by the fans, not a formula.
So, part of my rather self-interested quest was to figure out how I could have retained at least part of that early connection with one of my favorite artists without emptying my bank account and competing against these entities that take a large part of the fun and money from the industry.
The AxF brand and platform aims at providing value to both creatives and their fans. On the home screen you can see the trending artists and projects as chosen by AxF.
We work with music artists to develop promotional and limited edition products and experiences that they can put forth for investment from fans. These investments are used to fund the artist and their projects. AxF provides artists with a mobile platform to showcase their music and get direct monetary and social fan investment.
Fans can directly support the artists they believe in, while gaining exclusive merchandise and privileged access to artist’s events in return. They keep track of their artists and their updates all from the home screen. They also gain recognition for their chosen successful artists and benefits, such as exclusive concerts and meet-and-greets that increase in perceived value as an artist continues their success. The top fans can project their music in the Fan Radio, and other fans can tap into their stations to discover music through people and their taste profiles.
We help artists promote themselves and reach early supporters, and help fans discover artists and build a special relationship that lasts.
You can see your relation to an artists based on 3 things: the time you first invested, the total amount you’ve invested, and the amount of promotion points you have earned based on social promotion and referrals to friends. Using an algorithm that takes these factors into account, the user gets a fan score, which helps to lock them into a particular circle around an artists and gives them access to special products and premium experiences for the life of an artist’s career.
The artists updates is the hub for all the buzz around artists and the exclusives they offer their fans. For instance, here you can see Sonia sending out an invite to a special concert for her best fans.
Based on their listening and investments, fans will collect status and gain rankings on the “celebrity listener” site where their playlists can be accessed. This Fan Radio allows fans to tap into the curated music profiles of other fans, promoting music discovery and connections between them. Fans who garner high rates of investing in successful artists have the possibility of being invited to join the company to function like a stock analyst in discovering new music.
Our main mission is to keep the music industry fan-centric. We’re looking toward the future and music possibilities…
— A people’s choice award REALLY BY THE FANS— TV show, events, festivals, top 20 artists, fastest growing investment in new artist this year, awards, # investors, $
—Music festivals: choosing new bands to support and to get onto the service, marketing them, and developing new fan-bases
—New technologies that allow for fans to connect in more ways, such subscribing to top fans to get pushed new tracks
— New frontiers for experiences with artists, such as augmented reality, custom 3D printed merchandise,
The possibilities are endless within this industry and as both fans and artists grow within the AxF community, fans can build their reputations as arbiters of good music and gain recognition for the successful artists they invest in.
We’re starting in Los Angeles, because it’s the perfect blend of entertainment production, music venues, and vendors for manufacturing. Based on the geographic locations of artists at the top music festivals, we will expand domestically and then globally.
Based on our operations, goals, and the business model, there are 5 different revenue streams that evolve over 3 phases:
—Phase 1 = % investments and Listening fees (based on the current crowd-funding models of Kickstarter and Indiegogo)
—Phase 2 adds in selling advertising
—Phase 3 adds in selling the data we collect plus premium memberships. The premium version of AxF would transform AxF into a freemium model, where the free version allows fans to invest in only 1 new artist a day, but a $10/month premium membership would allow them to invest in an unlimited amount of artists.
Our immediate next steps are:
-looking for investors who want to be part of this venture
-moving ahead in developing the software
-identifying talented artists to work with through concerts and festivals and developing products and experiences with them
-marketing to users and building the AxF brand.
If you have any questions about the AXF mobile platform or the business plan and development of the company, I would be happy to answer them.
An overview of the AxF system and how value is exchanged to make the industry more accessible for both musicians and fans. Let’s call it more fan-centric.
AxF, the company, operates by: searching and identifying new talent, and then marketing & promoting artists. AxF provides exposure and access to a fan investment marketplace in exchange for the artist’s content displayed on the site plus a small $25 listening fee. The artists then work with my company to develop exclusive products and premium experiences that will be exchanged for monetary investment by the fans. This connection is the most important for us. And as artists and their fan-bases grow, we plan to grow with them as well, supporting larger events, projects for artists, and expanding as a company to incorporate artists at all levels.
We provide fans with access to these exclusives in exchange for 5% of their investment and their data. This data is then sold off anonymously to promoters, Concert venues, and Advertisers in exchange for money. The Echo Nest, who we would plan to license data from in later phases, produces data that is comparable to ours in terms of what music fans gravitate toward in terms of types products and experiences. This data, which could help to align fans with brands or a fan-base location with a concert venue, is licensed for 6 or 7 figures depending on the scale of the company.
1. For pure investment platforms, there was no relationship between artists and fans built into the design, just money
2. For the sites that claim to let fans invest in artists, it is impossible to figure out WHO to invest in without spending a lot of time clicking around
3. In the current crowdfunding options, you don’t know WHO bought a “share” first and the sites focus on the artists and money, but not the fans who make it possible
4. Most incentives aren’t designed with a user experience in mind, but instead with a generic marketing lens
Buying a tile to support Sonia’s album.
Tile for Sonia
My display of Sonia's album cover, divided up so that each fan who supported its creation gets a piece.
