Michael Walker: YEAAAH! All right. Excited to be here today with my new friend, Maïa Heidling. Maïa is a seasoned marketing manager at MusicHub, a company that empowers artists—from newcomers to veterans—to thrive independently in the music industry. She has experience at the Walt Disney Company.

Gosh, I was just telling her that I live about 10 minutes away from Disney World here, so she’s got some inside experience at Walt Disney, The Orchard, and Studio 71. At MusicHub, she helps champion tools and strategies that give musicians full control, helping them release, promote, and grow their music careers.

I’m excited to have her on the podcast today to talk about what it takes to build a sustainable music career in today’s music industry, how DIY artists can distribute and promote their music, and how to handle rights management.

Maïa, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today.

Maïa Heidling: Yeah, thank you so much. I'm very, very happy to be here.

Michael: Absolutely. To kick things off, I’d love to hear a little bit of an introduction to yourself. Specifically, with MusicHub, what would you say is the core purpose or problem you’re looking to solve?

Maïa: I’m half French, half German. I grew up between Munich and Paris, and then at some point relocated to Berlin, where MusicHub is based. MusicHub is primarily a distribution platform, but we’re a 100% owned GEMA company—GEMA being the German CMO. That makes it quite interesting because the platform is really built by musicians, for musicians. I’m a musician myself, and I started out with classical music—piano and some music theory. Also, on the weekends, I vividly remember... little interludes. Oh, that's so nice you have a little piano there.

Michael: You started talking about classical music. I grew up playing classical piano as well.

Maïa: Nice. Ah, super cool. Amazing. Yeah, I mean, it's not super straightforward, but I guess it gives you a really good foundation, right? And same with music theory—I never particularly enjoyed it, but I’m super happy I did it. It helped me understand the depth of it a little bit better.

At MusicHub, we work with all kinds of musicians. There isn’t really a particular genre that we don’t cater to—everyone is welcome. I started out at MusicHub as part of the foundational team. When MusicHub got created, it was a very simple MVP. It was just one landing page, and you could upload your track and distribute it to a couple of platforms. Over the past four years, we’ve really built it into something bigger, and I’m super excited to share behind-the-scenes details on what we’ve been working on, beyond just the distribution aspects. We’ve been looking at the markets and the problems musicians are facing today.

MusicHub was created to empower DIY musicians who don’t necessarily have access to a label or a manager. We make the first step in the music industry easier—upload your track, get it out there, and see what happens. We’ve made the whole process more accessible. I started in the marketing team, so I was very close to building the website and also developing all the messaging around MusicHub. We really focused on understanding the problems that artists were facing and incorporated that feedback into our products.

What I loved from the beginning was that we were creating the platform by musicians, for musicians, with a very user-oriented approach. For us, it’s always about understanding the user. We don’t just implement a feature because someone in the team has an idea. Instead, we look at the needs of our users and develop the platform accordingly.

Michael: Awesome. I can totally relate to that. I feel like Modern Musician has a similar DNA—by musicians, for musicians. It really is a special culture and community because you have musicians building tools that they want to use themselves. It’s really cool that you’ve been building this platform that way.

Could you share a little bit about your experience as a musician, and also your work with musicians now and your users, as well as with the team? What do you see as some of the biggest challenges or problems that musicians are facing right now, at this moment in history? How does the tool you’ve created help solve those issues?

Maïa: Yeah, definitely. So, coming from the MusicHub angle first: as I was saying, we started with a distribution platform, but now we’re moving on to something a little bigger because we’ve seen that what a DIY distributor offers nowadays isn’t really enough to get artists to the next stage. We have a lot of newcomer artists with big dreams and goals—who doesn’t, right? Everyone wants to make it in the music industry, but it’s hard. We said, let’s try to understand the problems from within the MusicHub community.

We’re building a lot of tools that artists told us they need, so it’s not just about uploading your track. We’ve added features like sharing a private link to your track, getting other people to comment on it, creating a mini website like a link in bio, and many small things that are making a big difference.

Because we’re part of GEMA, the German CMO, we’ve also integrated work declaration, for example, or what we call sound file upload, which is essentially a monitoring device. First of all, we’re including all the CMO features that are needed for an artist to make a living nowadays and educating artists on royalties, as well as the importance of being part of a CMO.

That’s where it starts. A lot of small artists just want to put their track out there but don’t really know about publishing royalties. Being a member of a collection society can be beneficial for your revenue. That’s how we started catering to both CMO members and artists outside of CMOs who weren’t educated on the benefits.

Now that we have all these different tools, we’re continuing to evolve and help artists in more ways.

Michael: For clarification, anyone listening who may not know what CMO stands for—I’ve heard it before, but I don’t actually know what it stands for. Could you quickly explain what that means?

Maïa: Of course! It’s just another term for a collection society. In every country, there’s a collection society that manages the rights of artists. As a musician, you can be part of PRS, for example, or in France, it’s the SESEM. You’ll usually have one big collection society in each country that will make sure you get paid whenever your track is used.
 If your track is used on the radio, TV, or in any public performance, the collection society will monitor that and make sure you get paid for every time your music gets used.

Michael: Awesome.

Maïa: Yeah, so we basically catered to artists who were already part of GEMA at first, opening up to artists outside of that, once again, kind of educating them on the benefits that you would have by being part of a CMO.

Then we said, all right, we have all of these amazing features that we're building, which are essential for small artists building their careers. They were telling us, "Yeah, you have great blog articles on so many topics. You have great videos, and I can see how to build my promotion plan, how to build my release plan, how to build my artist identity—such big topics that you're confronted with as a newcomer artist."

But they were saying, "I get all that information, I’m reading through it, I'm watching the videos, but what's next? How can I turn this into actionable next steps and not just spend my time in front of my computer sitting there? I want to be spending time making music."

That’s the difficulty. Artists, obviously, there’s an oversupply out there, right? It’s super hard for them to break through. When we looked at it from a top-down approach, listening to our users from within and also looking at the market, we validated that assumption. We realized, yes, this is a real problem. Marketing and strategy are requirements from day one, but not everyone had a chance to develop them.

This creates a real gap between artists who have these skills or have the funds to get an artist manager or someone to help them, or who are signed to a label, and those who don't have those resources and go down the DIY route and get lost.

So the question arose: Who could help these artists in the music industry? On one side, you have the labels, but labels are now focusing on artists who already bring in a fan base and listeners. They focus on that premium segment because the long tail of small DIY artists is overwhelming for them. By "long tail," I mean all the small DIY artists just starting out with no visibility.

On the other side, you have DIY distributors, who are now also focusing on that premium service and saying, "That’s where we see more money, so we’ll choose and not open our doors to every musician out there." So, DIY artists kind of end up stuck in the middle, you know? They don't have the skills and resources and don't know where to go. There’s no middle solution for them. It's either too much or too little.

That’s the main problem we focused on in the past year at Music Hub.

Michael: Amazing. It sounds like there’s this gap between artists who are ultra-successful or signed to a record label, versus DIY artists who are just starting out, don’t have the resources, and don’t really know what or how to do it. That’s really the angle you came in to help create a tool to serve that gap. Awesome.

And you mentioned you’re excited to share some things you’re working on and rolling out to specifically focus on that. I’m curious to hear what some of those things are that you’ve developed and how artists watching this right now can use these tools to overcome those issues.

Maïa: Yeah, of course. We had a very classical setup at Music Hub in terms of our teams. We had a platform team that was developing Music Hub, a marketing team, a customer support team—basically the classical structure in a startup. Then we said, "Alright, we really need to create a new team with one member from each department: marketing, user research, customer support, business and legal, even the CEO chipped in."

We created a task force that focused solely on a discovery project for at least six months. So, starting in January of this year, we really put full focus on understanding the market better, understanding musicians, and finding a way to create something that would really help them succeed in their careers. We aimed to eliminate the overwhelm of looking for scattered resources and simplify the process for musicians.

We wanted to support them without being a label or an artist manager for each one, trying to find paths they could follow to reach their goals. We worked in a lean way, doing a lot of design sprints—something Google has been doing for a long time. You work in a small team, and the aim is to de-risk launching a new product on the market.

We built a prototype, tested it with users, and ensured we were creating something they truly needed and wanted. It was logical to us to work in that sense. We said, "Let’s look at the market and understand the numbers."

We ended up gathering 160 problem statements from artists across a variety of topics. Problems are everywhere: artists want more promotion, sync deals, licensing deals, and much more. The multitude of topics is huge, so we had to prioritize.

It’s a bit technical, but we used a DVF prioritization approach—Desirability, Variability, and Strategic Fit—to narrow down our focus to the core issue: DIY artists feeling stuck in the middle, not knowing how to move their careers forward.

In that discovery project, we realized we needed to work closely with music industry experts outside of Music Hub, as well as a specific set of users. There are so many genres, and a classical artist won’t have the same needs as a hip hop artist. So, we decided to first focus on the electronic music sphere, really understanding what’s important for artists there.

Electronic artists want to get booked, expand their social media presence, and, if they’re DJs, play gigs. We also have a partnership with Beatport for electronic musicians to get their music on there, so it felt natural to start in that sphere.

We built a first prototype that we’re now testing with users, aiming to create a release manager. It allows artists to log in and see new tasks every day. But we want to take it a step further by personalizing these paths for artists, moving away from generic steps like "Upload your music today" and "Resize your artwork for Spotify tomorrow."

We’re already providing some things to take some workload off artists, such as downloadable assets like EPK templates—things that everyone knows they need, but they don’t know how to get or do it. If you can click a button and download it, pre-filled, it makes your life way easier.

This helps reduce stress and mental blocks, allowing artists to focus on what’s truly important: making music. These are the little things we hope to improve, looking at what's available on the market and what other distribution platforms are doing.

We’re also looking at new players that use conversational AI. You ask a question, and AI responds with a to-do list. It’s fine to try this initially, but how can we improve it? How can we make sure the software truly understands you and focuses on your personal goals? That’s the challenge.

Michael: Awesome. What I'm hearing is that, starting out, the primary function of the software is to help artists distribute their music. Then, through that process, you realize that there are all these other challenges—literally hundreds of problems that people have. Where can we focus on helping? One of the primary places you found was in the release process. Artists are feeling overwhelmed and not sure what steps to take. Either they don’t know what steps to take, or if they do, they don’t really know how to execute them. It sounds like this version you're working on right now—I'm not sure when this will be released, but at the time of recording, I don't know if it’s accessible yet—sounds like what you've been building is meant to help provide the step-by-step tasks that are customized and personalized to the artists based on their details.

Maïa: Yeah, that's essentially the prototype we're building right now, but it's not fully accessible yet. We are testing it with a few users. It took us some time to get experts from the electronic music scene on board to help build these plans with us. Now, we're selecting artists from the waitlist to test these plans. That's where we’re at right now. The product will likely launch in its first beta version next year. We're still in the discovery phase and building it, but there’s a possibility to join our waitlist and test things out with us. And again, it's very personal. It's actually me and another colleague hand-picking the artists we're going to work with, and they're giving us the insights we need to really improve it. As you said, the problem we’ve identified is in the release process, but it's also in promotion, especially social media. How do I even start? We're overwhelmed with content every day. There are so many ideas, so much you can do, but getting these real-life tips is what really makes our product more approachable and authentic. It's not always about creating the one strategy that’s going to blow up because that doesn’t exist. It’s always going to be different. It’s also about being aware of your surroundings, what you can do, and just going out, going back to record shops, looking through music you love, getting inspired by that. Try and replicate some of the things you hear—without copying it, obviously—but just get those creative juices flowing, in an analog way. That's where working with experts has been so important because they've been in the industry for ages and seen all the changes. In this social media and streaming era, the push to stardom isn't as fast as it used to be. It's about finding your niche, your voice, and your fan base—how they're going to respond to your work. You don’t need to appeal to everyone. That’s not going to work. You really have to find your way, and we're here to support them in finding that path.

Michael: Awesome. Well, I'm looking forward to checking out the release when it comes out. One question I have for you—I find everything you're saying really interesting, especially regarding the process you've gone through as a company to come up with your MVP and create this "skunk works" kind of group to develop the feature. It reminds me of something I still struggle with sometimes: finding the balance between, obviously, what we're here for as businesses and as humans—to contribute, serve, and help other people. In our case, it's to serve musicians with their specific needs, desires, and issues. It's so important to focus on those. On the flip side, there are new technologies emerging, especially nowadays. It's hard to even imagine what’s going to open up 5, 10, or 20 years from now with emerging technologies. I also think about Henry Ford—he said, "If I asked people what they wanted, they’d ask for faster horses instead of cars." I think there’s truth to that as well when it comes to having a vision and foreseeing things before they happen. I’m curious about your perspective on finding that balance between building features that are based on current needs and what’s in the market now, versus thinking ahead, especially considering where things are headed. Right now, generative AI is a big thing, and all sorts of things are evolving. What are your thoughts on this?

Maïa: Yeah, I mean, in general, it’s always about being successful in a certain way. For an artist, it might be building a big fan base and having that as a primary goal. For a company, it might be generating a certain amount of revenue or having a specific MRR to show. But what’s really interesting is the process. Yes, we're all bound by goals, and I think we live in a very goal-driven society where everyone wants to achieve more and more. Once I achieve one goal, it’s like, "What’s next?" People get bored easily or feel that it's necessary to go to the next step. Some of the best stories don’t come from that drive to always do things bigger, faster, or better. Some do, but what’s interesting is the people behind these stories and their lives—not getting destroyed by that crazy way of living. What we’re trying to do here is come back to basics and understand what’s really going to bring added value. Sometimes it’s about building something, measuring the outcome, and learning from it. Sometimes, it’s a fail. A lot of the features we launch are integral to an artist's career, but we’re also learning in the process. If something isn’t being adopted the way it should be, we rethink it. We dig deeper, do some user research, and ask, “Why isn’t this working?” I think this should always be the approach—getting down to the core and making sure we build something stable before rushing to achieve an objective too quickly without the right foundation.

Michael: Awesome. Yeah, I love this topic. It’s philosophical, but it’s also fundamental to how we live our lives. That question of whether the ends justify the means, or the journey versus the result—it’s a balance I still struggle to find sometimes. When you have goals, you want to reach certain points, and there’s fulfillment in that. But you also have to appreciate the moment at the same time. So, going in that direction, looking forward, when we’re talking about disruptive technologies or the future of music—right now, at the time of recording this, there have been some big breakthroughs with AI. There are certain use cases where I think everyone’s on board, like using AI to generate an EPK or for other tasks. But the parts that artists don’t like are the ones where AI is used to generate music, to generate a song. Naturally, there's a lot of fear and concern about these tools replacing the parts of music-making that we love. I’m curious to hear your perspective on what’s happening with generative AI and the role of AI in music. How do you think artists can best position themselves to thrive in an environment where it’s possible for anyone—even someone who's never played an instrument—to type in a few words and create a really good-sounding song?

Maïa: Yeah, I mean, it's a big question, right? The way we've looked at it at MusicHub is more from a conversational AI perspective right now, because we're building this hybrid product that acts as an artist manager. So, actually, in that sense, I kind of want to go back to one point I mentioned before. We looked at different competitors in that realm who use AI as a central piece of their platform to provide information, to push written content to artists, helping them, for example, write a caption for their social media posts. But once again, the link here is missing, and it’s usually too generic. What these companies are trying to do and what we have also identified as being important is creating a new hybrid solution.

So, when you look at other industries, like taxes for example, in Germany, we have something called Elsta, which is a form that you fill out when you do your taxes at the end of the year or the middle of the year. It’s super complicated, and you’re like, "Oh my God, how on earth am I going to do this? I have no one helping me out." The second option is to get a tax advisor, which is expensive, and actually, no one is free right now. So, I really need to find something in between, right? And there are a couple of companies in Germany that offer just that hybrid solution, where you're guided through an app. It’s a couple of easy steps, and you sit on your couch and your taxes are done in two seconds.

It’s a little bit like the example of Duolingo as well. When you learn a new language, you’re provided with the right tools to start learning. In that sense, AI is providing that and helping us push the right information at the right time, which is great. But again, there’s always that disconnect. Yes, it’s a good start. It’s a good foundation, but it’s never going to be, at least right now, as individual, as interesting, or as personal as what you do as an artist. And again, coming back to the question from before, it’s about staying true to yourself and being authentic. That’s the number one thing that you have to focus on as an artist.

Obviously, there are a lot of platforms that automatically emulate what other artists have done for you, but you can utilize that. Instead of being afraid of someone copying your ideas, use these tools to help you analyze songs that you like. There are a ton of platforms now where you can just upload a track or put in a link to a track you love, and then the platform will analyze the different genres, beats, or little instruments—things that maybe you haven’t even thought about. Dissecting tracks, with the help of AI, will help you create your own thing, which is going to be even better and more appealing to your audience.

I think there’s still a lot of work to be done on educating artists and musicians on how to best use AI. That’s the optimistic perspective I try to carry through, because otherwise, it gets depressing really fast. And, yeah, I would say really focus on your individuality and use all the tools at your disposal to make the best of it.

Michael: Got it. So, what I’m hearing you say is that AI, when used properly, can be an extension of your authenticity and who you are. It can help you as a tool. And right now, at the time of recording this—knock on wood, hopefully this stays the same in the future—it really is the hybrid of human plus AI that allows you to create something magnificent. So, your recommendation is: don’t be afraid of these tools and start using them, but also don’t lose sight of who you are. Make sure you’re using these tools in a way where the source is from your authenticity, from your creativity, but you’re able to use them to save time and express yourself faster and better.

Maïa: Absolutely.

Michael: Awesome. So that’s the optimistic side. What’s the pessimistic side? What’s the worst-case scenario you can imagine with AI? Slightly kidding... That’s a question I don’t think I’ve ever asked on this podcast, though it probably is a question that merits asking to avoid things potentially going bad. So, what’s the worst-case scenario that you would imagine with AI for musicians, and how can we avoid that?

Maïa: I mean, from what I see now, especially with conversational AI, it’s not being used in the right way. It’s very superficial. It doesn’t really understand you. So, building that kind of product that wants to help musicians at the right time in their user journey is pretty fatal. It’s essentially like building a chatbot that won’t even really remember the information you’ve populated it with a couple of weeks prior. We did some tests, and it was like, "Do you remember who I am and what I do?" And the response was, "Yes, I know that you’re using platform XYZ as your distribution platform," and that wasn’t true.

In that sense, an artist can really lose trust quickly in platforms that don’t understand them, that won’t support them, and that stay very superficial. I mean, that’s not a worst-case scenario—it’s just a bad platform.

Worst case would be... yeah, extinction. An extinction of us all. And the world. Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, we can’t think that way. I would highly recommend not dwelling on this too much. Obviously, it’s good to be aware of the risks, but just use AI in a healthy way and try not to get paralyzed or swallowed up by that thought of AI taking over and making us completely obsolete. It doesn’t really make sense.

Michael: Yeah, it’s a non-zero chance that it could be an extinction-level event for humanity. So, it seems like it’s something we want to be aware of, but not put our heads in the sand about. I agree with you, though. I’m optimistic, and I think the likely outcome is that it helps create a world of abundance. It’s through the hybrid of human intelligence with digital intelligence that we’ll be able to augment our creativity and become capable of doing things we can’t even imagine right now. But there is a chance that if not rolled out correctly, it could be the end of the world as we know it. I’m glad there are people smarter than I am thinking a lot about this, trying to build these tools in safe ways. But also, what a time to be alive.

Yeah, both in terms of humanity and for musicians, it does seem like there’s a really important role for musicians in this world. We bring people together, we create communities, and we help heal. I agree with you that this technology, when used as a tool, can be a really powerful way to express that creativity in a way that’s authentic—and not necessarily something to be afraid of.

Maïa: Absolutely.

Michael: Okay. Well, Maïa, it was fun waxing poetic with you a little bit here at the end. But thank you for being a part of the podcast today and sharing a little bit about your process and what you've built with MusicHub. For anyone listening right now who's interested in learning more about the tool or signing up, can you give them a quick overview of how they can connect and sign up?

Maïa: Yeah, of course. So, anyone can check out our website at musichub.com. We don't restrict the platform to any specific music genre, so it's very open to everyone. Every musician is welcome—GEMA members and non-GEMA members. You don’t need to be part of the German collection society to sign up for MusicHub.

It’s very easy to check out the platform for free before subscribing to anything. On our homepage, we also have a section at the bottom of the page where, once you're logged in, you always have the possibility to type in what kind of feature you'd like us to develop next.

And yeah, I think it’s just very easy to play around with. We've also talked about our new platform and tool that we’re developing, which is called Genie—MusicHub Genie right now. I believe a link will be shared in the show notes. So, for every electronic musician out there who’s interested in being part of the journey and helping us shape the app, please feel free to register and be part of the journey.

Michael: Awesome. Well, like always, we'll put all the links in the show notes for easy access. Maïa, thanks again for being on the podcast today. Maïa is also the name of my daughter, like I mentioned before we started the show. So, thank you for giving the name Maïa a good reputation.

Maïa: Yay! Rooting for all the Maïas out there.

Michael: This one’s for the Maïas!