EQ Music — Written by Clay Helms
Creator Economy Backdrop
The opportunity to thrive as a creator has never been more promising. Billie Eilish showed us that any musician can win a grammy from their bedroom, and today nearly a third of America’s youth say they want to be a Youtube star. Patreon CEO Jack Conte articulates it beautifully in his awesome (see below) video when he states “global creativity is about to be financed and celebrated to a degree that’s going to make the first Renaissance feel like a blip in a history book.” The abundance of tools, distribution methods, and excited audiences has created an endless number of options for creators to share their content with the world. However, with great power comes great responsibility: it is now more important than ever for a creator to focus on the most strategic methods to distribute their content. Using the right tools, aligning with good partners, and keeping the end consumer in sight are of paramount importance for the artist who wants to unlock the maximum utility of the creator economy: a meaningful community.
Consider what’s at stake here…Currently, over 50M people in the world consider themselves to be creators, with over two thirds identifying as amateur creators.That’s nearly 35M people out there who are creating cool things, trying to decide how to share it with the world. The influencer market, which has ballooned over the past three years, is now estimated to be nearly $14B globally, and the broader creator market is quickly surpassing the $20B global threshold.
From a financial perspective, it seems like social media is the rising tide lifting most creator economy boats. TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram are helping creators like musicians get discovered and providing a new way for them to make money. In large part, these platforms are helping artists reach the masses. Their algorithms are engineered to identify and spread compelling content. The challenge, for creators, is to determine how to truly engage with those they reach and provide them meaningful content. If a musician can reach new listeners tomorrow, how do they start listening back? How can someone start to understand and interpret their fan community in order to become more thoughtful about how they provide that community value?
NFTs Build Communities
Enter the two most ubiquitous and ill defined words in the Web3 / NFT space: utility and community. The unfortunate truth is that there are many NFT projects spinning up under the auspices of “community” that are in fact cash grabs. It’s fairly easy, at this early stage, to dress up an NFT project on a facade of “utility” and “community,” only to pull the rug out at the last minute. This shouldn’t surprise anyone…with every technological revolution, unethical capitalists jump in and out of the market to snag a bag and sneer at the uninformed. But alas, there cannot be light without the darkness. If nothing else, these utility-less NFT collections provide a stark backdrop upon which more pure and noble projects can illustrate themselves.
At EQ, we believe NFTs are a revolutionary tool in the musicians toolbox to build, understand, and engage with their fan communities. Through executing artist NFT drops, we’re developing a formula artists can use to better think through utility and how to tailor it for their fans. Should an artist provide merch discounts? How about hosting a listening party with unreleased music? What about providing fans backstage passes to a festival? These are all very real examples of utility our artist partners are providing to their fans through the EQ community. And while our core business model is to build utility-focused artist and fan communities, we’re also building a broader community at the intersection of Web3, crypto, and music.
The EQ Keys program is pulling together an elite community of Web3 and music luminaries through EQ’s own NFT collectible. Picture a venn diagram (or see below). We’re connecting groups of incredible musicians, digital artists, Web3 / crypto luminaries, and music industry executives and entrepreneurs into one vibrant community. These members represent our bedrock community. They include our earliest supporters, and those we’ve found throughout this industry to be passionate about connecting with others, supporting meaningful projects, and growing together.
For EQ management this community has illuminated a concept of organic vs manufactured utility. Manufactured utility is what we, as management, can inject into this community to create value. See bulleted list below, but this includes perks and discounts, early access to artist drops, in real life events and the like. What we’re really excited about, however, is the organic utility churning up on its own within EQ Keys. Members of our Keys community are educating one another, unearthing new investment opportunities, sharing music, influencing our corporate vision, and having some serious laughs. It’s pretty amazing to see community manifest in such tangible ways–community is truly the core from which the most meaningful utility radiates. In a tool and platform abundant world, EQ Keys is a refreshing reminder that community is all about people. Surprised to hear NFTs are really all about person to person connection?
And so as we watch organic utility bud and blossom out of this community, our promise is to enrich it and enliven it wherever we can. We’ve executed on using NFTs to help artists nurture their fan communities, and now are coming to understand how these tools can build broader, more robust communities of like-minded individuals. The potential within the creator economy is incredible…put a few hundred creators, businesspeople, investors, and entrepreneurs under one roof…get your popcorn ready.
That’s why we’ll share 10% of the NFT revenue from our EQ Keys public sale with this community. As new ideas spark within EQ Keys, we’ll bring some investment gas to the fire. Whether those ideas support EQ’s trajectory, or launch community-focused projects of their own, we want to reward our earliest supporters and enrich the community from within. It’s our way of bringing some manufacturing power to organic utility.
EQ Keys Member Flyer
If this is the kind of community you’d like to be a part of, mark your calendar for 1/18. To date, we’ve brought 88 keys members into the penthouse level of EQ keys. Through an ongoing presale and public sale on 1/18, we’re excited to invite 176 (88 presale and 88 public sale) additional members into this community. We can’t wait to see how organic utility grows with our new members. See you on 1/18.
EQ Keys Program Utility
- Private EQ Telegram Chat: Direct access to EQ’s Master Channel — an intimate community of music and crypto artists, professionals, influencers and mentors, specifically including
- All EQ artist partners
- All investors on EQ’s cap table
- EQ’s management team
- 88 EQ Keys penthouse members
- 176 EQ Keys members (available for public mint next Tuesday 1/18)
- Launch Party & Events: All EQ Keys holders will receive an invitation to the official EQ launch party (Q1 ‘22). Our launch party will bring EQ Keys members together IRL, and include a broader network of elite entertainers, Web3 evangelists, and C-suite executives.
- Premium Platform Level: We’re eager to announce an exciting partnership that will take the digital level of our EQ platform to the next level, and EQ Keys members will be able to unlock unlimited access and functionality . Picture a music metaverse…You’ll need a key to get around
- Exclusive Merch: Exclusive EQ merch and EQ-sponsored artist merch
- 10% EQ Keys NFT Launch Revenue: We’ll share 10% of our EQ Keys pre and public sale revenue with the Keys community. The goal is to support collaborative investment opportunities and reward our earliest supporters
