Purpose Before Profit: Kirsten Evans of Inletaudio On The Benefits Of Running A Purpose-Driven Business
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Help. It’s unlikely that one person on their own can continue to push a movement all on their own forever. It’s not to say that you need to have a team or even just another person to start, but one day you will need a community around you in order to scale your vision.
In today’s competitive business landscape, the race for profits often takes center stage. However, there are some leaders who also prioritize a mission-driven purpose. They use their business to make a positive social impact and recognize that success isn’t only about making money. In this interview series, we are talking with some of these distinct leaders and I had the pleasure of interviewing Kirsten Evans.
Kirsten is a British singer/songwriter, based in Los Angeles, who has worked on productions for companies such as Hulu, Netflix, and HBO, Amazon Studios and more, in a variety of roles from singer and contractor, to score coordinator and composer. After her voice was used in Wales’ national contribution to the Venice Biennale in 2017, and the resultant funding Kirsten was awarded by the UK’s largest music charity Help Musicians UK as one of the first recipients of the Fusion Fund, Kirsten has gone on to collaborate with the 2023 Grammy® nominated vocal ensemble Voces8, create a custom catalogue of sample libraries for Golden Globe nominated composer, Alex Heffes, and work with publishers from West One Music Group to Sound Insurgents. Kirsten’s current work as co-owner of sample library company Inletaudio has lead her to hone her skills as a sample library developer and purpose-driven business woman.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up on the south coast of England. Whenever anyone asks me where I am from I normally describe it as being a couple hours away from London and so far south that if you went any further you would fall in the sea. I had to loving homes with both of my parents, good schooling and I was lucky enough that my parents could afford to pay for me to take part in music lessons. When I joined the school choir around the age of 8 I remember learning mainly just sounds from the British band Madness. They were fun, easy to sing and were just plain silly.
I went on to take on piano lessons and singing lessons and I was even lucky enough to be chosen to play in the schools steel pan band! I was never very good really, and if I’m honest my rhythm is still pretty awful now too, but it was such a wonderful, and unlikely, opportunity to have.
I went on to complete my degree in the capital of Wales, Cardiff, at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. I was not actually accepted as a singer into any of the conservatoires I applied for, and while that hurt at the time it turns out to have been something of a gift. I studied composition and creative technology, and always made a point of including my voice anywhere I could! I learnt so much about the different spaces a composer can work in within the music industry and, even though I was always missing my singing, it helped me to be all the more certain that singing was what I wanted to do, but that I also couldn’t leave behind writing my own music.
Since graduating in 2020 I have since moved from the UK to the US and now live and work in Los Angeles as a composer and singer.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
The start of Inletaudio was kind of round-about all in itself. I started the company with my boyfriend while we were living long distance on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Just a few weeks after we started our sample library company together (then known as Soundbake) and had incorporated it in LA, where I was about to move to to join my boyfriend and co-founder Thomas Eggensberger, I was offered a job at a different sample library company that would allow me to move to America, and to Thomas, faster and to be more stable once I arrived there. Thomas and I decided that it was the right thing to do for me to take this job with this other sample library company, but it meant I would have to leave our company and give up my stake in it. So that’s what I did. Thomas grew our ideas and our company, under the new and current name of Inletaudio, while I worked in my job at a different sample library company. Thomas was flourishing and I was learning. More importantly, we were together finally, and that was what counted.
At the end of 2023, I found myself no longer working for this other sample library company and so Thomas invited me back into the company so we could run it together as we had always imagined. Today, we both spend our days planning, imagining and growing Inletaudio. We never really question the decision we made together for me to leave the company and come back again because, in what seems to be recurring theme of my adult life so far, what once looked like a path that might not have been our dream path actually turned out to be something that we truly needed to happen. I had the opportunity to make my own friends in the US after knowing no-one (apart from my boyfriend and his circle of friends) I learn infinite amounts about sample library do’s and don’ts, and Thomas gained invaluable experience that came from running a startup. It’s onwards and upwards from here.
We often learn the most from our mistakes. Can you share one that you made that turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned?
It was just recently actually that Thomas and I had a meeting with someone that taught us SO much. We are working on a new product with someone and they are taking the reins. I won’t speak for Thomas, but I am very a typical and like to be incharge of a situation (it’s something I’m working on). We hadn’t had much experience of giving free reign to those we work with on our products so, boy, we were not prepared when the opportunity came up to do so. We tried to put stick guidelines in place which, of course, didn’t go down well or work. We encouraged this person to more or less sensor themselves instead of encouraging them to put their creative passions first. We didn’t communicate with them when we thought things were heading south because of a number of reasons which, inevitably, shouldn’t ever add up to a real reason not to communicate when you are collaborating with someone. And so we reached a point where we thought that was it for the project and actually our collaborator made us realise, through simply telling us their perspective on everything, that we were nowhere near that point. In fact, I realised that there were at least a hundred other things we could try before coming to that point.
I know that I ignored my gut/ inner voice during this process. There were times where I thought “this would be good to communicate” or “what if actually what’s happening is different from what we think”, but I ignored these feelings. I believed that it would be simpler to end the project that to build up a style of communication with this person because of the time we believed it might take to do this and its impact on our other projects. We had made the assumption that it wouldn’t work before we tried. Guess what? When we tried to improve our communication with our collaborator, the project got better. Things started to flow more smoothly, both parties were more happy with how they felt about the project and it didn’t take even a tenth of the time or effort we thought it might.
It was a real eye opener to who I was in that respect, but I’m so very thankful that it happened because now I can move forwards and improve with this knowledge to help.
As a successful leader, it’s clear that you uphold strong core values. I’m curious what are the most important principles you firmly stand by and refuse to compromise on. Can you share a few of them and explain why they hold such significance for you in your work and life?
I always believe that if you agree toward on something that you should follow through. Of course, if it becomes impossible that sure sometimes you simply just can’t finish a project, but unless the worst happens you should always try to do your best. And that’s actually the part that I find more valuable is doing your best. If it turns out that the project goals need to change because you weren’t able to do something in the way you originally planned, that’s okay as long as you try your best. I don’t think I have anyway of asking for someone else’s best if I don’t offer it to them first. So if I ask someone to help me on a project, or complete a task for Inletaudio then I should also be prepared to offer my best back to that person if I am hoping that they will also give me their best efforts.
Making music, in any capacity, is not something people should do for exposure. Regardless of the compensation deal you might come too, there should always be one. Period. People spend decades perfecting and honing their musical skills and to use those without consideration for that person or the time and resources that have gone into their skills is not something that should be possible. I’ve been asked to work for exposure before and it leaves such a sour taste in your mouth. Money isn’t everything but when someone wants to make a living from their craft they should be able to in an industry that needs to value skills appropriately. As we grown Inletaudio we hope to be able to collaborate with as many musicians we can to provide them with a passive income stream that will, hopefully, go a way to elevating stresses that might come from these situations.
What inspired you to start a purpose-driven business rather than a traditional for-profit enterprise? Can you share a personal story or experience that led you to prioritize social impact in your business?
Honestly, I think it was being priced out of most libraries on the market when I first got into using sample libraries as a composer myself. Often the best libraries are several hundred dollars at a time and at the start of my career, where I was still being asked to work for exposure, I didn’t have the money to invest in sample libraries. Of course, I was able to still create music without them, as have people for centuries, but at the time there was a strong message from my peers, mentors and the composer community at large that promoted the importance of using sample libraries and the value they could add to your music.
Think ing back on this now, this advice was neither right nor wrong, it was simply built on opinion. At the time I couldn’t quite see this but this lead me down an interesting train of thought. If sample libraries are so powerful, how much more powerful could they be if you could feel a musicians character in them, and how valuable could that be to the musician themselves. Thomas and I would talk about this a lot, and still often do. We look for ways to increase the value of a musicians sound in a way that doesn’t replace them when a composer is writing their music. We are continuously looking for the perfect balance of giving the composer what they need but not so much that they never want to hire a musician again. We are always thinking of how we can improve the ways we promote the musicians we collaborate with and promote the importance, as we see it, of using a mixture of sample libraries and real musicians wherever possible.
Can you help articulate a few of the benefits of leading a purpose-driven business rather than a standard “plain vanilla” business?
Our business model is to collaborate with musicians to create sample libraries that reflect their character, and then sell these to composers. This is the same as any other sample library. However, we do the following things differently: we pay every musician we work with a royalty on the sale of their product that, hopefully, allows then to take on more passion projects as a result of the increase in their passive income, and we aim to sell our sample libraries to composers at a price they can actually afford. We want to lower the barrier to entry for talented composers who might not otherwise be able to afford to purchase the software they need in order to create their music.
So in regards to benefits that come from owning a purpose-driven company, you have some right there. It’s the most wonderful feeling to send a developing musician and artist a royalty payment that they deserve to receive to be told that it “came just at the right time”, or that “they never thought it would ever be so much”. It’s wonderful and a privilege to see these musicians enjoy making music and to watch their careers develop as they work hard at their craft.
Similarly, reading 5 star reviews on our products from composers who are just getting started, or who might even still be students is fantastic. We get to hear the music they make with our sample libraries and hear/ read them talk about the fair pricing that we offer. People talk about how it was a no-brainer to get our product because of their price and then it turns out that they like the sample libraries too. The community of composers in our market share their opinions with us, they enjoy discussing topics relating to sample libraries, share their general gripes and comment on the moves our company makes.
To me, I feel like the time I spend on something difficult or time-intensive is so much more worth it when I know that people might actually use it on the other side of it. And that when they do, that our sample libraries are helping them to realise their musical ideas.
How has your company’s mission or purpose affected its overall success? Can you explain the methods or metrics you use to evaluate the impact of this purpose-driven strategy on your organization?
Part of our business model is that we give a lot of the money we make away and so, naturally, the growth of our company is slower. It does meant that it takes us longer to generate the money we need to record new products, and it does mean that we sometimes have to forego help on our projects and power through tasks as a team of two to keep the company growing.
However, none of this really matters when you compare it to the fact that we are supporting musicians and composers. Countless composers have mentioned how they love learning about the musicians behind the sample libraries. It’s not all that common to know which musician created every sample library a company makes and it has even lead to one of our musicians being hired as a direct result of a composer using their sample library.
We keep a close eye on the amount or royalties each musician is making and how these have increased over time. OF course we look at the growth of the overall profit the company generates but something that we want to start employing in the near future is measuring how many requests and suggestions we receive for sample libraries, how many people engage with us on our social platforms in the comments specifically to find out how people feel about our brand, and to find a way to promote, and therefore measure the amount of composers that wish to hire the musicians we work with perhaps even through the interfaces of our libraries. This last one is still something we are thinking about and would be a move towards a slightly different business model so we are carefully considering these before we move forwards with anything.
Can you share a pivotal moment when you realized that leading your purpose-driven company was actually making a significant impact? Can you share a specific example or story that deeply resonated with you personally?
We are currently recording libraries with two of the musicians we have previously worked with. We can’t believe how lucky we are that any of the musicians we have worked with in the past decided to take a chance on our business, but the fact the two out of five of our musicians want to come back to make another library really does mean that we have helped them to feel values in our collaboration and that they are happy about the way the sample libraries have turned out. It truly is the biggest compliment and we hope that we can continue to be part of collaborations where our collaborators feel valued and heard.
We have some libraries with some musicians coming up that truly deserve to have their talents shown off. We heard the sounds that came out of their recordings and they really are just amazing at what they do. These will be ones that really make an impact on them and that enable composers to make the music they want to make.
Have you ever faced a situation where your commitment to your purpose and creating a positive social impact clashed with the profitability in your business? Have you ever been challenged by anyone on your team or have to make a tough decision that had a significant impact on finances? If so, how did you address and reconcile this conflict?
We encounter a moment with every product that we make where we have to decide how much the maximum percentage of royalties is that we can offer a musician and every time we would love to offer them more but we then have to remember that if we did that there wouldn’t actually be a company left to pay anything out to them. Every time we find a compromise that still allows the musician to receive a high royalty payment and every time we hope that we are doing enough.
We have had to cut down the hours we can give to contractors as a result of the royalties we pay out, but then we are able to make more products and the hours for our contractors rise again. We keep everyone informed so our contractors still know way in advance what hours we could offer, with enough time to decide whether or not to agree to take on the work but we do look forward to the day where we can make this a more stable gig for our work for hire contractors. The only way we see fit to move forward with this is to continually communicate with our contractors, with as much foresight as we can, only giving out the information that is needed (rather than guessing at things and potentially getting them wrong) and always checking in with our contractors to ensure they are happy and understand the task at hand. As we grow we can support more and more members of our community comfortably, be they musician or contractor.
What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs who wish to start a purpose-driven business?
Start it now. Don’t wait. Get your hands dirty. Set yourself strict deadlines and block our your time. To get over the fear of starting limit the time you might want to spend on picking your company name, logo or designing your website. Create something that includes everything you need to get started and let it grow from there. If you always wait for the perfect time, you will never start. And if you never start you will never get better.
I have learnt that making changes to your plans as you go along is not the worst thing that can happen for your dreams. Sometimes they help you refine your dreams and sometimes they propel you towards your dreams in a way you never expected. Just keep moving forwards and as long as you are mostly sure, go for it. Get 70% of the information you need on something then make your decision. There will be time for perfecting and more careful decision making in the future once your company is up and running but all the time you are waiting to start you don’t actually have a company, you just have a dream.
What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Purpose-Driven Business.”
1 . You need to understand what you stand for and who you are. You need to know what morals you hold and how they sit within the world and within the industry you are in. Are they commonly held amongst your peers, are the controversial and if so is that a “bad” thing?
When I started making sample libraries at home in m mums spare bedroom during the pandemic, all I knew about sample libraries was that composers use them to write “better” sounding music. I didn’t know that there are musicians that frown on the sample library industry and believe that sample libraries are putting musicians out of a job. I didn’t realise how important sample libraries were to aspiring film composers who needed tool to practice with before they started their job as an assistant in the industry. I didn’t realise that sample libraries could be an alternative route for composers to building their careers, composers don’t all have to assist and then one day become the composer with an assistant they could create a passive income for themselves with sample libraries and spread the word about their music by doing so.
2 . Understand your industry. What is stopping whatever you are striving for from being common-place right now. Not in the past, right now. Why has, or hasn’t, there been a sudden surge of what you are striving for? What can you do to change the narrative of what you are striving for in big ways AND in small ways?
We are a small fish in a big pond. We are neither the largest company or a totally revolutionary company. We are just a growing, passionate company who are hoping to help shift the needle. While our goal is to become a big fish in a big pond, we have to face the reality that is not what we are right now, so what can we do today to push forwards. Wha is big for us today. What is happening around us in the sample library industry today that means that musicians are not always promotes or given royalties, today.
3 . Time. It will happen if you keep going.
Really. Just keep going no matter what. No. Matter. What.
4 . Help. It’s unlikely that one person on their own can continue to push a movement all on their own forever. It’s not to say that you need to have a team or even just another person to start, but one day you will need a community around you in order to scale your vision.
We have been thinking for so long that we can keep doing everything ourselves so that we can save as much of our budgets for recording new instruments as possible, but we recently realised that there is no way we could ever possibly carry out all of the tasks we have planned for this year without introducing more help. Specifically help that believes in our vision too. One day you have to welcome in other people that also believe what you believe and it will turn out to be one of the best things you could have done.
5 . You have to be able to prioritise your business. While any startup require love and attention, a purpose-drive business requires that little bit of extra care. It will mean that much more to you when something goes wrong, and you will be inclined to spend that much more time making everything perfect, but you have to put your feelings aside and always prioritise the business over your feelings about the business. By that I mean, if it makes sense for you rot spend X amount of time fixing something but then you need to continue with a previous task that you don’t feel would get instant results, but the company needs this to be done, then you have to put the needs of the company above your wish to make an instant impact instead of gently moving the hole ship forwards all together.
I’m interested in how you instill a strong sense of connection with your team. How do you nurture a culture where everyone feels connected to your mission? Could you share an example or story that showcases how your purpose has positively influenced or motivated people on your team to contribute?
I’m sure everyone says this but communication. We aren’t a company that calls itself a family, or one that doesn’t like to think in hierarchy, but what we do like to think is that each person feels valued. Our aim is to help everyone understand their tasks and ask them for their feedback on what they need from us in order to do those. If they need more time they can tell us, a new file export, sure. In the end the sample library is the thing that needs to be good so if something takes a little longer then it’s worth it as long as it is time well spent. Which, when you communicate and area valuable to the people you hire is normally the case.
We recently started working with a new contractor who was asked to give an estimate for the time it would take them to complete the work we had described/ shown to them. We knew they were good and fast and what they do but their quote way nearly 10 higher than we expected. We checked our calculations on our end and confirmed that similar tasks in the past had taken an amount of time similar to our expectations for this project, but even when factoring some time for this person to get used to the new work flow the estimate they provide was outside of what we were expecting.
In that moment we openly, but kindly, professionally and politely said that their estimate was outside of what we were expecting and proceeded to discuss with them the task again. After discussions we realised that the task would take as long as we had predicted but the person we hired explicitly expressed that they felt comfortable with the way it was handled and that they were comfortable with the task moving forwards. We listened to their side and they were happy with the way we approached them about the quote. We then continued with them through the process and look forward to hiring them again.
Imagine we’re sitting down together two years from now, looking back at your company’s last 24 months. What specific accomplishments would have to happen for you to be happy with your progress?
We would have released at least 24 new products, with 24 new musicians. We would hope that other companies would start promoting the musicians behind their libraries more after hosting panel discussions as conferences such as NAMM and equivalents in different parts of the world. We would hope to have been considered for music tech awards for the way we collaborate with our musicians and the resulting products and we would like to be able to sponsor musicians and awards ourselves.
Our goal is to grow our company at least 200% each year overall. Our goal is to hire employees and provide benefits to our workers. We hope to be able to invite the musicians we work with to holiday celebrations at the end of each year and to take on the feedback composers and musicians give us as we continue to move forwards.
You are a person 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. :-)
No more asking musicians to work for exposure. I would think the reasons behind this are obvious, but you wouldn’t ask a plumber to fix your sink for exposure when you give them a review. You wouldn’t ask your office manager to work for exposure because working with others in the office might lead to good things. Unfortunately, you can’t pay bills with exposure. Musicians, as with all industries where this is the case or similar, should not encourage people to work for exposure.
As you can tell I feel passionately about this. I understand that some situations are different but it can’t become common place for music to be free.
How can our readers further follow your work or your company online?
If you would like to find out more about our vision or our musician head to your website to learn more:
We keep everyone up to date on what’s going on at Inletaudio on our Instagram too:
https://www.instagram.com/inletaudio/
This was great. Thanks for taking time for us to learn more about you and your business. We wish you continued success!
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
