Inspirational Women Leaders Of Tech: Audrey Marshall and Stephanie Leyva Of Thematic On The Five Things You Need To Know In Order To Create A Very Successful Tech Company

An Interview With Penny Bauder

Build with a team you believe in. It can be incredibly trying to start a company, and if you are unable to trust your team wholeheartedly, you’re setting yourself up for failure. A team that complements and challenges each other to keep moving forward is one of the best things you can do to enable your company to succeed.

As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women Leaders in Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Audrey Marshall and Stephanie Leyva of Thematic.

Thematic is the collaborative music discovery and licensing company empowering creators from beginning to fame. Their trusted two-sided marketplace matches content creators with licensed music from their favorite artists in exchange for the promotion of their songs. Since the company was beta-launched in 2018, Thematic’s platform has grown into a community of over 450,000 creators in 220 countries, generating over 1.5 million free music licenses for YouTube creators, driving 21 billion listens and 12 million new fans for independent artists worldwide.

Audrey Marshall is a co-founder and the COO of Thematic. She is responsible for leading the company’s product development, technical programming, and business development endeavors. Audrey has been working with, and connecting, content creators with music artists, their labels, and publishers, for the past 10 years as a lead executive with the music media venture, Spin Move Media, LLC. Audrey’s background is steeped in digital media entertainment, social media activation, and public relations. She specializes in creating and implementing digital strategies for music artists, content creators, and brands, with previous campaigns for Macy’s, Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas, the American Cancer Society, and the L’Oréal luxe family of brands, among others. Audrey has developed and administered channel optimization initiatives for talents ranging from Jennifer Lopez and Thalia to corporate clients like Warner Bros., Endemol, and L’Oréal. She is a graduate of Chapman University and a certified expert across the board with YouTube in digital rights, channel management, and audience development. Audrey has a specific focus on, and passion for, digital rights management for music assets and has helped developed and managed some of the leading beauty, lifestyle, and dance channels on YouTube.

Stephanie Leyva sits at the intersection of music artists and content creators. As the Director of Partnerships at Thematic, Stephanie has worked extensively in onboarding and managing relationships with partners including The Orchard, Republic Records, Kobalt/AWAL, and Select Management; and talents such as Lauv, Betty Who, Eva Gustowski, and Patrick Starrr. Over the past year, she has led numerous music-driven influencer marketing campaigns across several content platforms for Casablanca Records, Republic Records, and Sony Music. Focused on empowering connections between content creators and music artists, Stephanie continues to lead the charge in innovative music discovery through the power of influence.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Audrey Marshall: I’ve always been a huge music fan. Ever since high school, I would find ways to support and promote my favorite artists — through online forums and grassroots promotions and going to every concert I could manage. I was lucky enough to find a place to further this passion for supporting talented artists through an internship at an indie record label while at Chapman University. It was through this label that I met my co-founder, Marc Schrobilgen, which he was running with his business partner. We quickly realized the power of YouTube in driving new avenues of promotion — by connecting the artists on the label with digital-first creators, such as Michelle Phan. This was circa 2008/2009, so really at the cusp of the influencer marketing era. And the results were compelling.

Since then, we went all-in on working with creators and music artists — building out their digital strategy, running branded campaigns, and managing YouTube channels, digital rights, and content releases. All the while we were acting as matchmakers between creators who were in need of quality music, and music artists who needed a new way to get their music discovered by new audiences. In 2016, we decided to go all-in on bringing our magic to the masses through a platform that could solve this for all creators. And thus was the beginning of Thematic.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since starting at Thematic?

AM: This predates the actual launch of the company, but back in 2014, Marc and I took a meeting with one of his contacts in the payments space in downtown Santa Monica. He introduced us to this emerging wallet technology and transferred us some of the tokens to demonstrate the product. We didn’t think much of it and left it to sit until maybe 2017 when it really started to take off. Bitcoin had entered the mainstream conversation.

Marc ended up using some of the proceeds from his initial transfer to invest in Thematic. I guess it goes to show that you just never know what a meeting can eventually lead to.

Can you share a humorous story about a mistake you made when you were first starting out, and what lesson you learned from it?

Stephanie Leyva: Circa 2018 — I hired our first intern who would be reporting directly to me. I began working with them and had them come into the office once to twice a week depending on their work schedule. I definitely did not know what the heck I was doing! I did not properly communicate tasks, I couldn’t keep them on schedule and always ran out of ideas on what to do next. I found myself having to stop my own work constantly to come up with a new task and to teach them how to do the task — did no one tell me about training? 🥲 Since this was something entirely new to me I would often forget the schedule and more times than not have a face of surprise when the intern would walk into the office. A giant lesson I learned here was that preparation is always key and that it’s okay to tell someone else you need help. If I had prepared myself a lot better for this new leading role that I was taking on I would have been much more helpful to that intern and to myself — I would have gotten a lot more work done during this time!

Can you tell us a story about challenging times that you faced when you first started your career? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard? (

SL: About a year and a half after starting my path at Thematic I, unfortunately, suffered a very deep depression that I couldn’t seem to shake. It was a point in my life when I felt everything was against me and I did not know myself. After what I call the beginning stages of my depression and not even feeling in my body, Marc and Audrey communicated with me that we had run out of money and the way we were currently operating would be no longer. It took me quite some time to process and understand what that really meant and how it would affect my role at the company — good or bad. A few months had passed and I began to process that a bit more all while at the same time falling even deeper into my depression. Months of feeling unproductive and not listened to (in my personal life) led me to a point of giving up and completely wanting to change my career path. I battled with that feeling for several months and even cried sometimes about it before finally seeing a bit of light. I had some help from a special friend of mine at the office who was always the voice of reason for me — I would share my depressive thoughts and they’d just listen and show compassion. Meanwhile, our Thematic community was growing each day and as the community manager, I would watch most of our creators’ videos and pay attention to what was going on in their own lives. I’d get so excited when they’d reach a new milestone and began to feel motivated by the mass amounts of individuals all over the world using Thematic in ways we didn’t think possible. I felt like they were indirectly a support system as I felt their support for our platform and with each time they used it, I felt that reinforced. It truly takes a village and they proved to be that for me at that time. For anyone wondering: I did not ever seek a therapist (stupidly) but was able to eventually come out of this depression. I later sought help which gave me some great tools for the future.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

AM: I’m really grateful to have Marc and Michelle as my co-founders in Thematic. I’ve been working with both of them for well over a decade now, and from that, we’ve built an immense amount of trust and respect for one another.

Marc saw potential in me when I was a college intern, and since then has challenged me to grow both personally and professionally, and championed me throughout the years. Michelle has been such a guiding light in paving the way for digital-first creators and entrepreneurs. From that, she has provided so much insight into skillfully navigating the ever-changing waters of what it means to be a creator in the social media age.

It’s telling that we’re still working together after so many years. It really underlines our shared commitment to empowering the next generation of creators.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

SL: This is not really a quote but more so a saying: “Ponte las pilas, echale ganas!” is one of my favorite phrases because it reminds me of my mom. This is something she would say to me every day when she’d drop me off at school (even college) and now tells me every once in a while when she hears me stressed with work. This phrase basically means “get moving and work hard.” It’s used as a motivational phrase and almost a way to say “You got this” or “You can do it.” When I start to feel stressed or discouraged I think of this phrase and it immediately snaps me out of it. I think we all need a little pep talk and this is one of those phrases that always makes me snap out of it and get to it.

Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. We’d love to learn a bit about Thematic. What is the pain point that the company is helping to address?

AM: Sitting at the intersection of and working with independent music artists and creators for years, Thematic was built to make the exchange between these creatives immensely easier.

Creators want quality music for their content that is both safe to use and affordable. Unfortunately, they are often stuck with the choice between affordable, uninspiring production music or expensive, restriction-infused commercial music (that can be complicated to get a license for and which they are not able to use in any sponsored content). And even with licenses, creators are penalized with copyright claims when publishing their videos.

All the while, emerging music artists are often on their own in getting their music discovered. After clicking submit on DistroKid or Tunecore for their latest release, it’s up to them to figure out how to promote it — from pricey playlisting or influencer campaigns to low-performing social ads or putting in the hours to do personal outreach themselves.

Thematic solves the problem for both and eliminates the traditional licensing landmines of old-fashioned ‘claim-and-release’ models.

Our matchmaking technology analyzes how songs are used in videos so creators are instantly matched to the perfect songs for their content. This ensures that music artists’ latest releases get in front of tastemakers on release day to drive new music discovery. The licensing happens quietly in the background proving a disruption-free experience, and it’s completely free for both parties.

What do you think makes Thematic stand out? Can you share a story as to why?

AM: Thematic is the only company with a community-driven licensing model. We were able to develop a solution that validates the desires of both parties in this exchange, allowing for a win-win experience.

With this approach of mutual support and collaboration, we have been able to build a super-engaged creative community on Thematic. Our creators have come together in so many amazing ways beyond simply sourcing music for a video.

We have an active Discord community where we see a lot of knowledge sharing and support between our creators. We’ve also had artists come together to work on new projects after finding their songs being featured in a lot of the same videos. It’s inspiring to see them come together and collaborate in ways we weren’t even thinking about.

And on the artist side, Thematic has driven significant results….

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

SL: Yes! I’m constantly thinking of new ways that can help our community keep thriving. What’s really cool about Thematic is that we’re sitting in the middle of two really amazing self-sufficient communities, music artists and content creators. This allows me to really sit back and listen to each side and see what is really raising its hand. I think anytime you listen to the needs of others and build/develop or ideate based on their needs it is bound to help make their lives easier.

Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in more broad terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in Tech? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

SL: Definitely not. I think we’re headed in the right direction and I’m seeing more women each day in higher positions (decision-making positions) but there is still work to do. We need to see more diversity at all levels of an organization, especially at the top. I believe change happens from the bottom and when people ask questions and rally for those changes to happen. Seeing more women being highlighted in general publications and not just women-leaning publications is very important to push the conversations in a different direction and change the status quo. I think if we focus the conversations on the strong characteristics that women leaders have and what makes them great leaders/managers/team players we can begin to have others appreciate and acknowledge female leaders in a more thoughtful way.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?

SL: Being respected by your male counterparts is a unique challenge I think women face. When we as women enter a room or have a conversation we don’t automatically get the respect our male counterparts do until we “prove” ourselves by showing we know the topic or are “smart enough” to command their respect (not that we need it lol). I think having less ego on both ends would go a long way to help address this issue — being humble and being okay with someone else knowing more than you whether female, male, non-binary, etc. Some of the smartest people I’ve worked with on any occasion have been women and we’ve been able to get a lot more accomplished partly because they take the time to listen and because of this can communicate effectively.

What would you advise to another tech leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth or sales and “restart their engines”?

AM: I’m a big believer in constantly learning and iterating on your processes. There is so much helpful information out there, from Twitter and blogs to podcasts and YouTube videos, that is accessible at the click of a button.

I find it motivating to listen to interviews or read the stories of entrepreneurs to see how they’ve built their businesses and overcome growing pains. No matter the specific path or industry, I’m able to extract the core principles or tactics that we can apply in our own internal growth strategy.

In your specific industry what methods have you found to be most effective in order to find and attract the right customers? Can you share any stories or examples?

SL: Knowing your target audience is super important! You first must know who your product is intended for and get super niche before being able to target the right customers. Once you have a clear picture of who your ideal customer is you can target similar or like-minded individuals. Where does your ideal customer shop, what are the products (outside of yours) that they’re consuming, what are their interests, and what companies are the ones they care about that you should be paying attention to and working with? Unlocking these findings really allowed us to grow within the right customer segments and attract the right fit customers.

Based on your experience, can you share 3 or 4 strategies to give your customers the best possible user experience and customer service?

SL:

• Analyze where your customers are finding roadblocks and work towards removing those roadblocks! There are so many products and services out there that help you see where your customers are struggling — through data and visualizations. Enhance your product by applying services like those that help put yourself in your customer’s shoes so you can better serve them and understand where to build/improve.
• Be proactive with your customers! Don’t be afraid to admit you/your team has made a mistake. If you find something went wrong and can affect your customer reach out and communicate the issue before it becomes a larger problem. We’ve always found success doing this and have received nothing but positive feedback from our community for this. A message so simple as “Heads Up! Potential Issue” can really help someone else plan a lot better.
• Give your customers a platform to share! We open up ourselves to receive feedback from our customers who use our product each and every day. We highly value their opinion on the experience on the site and have created a safe space for them to share their honest opinions with us through our Discord server. Creating a unique space where their opinion feels valued and where they can find community is key.

As you likely know, this HBR article demonstrates that studies have shown that retaining customers can be far more lucrative than finding new ones. Do you use any specific initiatives to limit customer attrition or customer churn? Can you share some of your advice from your experience about how to limit customer churn?

AM: We’ve approached reducing churn by first and foremost leaning into the feedback provided by our customers. We study why our best customers stay and dig into the reasons why other users decide to downgrade. From this data, we are able to better address any roadblocks and reduce the likelihood of churn for certain customer segments. This can take the form of bug fixes, better customer education, or new product development. We also provide custom incentive offers to different customer segments so as to keep valued customers engaged longer.

It really comes down to understanding the customer and their journey to best set them up for success.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful tech company? Please share a story or an example for each.

AM:

1. Constantly talk with your customers. If you don’t know who you’re building for and why it’s important, you simply can’t win.
2. Know your competitors. You should have a firm understanding of how you fit in and how what you’re doing is different.
3. Test and iterate, always. You won’t know what happens until you try it out. It’s important to not get stuck in ideation or building to perfection. Get it out in the market, learn from what works (and what doesn’t), and keep building.
4. Build with a team you believe in. It can be incredibly trying to start a company, and if you are unable to trust your team wholeheartedly, you’re setting yourself up for failure. A team that complements and challenges each other to keep moving forward is one of the best things you can do to enable your company to succeed.
5. Believe in the ‘why’ of your company. Define your core values as a company and unearth the motivating reasons why you’re building. In the most difficult of times, we can always find our point of vision because we’ve established this from day one.

You are all people of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger 🙂

A: I’m personally drawn to getting out into nature and detaching from the persistent demands of the modern world. This usually takes the form of a backpacking or camping trip. I find it so refreshing and mind-clearing to get back to the basics and focus on simply making it through the day — completing a challenging hike, figuring out where to get water, and where to set up a tent for the night — not once looking at my phone or checking my email.

It really refocuses my priorities and lets me zoom out from the small anxieties and endless notifications of daily life behind a screen. I think it would benefit a lot of people if they’re able to reset in this way, even in the smallest form of taking a walk outside every day. It’s a small change, but one I think would have a significant long-term impact.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them!

SL: Shooting my shot here ;) Definitely Rihanna! I’d love to pick her brain about so many things but mainly on her journey of starting her multiple consumer brands and what led her there. I’d like to know more about her biggest mistakes, failures, and what she learned from each of them along the way. You can learn a lot from others’ mistakes and failures and that truly inspires me and opens up my mind to new ideas. She’s very inspiring coming from an immigrant background similar to my family. To me, it is always inspiring when someone from such humble beginnings is able to create such a large empire, stay humble throughout the process, and not lose sight of the ultimate goal.

Thank you so much for this. This was very inspirational, and we wish you only continued success!