How Failing as a Musician Made me a Stronger Co-Founder
Prior to co-founding Ario I worked at a handful of digital agencies where I got my first taste of project management. I’ve had the privilege of spending time at some of the best agencies in Eastern Virginia including: Grow, Sway and Ciniva. At each stop I learned something new about what it means to work with clients on projects of varying sizes and complexity.
At Sway, I learned what it felt like to be the only producer at an expanding agency; at Grow, I experienced the adrenaline rush of working with a larger team as a contracted junior producer on Google’s Art, Copy & Code initiative for their client, Volkswagen, where we created SmileDrive; and at Ciniva, I would experience the ebb and flow of working with a large government agency to relaunch the Port of Oakland’s website. Each experience has contributed in its own way to how I approach our work at Ario. That said, one unique experience has taught me some of the greatest lessons that I carry with me today: being in a band.
Starting a Band is a lot Like Starting a Business
Founding
From 2004–2012 I was in a band called Chasing Arrows (we called ourselves Atlas for the first couple of years, but our SEO ranking wasn’t as strong).
Most of us met during college, either at open mic nights or through friends. This was our genesis. It was at time where each of us were out on our own, aimlessly pumping sounds into the universe; but what we what we had in common was wanting to build something greater than ourselves. I met Graham, our lead singer at an open mic night where I heard him covering Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time.” As silly as it sounds, I knew he had an incredible talent at that very moment. I spent the next two months trying to convince him to “jam” with me. I use “ “ because my motive wasn’t to just jam; it was to start a band. Eventually, he agreed to meet up…and we went on to source more talent for our invisible leader; Mr. Lofty Ambitions.
We knew we needed a drummer, bass player and were even able to find incredible utility with someone that could play keys, guitar and sing backing vocals. We successfully found all of these things; though, I should say it felt a lot like the universe bringing us all together. This would be my first lesson in co-founding a business. Part art, part business, and a lot of personalities. I should note that the original founders of the band didn’t remain in place through the life of the group. This is something that is seen in business as well, though the value of original founders shouldn’t be understated.
Our lineup changes looked like this:
2004–2006
Graham Todd (lead vocals)
Nate Fender (lead guitar / keyboard)
David Brear (drums)
Walter Pierce (rhythm guitar / keyboard / vocals)
Cody Zimmerman (bass)
2006–2007
Graham Todd (lead vocals)
Nate Fender (lead guitar / keyboard)
Joe Hamm (drums) D̶a̶v̶i̶d̶ ̶B̶r̶e̶a̶r̶
Walter Pierce (rhythm guitar / keyboard / vocals)
Cody Zimmerman (bass)
2007–2010
Graham Todd (lead vocals)
Nate Fender (lead guitar / keyboard)
Joe Hamm (drums)
Walter Pierce (rhythm guitar / keyboard / vocals)
Damien Wade (bass) C̶o̶d̶y̶ ̶Z̶i̶m̶m̶e̶r̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶
2010–2011
Graham Todd (lead vocals)
Nate Fender (lead guitar / keyboard)
Joe Hamm (drums)
Walter Pierce (rhythm guitar / keyboard /vocals)
Tate Thoreson (bass) D̶a̶m̶i̶e̶n̶ ̶W̶a̶d̶e̶
2011–2011
Graham Todd (lead vocals)
Nate Fender (lead guitar / keyboard)
Joe Hamm (drums)
Michael Amland (rhythm guitar / keyboard / vocals) W̶a̶l̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶P̶i̶e̶r̶c̶e̶
Tate Thoreson (bass)
2011–2012
Graham Todd (lead vocals)
Nate Fender (lead guitar / keyboard)
Joe Hamm (drums)D̶a̶v̶i̶d̶ ̶B̶r̶e̶a̶r̶
Dupont Sykes (keyboard) M̶i̶c̶h̶a̶e̶l̶ ̶A̶m̶l̶a̶n̶d̶, W̶a̶l̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶P̶i̶e̶r̶c̶e̶,
Tate Thoreson (bass) D̶a̶m̶i̶e̶n̶ ̶W̶a̶d̶e̶, C̶o̶d̶y̶ ̶Z̶i̶m̶m̶e̶r̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶
In case you missed it, that’s 2 drummers, 3 bassists, 2 keyboard / rhythm guitarists, and one solo keyboard player. Two of the original founders remained until the end. It felt like being married to 4 other people; founders, does this sound familiar?
We had an idea of how we wanted to make an impact in the music-world and we set out to prove to the world that we could make our mark.
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Typically, one of the first things musicians do when they first get together is find some songs they all know and then play those. Some of the first groups we realized we all enjoyed were Foo Fighters, Matchbox Twenty, Dispatch and Muse (nostalgia much?). So that’s where we started. We quickly found songs we could perform competently and played as many shows as possible. If you were on the Christopher Newport University campus between January 2004 and December 2007 you probably heard our noise in your periphery at one point or another. During the process of learning a handful of songs to cover we could hardly resist experimenting with creating our own songs. I believe it was U2 that once said about their early days (and I’m paraphrasing here) “We weren’t good enough to learn cover songs, so we wrote our own.” This is certainly how I felt.
We quickly roughed out a group of songs that were our own and it became apparent that each song we wrote was in a different style than the other; one sounded like it had a O.A.R. vibe to it, another was heavier rock similar to Audioslave, while another sounded inspired by Matchbox Twenty. More on the cohesiveness of sound later.
So, we did what any young college band would do… we found a guy on Craigslist that had a recording studio in a storage unit and we paid him cash to record us (sounds creepy, but Tim was a really nice guy!).
Next, we burned a bunch of CDs and used those as our early demos to give out and quickly receive feedback from a completely unbiased audience. Friends, family were up first (ok their opinions are always positive and supportive) and strangers (now we’re talking). This would help us get gigs around the region and also outside the area.
When your show is one of the only places in town to find a cheap beer you’ll find that a lot of people like your music (I wonder why?)
Product-Market Fit
After a year and half we started the process of finding a more established studio that would have a producer in the building that could help us capture a more cohesive sound on a record. This was our first taste at honest feedback.
So there we were, in a real recording studio. We’d paid money and someone else with opinions was pressing record. That’s what it’s supposed to be, right? The mixing board had an album sitting on top of it an accidental American Idol star (anyone remember William Hung?) next to other well-known artists as a reminder if that success could happen to anyone, but it’s also not granted automatically.
We recorded an EP on tape and converted to digital to give a more authentic rock vibe, most of the songs were recorded live with our group tracking in separate rooms. We were purists!
So there we were. We had our first EP. Time to get our newly formed sound to market. Was this a solution searching for a problem? It was time to find ways to get our music out there and to the correct audience without a budget; all coming from a region of the country without a burgeoning music scene. Fortunately, Myspace was still a thing (never thought I’d ever say that) and online distribution of music was the Wild West. We began reaching out to publications and online distributors with our zero dollar budget. Eventually our push led to MTVU taking notice. In 2007 we found ourselves with the opportunity via MTVU to open for Plain White T’s on their Great America tour. You might remember them for their #1 Song “Hey There Delilah.”
At this show the venue wanted to charge a percentage of merchandise sales since they would be staffing our merch booth. So, we decided since there would be thousands in attendance what we’d do is work to build our email marketing list. We spent two full days prior to the show burning CDs using one of these:
We kindly informed the venue (that had no minimum merch prices in their contract) that we’d be giving away burned CDs of our upcoming EP to each individual in exchange for their email address. And well, since you can’t adequately pay commission on that the venue staffed our merch booth and we grew our marketing list. These email addresses were way more valuable than the several hundred dollars we would have made selling our EP. This is America “free” sells well.
We continued to grow our list, evolve our musical style and find ways to reach beyond our region (eastern Virginia). After all, if we were going to expand our audience we’d need to find ways to reach more people.
The following year we received a MTVU Woodie Award nomination and were lucky enough to attend the awards that were broadcast live (this would subsequently help with our ability to book shows later on). We wouldn’t win our category, but we were able generate wonderful press from it (always get imagery from milestone events that you can use in your marketing). This would mark our understanding of where our music fit in the market. It was Adult Contemporary. We didn’t know this going into making our music, only throughout the process.
Go-To-Market
Rock bands are the epitome of bootstrapping.
Our plan was to figure out a path to open for larger known acts as they toured through east coast destinations. We did our research and found that a handful of Mid-Atlantic booking agencies that would handle booking large acts (think anyone on the Billboard charts) also had their hand in booking cover bands at night clubs and beyond (which, I should note, pay very well for bands). So, we devised a plan. We would build out a 3 hour cover playlist that we could perform (in addition to all of our original music). Then, we would approach the best agency we could find and say “here are recorded examples of the covers we perform, so that you can tell we know what we’re doing, oh, and by the way, we also are an original band that tours when we’re able to.”
Essentially, we wanted to hack our way into opening for large acts when they came through the region playing only our original music, but the conduit to this was the booking agency.
There were obvious tradeoffs to doing this: we’d make more money ($500–3,000 per gig) playing covers, but we’d have to stay up to date on the latest music; we’d be able to audience test our product (our original music) as we polished it (we did this by placing our original music into our cover sets between Foo Fighters and Third Eye Blind and not tell the audience; and if anyone asked it was an obscure rising band out of Missouri or elsewhere); and for all the time we spent making sure we could play 3 hours of the most current music, it was time not spent writing or rehearsing our own music. Was it worth it?
Well, it lead to us getting slotted to open for acts like Vertical Horizon and prime radio interviews. And we were able to audience test our product.
Trusted Advisors
As we continued to play shows that focused more on our original music, we began working with a producer in a recording studio in Virginia Beach. Tim Roberts, who has worked on records with Miley Cyrus, Jason Derulo, Maroon 5 and more, filled this role. Tim became a trusted advisor to our group, he showed us the ropes of expert-level recording, mixing and production. And more than that, he served as an objective voice for our band. He became a member of our band from a chair at the mixing board. This was critical for our group. It helped us think beyond our own ideas by asking us hard questions. He pushed us to answer what we were trying to achieve with our sound and how we could execute it both in the studio and on stage.
This is something that a startup should always consider as it grows. That said, trust is the important part of the term Trusted Advisor. We found this. It was awesome.
In addition to Tim, we began getting guidance from veterans of the music industry located in NYC.
We took on a management group out of NYC that would help us shop our music to labels. Here are a couple of our songs that went out to labels that helped us gain interest:
Like any other source of capital, you’re going to get feedback and conditions. We received some interest from big labels and constructive feedback that would push us to continuing to refine our sound. Now, this is particularly interesting because it draws into question your willingness to compromise on something that is part business and part an artistic endeavor. Is that any different than with a startup? I suppose it depends, but it’s an interesting question.
In our case it was a debate to be had. Some of the feedback felt as though it might push us into a direction we really didn’t want to go and wouldn’t serve the vision we were starting to embrace together (hey, that can be very hard to build when you’re married to 4 other people, or more if you count your management / / board etc…). Other points of feedback made a lot of sense given that a label’s soul purpose is to help get an artist/record to as large of an audience that it can, and of course profit. We wanted that too, but would it push is into an area we wouldn’t be happy?
Exit Strategy
As our story would go, as we started to penetrate a larger market we hit our 8 year mark in existence. We’d met in college, moved into early 20s and we had to draw a line as adulthood pressures (read: obligation to pay rent) continued to mount. Was our band our career? It certainly required our entire focus (rehearsing 15–20 hours a week, plus marketing, and traveling whenever we could get a gig out of market that would help us build our base, etc…) if we were to achieve that. This type of focus is difficult to maintain and while performing well at your day-job. And as you’d imagine day-jobs aren’t that understanding when you need to “travel for a last minute gig” (though we did have one exciting time where I worked on a Wednesday from the morning to late afternoon, hopped on a plane from Virginia to NYC after work, played a gig with the band that same night in NYC and flew back to Virginia the next morning and still made it to work in time… it was play a label showcase; we did anything for those types of opportunity). You have to give it your all. This is the same with startups. Don’t be half measured. And as Jason Calacanis says, “Do the work.”
We hit our breaking point. It was clear, we weren’t going to deliver the goods how we wanted to and do a deal with a label. So between that and our divided focus with jobs we decided to cut things. Instead of announcing to the fan-base of our dissolution we simply faded into the night in 2012. We didn’t have one last big show. We didn’t even know we’d played our last show until we looked back at it and said “well, I guess that was our last show.” It also left open the window for us writing more songs in the future; which seemed to make the ending easier. It’s not that it ended. It simply didn’t continue. Now, obviously in a startup there’ll be a definitive ending. Your IP, assets and team doesn’t just fade away; it transacts. In our case some members kept performing and writing with new groups and others went on to form strong careers outside of music.
In my case, I continued to pursue music, but not in the same way. It was for the enjoyment of it, but not as a way to build a career:
This was nice and our aim was to write what we felt and not to sell to the widest audience. We didn’t feel pushed into that.
It’s clear to me now that what felt like the end of the world was actually one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned to date. It taught me a lot about persistence, collaboration, the strength of your network and business. I continue to see parallels between being in a band and being part of a startup.
What other parallel circumstances are there? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
>>CLICK HERE<< for an inside look of the band (read: startup) I’m in now, Ario
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