A Letter to Damian Bradfield
Hi Damian!
I’m Kat. Until recently, I was a Product Manager at SoundCloud, as I’m one of the 173 people who were laid off a few weeks ago.
I must say, I was quite surprised to receive your email and read your post!
I’m writing to let you know, I’m afraid I can’t take you up on this offer. I’m not in a bad situation compared to others, but after being made redundant I simply cannot afford to not find a new job and not earn money. I need to pay my rent and bills, and move house in a few months.
But I’m also writing to you for a second reason today. For the last 2 years I’ve been running a series of public talks for women who work in music called Salt + Sass. We aim to connect, celebrate and bring visibility to women working in the industry in Berlin.
One of our primary goals is to give access to the music industry to young women through these events, and we’re doing pretty well. Some folks have got jobs. Others have set up their own events. We’ve attracted major music media partnerships. We helped run a DJ workshop. And we’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far.
We believe that the historically male dominated music industry is a more interesting and innovative place when there are more women working in it. Salt + Sass is our way of helping women get jobs in music, and providing support to those who are already there.

So now comes my ask. Salt + Sass operates with and makes no money. We run it without any funds and rely solely on our volunteered time and sponsorship to make it free to attend and as accessible as possible.
Until a few weeks ago, our main sponsor was SoundCloud. SoundCloud provided us with a pretty great venue and support from their wonderful office and IT teams to help make these events happen.
Regardless of where I end up in my next job, I’ll continue to run Salt + Sass as a side project, because I am passionate about supporting women in music.
But in order to carry on running these events in a new venue, we’re going to need cash. So here I am today, asking you for that 10k, despite not meeting the criteria. Because I can’t afford to not work, but if you really want to support innovation in music, then I’m asking you to help us support more women get into the industry.
Here’s your chance to support a lot more than just 173 genius ideas.
Best wishes,
Kat
PS you can listen to our most recent podcast here.
