Rebekka Bakken:
Curve out your revenue streams. Those aren't going to just appear by itself. You need to, all right. These are the revenue streams that I have that I'm going to build over time in my business and then scale them, right?

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music, but I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's slowly getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month, without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution at today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

Michael Walker:
All right. I'm excited to be here today with Rebecca Bakken. Rebecca is a digital marketing nomad who started in the tech startup industry as a consultant, helping over 250 startups with their software. And since then she's transitioned to helping musicians and artists to promote their music and build a stable business. So today I'm super excited to talk about some things that I personally like to geek out about a lot with technology in the future, with building a CRM, and automated chatbots, and viral campaigns, and NFTs and things that is rare that I get to talk with someone about. So Rebecca, thank you so much for being here and taking the time to share some of the lessons that you've learned.

Rebekka Bakken:
No, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So to start out with, for everyone that's here right now, who may be this is their first time meeting you just share a little bit of background about how you got started and that transition process of becoming really a guide and a coach for musicians transitioning to the software industry.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. Well, most of my grown up life I was basically in the tech startup world, both as an entrepreneur starting my own businesses but also after a few businesses being started, started working as a consultant and then helping other startups with their starting basically. And ever since then, I've been coaching a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of startups. I started getting involved with event production, and I started having events at arenas where tech kind of merged into music. So that's where I start dipping my toes a little bit in the industry where I start creating events at South by Southwest where really tech and music comes together. And also other conferences here in Europe as well like where really tech and music comes together.

Rebekka Bakken:
So that was really my first introduction the interest was there, so I started working more consultant within music tech, started helping music tech companies with their marketing launches. And my expertise is really marketing and I love the internet. I'm a huge internet geek. I've been ever since the internet came basically, I mean, to Norway basically, which is where I'm from.

Rebekka Bakken:
So I came to the point where working as a consultant for a while, I was quite successful and I was quite good at my skill set. And I kind of taking the realms to, what do I really want to do? What do I really want to use my skillset? And also deploy, like if I could choose anywhere. And it came to the music industry, and it came to what I looked at as a very exciting industry, but also very broken where I see huge potential with tech. And also the fact that with marketing, marketing itself is what does marketing do? It drives change right. And what does really music do? It's the same. So for me, it's like applying superpowers on superpowers. Yeah, that's a few years ago I made that decision and then stopped all my consultants in my tech and I start focusing solely on the music industry and I've loved it ever since.

Michael Walker:
That's so awesome. Yeah, I feel like that's such a beautiful leverage point where tech meets music and so needed, like you said, for the music industry, which is maybe lagging behind in a lot of respects compared to the software industry and the tech industry right now. Yeah, I know that since making this transition you've been working with a lot of musicians personally, and you've probably started to see a lot of the similar challenges, similar mistakes, patterns, things that keep coming up. So I'm wondering what are some of the biggest challenges or mistakes that you see artists struggling with when they first come to you, when it comes to growing their fan base?

Rebekka Bakken:
Well, usually when they come to me they have their track ready, or at least they know they need to launch it to the world. Someone needs to listen to it, right. So that's where my job starts, is when it's going to be introduced to people and specifically online. And my expertise is really to help grow a fan base online as well, and utilize the different tools and social medias to do that. Because I work with anything from the musicians starting off 16 year old, just starting off to really successful musicians that are touring already that are making a great living out of this. You know they're all struggling with that promotion part, man. They hate it, everyone. It's like I hate promoting myself. It's just that struggle. It doesn't matter if they're small or big that's their bigger problem.

Michael Walker:
It's so powerful. You just shared it. I think that it's something that musicians especially struggle with, but I think it's something that all of us struggle with to a certain extent is like, how do we promote ourselves in a way that's not shallow or that's like disingenuous or inauthentic. We don't want to come across as salesy or like we're trying to convince. We just want to be authentic, but it's so important to figure out how do we promote, how do we really shine the best light and how do we reach new people?

Michael Walker:
So that being said, what are some of the biggest opportunities that you see artists right now when it comes to that specific challenge? Obviously this is, it's really like the core driver that's always been the question. Like in the past it was like record labels that was the way. It's like you have a record label. It does all the distribution for you. But nowadays where everything's on the internet and artists have the capabilities to really reach out directly to their fans. What are some of the things that you see getting the best results right now?

Rebekka Bakken:
Well, it depends on where you are on the funnel with the marketing, whether you want to just grow it and build awareness or if you want to cultivate a community around you. So there's two different areas to that. If you really want to get a lot of awareness to your music, to your brand, as you as an artist right now, the place to be is TikTok. That is where you get the most organic reach. That is where you get the most engagement and you get a lot back for the return that you spend on your content.

Rebekka Bakken:
However, it's not necessarily the place to be to hang out with your fans and really get that deeper connection. So you might then want to move over to some streaming platforms, or a Discord or somewhere where you can connect with them on a deeper level where you can gather all of your fans and talk to them directly, basically. I'm really into Discord these days, there's huge opportunity there to kind of... Because I was actually reading Tim Ferris this last weekend and he was talking out the zero to 1,000 and all you need is a 1,000, right. So if you start cultivating that one after one.

Michael Walker:
For sure. Yeah. I think Discord's a really exciting opportunity right now just in terms of traditionally they're really focused on gamers and this specific niche, but it seems like right now a lot of their branding they're really trying to rebrand to become more of like a community platform. And I think that they'd be really excited about partnering up with musicians and it's just a great place to, like you said, to take the next step and towards building relationships with those people.

Michael Walker:
So let's break down both of those. Let's start with, it sounds like what you're saying is that really there's a few different stages that come with building an audience. One and the first really important step is just awareness in general. Like how do you actually find new people? How do you get yourself in front of them? How do you get the exposure? And then the next step is really about connecting with those people and building a deeper relationship and once they start. So the three questions that come to mind and we can take these one by one, but one is just like, how do you recommend with stage one really the best way to leverage, it sounds like TikTok's a great opportunity, so leveraging TikTok for musicians. And then from there it would be great to talk about that transition. Like how do they take people from TikTok to actually joining a Discord community and building a relationship there? So let's start with the TikTok part. So what are some of the best strategies that you've seen working for musicians on TikTok right now?

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. There's two ways of working with TikTok as a musician, right? There's one building a fan base and actually creating content and it's two actually growing a track. You don't really need to be present on TikTok to do that because you can grow a track like what record labels are doing through influencers. If you want awareness, then I would really recommend actually building a brand there where you actually then start creating content.

Rebekka Bakken:
I think the last statistics that I saw I think about, they have a little under the same, I think Instagram has about 1 billion monthly active users while TikTok is slowly getting their men. They're right below, but only 55% of the users on TikTok actually are creating content, which means that a lot of them are absorbing content. So it's an opportunity, it's for awareness here. So if you create content, you'll be one of the fewer content creators because there's more on Instagram and other platforms.

Rebekka Bakken:
TikTok is, especially if you go there for the first time, it really is another beast. You really have to really talk the TikTok language and you have to learn it and you can try put videos and try to create them for TikTok and repurpose them, but it just doesn't work that way. So you have to join TikTok and speak the language and join the community really. But if you do and find your format here, because on TikTok there's so many different communities there, but you just have to find them. And if you can get your content in front of them, you have a potential really easily getting your music in front of people.

Rebekka Bakken:
I mean, it's just funny because I was just breaking down Lil NasX, the content strategy for his Te Montero, Call Me By My Name and that's how you use TikTok. As an artist, that's textbook. He's so good at what he's doing. And it works. That song is 18 weeks on the charts right now. And if you go through his TikTok, you see it's just great what he does. I don't know if that answer TikTok. I could go hours about how to use it.

Michael Walker:
It's super interesting. There's a lot of stuff you just said there that I think would be worth point pointing out. When you talked about how the opportunity in part is because there's more real estate in TikTok right now because there's a lot of people actively using it, but not necessarily as many content creators, which really creates this opening and creates this space for awareness to happen, I think is really an interesting point. And one follow up question just based on what you just shared is Lil Nas, it sounds like you're fresh off of doing like a breakdown-

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
... of his strategies. So I'd love to just hear some of your biggest takeaways. Is there a good framework to this? Or what are some of the takeaways that you would share based on how he's successfully using TikTok?

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. Well, it all comes back to the value of the track. So when you set up a marketing plan for your track you have to start with the track and the messaging that you're trying to give with the track. If you're very clear on the messaging, you translate that also into the music video, which was geniusly done here because he used the music video to give additional value you and brought a personal story into a much bigger debate that people can kind of tune in, that people had opinions about. Where he just kind of displayed his view on it, basically.

Rebekka Bakken:
And then the key to really being good at social media is to just translate that into social media and continue the discussion there, which he did on Twitter and TikTok. And of course then he opened up for other people to share their experience as living in the closet or whatever through these trends that was created to the track. So then the community, and his fans and the TikTok also started then sharing their part of the story. So it all became kind of a, it was really important what's happening with Lil NasX actually. So it's just really well done, but it starts with having a clear message, and really work through that and then trying, okay, how can we put that message out in social media format, whether that's just a tweet or if it's how can we continue this every day where you're continuing the conversation, but then indirectly promoting the track. And he also likes to do these fake news where he goes a little bit to the extreme, it's just great. The marketing strategies that he's using it works. He likes to push buttons.

Michael Walker:
Interesting. Okay, awesome. So it sounds like what you're saying is that really like at the root of it is being very intentional with the message and having clarity on the message behind the song so it all starts with that foundation and even deeper than that, probably like as an artist kind of having-

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
... your overall, like your core of who you are. So it sounds like really the core is starting with a message worth sharing essentially. And something specifically that in his case was sort of a controversial thing, or it sounds like a message that has deeper cultural meaning that a lot of people could engage with that there's a discussion happening on a bigger scale, which is really interesting. If you don't mind sharing, just for an example, what is the message that is kind of controversial that they're talking about?

Rebekka Bakken:
Well, it's the beginning of the music video you get the message. It's like we all live with secrets in which we choose probably to hide them and suppress them. And most people live their life just suppressing their darkest secrets while welcome to this world of Montero where you can just be and embrace who you are. And whether that is the underworld, which is playing, but he's totally seducing and taking control over the underworld and then becoming the ruler of the underworld. So it's a deep message. I think he had like 10 months to really set up a promotion plan for this track. And it shows to the details, like he created a twerk game for it. He created a Montero. Tons of small tools that he'd like drop to his fans continuously. He did these marketing stunts where "Oh, my label took my phone help me with that." He's genius when it comes to his marketing.

Michael Walker:
Interesting. Okay. So the overall theme was really about... And this is the part that plugged in with the community discussion was really around people being able to share secrets or they're sharing those dark things that they felt maybe scared to share that are a piece of who they are. Is that what you're describing? Like, that's kind of the-

Rebekka Bakken:
Let's say what this translated into TikTok is that they created a remix like another version of the track where you just, because I'm sure you've seen the pole, which is basically all the music, where he goes from heaven to hell. So they use this concept of pole dancing in the hell. So then any TikToker could then go come away to heaven, they're meeting God and display that conversation with God hiding that they're gay. But then when that sound comes where it's just like, call be your name, and then they're like the gayness the secret comes out no matter what and then it's straight to hell with you. It's just like, that's the TikTok. So many participated and shared their conversation with God and whether it's like, "Oh, I'd rather watch to hang out there. He's perking on satan" or if it's like. He created a conversation subject that a lot of people can share there, whether it's just a funny story or whether whatever he created an arena for a lot of people.

Michael Walker:
That's definitely interesting. So it sounds like probably for anyone who's listening watch this right now, the best thing would just be like, go check it out and see what we're describing. I personally haven't seen it.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. I actually broke, because I'm going to write a case study about this, where I broke down this is what he did be pre, before release. This is type of content. This is what is pre save looked like. This is what happened on release day. This is what happened after. This is how we grew it on every... Because, that's just how I love doing that. It's like dissecting it, re-engineering it.

Michael Walker:
Cool. That's awesome. So definitely throw a link for that in the show notes. And that sounds super, super helpful. Thank you for breaking that down and I'm sure that in the way that you do it, it's like you really adapt it for musicians who-

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
... want to learn how to leverage it for their own careers. And it's also just an interesting sort of like here's one, maybe this is like an internal objection or what it is, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on. One challenge that I personally have sometimes is with things like TikTok, for example, it's hard to know when something is just like a shiny object syndrome, or something is like a trend or it's something that doesn't really have, that's not like really fully aligned with where I want to spend my time versus when it really is something that's worth digging into.

Michael Walker:
So TikTok is one of those things that personally, I sort of struggle with. I'm like, "Eh." My relationship with TikTok when I'm using it, I downloaded it. I started using it. It became kind of unhealthy. It wasn't really adding a lot to my life personally, but also again, it's like a yin and yang, there's so much opportunity to be able to use platforms like that to be able to build an audience. So I'm curious like what your perspective on that and how you recommend aligning with these new opportunities by doing it in a way that's really connected with your higher purpose.

Rebekka Bakken:
Wow. That's a deep question and so many answers I can start. So when it comes to choosing your channels and choosing the right channels for you, you really need to always start with your audience and you need to have an understanding of who your audience are. And I don't mean, "It's between 20 to 60 years." I really mean who are your core audience, because if you understand your audience you also know where they spend their time online. So it really comes back to there. So if you know that your audience are spending their time on TikTok and you're not, that means that you're missing out because you want a piece of that time. So you really need to understand the behaviors of your audience and then choose your channels based on that, because you cannot be everywhere.

Rebekka Bakken:
The good thing with TikTok now though especially with the younger generation, it is where they discover new music these days. If you ask anyone kids to teenagers even, most likely they've first heard a song on TikTok. So it's becoming very important for the first step of the funnel of the awareness stage of the tracks. And I don't remember back when YouTube used to be like the place. It was like a hope back in the days when Justin Bieber was discovered, everyone was like could be me because it kind of happened. You heard it over and over. You really kind of get that feeling on TikTok now as a musician. But at the end of the day, really understand who your audience are and where they spend your time and then allocate that time accordingly.

Michael Walker:
Oh, what's up guys. So quick intermission from podcasts. I could tell you about an awesome free gift that I have for you. I wanted to share something that's not normally available to the public. They normally reserve for our $5,000 clients that we work professionally. This is a presentation called six steps to explode your fan base and make a profit with your music online. And specifically we're going to walk through how to build a paid traffic and automated funnel. It's going to allow you to grow your fan base online. And the system's designed to get you to your first $5,000 a month with your music.

Michael Walker:
We've invested over $130,000 in the past year to test out different traffic sources and different offers and really see what's working best right now for musicians. And so I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you. And so if that's something you're interested in, in the just description there should be a little link that you can click on to go get that.

Michael Walker:
And the other thing I wanted to mention is if you want to do us a huge favor, one thing that really makes a big difference early on when you're creating a new podcast is if people click subscribe, then it basically lets the algorithm know that this is something that's new and noteworthy and that people actually want to hear. And so that'll help us reach a lot more people. So if you're getting value from this and you get value from the free trainings, then if you want to do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you clicking the subscribe button. All right. Let's get back to the podcast.

Michael Walker:
That's really good advice. So it sounds like, what you're saying is that for everyone who's listening to this right now or watching this, TikTok is a really awesome opportunity, but let's say that someone is listening in their, I don't know, like a 50 year old musician and they're looking to build an audience of people who are probably in their 40s or 50s, they may be on TikTok and it might be where something exploring just for fun. But the most important thing is really figuring out where does your audience hang out and where do they spend their time online and lining with that. And that really comes into an account when you're choosing which channel you want to interact with.

Michael Walker:
That being said, TikTok is a really big opportunity for multiple reasons. One, because there's a lot more real estate there. It's an emerging platform so you have a bigger piece of the pie when it comes to just being a creative and creating content for it. And it's also the place where for a younger generation, they're really discovering new music. So, if you're looking to have fresh traffic of people discovering your music then is one of the best places to invest your time in order to build an audience organically.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. And the short vertical video format, it really is taking over. It's a challenge for those music videos, man, the traditional. The vertical it's taking over. TikTok is leading the way of using that format now. So that's why I invest a lot of my time there because the content that I create for TikTok and that works for TikTok could easily be repurposed over to Instagram Reels, and then YouTube Shorts and Pinterest stories. So the time that I spend on the content, because they are leading the way. They are usually ahead of the trends of the songs, so if you're spending time there you can easily then also push that over to your other channels.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. It's so interesting. I love talking about this stuff. One idea that, because we're talking about this realm right now, I think this would be an interesting idea to discuss would be, I really feel like... Have you heard of the platform Clubhouse?

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Clubhouse is pretty cool. And I know that they're sort of in that field right now, where they're like an emerging platform too that's very trendy, especially for business circles or entrepreneurs. And basically the premise is that there's these different clubs where a virtual stage, and it's completely audio, audio only and there's a stage with maybe three to five speakers. Discord just released their own stages platform, which is essentially like doing the same thing. It's like them-

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
... wanting to create their own version of it. And there's something about this modality of sharing I mean, connecting together that is, I think really compelling. I think it's the live nature of it, that there's these conversations, there's discussions that are happening in real time on these stages. And that there's also an ability to moderate and be able to pull someone onto the stage that's in the crowd. So you really have this opportunity to have these discussions, like these meaningful discussions. You're able to filter out so you can really make sure that it's aligned. So my thinking is that this is probably a matter of when not a matter of if that that there will be a platform that comes up where it's essentially Clubhouse or Discord stages, but it's like video communication. The same idea, but instead of audio is just done via video.

Rebekka Bakken:
Instagram is kind of doing it with what they're rolling out, what's it called? Where you can go five together with video on their live sessions and stuff.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So basically ideas not original. All ideas are unoriginal I think, at this point.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. It's just how you've launch it. It's just how you roll them out, man.

Michael Walker:
That's cool though. So that's basically like the same thing as Clubhouse, but it's done like with video. So you can kind of have like a live. Just imagining like a live event. There is something about the present moment and being completely live and having discussions that it's powerful. It's like the most connected way that we can-

Rebekka Bakken:
Live streaming is the most effective format online because it is live and it's direct. And I think Neil Patel said that he's projecting that live streaming is going to overtake content marketing in the future and is going to be the format.

Michael Walker:
100%. Yeah. I really think that there's this idea of the stages but bringing people on to the stages when it comes to live streaming, it models or it represents a live event experience the best. Because usually at live events you have a stage and usually there's a purpose, there's a higher purpose to a live event.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
There's a reason everyone's congregating coming together. Same thing with a show. It's like there's people coming together for this movement, for this cultural message. So I think that there really is something about that format of creating these stages that sounds like Instagram is already moving in that direction but-

Rebekka Bakken:
Twitter is launching their version as well. I mean, this is going to be a format like the short, vertical video format that everyone is going to launch now in their own ways. So it's going to be kind of a way to do content in addition to everything else.

Michael Walker:
Wow.

Rebekka Bakken:
On these platforms.

Michael Walker:
Cool. So I guess takeaway for everyone that's listening or watching this right now is time to get really comfortable with live streaming and live performance because that is probably realm that is going to become more.... And I think that there's things that are happening with venues right now where they're basically adapting to create better live streaming performance scenarios. So you can actually have intentional events and live performances that'd be really cool to align with. Maybe look for some local venues that you could connect with that are doing this, but just in general, I think that plugging in with the ability to go live. And like you were talking about at the beginning, it all starts with that foundation of actually having something like a message, having something worth sharing and having a discussion. Cool. I'm rambling now. It's just-

Rebekka Bakken:
No. One of my fellow musician friend, he's called Johnny Bean and he's created this huge community around Van Halen and people that are obsessed with Van Halen and he's a musician. So he just uses this arena where people... Because he knows that he has similar music, so he just created this arena where people can just nerd out about stuff they have in common. But he also is using that for his own music as well, obviously. So it's really finding that purpose, but also really finding a format where it's not only necessarily about you, but about subjects that you can connect with others about and form a community around.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. I think there's really something to that idea that you just shared. The analogy I use for sometimes that it's like Newton's Laws of physics with inertia where there's like this momentum or there's this energy that's happening. So with Van Halen, for example, it's like there's this inertia. There's momentum happening. There's people that are congregating around it. There's this energy. There's this cultural similarities between them. So plugging into that was going to be way easier to really connect with those people as opposed to like completely starting somewhere else and having to redirect or not even redirect, but just like initiate momentum where there's not already any momentum moving.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. And I even saw Lil NasX doing that in his content strategy where he frequently used like SpongeBob Square what's it called? SpongeBob Squarespa. I can't-

Michael Walker:
SpongeBob SquarePants, that's it.

Rebekka Bakken:
There you go.

Michael Walker:
Interview ends right now.

Rebekka Bakken:
Oh, no. My dialect sometimes just stops. It's just like, "Nope, you cannot say this word." I'm like-

Michael Walker:

Rebekka Bakken:
He also shared like some Minecraft where people were Minecrafting and then suddenly this pole and he appeared. And just by attaching you to other interests that you know that your fans are interested in, you're not really making about you you're just kind of connecting on different areas that you all having in in common.

Michael Walker:
That's smart. One image that just came to mind as you were sharing, that was almost like a brain with these neurons that interconnect with other streams. And so it sounds like really there's all these bunch of neurons that's built around Minecraft, for example, and so what he's doing is he's really building this string that connects from that branch of neurons to his own branch with his music.

Rebekka Bakken:
I love that, thinking that. I can totally picture that.

Michael Walker:
This is a lot of fun.

Rebekka Bakken:
We're totally geeking out together.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Awesome. So, let's zoom back a little bit and go back to that initial track that we were talking about. So we just talked a lot about awareness and about really plugging in, finding the neurons and finding a way to align with them and to really have a message worth sharing, building community around it. But let's talk now about that second step, we talked a little bit about Discord, about community building, about engagement. So what are some ways that, I mean, Lil Nas could be an example, but also just in general, how do people take that step from, okay, awesome. They got a great placement or they got an opportunity where the music's in front of a lot of people and there's some buzzing, there's some awareness, but how do they take that and turn it into an actual community and build a deeper relationship with those people?

Rebekka Bakken:
Well, you start with actual actually finding common interest areas. Like you don't have to be small, but big artists are doing this as well. Like go to Disclosures, Discord channel and you see his rooms one is NFTs. One is about blockchain. One is about new technologies. One is about music producers. So he's basically just creating an umbrella under the Disclosure. If you go to Disclosure show and you look at the audience and you see who are these people and what do they do and what do they like? And then he created a structure for them to engage with each other, for fan to fan interaction to happen, for something more than just Disclosure because yeah, they have disclosure in common, but they have so much more in common that is bigger than Disclosure as well.

Rebekka Bakken:
So, that's the formula. Start with something where you can contribute value, whether it's educational, whether it's that you're nerding about something or whether it's obsessed about Lil NasX, I don't know, just start with some and then grow it and you can then say like I'm just going to create so many Lil NasX memes and I'm just going to share it in my Discord group for everyone that's really interested in that [inaudible 00:33:41] but I'm just going to move those over.

Rebekka Bakken:
And then maybe you'll have a small community that's just obsessed about Lil NasX memes, and then you'll start, "Well, a lot of my fans a lot of the ones that are in my circle they're producers and they maybe need help with that. I'm going to create a room on Discord for that," and start engage. It's just gradually organically building it. But then when you have them there it's that direct communication. Really if you create that umbrella, you then will see these fans, people would interact with each other, they will go there and hang out and you don't need to be there because giving value by just having this umbrella.

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Interesting.

Rebekka Bakken:
That's not happening on the TikTok comment section.

Michael Walker:
Right. So it sounds like really the key is like, and when it comes to Discord especially, it's about creating nodes of passion or interest, and ideally things that you're really aligned with, that you're really interested that orbit around your music. That are really a part of your artist identity. The things that are aligned with your deeper purpose with the music. But you can really intentionally have these specific nodes that are good conversation starters or good ways to kind of plug in with some of these other communities, other things that are spurring the discussion. And so just by having a community and really having an umbrella, a lot of the value that you can provide is through giving people a medium where they can connect with other people like them who are also passionate about those things.

Rebekka Bakken:
Exactly. And then you have a community and your music is right in the center of that.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Awesome. I love it. Okay. So-

Rebekka Bakken:
Easy peasy, right? Saying this.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Easy peasy.

Rebekka Bakken:
Just go do it. But it takes a lot of work. Building a... It is a lot of hard work. It is every day and it's growing one by one almost, but if you're willing to do it you will get the return afterwards, but most musicians aren't willing to do that step. That's where the pro... They're willing to create that music, put their heart and soul into it, but when it comes to that last part after the song they just lose everything and they just...

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That is really kind of where the rubber meets the road. And also, I think that there's, maybe this is something we could speak to a little bit, just sort of that initial vulnerability or that initial like fragileness that comes from starting something new. And when you start out, we live in a society now that in part because of social media, that we look around and we see all these successful people, and we see like, oh, they have hundreds of thousands or millions of fans, all these things that they're doing. And so I think that sometimes when you're just starting out, it can feel embarrassing or feel like you're not enough, or you're comparing yourself to some of these artists who have established fan bases. So there is a certain willingness to be raw and to be early on, and not to be as ashamed of just starting out and not having a giant audience yet to really just focus on the people that are there right now and building them like you're saying one, one by one.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. Just focusing on the one by one. Creating that deeper connection one by one, basically. If you do that one by one every day it turns out eventually, but it's quality over quantity. Like I'm so sick of getting 10,000, 20,000 followers to that, they're not going to give you anything unless you can convert those into actual fans.

Michael Walker:
For sure. Yeah. I think the formula I think is sort of like number times depth of engagement. So it's not like the number doesn't matter at all it's great. Yeah, having 100,000, but if none of those people cares at all or they're completely unengaged then it means nothing. But if you multiply those together, then you really have something worth measuring. One question that comes up, I think this is a good segue way. So let's say that someone has really done some of that initial work and they actually have a movement. Like the music is part of something bigger and they actually do start to build this community and they have people having conversations around it and there's just this buzz happening. How did they actually make it into a business that's sustainable? How do they actually turn this engagement into an income for them that supports the music that allows them to continue doing it?

Rebekka Bakken:
Well, you need to create revenue streams. I think we all know that streaming revenue, you're not going to make a living of a streaming revenue. And in any sustainable business you need seven or eight at revenue streams. So you need to start creating those different revenue streams. And that comes with maybe creating products that you can sell, easiest is merch, obviously.

Rebekka Bakken:
But start thinking of digital products that you can sell as well. It could be soundbags, it could be vocal packs. It could be different things that you create and then sell to your community. It could be NFTs. It could be different partnerships that you set up with brand partnerships and get revenue from there. Like you need to actively curve out your revenue streams. Those aren't going to just appear by itself. Like you need to, all right, these are the revenue streams that I have that I'm going to build over time in my business and scale them.

Rebekka Bakken:
So it starts with really creating products around your music and not just the music itself it's music, you have live shows, if you do gigging. Think of other products that you can do, whether it's a membership. The guy that Johnny Bena was talking about, he has so many members that are paying him a monthly fee just to be part of his community and he's making a living off of that. So it's just, when you have that community of people around you that are connecting with you and that you have that movement, the difficult work is over. You really then need to start testing some products.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah. So it sounds like what you're saying is that first and foremost, really it's about building the community. And if you don't have the engagement, if you don't have the community the attempts to sell something are going to be more challenging. Like a big part of the work is just coming around building an engaged audience and actually delivering value and building the movement around it. But then really it's about when it comes to monetizing, it's about finding out what do people want? What are they willing to pay for? And creating products to serve those needs. I think the membership idea is really awesome in terms... There's a lot of platforms like Patreon that you can look at for references or examples of successful musicians, making hundreds, thousands of dollars like very good income with their Patreons.

Michael Walker:
One thing that we've found especially recently that is really exciting for me to watch, is a lot of the artists in our community are starting to offer higher ticket offers to their fans for things like fan experiences for like private shows or even like private coaching or consulting or things like working directly with their fans, like writing a song together with them. And they're able to make some of these offers at the high end of the market for over a $1,000 per offer. And it is like a pretty cool opportunity, I think, to deliver a lot of value to your fans and something that I think that most people who are really big fans of artists, just the idea of being able to connect with them personally and have some form of coaching work or working directly with them is super valuable. So it might be something worth considering especially early on when you don't really have a major audience yet and you need to start generating some revenue before really you're able to start scaling up.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. I mean to really just start tests. Product is you learn by just start testing an idea and concept and start growing from there. So product development starts with just an idea, but you might end up with a CRM or something. But it's all part of that being willing to test stuff, and being willing to do that and being comfortable with pricing yourself and putting a price on something.

Rebekka Bakken:
And this is really interesting what you're saying about the high ticket price because I was working with a DJ two years ago before COVID and we were actually why don't we, because everyone is just creating these basic DJ packages and sell them the stage and blah, blah blah. But we were thinking about, but then COVID hit, to some really high ticket sales, like some really where we have an orchestra and live but price them really high and no, they're not for everyone, but if we sell two or three in a year, that's enough because it's such a... So you start then creating some alternative packages that are also high ticket priced which have people haven't really thought about as much before.

Michael Walker:
Yep. Absolutely. And I love what you just said about being willing to test and experiment, being such a big part of it. What comes to mind with that is I think the willingness, and I'm sure that you know this better than most working with so many startups, but just the willingness to talk with your fans directly and to ask them questions. To schedule meetings like over Zoom to just walk through like, "Hey, here's some of the different things I'm thinking about offering like here's from different products, which of these are most exciting to you?" Yeah. I think that, that's a really crucial step that probably needs to come before you even create the price. It's kind of in that initial testing, that testing phase that you're talking about is like really talk to your people one-on-one at the beginning and see what are they most excited about? What are they actually willing to buy? What would be most valuable for them?

Rebekka Bakken:
When you start businesses, the lean way is that you start with what the minimum that you can do, and then you start testing that and then you start growing because you're basically creating something that your audience are willing to buy and you're forming it based on that because you're then always testing and then changing it based on that. But of course, it's a scary process as well to start testing these products out and for anyone it is.

Michael Walker:
For sure.

Rebekka Bakken:
But it's worth it. Because if you really want to make a living you have to have some revenue streams because streaming is not going to pay your bills.

Michael Walker:
Right. For sure. And one thing I love about what you just brought up and again, this is one of the reasons I think that the tie in from the software development world to the music industry is so valuable because I think that this is really smart the way that a lot of startups are thinking nowadays about the minimum viable product and starting with the least amount, that they're getting something out so you can iterate on it. So you can see like, is this based on a premise that's valuable at all or is it completely off base? Because it's so easy to spend a ton of time and energy on something that just doesn't really have wings or doesn't have legs as opposed to starting out rough and raw with something that's not perfect, but it has the basic premise down so you can iterate based on that.

Michael Walker:
It's also one of the reasons I think that there's something really to this idea of offering some of the higher ticket. Things that are involved around some form of coaching or Zoom meetings type of work, I think is really valuable because it blends itself well to that initial stage of testing and adapting. It doesn't take a lot of energy or effort to get on a Zoom call with someone and ask and even make an offer, to literally make an offer and say like-

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
"Would you be interested in buying this for this?" You'd get such fast feedback they can adapt off of. Compared to even with merchandise you have to take the time to create the designs and then if you're smart, you're probably doing pre-orders as opposed to just actually getting them all printed out. We made the mistake early on with Paradise Fears. One of our first t-shirts I'm pretty sure no one bought it. It was just sitting in our basement for years-

Rebekka Bakken:
like storage.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. But there is something I love the idea of the minimum viable product and starting out with the smallest version of what you can offer to see if it connects and then adapting based on that.

Rebekka Bakken:
Dropbox is the best example of that. They've created an animation video of what they were thinking about doing before they hadn't finished creating it, but that animation video they then dropped it in some forums to test and they got 75,000 or something people that signed up for it before they had a product. Now, that's a good way of launching something.

Michael Walker:
Wow. That's super smart. And I love that approach too, when it comes to musicians, deciding maybe new songs that they want to record professionally, or deciding a new artwork really incorporating their fans in their community to get their feedback and do it co-creatively with them rather than doing it in a silo and then finally putting out and realizing, wow. Especially if you have a bigger audience too, it's almost like a necessity or else you might completely just be totally off track, but that co-creation seems like a great way to really plug in with your community.

Michael Walker:
Well, hey Rebecca, it has been a blast talking with you. I always appreciate being able to talk with people like you, who really, I think we're we're in this together. Like we're very aligned in terms of our purpose of being able to help from the music industry to create a real change in a industry, like you've mentioned at the beginning, that's been broken in some pretty major ways to really be able to empower individual musicians and creators to be able to do the thing that really brings them to life. So thank you for being a part of the movement and making that transition and-

Rebekka Bakken:
Thank you so much for having me.

Michael Walker:
Of course. Yeah. And so for anyone here who would like to connect more or see more about some different tools or resources that you offer, what would be the best place for them to go to learn more from you?

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah, just search, go to YouTube, it's Rebecca Smart Bakken. Or Instagram, Rebecca_ Bakken. Or TikTok, Rebecca_ Bakken. I'm everywhere. Send me a DM if you have a question or anything or if you need some help.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Great. And one thing we'll do, and like always, we'll put all the links and everything in the show notes as well so that you can just look there and collect those for easy access.

Rebekka Bakken:
Yeah. I'll share the Lil NasX case study. I took three days of my life where I was in his hole, but I think it's going to be a good one. So I'll share it with you.

Michael Walker:
That's great. Yeah. That sounds super valuable. Thank you for putting that together. All right, Rebecca well, you're awesome. Appreciate you taking the time and I hope you have a great rest of your week. Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today. And if you want to support the podcast then there's two ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media tag us, that really helps us out. And third best of all, you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take the music career to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now. And I'll look forward to seeing you on our next episode.