Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #301: Cut Out The Middleman: How Artists Can Get Paid Directly for Their Music by Selling Straight to Fans

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EYL #301: Cut Out The Middleman: How Artists Can Get Paid Directly for Their Music by Selling Straight to Fans · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 7: See you there, all right, guys, welcome back. We are
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  Speaker 7: backold and got a special episode. Mag Rodriguez dope entrepreneur,
• 2:05
  Speaker 7: innovator and he has a company called Even and it's
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  Speaker 7: revolutionized in the music space where it's connecting artists to
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  Speaker 7: their fans in a in a revolutionary way. As far
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  Speaker 7: as direct sales, when we talk about streaming, we're talking
• 2:19
  Speaker 7: about you know, pennies on the dollar with your platform,
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  Speaker 7: I understand you know it's about dollars, right and as
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  Speaker 7: far as you know, data collection actually giving it to
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  Speaker 7: the artists as well, sharing with artists as far as
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  Speaker 7: you know, emails and numbers and different things in that NHA.
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  Speaker 7: These are conversations that we've had with Ryan Leslie and
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  Speaker 7: the Russell even the pay what you want model, knowing
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  Speaker 7: that that's something that L Russell is champion. That's a
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  Speaker 7: feature on your platform as well, right, so all of
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  Speaker 7: the L Russell has his own platform as well, I believe,
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  Speaker 7: but your create you've created an ecosystem where it's not
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  Speaker 7: just for one particular artist's for anybody, right like a Spotify,
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  Speaker 7: but for the artists to actually benefit, but also for
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  Speaker 7: the user to benefit as well, because there's other benefits
• 3:03
  Speaker 7: that have the use it gets as well. So as
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  Speaker 7: far as the business, Marne, I think you actually are.
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  Speaker 4: On him on the platform. When I walked in, I said,
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  Speaker 4: you know, I'm.
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: On the platform, right, He's like, yeah, I know you,
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  Speaker 5: which is pretty pretty dope that you actually know your customer.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: So yeah, first and full thank you for coming. Appreciate it.
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  Speaker 9: No, thank you guys for having me a huge fan
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  Speaker 9: of the show, and I you know, honored honestly to
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  Speaker 9: just tell you guys more about what we're doing. And
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  Speaker 9: some of the artists that we're working with.
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  Speaker 7: For sure, Well why don't you start, why don't you
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  Speaker 7: talk about your experience and on thee.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, it's very interesting that we brought up the
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  Speaker 5: Russell and obviously it is alumni of the show, but
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  Speaker 5: we just loved everything it was about when it comes
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: to independence.
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  Speaker 4: We talked about nipping his influence. And when he told
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  Speaker 4: me that he wanted us to purchase the next album,
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, cool, well send me the lick.
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  Speaker 5: And when he said it to me, I'm like, all right,
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  Speaker 5: I'm not even sure what to do with this. I've
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  Speaker 5: never heard of this, and it was even and so
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: I signed up for it. And then you have to
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  Speaker 5: go through a process and then it was like this.
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  Speaker 5: The birthday picture popped up and I was like, there's
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  Speaker 5: the album. I was like, all right, this is cool.
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  Speaker 4: And I was like, I'm trying to figure out why
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  Speaker 4: did he go this route.
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  Speaker 5: I obviously knew the the prout to pay or pay
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  Speaker 5: what you want. Then I realized that he was releasing
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: it exclusively two weeks before, and then I realized, oh wait,
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: so this is what the fans get. And then you're
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  Speaker 5: getting emails about special releases, and then there's special videos
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  Speaker 5: that he said, and I'm like, oh, I get this process.
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  Speaker 5: And so now every time he drops the album, I
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: get updated prior to it going to streaming platforms, and
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  Speaker 5: so it becomes I would equate it to like an
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  Speaker 5: the Stinking World, like copping the Jordan's two weeks before
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  Speaker 5: they came out. This is like copying the music and
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  Speaker 5: having access to it two weeks before it came out
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  Speaker 5: before it goes to.
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  Speaker 4: Payings on a dollar.
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  Speaker 5: Artists get it dollars for the dollar, but fans always
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  Speaker 5: get an exclusive to the artists that they want to patroin.
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  Speaker 4: So I mean the experience has been great.
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  Speaker 5: I know there was like another component in the world
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  Speaker 5: of crypto that we'll get into, which I thought was like,
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  Speaker 5: all right, this is this is different, this is revolutionary.
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  Speaker 4: So yeah, I'll pass some patiental on the platform for sure.
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  Speaker 9: No, I appreciate it. I remember seeing it come through
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  Speaker 9: and La Russell actually sent me a text and he
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  Speaker 9: was just like, Yo, check out, bro, just drop some money,
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  Speaker 9: and I was like, oh man, this is dope. This
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  Speaker 9: is dope to see. And you know, I think I
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  Speaker 9: think that's the beautiful part, right, Like if you didn't
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  Speaker 9: already have a relationship with l Russell, he can see,
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  Speaker 9: oh wow, this person's actually a fan of me, and
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  Speaker 9: I can reach out to him. And we've seen this
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  Speaker 9: happen now where like athletes, other celebrities are buying albums
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  Speaker 9: from an artist on the platform and they don't even
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  Speaker 9: have like a relationship, and for them to actually be
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  Speaker 9: able to reach out and be like, yo, thank you
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  Speaker 9: for buying my album because they have their phone number,
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  Speaker 9: they have their email creates. I mean, it's created brand
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  Speaker 9: partnerships for artists. It's created you know, bookings for artists
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  Speaker 9: beyond just like the personal relationship that they cannot build
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  Speaker 9: with these people. And it doesn't always have to be celebrity.
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  Speaker 9: They could also speak everyday people, right Yea, but yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I kind of want I mean, the conversation we had,
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  Speaker 5: it was just still the crowd to pay or pay
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  Speaker 5: what you want, and so I wanted to set the
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  Speaker 5: bar right because I know some people wanted to experience
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  Speaker 5: the music for free, but I wanted to show the
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  Speaker 5: appreciation for the craft and the brilliance that it took
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  Speaker 5: in the independence that it took to actually put out
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  Speaker 5: the project.
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  Speaker 4: So anytime he puts one out. I know, he just
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  Speaker 4: dropped the.
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  Speaker 5: Joy with hit Boy, which is crazy, ridiculous, and then
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  Speaker 5: he actually released another exclusive just for the people. So yeah, man,
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  Speaker 5: it was support comes in many different ways, So I
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  Speaker 5: just wanted to make sure I led by example.
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  Speaker 9: It wasn't just an episode.
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  Speaker 4: No no, no, no.
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  Speaker 9: That's amazing, And I think that that's part of the
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  Speaker 9: ethos right with Even, We're not just targeting the everyday fan, right,
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  Speaker 9: We're targeting anyone who whether you want to just support
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  Speaker 9: the artists, you want to support the mission, right. I
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  Speaker 9: think the Russell, I think a lot of his releases
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  Speaker 9: are always around like I want to do. You know,
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  Speaker 9: he buys out the cafe, my almost cafe once a year,
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  Speaker 9: and you know that when you're buying an album, you're
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  Speaker 9: supporting a bigger cause. But it's not always at it
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  Speaker 9: sometimes is just an artist like for example, we did
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  Speaker 9: our release with Kyle recently, who has like a pretty
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  Speaker 9: massive super you know fan base, and his fans just
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  Speaker 9: wanted to listen to the music today, Right, So there's
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  Speaker 9: we found the data show and that we have different
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  Speaker 9: motives of why people are coming to Even. Sometimes it's
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  Speaker 9: you know, just supporting a friend. Sometimes it's I love
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  Speaker 9: this artist and I want it now.
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  Speaker 4: Yep.
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  Speaker 7: So all right, so how did this start? Like, what's
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  Speaker 7: the bad story of how you actually got started?
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  Speaker 4: The daughter.
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  Speaker 9: I've been working in music for twelve years, so I
• 7:31
  Speaker 9: came up as an engineer, producer turned manager. Two of
• 7:35
  Speaker 9: my classmates in high school were incredible artists. One of
• 7:38
  Speaker 9: them went on to sign to Yogati during our junior
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  Speaker 9: year of high school, which was really like my first
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  Speaker 9: exposure to the music industry at that level beyond just
• 7:48
  Speaker 9: like us making music in a basement. And then my
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  Speaker 9: senior year of high school, I started managing another one
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  Speaker 9: of my classmates, his name was Ishtar, and then that
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  Speaker 9: took me on the road for six years. I graduated
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  Speaker 9: in May of twenty well from high school, and then
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  Speaker 9: we were on the road till twenty eighteen. Didn't go
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  Speaker 9: to college. It was just kind of on the run
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  Speaker 9: managing this artist, built a roster of producer songwriters, and
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  Speaker 9: really got a chance to experience streaming from its earliest days.
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  Speaker 9: Right I was Spotify was reaching out to us and saying, hey,
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  Speaker 9: get on the platform, this is how it works, and
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  Speaker 9: we're just like, no, we just want to release on SoundCloud.
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  Speaker 9: And you know, I just did a panel with Ghazi
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  Speaker 9: last week from Empire and I was that was actually
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  Speaker 9: Nima and Ghazi puwled us aside. This was like twenty thirteen,
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  Speaker 9: and they're like, you guys should upload to streaming. You
• 8:37
  Speaker 9: guys can make some money. And sure enough, we did
• 8:40
  Speaker 9: make money, right, but the numbers didn't make sense. But
• 8:44
  Speaker 9: that was like a completely separate story. But yeah, I
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  Speaker 9: did that until twenty eighteen, and then I started working
• 8:49
  Speaker 9: in the venture space. So I moved back to my
• 8:50
  Speaker 9: hometown of Milwaukee and met these two guys, Joe and Troy,
• 8:54
  Speaker 9: who had a venture fund and they wanted to work
• 8:57
  Speaker 9: in music. They wanted to build a music program. So
• 9:00
  Speaker 9: I started building an accelerator for artists and managers, taking
• 9:02
  Speaker 9: the y combinator model but introducing it to artists and managers,
• 9:06
  Speaker 9: helping them really incubate and build a business around them.
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  Speaker 9: And that's really where the roadblock started when we started.
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  Speaker 9: You know, it was hard to educate artists and managers
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  Speaker 9: to run like a business when there was just roadblock
• 9:18
  Speaker 9: after roadblock when it comes to actually building a sustainable business.
• 9:23
  Speaker 9: And then that led me to run a music tech
• 9:25
  Speaker 9: program for Universal. So I helped Lee led this music
• 9:28
  Speaker 9: program for Universal called g Beta through the Venture Fund,
• 9:33
  Speaker 9: and that was really my first exposure to music tech.
• 9:35
  Speaker 9: So I got to interface with different startups that wanted
• 9:40
  Speaker 9: to revolutionize the music industry. But I found the common
• 9:43
  Speaker 9: threat in those conversations. These were people who had never
• 9:47
  Speaker 9: worked with artists and managers before, so they were trying
• 9:49
  Speaker 9: to build something that artists didn't want and in returned
• 9:52
  Speaker 9: something that fans didn't want. And then yeah, I just
• 9:56
  Speaker 9: got tired of it one day and I was just like, look, guys,
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  Speaker 9: I got this idea, and I pitched the Venture Fund
• 10:01
  Speaker 9: and they loved it and they wrote me a check
• 10:02
  Speaker 9: to start building. Even so this was February of twenty two.
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  Speaker 9: That's kind of how we got started.
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  Speaker 7: Cool and when you first saw us can get the check.
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  Speaker 7: But I mean even the idea, like the inner workings,
• 10:16
  Speaker 7: the mechanics of like actually getting the app off the ground,
• 10:19
  Speaker 7: and you know, how what do you have to do?
• 10:21
  Speaker 7: You have to contact record labels, you have to get
• 10:24
  Speaker 7: the artists because you're putting artists music on your platform, right, so,
• 10:27
  Speaker 7: like you created your own streaming platform pretty essentially.
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  Speaker 9: I mean in many ways. We're not a stream I mean,
• 10:33
  Speaker 9: we're really not a streaming platform. We are really an
• 10:36
  Speaker 9: infrastructure for artists to be their own streaming platform, whether
• 10:40
  Speaker 9: it's video, audio, content, chat features. It's really about making
• 10:45
  Speaker 9: the artists have the tools or really a lot on
• 10:47
  Speaker 9: the artists with the tools to become there on DSP
• 10:50
  Speaker 9: So what.
• 10:50
  Speaker 7: Is it talk? So what is that you have to
• 10:52
  Speaker 7: reach out every artist independently? You reach out to the managers,
• 10:54
  Speaker 7: like how do you market yourself to even get the
• 10:57
  Speaker 7: artists that sign up to your platform?
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: And how many artists you have on the platform now?
• 11:00
  Speaker 9: So right now we have ten thousand onboarded, we have
• 11:02
  Speaker 9: forty thousand on the wait lists, and then we have
• 11:04
  Speaker 9: a network of about five million artists across our distribution
• 11:07
  Speaker 9: and label partners. We just launched officially. Over the course
• 11:12
  Speaker 9: of the next six months, we'll have about a million
• 11:14
  Speaker 9: artists on the platform. Yeah. But the answer your question though,
• 11:20
  Speaker 9: the way that we started, I just started calling everyone
• 11:22
  Speaker 9: in the network just like yo, I have this idea.
• 11:24
  Speaker 9: I want to sell music again in this new format,
• 11:27
  Speaker 9: really preaching direct to consumer. I got a chance to
• 11:30
  Speaker 9: interface with consumer based companies, startups, and I got to see,
• 11:34
  Speaker 9: for example, one company go from one hundred K to
• 11:38
  Speaker 9: exiting for hundreds of millions of dollars in the consumer
• 11:41
  Speaker 9: space with only a couple hundred thousand consumers actually buying
• 11:44
  Speaker 9: the product. Any I was working with artists that had
• 11:46
  Speaker 9: millions of monthly listeners on Spotify that couldn't even pay
• 11:49
  Speaker 9: their rent, and really just focusing on that data and
• 11:53
  Speaker 9: going to people at labels management teams and saying, Yo,
• 11:57
  Speaker 9: why don't you try selling music before you uploaded the
• 11:59
  Speaker 9: streaming platforms? And at first a lot of people looked
• 12:03
  Speaker 9: at me like I was crazy. I did thousands of
• 12:04
  Speaker 9: calls and meetings and people were like, now, I'm at
• 12:07
  Speaker 9: people aren't going to buy music again. And then I
• 12:09
  Speaker 9: met l Russell in August of twenty two, after the
• 12:13
  Speaker 9: product was already built. I was just trying to shop
• 12:15
  Speaker 9: it around, like, see who wanted to be the first person.
• 12:17
  Speaker 9: So I met Larrussell through JR. JR is now an
• 12:22
  Speaker 9: advisor and a mentor, but he was working with Larrussell
• 12:24
  Speaker 9: on that album and JR called me one day He's like, yo,
• 12:27
  Speaker 9: I got your first artist. And I'm like, bro, you've
• 12:30
  Speaker 9: said this before, but sure enough you introduced me to
• 12:34
  Speaker 9: Larrussell and immediately, I mean, I remember my first conversation
• 12:37
  Speaker 9: with Larrussell. He was like, everything you're describing I'm already doing.
• 12:40
  Speaker 9: Why should I come do it with you? And I
• 12:44
  Speaker 9: was like, well, give me an opportunity to just show
• 12:46
  Speaker 9: you the power of the tool. And Larussell didn't want
• 12:50
  Speaker 9: to do it. Like the day we were supposed to launch,
• 12:52
  Speaker 9: he pulled out and it's like, now I'm good. And
• 12:55
  Speaker 9: I called l Russell and I was like, look, l Russell,
• 12:58
  Speaker 9: if I can get two hundred bee to buy your album,
• 13:01
  Speaker 9: just give me the clearance to let people actually buy
• 13:03
  Speaker 9: it and then you can make up your mind. And
• 13:06
  Speaker 9: he's like, if you get two hundred people to buy
• 13:08
  Speaker 9: my album, I'll announce this on my social media. And
• 13:12
  Speaker 9: in twenty four hours, I did one hundred and thirty
• 13:14
  Speaker 9: four sales, and I called him disappointed. I was like, man, Lawrens,
• 13:17
  Speaker 9: I only did one hundred and thirty four sales. He's like,
• 13:19
  Speaker 9: you got one hundred and thirty people to buy my album.
• 13:21
  Speaker 9: I was like, yeah, on your platform.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:23
  Speaker 9: Showed them the revenue and he's like, all right, bet,
• 13:26
  Speaker 9: I'm going live on Instagram and then he made twenty
• 13:28
  Speaker 9: seven thousand in the first twenty four hours on the platform.
• 13:30
  Speaker 7: So how did you get people to buy his album?
• 13:32
  Speaker 9: I just called everyone on my network, everyone to independence, family, everyone,
• 13:37
  Speaker 9: everybody I knew on my I was literally texting everyone's like, yo,
• 13:40
  Speaker 9: buy this album, Yo, yo, buy this album.
• 13:42
  Speaker 7: How much was he sorry for?
• 13:43
  Speaker 9: It was a dollar minimum, yeah, but it was pay
• 13:46
  Speaker 9: what you want, so fans could literally pay whatever they want.
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: So the people that's on platform, now, is it all
• 13:53
  Speaker 7: paid what you want? Or is it like a set
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: five dollars ten dollars for an album.
• 13:57
  Speaker 9: It's up to the artists now, I will say ninety
• 13:59
  Speaker 9: nine percent of other releases or pay what you want.
• 14:01
  Speaker 9: We encourage our partners to do. Pay what you want
• 14:05
  Speaker 9: was interesting. We didn't call it pay what you want
• 14:07
  Speaker 9: at first. We called it name your price. So the
• 14:09
  Speaker 9: idea of pay what you want is it was originally
• 14:12
  Speaker 9: name your price. I mean, companies like band camp have
• 14:14
  Speaker 9: done it for a long time. We just changed the
• 14:18
  Speaker 9: narrative after working with l Russell. It just made sense,
• 14:22
  Speaker 9: like pay what you want, right, like pay what it's
• 14:24
  Speaker 9: worth to you, instead of this idea of like name
• 14:27
  Speaker 9: your price felt a little it didn't give any power
• 14:30
  Speaker 9: to the creator, which and then we just stuck with
• 14:33
  Speaker 9: it and it's been that way. We've only done maybe
• 14:36
  Speaker 9: I don't know, ten releases where like they have a
• 14:39
  Speaker 9: fixed rate, but the pay what you want always outweighs
• 14:42
  Speaker 9: any of those releases.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: So how does that work for the infrastructure?
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: So if the artist makes the pay what you want
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: and it goes from I know it's skilled, right, so
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: you can set it at a dollar, but you can
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: go up to is a cap at a thousand?
• 14:55
  Speaker 9: No, ten thousand, ten thousand, so that's the maxim fan
• 14:58
  Speaker 9: can pay current, so ten thousand.
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: Then it goes from product to customer. Right, how does
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: the platform actually is it? The fees associated inside that purchase?
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: How does it work for you guys business sailboards?
• 15:13
  Speaker 9: So on the business side, we take a percent twenty
• 15:15
  Speaker 9: percent REP share on every transaction on the platform, but
• 15:18
  Speaker 9: that's inclusive of transaction fees, pro fees, currency conversions. So
• 15:23
  Speaker 9: we have one hundred and thirty five currencies on the
• 15:25
  Speaker 9: platform and then twenty two global payment methods. All of
• 15:28
  Speaker 9: that comes out of evenside. So to break it down
• 15:32
  Speaker 9: a little bit more of that twenty percent our margin
• 15:34
  Speaker 9: is really any between thirteen to fifteen percent, depending on
• 15:38
  Speaker 9: the transaction, have a food user.
• 15:40
  Speaker 7: So what is the average, like, what's the mean as
• 15:44
  Speaker 7: far as that people are actually paying?
• 15:47
  Speaker 9: The average right now fans are paying is twenty five
• 15:49
  Speaker 9: dollars for an album and nine dollars for a single
• 15:52
  Speaker 9: on the platform.
• 15:53
  Speaker 7: That's the average across all artists.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: All artists beats noting us elves.
• 15:58
  Speaker 9: I mean, it beats a third of a penny, right.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: I think that's why it's so innovative. Right.
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: If the person, let's say I pay one thousand dollars
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: for the album just as a fan and wanted.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: To support the cause, somebody pays one dollar. Now, your
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: averages five hundred dollars.
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: Right, If you figure at that level, you can scale
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: that all the way down to twenty five dollars. That's
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: way more than they're gonna get for putting an album
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: out on the streaming platform and giving three tenths of
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: a set per.
• 16:25
  Speaker 9: Se YEP per stream, right, and that's assuming that they
• 16:29
  Speaker 9: listen to it at least for thirty seconds. Right, that
• 16:31
  Speaker 9: counts is a stream, That cous is a stream. And
• 16:33
  Speaker 9: then with the new guidelines that went into effect last week,
• 16:37
  Speaker 9: artists on platforms like Spotify won't get paid for streams
• 16:41
  Speaker 9: if that song didn't cross over a thousand strings in
• 16:44
  Speaker 9: a calendar year. So if you do nine hundred and
• 16:46
  Speaker 9: ninety nine streams in the calendar year, you won't get
• 16:48
  Speaker 9: paid for any of those strings.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: So when you look at the last gape I'm sure
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: to Spotify is the soundclouds, the titles Amazon YouTube music, I'm.
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: Sure are you making headway that you make it dead?
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: Are they coming after you in a sense where it's like, no, wait,
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: we maybe need to.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: Adopt some of these practices, or how's it?
• 17:08
  Speaker 9: I think for us, our mission for even and it's
• 17:10
  Speaker 9: really it is true to his name. We want to
• 17:12
  Speaker 9: grow the pie. Right, we saw a gap. Right, this
• 17:15
  Speaker 9: is money that everyone's leaving on the table. Right, every
• 17:18
  Speaker 9: other industry has adopted it. Right. Let's let's take a
• 17:21
  Speaker 9: company like Nike. Right, Nike had fourteen percent of their
• 17:25
  Speaker 9: sales were directed consumer five years ago. Last year they
• 17:28
  Speaker 9: did fifty percent of their sales direct to consumer. That
• 17:31
  Speaker 9: doesn't mean people are no longer buying Nike as a
• 17:35
  Speaker 9: foot locker, champs wherever they go. They just now know
• 17:38
  Speaker 9: that they can own their customer and the relationship with
• 17:40
  Speaker 9: the customer they want those shoes. The company is doubled
• 17:43
  Speaker 9: in size, their stock prices doubled in price in the
• 17:46
  Speaker 9: last five years for that exact same reason. Right, Because
• 17:50
  Speaker 9: the introduction and the adoption of, for example, the sneakers
• 17:52
  Speaker 9: at which is Nike's like main D two C platform,
• 17:55
  Speaker 9: has allowed them to actually get more revenue from their
• 18:00
  Speaker 9: users or in this case, their customers. But the music
• 18:03
  Speaker 9: industry has never had that opportunity the same way that
• 18:05
  Speaker 9: Hollywood can release Barbie and they can recoup on a
• 18:08
  Speaker 9: weekend in theaters and then release it in streaming platforms
• 18:13
  Speaker 9: thirty days later. Right, that's really the ethos. It's not
• 18:15
  Speaker 9: even or streaming, it's even and streaming. How can an
• 18:18
  Speaker 9: artists maximize revenue but also engage with the fan base
• 18:22
  Speaker 9: where less is really more? An artists can make one
• 18:24
  Speaker 9: hundred k on even with four thousand fans, right, to
• 18:28
  Speaker 9: make one hundred k off of streaming, you need about
• 18:32
  Speaker 9: I don't know, eight hundred to one point two million
• 18:35
  Speaker 9: fans to listen to your music every day for a
• 18:37
  Speaker 9: full calendar year.
• 18:39
  Speaker 7: So let me ask you this as far as as
• 18:43
  Speaker 7: far as like people paying, right, Obviously, if you're a
• 18:47
  Speaker 7: diehard fan, you really support somebody you know. But most
• 18:50
  Speaker 7: people are a diehard fans, they're casual listeners. So what
• 18:53
  Speaker 7: is what is the benefit or what's the marketing for
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: consumers to want to spend more money than they have
• 19:03
  Speaker 7: to for us?
• 19:04
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I would say it really varies on the consumer
• 19:08
  Speaker 9: and the artists. Right on one side, we all have
• 19:12
  Speaker 9: maybe two or three artists that we would actually pay
• 19:14
  Speaker 9: for an album for right in this format.
• 19:16
  Speaker 7: And it's not a physical album.
• 19:17
  Speaker 9: It's not a physical album. It's just a digital access
• 19:19
  Speaker 9: proximity to the release. And also fans come to even
• 19:23
  Speaker 9: for the music, but they stay for everything else. Right,
• 19:25
  Speaker 9: So let's say I'm an artist and I'm releasing an album.
• 19:28
  Speaker 9: You can buy my album, you can listen to the album,
• 19:30
  Speaker 9: but you also get to interact in the chat feature,
• 19:33
  Speaker 9: which is a community chat think of like discord, but
• 19:35
  Speaker 9: it lives on platform where fans can talk to other fans,
• 19:38
  Speaker 9: the artists can talk to the fan. But then you
• 19:39
  Speaker 9: also get the music videos, you get early access to merch,
• 19:43
  Speaker 9: you get early access to tour tickets. Maybe there's a
• 19:46
  Speaker 9: virtual release party with the artists.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 19:48
  Speaker 9: Every campaign is different. For example, the Russell's campaigns. He
• 19:52
  Speaker 9: always does a documentary with an album where you buy
• 19:55
  Speaker 9: the album and then you get access to the documentary,
• 19:57
  Speaker 9: but you can only watch the documentary if you buy
• 19:59
  Speaker 9: the album using Even. So, the idea is fans are
• 20:02
  Speaker 9: actually paying for proximity than they are just paying for
• 20:05
  Speaker 9: the music. And I think on the other side, our
• 20:09
  Speaker 9: number one consumer on even is the frivolous spender. These
• 20:12
  Speaker 9: are people who are just used to paying for stuff
• 20:14
  Speaker 9: on the internet. You've got Apple Pay, Google Pay, you
• 20:17
  Speaker 9: have cash app. We you know, cash up is one
• 20:19
  Speaker 9: of our number one transactions on the platform because it
• 20:22
  Speaker 9: almost feels like you're not spending any money, right, since
• 20:24
  Speaker 9: people just buying something because it's quick and easy. My
• 20:28
  Speaker 9: argument always with people it's try it. Have you ever
• 20:31
  Speaker 9: pre saved the song?
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 20:32
  Speaker 9: Have you ever clicked on someone's bio and pre saved
• 20:34
  Speaker 9: the song on Spotify? Have you guys ever done I'm
• 20:38
  Speaker 9: not a Spotify guy or Apple Music? Have you ever
• 20:40
  Speaker 9: pre saved the song? In general?
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I think maybe once.
• 20:45
  Speaker 9: And give Did it bring you any benefit in that moment?
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: Not really?
• 20:50
  Speaker 9: And that's how the music industry operates. Got wait, you
• 20:53
  Speaker 9: just gotta wait, right, the conversion. The ROI doesn't make
• 20:57
  Speaker 9: sense for anyone. It doesn't make sense for the artists,
• 20:59
  Speaker 9: It doesn't make sense for the fans and labels, distribution
• 21:01
  Speaker 9: companies and independent artists are spending all this money just
• 21:05
  Speaker 9: to get presaves. That doesn't reward anyone just to have
• 21:08
  Speaker 9: the song when he gets released, when it gets released,
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: gets uploaded. The ROI should be just like any other consumer, right,
• 21:15
  Speaker 9: we need actual transaction to happen, and the transaction should
• 21:19
  Speaker 9: be in dollars and not just clicks. Right, So that's
• 21:24
  Speaker 9: kind of the ethos, and that's how we work with
• 21:25
  Speaker 9: you know, all of we work with distribution companies on
• 21:28
  Speaker 9: record labels. Now, the at first reskeptable, like no one's
• 21:32
  Speaker 9: going to pay for a release. Well, one fan pays
• 21:34
  Speaker 9: twenty five dollars, right, you're talking about the equivalent to
• 21:37
  Speaker 9: fifty sixty thousand streams in a matter of seconds. Right,
• 21:42
  Speaker 9: That revenue can really make on an artist who just
• 21:45
  Speaker 9: got a fifty thousand dollars advance. And we're seeing artists
• 21:48
  Speaker 9: recoup on their advances before it goes to streaming, which
• 21:51
  Speaker 9: never happened because it was impossible to recoup before you
• 21:55
  Speaker 9: release the DSPs.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is this is just so twenty twenty two.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: You get the check.
• 22:01
  Speaker 9: Yep.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: A couple questions here around that.
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: It's number one, how did you figure out the pricing
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: needed or funding needed to get this off the ground.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: But you've been in base for two years? So what
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: have you learned throughout that process about the funding? About
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: the funding that you know? Now?
• 22:19
  Speaker 9: Well, I mean I had a you know, I didn't
• 22:22
  Speaker 9: go to college, right, so like I barely graduated from
• 22:24
  Speaker 9: high school. And honestly, like I always make the joke
• 22:28
  Speaker 9: that I have no formal training and anything, I don't
• 22:31
  Speaker 9: really know how to do anything. But I did have
• 22:35
  Speaker 9: an upper hand because I had an opportunity to work
• 22:37
  Speaker 9: for a venture fund for five years, so I had
• 22:40
  Speaker 9: enough of the inner workings of what it looks like.
• 22:42
  Speaker 9: But it's different when you are the person writing checks
• 22:45
  Speaker 9: than the person receiving checks, because the control is always
• 22:49
  Speaker 9: on the person writing the check. So, for context, I
• 22:51
  Speaker 9: built even with one hundred thousand dollars that was my check,
• 22:53
  Speaker 9: that was my first My pre seed round was one
• 22:56
  Speaker 9: hundred k, and I was able to build a functional MVP,
• 23:00
  Speaker 9: which is really just a prototype of the platform. They
• 23:03
  Speaker 9: did two things. You can buy and you can listen.
• 23:06
  Speaker 9: That's all I was intended to do. And then from
• 23:09
  Speaker 9: there we were able to prove the model. We did
• 23:11
  Speaker 9: one hundred K and revenue in the first thirty days.
• 23:13
  Speaker 9: We were able to then go raise our seed round.
• 23:15
  Speaker 9: So I ended up raising a two point two million
• 23:17
  Speaker 9: dollars seed round in December of twenty twenty two. To date,
• 23:22
  Speaker 9: we've only raised four point three million as a company,
• 23:25
  Speaker 9: and we're about to go after our Series A this summer.
• 23:28
  Speaker 7: So let me ask you this as far as what
• 23:30
  Speaker 7: is the significance of you guys partner should put a
• 23:33
  Speaker 7: illuminate Luminate which allows artists to actually chart on Billboard?
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: How does that work?
• 23:38
  Speaker 9: Yeah, so Illuminate is interesting for context, right. Illuminated is
• 23:43
  Speaker 9: the agency that does all of the reporting for the
• 23:45
  Speaker 9: recorded music industry, not just within the United States, but
• 23:49
  Speaker 9: from around the world. They put out a report every
• 23:51
  Speaker 9: single year. They used to be called Needs and Sound Scan,
• 23:55
  Speaker 9: and they've gone through a lot of names over the years,
• 23:57
  Speaker 9: but they are the agency that to Billboard. So when
• 24:02
  Speaker 9: you see number one on Billboard or charted on Billboard,
• 24:04
  Speaker 9: Illuminated is the actual company that's doing the auditing on
• 24:07
  Speaker 9: those sales. We've been talking to Illuminate for eighteen months
• 24:11
  Speaker 9: trying to get you know, their stamp of approval, and
• 24:15
  Speaker 9: just eight weeks ago they basically gave us the thumbs
• 24:18
  Speaker 9: up to be able to report to them. So we've
• 24:20
  Speaker 9: been an official reporter to them for four weeks and yeah,
• 24:24
  Speaker 9: we just finally made the announcement. It's something that the
• 24:26
  Speaker 9: industry I think is really excited. I got way too
• 24:29
  Speaker 9: many costs today when we made the announcement. I just
• 24:31
  Speaker 9: I think a lot of people were skeptical. Right, there's
• 24:34
  Speaker 9: only twenty two total US digital reporters to Illuminate, and
• 24:39
  Speaker 9: we're one of twenty two. And this includes like Apple, Spotify,
• 24:43
  Speaker 9: all the major DSPs and then the major labels. So
• 24:46
  Speaker 9: to be the first super fan app quote unquote to
• 24:50
  Speaker 9: be Illuminate eligible towards Billboard, I think it definitely raised
• 24:56
  Speaker 9: a lot of eyebrows, right, because it's really bringing the
• 24:58
  Speaker 9: control and the power to an artist where the only
• 25:01
  Speaker 9: way you can chart the Billboard is by using iTunes
• 25:05
  Speaker 9: or using a DSP, and now they can do it.
• 25:07
  Speaker 9: You know, La Russell will probably chart on Billboard this year.
• 25:11
  Speaker 7: So is it is it a one? Is it one?
• 25:12
  Speaker 9: Album for one, one for one. Yeah, So the for
• 25:16
  Speaker 9: context a strict for an album to be considered one
• 25:18
  Speaker 9: album sale on streaming, you need one thousand, two hundred
• 25:21
  Speaker 9: and fifty streams to equal one album sell. So you
• 25:25
  Speaker 9: would have to listen to that album four times a
• 25:28
  Speaker 9: day for a full year just to give that artist
• 25:30
  Speaker 9: one album sale. Well, one fan can buy one album
• 25:33
  Speaker 9: and it equals an album seal on Illuminate.
• 25:36
  Speaker 7: So all right, So okay, question that I have is
• 25:42
  Speaker 7: you have this platform where it's a one for one,
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: one for one, you can pay whatever you want, right correct,
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: You guys are the only platform that is credited on
• 25:52
  Speaker 7: the billboard from this company on.
• 25:56
  Speaker 9: The super fan side. Yeah, so, like you know, the
• 25:58
  Speaker 9: term superman is uh, it's a hot word right now.
• 26:01
  Speaker 7: How did you how did you become the only platform?
• 26:05
  Speaker 9: I kept bugging them to let us in.
• 26:07
  Speaker 7: What's the like they had to vet you guys go
• 26:10
  Speaker 7: through like a So there's a process where they know
• 26:12
  Speaker 7: your numbers are correct.
• 26:14
  Speaker 9: So there's a couple of integrations, right. So the way
• 26:16
  Speaker 9: that they're reporting works essentially they measure our sales from
• 26:22
  Speaker 9: an accredited data processor. So in this case, Stripe all
• 26:25
  Speaker 9: of our sales happened through Stripe. We hand over all
• 26:27
  Speaker 9: of our Stripe data from IP address basically where the
• 26:31
  Speaker 9: user lives, how much they paid, transaction time, transaction date,
• 26:36
  Speaker 9: and then from there they vet those transactions directly through
• 26:38
  Speaker 9: our Stripe report.
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: Is there a metric of how many users or how
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: many doubloads a week or a month that are needed
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: to qualify?
• 26:46
  Speaker 9: No, we just have to report every single week. So
• 26:50
  Speaker 9: you have to report every single week for to stay eligible.
• 26:53
  Speaker 9: The moment you don't report one week, you can't report
• 26:56
  Speaker 9: for four weeks, and then you have to try it
• 26:58
  Speaker 9: all over again.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So, like, let's just take French was on the platform.
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: So let's say Fresh, if he sends ten thousand, I
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: think that puts him in a top hundred to.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: Album undreds for Bilable for sure.
• 27:11
  Speaker 9: But French was actually our second artist on the platform.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, talk about that.
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: I mean, because this is a guy who obviously we
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: know as a mainstream artist that saw with major labels,
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: but chose your platform to put out.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: The one of the latest projects.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: What was that process of convincing him or didn't even
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: take convincing to get him on the platform.
• 27:31
  Speaker 9: You know, French is I think normally. I mean, when
• 27:35
  Speaker 9: we think of artists, right, we don't think of them
• 27:38
  Speaker 9: as like thought leaders for some reason, right, But artists
• 27:41
  Speaker 9: are some of the most innovative people and they see
• 27:43
  Speaker 9: the full landscape every single day, and they really influence
• 27:46
  Speaker 9: culture in so many ways. French has been not only
• 27:49
  Speaker 9: I mean talking about the crypto space, Like French was
• 27:52
  Speaker 9: in the D two C space for a while, right.
• 27:53
  Speaker 9: He would dove into the crypto space very early. And
• 27:56
  Speaker 9: when I literally did like a fifteen minute call with
• 27:59
  Speaker 9: him right before I met L. Russell, and he was like, yo,
• 28:01
  Speaker 9: I'm down. Once I got an album ready, let's do it.
• 28:04
  Speaker 9: And we did L Russell on October first, and we
• 28:06
  Speaker 9: did French Montana October twelve, and probably the easiest release
• 28:11
  Speaker 9: we've ever done in the sense of like no hassles.
• 28:14
  Speaker 9: He sent me files, he sent me the artwork, all
• 28:16
  Speaker 9: of the metadata. We plugged it in. I usually have
• 28:19
  Speaker 9: to chase artists to get them paid. Like he set
• 28:21
  Speaker 9: up everything in advance, and he already understood the format,
• 28:24
  Speaker 9: he understood the messaging, what he had to tell the fans,
• 28:27
  Speaker 9: how to tell the fans, you know, the message. And yeah,
• 28:31
  Speaker 9: it was exciting, It was really interesting. He also helped
• 28:34
  Speaker 9: us really with our conversation around the importance of Luminate
• 28:38
  Speaker 9: and being able to report to Luminate. He was like, man,
• 28:41
  Speaker 9: I wish the sail will count towards Billboard, and that's
• 28:43
  Speaker 9: why we didn't do his last album.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: Well, he just.
• 28:45
  Speaker 9: Dropped us here just because it's at his level. He
• 28:48
  Speaker 9: wants to report and we weren't reporting yet. It was
• 28:51
  Speaker 9: like a two week difference between could have did the
• 28:54
  Speaker 9: most latest project.
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: But has there been conversations with other artists I guess
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: from mainstream that have gone your way or are are
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: about to go your way.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: Now that this has now been a change where you
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: can report one hundred percent.
• 29:07
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean we've talked to maybe every every major
• 29:10
  Speaker 9: artist that you can think of, probably reached out in
• 29:13
  Speaker 9: our first six months, and then we've been able to
• 29:15
  Speaker 9: maintain a relationship and this honestly was a big deal
• 29:17
  Speaker 9: breaker for them, so not being able to report to Billboard,
• 29:21
  Speaker 9: where now that we report to Billboard, you're probably going
• 29:23
  Speaker 9: to see some of the biggest albums of the year
• 29:25
  Speaker 9: this quarter and the next quarter dropping on the platform,
• 29:28
  Speaker 9: because you know, an artists sells one hundred thousand copies
• 29:33
  Speaker 9: you're number one on Billboard and even allows you to
• 29:36
  Speaker 9: do that, right, instead of requiring millions of people to
• 29:39
  Speaker 9: actually go listen to your music.
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm just wondering, like in the day age of
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: number one albums report, there's reporting to Billboard even mean
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: as much, Right, if I can sell eight other nolvels
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: and make way more money than having the number one
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: album for you, I mean, I like.
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: The big artists, they still do they so they still
• 29:56
  Speaker 7: track the numbers. But Kanye well he took it. He
• 30:00
  Speaker 7: was selling directly on his website, right, that ain't track
• 30:03
  Speaker 7: on Billboard now. So all right, So the thing is
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: it's gonna it's gonna go crazy in my opinion when
• 30:15
  Speaker 7: a major artist exclusively puts an album on like your
• 30:22
  Speaker 7: platform or platform like that, because if they put it
• 30:27
  Speaker 7: on the platform like the diehard fan, that is a
• 30:29
  Speaker 7: couple of weeks early. But how I'm looking at it's like, okay,
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: if you could put it on it is to say
• 30:33
  Speaker 7: like this is the only place you can get it from. Right,
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: it's a dollar. It's an album for album count as
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: far as on Billboard. So even if you sell less albums,
• 30:42
  Speaker 7: you still have a chance of charting on Billboard in
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: a respectable manner as opposed to like you said during
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: because it's one thousand, eleven hundred streams equal one album.
• 30:50
  Speaker 9: One thousand and fifty strings.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Equal one album one album.
• 30:54
  Speaker 7: So just mathematically, you could sell tremendously less records and
• 31:01
  Speaker 7: still have a respectable show on Billboard one hundreds with
• 31:04
  Speaker 7: making a lot more money, because how much money do
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: you get per stream from.
• 31:08
  Speaker 9: Like a third of a penny.
• 31:10
  Speaker 7: So yeah, so that's why, like let's say your future
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: right and Metro women like the next hour they came
• 31:16
  Speaker 7: out on your platform and they say, okay, it's ten dollars,
• 31:22
  Speaker 7: don't say even charge amount, it's ten dollars album, which
• 31:25
  Speaker 7: was that's how much albums usually cost previously. It costs
• 31:28
  Speaker 7: ten dollars right now, if they sell one hundred thousand,
• 31:34
  Speaker 7: that's very reasonable, right.
• 31:36
  Speaker 9: Then you can I could see them doing that.
• 31:38
  Speaker 7: First week sales, right, so it's like, okay, that's going
• 31:40
  Speaker 7: to chart them.
• 31:41
  Speaker 9: On Billboard somewhere and they made a million.
• 31:43
  Speaker 7: But they could probably even sell more. I could see
• 31:46
  Speaker 7: them selling like a quarter million, right because they just
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: charged I think they're like two hundred thousand. Well for
• 31:51
  Speaker 7: the streaming.
• 31:52
  Speaker 9: It's yourself of streaming a lot.
• 31:53
  Speaker 7: So if they charged that two hundred thousand times eleven hundred,
• 31:58
  Speaker 7: so that's two hundred and twenty million streams that they
• 32:00
  Speaker 7: got already, right, So if they get two hundred and
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: twenty million streams first week, you can assume that they
• 32:08
  Speaker 7: could probably get a quarter million just buys like physical buys, right,
• 32:12
  Speaker 7: and now that will be two point five million for
• 32:15
  Speaker 7: the first week.
• 32:17
  Speaker 9: Then get paid. Also, keep in mind we pay daily
• 32:20
  Speaker 9: for daily revenue. You make a million today, you have
• 32:22
  Speaker 9: a million in your bank account today. The streaming pays
• 32:25
  Speaker 9: you three months after. So if you make the two
• 32:28
  Speaker 9: one hundred million streams today, you won't get that money
• 32:31
  Speaker 9: until the next quarter.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: Does it.
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: Do you take any shout to the publishing as well?
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: How is that tracked?
• 32:37
  Speaker 9: So my listing is tracked per stream, so it's not
• 32:40
  Speaker 9: on the actual transaction. So we track stream because the
• 32:43
  Speaker 9: streams have been in platform behind the paywall, So we
• 32:46
  Speaker 9: track the streams. We then report those to the pros,
• 32:49
  Speaker 9: So then we have a license with the pros in
• 32:51
  Speaker 9: this instance, and that's how the produce. But then also
• 32:55
  Speaker 9: if the producers have points on the master which most producers.
• 32:58
  Speaker 9: Do they get daily as well on the master side,
• 33:01
  Speaker 9: So you can add as many people on the split
• 33:03
  Speaker 9: side and everyone gets paid daily.
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: But then most importantly the two point five million that
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: they would get, but they would get the information in the.
• 33:11
  Speaker 9: Data, the data, email's, phone numbers.
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: Now you got two hundred and fifty thousand people that
• 33:16
  Speaker 7: you have, you could what data do you get?
• 33:19
  Speaker 9: All of it? So consumption, all the consumption data of
• 33:23
  Speaker 9: like where it came from? Right, well, who was the
• 33:25
  Speaker 9: refer Like did they come from Instagram? Did they come
• 33:27
  Speaker 9: from Twitter, TikTok et, cetera. So teams can also double
• 33:30
  Speaker 9: down on the conversion. If something is converting more sales
• 33:33
  Speaker 9: on Instagram, they can double down on the Instagram instead
• 33:36
  Speaker 9: of you know, Twitter TikTok uh and then cut you know,
• 33:40
  Speaker 9: all of like the first party data, so emails, phone numbers,
• 33:43
  Speaker 9: zip code, how much they paid, what payment method they used?
• 33:49
  Speaker 9: Trying to think I think at a high level that space.
• 33:52
  Speaker 9: And then of course like demographics like h group female male.
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: So you because that's own distribution pretty much right, like
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: you know, and from a standpoint.
• 34:03
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• 35:55
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
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• 36:11
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
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  Speaker 1: Donald J.
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  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I'm Christy nom the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, your next,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: you will be fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned,
• 36:36
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• 36:38
  Speaker 2: You will never return.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Do what's right. Leave now.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: Marketing.
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: Rather than having a budget for it, I could send
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: it directly to the exactly at any point I want. Right,
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: two hundred and twenty five thousand people buy it. I
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: can literally send out a text or an email because
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: I have the data to say exclusive a new album
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: just for you.
• 37:11
  Speaker 9: And I know it's crazy when we talk about it
• 37:13
  Speaker 9: out loud, because you would think this should already happen, right,
• 37:16
  Speaker 9: But the truth is artists don't get emails and phone
• 37:19
  Speaker 9: numbers like the basic first party data from ticketing platforms,
• 37:23
  Speaker 9: streaming platforms, social media platforms. Most artists don't even have
• 37:26
  Speaker 9: a mailing list, Like did you receive.
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: Any venues don't a lot of time. Venues won't give
• 37:30
  Speaker 7: you it either.
• 37:30
  Speaker 9: They won't even they want to.
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: They get master won't give you that information.
• 37:34
  Speaker 9: So think about what the deals will look like if
• 37:37
  Speaker 9: Metro and Future show up to Live Nation and say, look,
• 37:40
  Speaker 9: we got a quarter million people who bought our album.
• 37:42
  Speaker 9: We know where they live. We know where they are.
• 37:45
  Speaker 9: And that's why the Russell can go to any city
• 37:47
  Speaker 9: in the United States and sell out a show in
• 37:49
  Speaker 9: a matter of minutes because he knows where they live
• 37:52
  Speaker 9: and he knows how much they spent. You know, I've
• 37:54
  Speaker 9: seen it firsthand handful of time. We were in Atlanta
• 37:58
  Speaker 9: for the conference and he was like, I want to
• 38:00
  Speaker 9: do a show today. He pulled his data, he sent
• 38:03
  Speaker 9: out a text to everyone in Atlanta, sold out. The
• 38:06
  Speaker 9: show made you know, five figures in revenue without even
• 38:09
  Speaker 9: having to promote a show at like three pm when
• 38:11
  Speaker 9: we after that. If you've been to a LRUSSO show,
• 38:13
  Speaker 9: you know they're always like early in the day. But
• 38:15
  Speaker 9: it was amazing, right because he can manage his data
• 38:18
  Speaker 9: at that level, which you know, again it makes so
• 38:22
  Speaker 9: much sense, right, But that's really the leverage point. If
• 38:24
  Speaker 9: I'm talking to an emerging artist, it's about the revenue.
• 38:27
  Speaker 9: If I'm talking to an established artist, it's really about
• 38:31
  Speaker 9: the data and showing them the power of what it
• 38:33
  Speaker 9: means to have data.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: Is there a component, because I'm thinking about just the
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: innovation to say, hey, I'm going to do a show today.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: Is there a live streaming component from Evening? Right?
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: So now not only can I get the album, but
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: if they do do a show, I get the emailed
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: about it, I get notice notified about it, but I.
• 38:54
  Speaker 9: Can also watch it. One hundred percent, Yeah, we do.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: We did.
• 38:56
  Speaker 9: Lauren Jereggi, she was in f Harmony. She's one of
• 38:59
  Speaker 9: the bigger pop star artists platform. We've done two singles
• 39:03
  Speaker 9: with her and both singles included a virtual Q and
• 39:06
  Speaker 9: A and a virtual performance. One was for the virtual
• 39:09
  Speaker 9: Q and A was fifteen dollars if you paid over
• 39:11
  Speaker 9: fifteen dollars and the concert was thirty dollars. So fans
• 39:14
  Speaker 9: have paid over thirty and it had been all on platform. Right.
• 39:17
  Speaker 9: Think of like a zoom where she just performed in
• 39:20
  Speaker 9: her living room and there was these thousands of fans
• 39:22
  Speaker 9: who paid over thirty dollars just to watch her perform.
• 39:25
  Speaker 9: And these are fans from around the world.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 39:27
  Speaker 9: The true impact of even is the global aspect. We
• 39:29
  Speaker 9: have users in one hundred and ninety countries and we
• 39:32
  Speaker 9: support one hundred and thirty five currencies. That's double the
• 39:35
  Speaker 9: amount of even like a shopify fans. We think about
• 39:39
  Speaker 9: global fans, only ten percent of the population will ever
• 39:42
  Speaker 9: have the opportunity to see their favorite artists live, right,
• 39:46
  Speaker 9: So we're talking about ninety percent seven billion people who
• 39:48
  Speaker 9: will never have the opportunity to see future for Metro.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 39:52
  Speaker 9: But they have a credit card in Malaysia or Brazil
• 39:56
  Speaker 9: and they want to listen to the album. But now
• 39:58
  Speaker 9: they want the proximity to the artists. And that's really
• 40:00
  Speaker 9: what fans are paying for through those virtual components that
• 40:03
  Speaker 9: you're describing. They all happen on platform.
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: So what's the difference between the mobile app and the
• 40:08
  Speaker 7: web based version.
• 40:10
  Speaker 9: That exact same thing, right We I think we take
• 40:12
  Speaker 9: for granted our data services in the US and Europe, right,
• 40:16
  Speaker 9: Like we can have unlimited data on our phone, right,
• 40:20
  Speaker 9: but when we think about users and other regions around
• 40:22
  Speaker 9: the world where data caps are more strict, we never
• 40:26
  Speaker 9: want to We never hand over files, right, So fans
• 40:28
  Speaker 9: will never get the MP three files of an album.
• 40:30
  Speaker 9: But with the app now they can do offline streaming,
• 40:33
  Speaker 9: so they can download the music into the app and
• 40:35
  Speaker 9: listen to it on the app without having to be fettered,
• 40:37
  Speaker 9: you know, tethered to the internet primarily for like our
• 40:40
  Speaker 9: global users, and honestly, like, we didn't launch an app
• 40:44
  Speaker 9: because we wanted to ship quickly right and get it
• 40:46
  Speaker 9: in front of everyone, and we wanted the fans and
• 40:49
  Speaker 9: the users of the platform to really determine when it's
• 40:52
  Speaker 9: time for an app. In the last three months, they were.
• 40:54
  Speaker 7: Like, drop the app, drop the app, drop the app.
• 40:56
  Speaker 9: And then that's when it's time to build an app.
• 40:58
  Speaker 9: A lot of times people build an app and no
• 41:00
  Speaker 9: one wants to have to force people to download an app.
• 41:03
  Speaker 9: We haven't even officially publicly announced the app beyond like
• 41:07
  Speaker 9: the press release, and we have thousands of downloads because
• 41:09
  Speaker 9: people just go looking for it or I think Will
• 41:12
  Speaker 9: Russell actually posted a screenshot of the app and le
• 41:16
  Speaker 9: Lion Babe is too on their Instagram and people went
• 41:18
  Speaker 9: looking for it. But I think that's that's what shows
• 41:21
  Speaker 9: the demand of like how do people want to actually
• 41:24
  Speaker 9: consume content now as well?
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think one of the biggest ways that people
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: are consuming content that we may know a thing or
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: two about is podcasting. So obviously you have music, but
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: there are plenty of careers that in this space and
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: are dealing with some of the same issues that people
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: dealt with in the music industry, where it's you don't
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: know how much a download is for you don't really
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: control your CPM.
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: Are you guys looking to innovate in that space as well?
• 41:52
  Speaker 9: Yeah, so, I mean we're already working with podcasts, We're
• 41:55
  Speaker 9: working with filmmakers, comedians. A lot of what you'll see
• 42:00
  Speaker 9: Q three and Q four this year is going to
• 42:01
  Speaker 9: be what that infrastructure looks like for those creators, and
• 42:05
  Speaker 9: you're right, you know. I think the other piece to
• 42:07
  Speaker 9: highlight is platforms. The subscription based platforms don't always make
• 42:11
  Speaker 9: sense for consumers, but the one time purchase will get
• 42:14
  Speaker 9: people through the door, right, So the way that it
• 42:17
  Speaker 9: would work essentially, thinking of like a podcast, fans can
• 42:20
  Speaker 9: pay to opt in to watch the podcast, and as
• 42:24
  Speaker 9: you release more episodes, people continue to buy in to
• 42:27
  Speaker 9: that one community instead of like a monthly subscription. And
• 42:31
  Speaker 9: then we have added on perks, right, Like where our
• 42:34
  Speaker 9: creators are really making most of their money's on the
• 42:36
  Speaker 9: extra access points, right, the virtual Q and as the ebooks,
• 42:42
  Speaker 9: the I mean, we've seen it all. We have. I
• 42:44
  Speaker 9: think we did a release where fans will pay over
• 42:45
  Speaker 9: one hundred dollars get like a FaceTime call, and for
• 42:49
  Speaker 9: that release, this artist had like thirteen hundred people pay
• 42:52
  Speaker 9: this one hundred dollars for a FaceTime call, which was crazy.
• 42:56
  Speaker 9: Now I was a headache for the artists just because
• 42:58
  Speaker 9: now they have to sit through these the team.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: How good that they create the group based off well, you.
• 43:03
  Speaker 9: Know, it gives you that idea of like how much
• 43:05
  Speaker 9: are we people willing to spend for proximity?
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 43:07
  Speaker 9: And other industries have shown us right, Like you take
• 43:11
  Speaker 9: the adult entertainment world right, like when only fans came up,
• 43:15
  Speaker 9: people are like, why would people pay for adult entertainment?
• 43:17
  Speaker 9: It's pretty on the internet. And then not only fans,
• 43:19
  Speaker 9: it's what making nine ten billion dollars a year because
• 43:22
  Speaker 9: people are willing to pay for in that sense intimacy.
• 43:26
  Speaker 9: But with even it's people are paying for proximity.
• 43:29
  Speaker 7: So what's the global expansion? Like what are you looking
• 43:32
  Speaker 7: at as far as different regions? And you know, obviously
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: Afro Beach is going crazy right now. Technology is real
• 43:38
  Speaker 7: big in Africa. We just came back from Gaula. Is
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: that like on your radar? That's what's on your radars?
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: Was global experience.
• 43:45
  Speaker 9: You know, we've been thinking about global since day one,
• 43:48
  Speaker 9: mostly because our team right now is spread across twelve countries.
• 43:51
  Speaker 9: So I'm originally from Mexico. My co founder and CTO
• 43:54
  Speaker 9: is based in Peru. Most of our staff right now
• 43:58
  Speaker 9: is based across Latin America and after And one of
• 44:01
  Speaker 9: the most interesting things that we identified is there's fans
• 44:03
  Speaker 9: around the world that will never have access to their
• 44:06
  Speaker 9: favorite artists. So that's where we prioritize, like getting these
• 44:10
  Speaker 9: not only currencies from around the world on the platform,
• 44:13
  Speaker 9: talking to a lot of governments right like, hey, we
• 44:15
  Speaker 9: want to carry your currency on our platform. But during
• 44:18
  Speaker 9: those conversations, we found out that DSPs were never going
• 44:23
  Speaker 9: to governments and letting them know that they were operating
• 44:25
  Speaker 9: in their ecosystem. Right in Nigeria in particular, we've been
• 44:31
  Speaker 9: working really closely with the government, mostly to incentivize the
• 44:36
  Speaker 9: artists to use the platform in Nigeria. What we found
• 44:39
  Speaker 9: is that afrobeats made one hundred million dollars in twenty
• 44:42
  Speaker 9: twenty three globally for the music industry, only two percent
• 44:45
  Speaker 9: of that revenue ended up in Nigeria, right, And it's
• 44:48
  Speaker 9: the same thing that we've seen with reggaeton in Puerto
• 44:51
  Speaker 9: Rico and Dominican Republic and Mexican regional music in Mexico
• 44:55
  Speaker 9: and so on. Any country that has a massive cultural export,
• 44:58
  Speaker 9: the money very rarely ends up in those countries. And
• 45:01
  Speaker 9: we have a system where we can pay artists right
• 45:04
  Speaker 9: now in one hundred and thirty five countries in their
• 45:07
  Speaker 9: native currency without them ever having to get paid in
• 45:10
  Speaker 9: the United States. Right, so we do the conversion for
• 45:13
  Speaker 9: them on platform and they're paid in their country, allowing
• 45:16
  Speaker 9: them to keep their money in their country. For context,
• 45:20
  Speaker 9: most artists global artists are getting paid in the US
• 45:23
  Speaker 9: or the UK since most distribution companies are based there,
• 45:27
  Speaker 9: and they get paid in the US, they get taxed
• 45:29
  Speaker 9: thirty to forty percent, and then they send it home
• 45:31
  Speaker 9: and they get taxed fifteen to thirty percent, which shouldn't happen,
• 45:34
  Speaker 9: right if they made their money in Nigeria, they should
• 45:38
  Speaker 9: be getting paid in Nigeria. So that's been one of
• 45:41
  Speaker 9: the conversations that we've been having primarily with like some
• 45:44
  Speaker 9: of these global partnerships, and all of this honestly started
• 45:46
  Speaker 9: with Ghana. Our first release was with kWAC Arthur and
• 45:50
  Speaker 9: the Continent. He's a pretty big artist out of Ghana,
• 45:55
  Speaker 9: and he made five thousand dollars in the first twenty
• 45:58
  Speaker 9: four hours on the platform, with eighty percent of the
• 46:01
  Speaker 9: fans buying his album in Ghana. Now, we weren't even
• 46:05
  Speaker 9: we weren't even set up in January to accept payments
• 46:07
  Speaker 9: in Ghana. So these fans were like figuring out how
• 46:10
  Speaker 9: to buy the album. They needed US cards and it's
• 46:14
  Speaker 9: very complicated to buy something in the US. But it
• 46:17
  Speaker 9: allowed us to basically build the infrastructure where now fans
• 46:20
  Speaker 9: in Ghana can actually buy releases on even every major
• 46:24
  Speaker 9: insights company reached out in the music industry. Why are
• 46:27
  Speaker 9: you selling music in Ghana? iTunes ever launched in ghan Right?
• 46:31
  Speaker 9: No one's ever sold music in Ghana.
• 46:33
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 46:35
  Speaker 9: I mean you think of the Western world, right, they don't.
• 46:40
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think the honest answer is they didn't
• 46:42
  Speaker 9: think that people had the money for it, right. I
• 46:44
  Speaker 9: think when we think of traditionally Africa and Latin America,
• 46:48
  Speaker 9: there is this idea that there isn't any money in
• 46:53
  Speaker 9: these communities for people to actually spend money on the internet.
• 46:58
  Speaker 9: But you think of night for example, there's two hundred
• 47:01
  Speaker 9: and twenty five million people, sixty percent of the population
• 47:03
  Speaker 9: has a smartphone. Right, These are consumers that no one's
• 47:07
  Speaker 9: necessarily even allowing to enter a marketplace. But then you
• 47:12
  Speaker 9: think about how many creators are in that ecosystem that
• 47:14
  Speaker 9: can benefit from selling directly to that community of people.
• 47:19
  Speaker 9: So not I don't want to get too technical, but
• 47:22
  Speaker 9: hopefully that will make.
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: Information in terms of even as the infrastructure. Because it
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: feels and maybe I've read this, it feels like is
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: there a label component too, or is that something that
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: you guys are looking to or even give mentorship or
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: guides inside that space.
• 47:40
  Speaker 9: So we're not we partner with labels. I think the
• 47:41
  Speaker 9: biggest misconception is that we don't work with labels and
• 47:44
  Speaker 9: distribution companies. But about ninety percent of our releases have
• 47:48
  Speaker 9: been with distribution companies and record labels. And for us,
• 47:53
  Speaker 9: the idea is we want to grow the pie, right,
• 47:55
  Speaker 9: we don't want to x anyone out, especially in the ecosystem.
• 47:59
  Speaker 9: I think that's where a lot of companies have gone
• 48:00
  Speaker 9: to fail in this space, is they say after label,
• 48:03
  Speaker 9: after distribution company, befo us. It's like, we know that
• 48:07
  Speaker 9: artists have to grow, and the best way to grow
• 48:10
  Speaker 9: is to work with the people who are finance in
• 48:12
  Speaker 9: the industry, but do it in a way where they
• 48:14
  Speaker 9: can get their part and the artists can make their part,
• 48:17
  Speaker 9: and everyone walks away with the data to actually be
• 48:19
  Speaker 9: able to incubate and build sustainable careers. And that's what's
• 48:23
  Speaker 9: allowed us to work with these distributions and label partners.
• 48:26
  Speaker 9: But this is now extended to us working with the DSPs.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 48:30
  Speaker 9: We didn't want to make enemies in the space because
• 48:33
  Speaker 9: streaming isn't going anywhere.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 48:35
  Speaker 9: I listened to music on Spotify and Apple Music. Right,
• 48:38
  Speaker 9: That's the same way that I watch Netflix. But I
• 48:41
  Speaker 9: still went to go watch Dooontube right and pay twenty dollars.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 48:45
  Speaker 9: I could have waited until it hit a Netflix, but
• 48:48
  Speaker 9: I really wanted to watch the film, but I wanted
• 48:49
  Speaker 9: to pay twenty dollars.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 48:50
  Speaker 9: No one is canceling their Spotify account when they buy
• 48:54
  Speaker 9: an album money even, right, They're doing it to support
• 48:56
  Speaker 9: the artists, get it early because they want it now,
• 48:59
  Speaker 9: and then and it hits streaming, they're going to listen
• 49:01
  Speaker 9: to it on their preferred streaming platform, and it's a
• 49:04
  Speaker 9: new data point, right, and artists sales take l Russell, right,
• 49:08
  Speaker 9: he has what three hundred thousand monthly listeners on Spotify.
• 49:11
  Speaker 9: If that was your everyday artist, you wouldn't even think
• 49:14
  Speaker 9: twice to think that that's a superstar, right, But his
• 49:18
  Speaker 9: community is so strong because he actually sells units, where
• 49:22
  Speaker 9: those three hundred thousand monthly listeners don't even mean anything
• 49:24
  Speaker 9: because you know, he has a community of people which
• 49:27
  Speaker 9: is now a new metric that didn't exist prior to this. Unfortunately,
• 49:32
  Speaker 9: since like the CD era, but CDs and streaming never
• 49:35
  Speaker 9: really collided. Unfortunately.
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: This is I mean, I feel like four years ago
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: we had a conversation with Ryan Leslie. It was the
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: same concept about invest being more. I know he released
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: an album on the platform. Talk about your relationship with
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: him and how that came together.
• 49:51
  Speaker 9: Man, it's interesting. I was on Ryan Leslie's super falling
• 49:55
  Speaker 9: in high school. Man. I thought I was texting Ryan
• 49:57
  Speaker 9: Leslie and it turns out that I was tech ry.
• 50:01
  Speaker 9: And what's crazy is I got a call October second,
• 50:06
  Speaker 9: the day after the launch when we did with l
• 50:08
  Speaker 9: Russell or the MVP launch, and it was a call
• 50:12
  Speaker 9: and it was I pick up and I was like hello.
• 50:15
  Speaker 9: He was like yo, it's Ryan. I'm like Ryan, Oh,
• 50:18
  Speaker 9: Ryan Leslie, and I was like, all right, and I
• 50:20
  Speaker 9: hang up. Calls began since He's like, I'm gonna send
• 50:23
  Speaker 9: you zoom link and we jump on zoom and he's
• 50:25
  Speaker 9: sharing his screen of his superphone dashboard superphone dashboard, and
• 50:29
  Speaker 9: he's showing me text messages of me texting Ryan Leslie
• 50:33
  Speaker 9: happy birthday and like from like ten years ago, and
• 50:37
  Speaker 9: he was I was like, this is crazy. You've had
• 50:40
  Speaker 9: my information this whole time that he saw even on
• 50:42
  Speaker 9: his you know, on his feed, and he looked me
• 50:45
  Speaker 9: up and then he looked me up on his super
• 50:47
  Speaker 9: phone and sure enough, I was already there. But I
• 50:50
  Speaker 9: credit Ryan Leslie and Nipsey you know for a lot
• 50:53
  Speaker 9: of what we're doing with even right. They really laid
• 50:55
  Speaker 9: out the blueprint of direct to consumer, owning your relationship
• 51:00
  Speaker 9: with your fans, building community because they've been doing it.
• 51:03
  Speaker 9: And we released Ryan Leslie's new album you Know My
• 51:06
  Speaker 9: Speed in January if this year, on the platform, two
• 51:09
  Speaker 9: weeks before DSPs, and it was crazy one to do
• 51:14
  Speaker 9: that with someone that I've admired for a long time,
• 51:16
  Speaker 9: right as an innovator that he is into space, but
• 51:19
  Speaker 9: also to see his fan base from ten years ago, right,
• 51:24
  Speaker 9: still buying his new album today and engage with the
• 51:27
  Speaker 9: platform in this way. It just spoke volumes, right because
• 51:31
  Speaker 9: it worked back then and it works now, but now
• 51:35
  Speaker 9: every artist can do it. Right Back then, you know,
• 51:37
  Speaker 9: there was more loopholes that Ryan had. The technology wasn't
• 51:40
  Speaker 9: where it was at now. So now every artist can
• 51:43
  Speaker 9: go and build in this model that you know, And
• 51:46
  Speaker 9: it was interesting to also learn that Ryan was one
• 51:49
  Speaker 9: of the people behind right Nipsey Hustle and working really
• 51:52
  Speaker 9: closely with Ntsey as well. So yeah, and then you know,
• 51:56
  Speaker 9: I think beyond that, just like the personal component of him,
• 52:00
  Speaker 9: like giving us the stambover appooval and being like I'm
• 52:02
  Speaker 9: gonna drop He could have dropped this olbum on his website.
• 52:04
  Speaker 9: He literally could have, and he decided to come to
• 52:06
  Speaker 9: even which you know still doesn't feel real personally for me.
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: Right, So you said that French has he knows how
• 52:14
  Speaker 7: to market it? What how do you market it?
• 52:18
  Speaker 9: I think knowing how to talk to your audience I
• 52:20
  Speaker 9: think is important. Right, This isn't There's nothing passive about
• 52:25
  Speaker 9: selling products, right, Music has been very passive, both on
• 52:30
  Speaker 9: the creator side and on the consumer side, and this
• 52:34
  Speaker 9: breaks that barrier, right, this isn't I'm gonna just put
• 52:36
  Speaker 9: a link in my bio or a little story of
• 52:39
  Speaker 9: This requires the artist to go and say, look, I
• 52:42
  Speaker 9: have this body of work, and I know you're gonna
• 52:44
  Speaker 9: go look for it, but you got to come get
• 52:46
  Speaker 9: it from me. You can get it everywhere else later,
• 52:49
  Speaker 9: but if you want it today, you got to come
• 52:50
  Speaker 9: get it from me. And that message just gravitates for people.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 52:56
  Speaker 9: It makes when we think about the word like conscious consumer, right,
• 53:00
  Speaker 9: care about where our food comes from. We'd rather go
• 53:02
  Speaker 9: to a local coffee shop than Starbucks.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 53:04
  Speaker 9: That makes up about eighty percent of the US population,
• 53:07
  Speaker 9: and it's growing beyond just the US. It allows people
• 53:10
  Speaker 9: to feel good about how they consume something, and I
• 53:14
  Speaker 9: think beyond that too, Right, I think one of the
• 53:15
  Speaker 9: big questions that comes up is what stops people from
• 53:18
  Speaker 9: leaking the music? Right, Like I pay for it? We
• 53:23
  Speaker 9: also people bring up that question. I could talk about
• 53:26
  Speaker 9: all the like logistical things that we do and all
• 53:28
  Speaker 9: the you know, security that we have on the platform,
• 53:31
  Speaker 9: but I start leading with anyone who actually ever used
• 53:35
  Speaker 9: the LimeWire, Right, I'm sure did you guys ever use.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: Naps before that? Right?
• 53:41
  Speaker 9: Like would you trust linewire in your computer today.
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: I don't know.
• 53:46
  Speaker 9: I don't think so, you know, I think that's that's
• 53:48
  Speaker 9: the argument that I start with, right, Like, pirrating music
• 53:52
  Speaker 9: was a thing that happened because the Internet felt like
• 53:56
  Speaker 9: this big world. But it's so it was inconvenient to do, right,
• 54:00
  Speaker 9: You have to download the music, find the song if
• 54:02
  Speaker 9: it wasn't soldiable.
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: Everybody know that Soldier Man and the Club turned into soldiable.
• 54:10
  Speaker 9: You know, and then you have to upload it, right,
• 54:13
  Speaker 9: Like people are willing to pay for convenience and that
• 54:17
  Speaker 9: that just doesn't people forget how small the piracy industry is.
• 54:22
  Speaker 9: And I think that's one side, But the other side,
• 54:24
  Speaker 9: we of course have every security tool that you can
• 54:27
  Speaker 9: think of, from audible Magic to pegs. When you check
• 54:30
  Speaker 9: out the app, you can't take screenshots or screen recordings
• 54:34
  Speaker 9: on the platform, and we monitor them. So when you
• 54:36
  Speaker 9: take a screenshot, we will monitor that on the back end.
• 54:39
  Speaker 9: We've never had a leak on the platform, right, including
• 54:41
  Speaker 9: our high profile releases like French The Lorens of the Worlds.
• 54:46
  Speaker 9: And you know that's something that I think our partners
• 54:48
  Speaker 9: with me look at and it required time. Right, We've
• 54:50
  Speaker 9: been doing this, not for two years and people have
• 54:52
  Speaker 9: to see it.
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 54:53
  Speaker 9: It's one thing to say we have never had leaks
• 54:55
  Speaker 9: on the platform. It's another thing to actually.
• 54:57
  Speaker 7: How does the label, Like, does the label have to
• 54:59
  Speaker 7: approve the artist one hundred percent? Yeah, how does that work?
• 55:02
  Speaker 9: So the way that the revenue split on even it's
• 55:04
  Speaker 9: fifty percent is considered music, fifty percent is considered access.
• 55:08
  Speaker 9: So what that means is the actual transaction for the
• 55:13
  Speaker 9: music is only fifty percent. So we can argue that
• 55:19
  Speaker 9: fans are actually coming for the artists, so maybe it's
• 55:21
  Speaker 9: less on the music side, but the truth is the
• 55:23
  Speaker 9: fans wouldn't go if the music wasn't there. So fifty
• 55:26
  Speaker 9: percent gets paid directly to the artists, and then the
• 55:28
  Speaker 9: fifty goes to the label. If a fan pays twenty
• 55:31
  Speaker 9: five dollars right after Evan's cut, ten goes to the artists,
• 55:34
  Speaker 9: ten goes to the label. That's more than they were
• 55:36
  Speaker 9: profiting on seasons.
• 55:37
  Speaker 7: So like so they haven't they've never had an issue
• 55:40
  Speaker 7: where they they told the artists you can't do this,
• 55:42
  Speaker 7: or they discourage the artists.
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: I'm doing it.
• 55:45
  Speaker 9: Oh, one hundred percent. People have said all the time, Yeah,
• 55:47
  Speaker 9: the label, the label one hundred percent.
• 55:49
  Speaker 7: Okay, they have wiships with Apple or Spotify.
• 55:51
  Speaker 9: Or no, they sit idea. It's never on the DSP side. Honestly,
• 55:55
  Speaker 9: a lot of it is always accounting. You have to
• 55:58
  Speaker 9: understand that labels are built on a system where payouts
• 56:02
  Speaker 9: are on a three month basis, right. Artists aren't just
• 56:04
  Speaker 9: paid to the three months after every streaming period. Labels
• 56:08
  Speaker 9: are also paid to the three months.
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 56:09
  Speaker 9: Some of my biggest conversations with labels and distributors has
• 56:12
  Speaker 9: been what are you You're going to pay us daily?
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 56:16
  Speaker 9: Can you pay us once a month?
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: They don't want to get paid.
• 56:19
  Speaker 9: They don't want to get paid day because they don't
• 56:21
  Speaker 9: know how to they don't have the infrastructure for it,
• 56:23
  Speaker 9: which is a part of the problem. And I think
• 56:25
  Speaker 9: that's where the education side for us where I'm always
• 56:28
  Speaker 9: very transparent, you know. I think I have one of
• 56:30
  Speaker 9: the conversations that I had with a distributor, I was like,
• 56:33
  Speaker 9: you sure you want to get paid daily? And they're like, no,
• 56:35
  Speaker 9: we want to check at the end of the month.
• 56:36
  Speaker 9: And I'm like, you don't know about a treasury account,
• 56:38
  Speaker 9: like and they looked at the room and they're just like,
• 56:41
  Speaker 9: can we even do that, and I was just like, well,
• 56:43
  Speaker 9: if you don't, I will, right, Like I could escrow
• 56:46
  Speaker 9: this money and fold it and build interest, but you
• 56:50
  Speaker 9: should be doing that, right like we shouldn't. And now
• 56:53
  Speaker 9: we have partners that actually did that, right. They this
• 56:55
  Speaker 9: is a whole new revenue model as a platform. But
• 56:58
  Speaker 9: since we're paying them daily, they can actually crow interest
• 57:01
  Speaker 9: on their revenue. Because when fans pay for subscriptions every
• 57:05
  Speaker 9: single month, right, ten dollars or twelve thirteen, whatever it is,
• 57:10
  Speaker 9: and they don't pay the labels until three months later,
• 57:13
  Speaker 9: how much interest did that platform already make on that
• 57:16
  Speaker 9: money before they pay out?
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 57:18
  Speaker 9: And again it depends on what I'm talking to. Something
• 57:21
  Speaker 9: that I talk to people and they're just look at
• 57:22
  Speaker 9: me like I'm crazy, But I think that's the value.
• 57:26
  Speaker 9: And I say the same thing to artists, right like
• 57:29
  Speaker 9: every I mean, I try to educate as much as
• 57:31
  Speaker 9: I can of like, you know, different tools. Me and
• 57:35
  Speaker 9: La Russell always talks about differential whether it's like a
• 57:37
  Speaker 9: new bike he should check out managing his expenses. I
• 57:42
  Speaker 9: think that's been probably something that we want to dive
• 57:44
  Speaker 9: into a little bit more. And we have some other
• 57:45
  Speaker 9: stuff that we're going to be announcing this year on
• 57:47
  Speaker 9: just financial literacy for our partners, because it's one thing
• 57:50
  Speaker 9: to help people make their first dollar, the first one
• 57:52
  Speaker 9: thousand in music, which is happening every day on the platform.
• 57:56
  Speaker 9: It's another thing of like what should you do with
• 57:58
  Speaker 9: that money now? A business because in many, in many ways,
• 58:02
  Speaker 9: we are transitioning in artists from a hobbyist to an
• 58:05
  Speaker 9: actual business the moment they make their first one thousand,
• 58:08
  Speaker 9: ten thousand from music.
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: But yeah, you brought up security, and is this s
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: because I'm thinking I remember those days.
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: It was the reason I think that the piracy is
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: going to tell because like where would you put it?
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: Right before?
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: We would burn it and put it on a CD?
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: Put that your car, those things to play it on.
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: Then you had the MP three players. Those things are
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: kind of going away now. So what are the childs
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: of security now? Because most of I think the number
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: one asset now is the data, right, Like that's the
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: goal of the generation. So what measures are you putting
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: in place? How much time in your team spending on
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: always updating security and making sure that that data protection
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: is in place?
• 58:48
  Speaker 9: Oh man, it's I mean that's probably been the most
• 58:50
  Speaker 9: expensive thing that we've spent on in the last since
• 58:53
  Speaker 9: our beta launched last March to now. It's primarily around
• 58:58
  Speaker 9: the infrastructure, and we have these incredible tools that.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: We work with.
• 59:02
  Speaker 9: Right Stripe is our back end infrastructure for all payments,
• 59:06
  Speaker 9: so we never actually have to hold any of that
• 59:08
  Speaker 9: information that's held by Stripe, and the same thing on
• 59:12
  Speaker 9: the data side with AWS. So AWS is basically our
• 59:16
  Speaker 9: back end and maybe everyone's back end right now, so
• 59:19
  Speaker 9: we never want to take on any of that liability
• 59:22
  Speaker 9: and hold any of that data. We work with our partners.
• 59:25
  Speaker 9: And now even for our CRM tool where you get
• 59:27
  Speaker 9: the emails to phone numbers, we work with Superphone, So
• 59:29
  Speaker 9: all of that is powered by Superphone and they actually
• 59:32
  Speaker 9: hold all of the data on their servers and they
• 59:35
  Speaker 9: have all of the tools already built out. And I think,
• 59:38
  Speaker 9: you know, anytime you're building a new product, instead of
• 59:41
  Speaker 9: trying to rebuild you know, the wheel, just work with
• 59:44
  Speaker 9: the service providers that are already in space. So we're
• 59:46
  Speaker 9: fully compliant across not just the US, but also Europe,
• 59:51
  Speaker 9: Asia and anywhere where our partners.
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: Are six So super Phone has always been a CRM
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: that you guys use.
• 59:58
  Speaker 9: We get that there are first CRM, so we don't
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 9: have a CRM tool before that, before all of the
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 9: data would just live on Strike. That's good on the transaction.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 7: So you say you have ten thousand people on the platform,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 7: ten thousand artists, all people have applied.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 9: We have a little bit over forty thousand on the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 9: wait lists, So how do you decide who gets are
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 9: and who doesn't. So the best way to get artists
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 9: on the platform is to work with a distribution partner.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 9: So we use our distribution partners as like a KYC process.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 9: Since we are dealing with payments, there's a lot of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 9: logistical paperwork that goes into actually paying people daily. So
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 9: assuming that they don't have a distribution partner, then it's
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 9: like a four to six week process of getting them
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 9: onboarded directly through Strike.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 7: It's a distribution like Distro Kids something like that.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 9: I can announci any of the district partners yet, but yes,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 9: it's like the DIY distribution partners up to like your
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 9: more premium distributors as well, and then labels as well,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 9: and like their subsidiaries as well.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: Is there a max number or an ideal number that
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: we're looking for as a benchmark within the first year.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 9: Honestly, first artists users, My number was fifty thousand this year, right,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 9: I was like, I want to help fifty thousand artists
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 9: make their first one thousand dollars go in direct to consumer.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 9: I think it's been a snowball effect in the last
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 9: three months where now we're on track to probably on
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 9: board over a million artists by Q three of this year,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 9: and really just making sure that we have the infrastructure
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 9: in place to really serve those artists. I think it's
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 9: one thing to offer a tool, but if you don't
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 9: have the tools to make sure that they're successful, it's
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 9: not You know, we have partners that have millions of
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 9: artists on their distribution channels that are like, we want
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 9: to make everyone and even artists, and we're just like,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 9: now let's start. We'd like the crawl walk run model.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 9: As a company, we understand that, you know, the relationship
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 9: that we have with our artists partners is our priority.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 9: Number one. We have to do right by our artists
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 9: before just trying to you know, push volume.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: Do artists join?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 7: Free?
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 9: Is one hundred percent free, So the platform is free,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 9: no subscription on the artist side or on the fan side.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 7: A plan for the company going forward? Is it to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 7: sell them a few years?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: Is it?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 7: What's to do?
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 9: I think I think we're ways away before we think
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 9: of like what the next stage of the platform. I
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 9: think for me right now, the biggest priority has been
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 9: how do we build something sustainable?
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 9: I think building anything for a quick flip is never
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 9: going to be worthed for anyone, you know. I think
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 9: we've had numerous conversations around acquisition with every partner that
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 9: you the first person that comes to mind, We've talked
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 9: to them and I told them the same thing. I
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 9: think it makes more sense for us to build what
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 9: we're building right now in an intentionable way, an intentional way. Sorry,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 9: before we even get to that point. I mean I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 9: talk about it every quarter with our board. Right it's like,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 9: are we going for an IPO? Are we going for
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 9: an exit? I think, let's help. If we do right
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 9: by the artists on the platform, will everything else will
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 9: come right? How do we help fifty one hundred thousand
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 9: artists became the next lit Russell right that can incubate
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 9: and build sustainable careers without having to deal with the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 9: vanity metrics that the music industry is kind of fueled
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 9: everyone to think that they need.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: So do you vision as a unicorn?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: Because I'm thinking from a suspicious standpoint, is like, all right,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: I know how many customers I have on a yearly basis,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: multi basis, I can calculate that to get evaluation or
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 5: is it just.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: Shall be basing on the amount of revenue that we're
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: bringing in, right, billion dollar evaluator? Like what are we
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: looking at?
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 9: I think I personally believe in the data is showing
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 9: that we can grow the music industry's global revenue by
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 9: fifteen to twenty percent in the next two years based
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 9: on the amount of consumer trends that we're seeing on
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 9: platform and the amount of interest that we're getting from fans.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 9: But also artists that have the amount of artists who've
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 9: been releasing music on streaming platforms for the past ten years,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 9: who can't even make fifteen dollars a month from streaming,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 9: but are coming to the platform and making tens and
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 9: thousands of dollars. The whole market of artists that streaming
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 9: doesn't really benefit, but now they can use their revenue
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 9: and the community from even to help fuel their streaming, right,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 9: so they can build on two businesses. So I mean
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 9: thinking of that in mind, fifteen to twenty percent one
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 9: hundred percent believe even will be a unit porn.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: Like you see legacy artists and they'll put out an
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: album as oh they only sold eight thousand units. Oh
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: they only know I mean on Billboard, and it's likes
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: that really indication of their fan base, whereas now if
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: they go direct eight thousand, it's a different look.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 9: And we do releases with legacy artists all the time, right,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 9: like those are It's always incredible for me to work
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 9: with an artist that, like I was a huge fan
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 9: of maybe ten years ago, and they released on the
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 9: platform and the DSPs don't really care for anymore, Right,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 9: they're not gonna end up on a rap cavia not playing.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 9: But for us, we know that there's an audience, there's
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 9: a couple thousand people who are willing to pay. Because
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 9: those a thousand or so people have around for the
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 9: last ten to fifteen years of their career and end
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 9: up making more money than they were going to generate
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 9: off of streaming alone.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: And we can see if you look at ticket sales
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: from shows, a lot of shows they're still performing, so
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: there's still a play there where people are still engage
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: with the concept that they're career.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 9: And you've seen that now, I mean you've seen legacy.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 9: Like think about hip hop in general. There's artists that
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 9: can tour in the States and sell two hundred tickets,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 9: but they go to Europe and they're selling a thousand
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 9: plus venues because the proximity isn't there, right, And there's
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 9: these you know, people who have never seen ex artists
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 9: before in Germany and all of a sudden they want
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 9: to go and see that artist that they've maybe listened
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 9: to ten years ago. That doesn't happen just in the States.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 9: And then you open up the world. Right, there's only
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 9: thirty two global touring markets and the planet only ten
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 9: percent that're going back to that number of like ten
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 9: percent of the global population will only ever have proximity
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 9: to their favorite artists. You open it up digitally and
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 9: it opens up a new without having to exert too
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 9: much on the artists.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 9: I think the artists love even because it's it's not
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 9: something else that they have to do. It's something that
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 9: they were already going to do. They're just replacing their
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 9: pre safe campaign with their by my album campaign.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 7: I appreciate you, my brother. So the last quesson I
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: have is like the bundle pack, right, Like, how does
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 7: that work? Like even when Yupsei when he sold his
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 7: album one hundred dollars, he had like merch involved, he
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 7: had tickets to a show. So does your platform allow
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: that or is it just straight music?
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 9: Yeah, so we call them tears on the platform. So
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 9: the only most releases have anywhere between four to five
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 9: access tiers. Sometimes it's pay whatever you want and you
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 9: get album. We recommend that you price it out right,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 9: so maybe it's ten dollars just to listen to the album, right,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 9: that's the minimum. Twenty five and you get a virtual
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 9: at lease party fifty dollars, you get a free t shirt,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 9: one hundred dollars, you get a FaceTime call one thousand dollars.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 9: I'll come perform the album in your living room, which
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 9: we've done with this. Like this artist went through the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 9: platform and he sold a couple thousand dollars tiers where
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 9: he would go to people's houses and perform the album,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 9: which was crazy that we sell that on the back end.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 9: But yeah, you can do tears, we don't necessarily call
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 9: them bundles because it's not you can't. For example, if
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 9: you pay a thousand dollars, you would get everything from
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 9: a thousand under not just the one pack.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 7: How do you track that? As far as the response,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 7: So the music somebody pays for you, you're going to
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 7: give them the music or like that. You can't control that,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 7: So how do you nab it? Because like soy, somebody's
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: problem for them, they never do anything right and then
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 7: they look back and they blame you as a blackform.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 9: So all of that pieces is really we connect the
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 9: artists in the fan right post transaction, so there is
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 9: an open line of communication. The customer support email is
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 9: the artist support email. Thinking like a Shopify right, we
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 9: could start a Shopify store today and start selling you know,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 9: whatever we want to sell on there. We have to
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 9: abide and buy that transaction. And then of course that's
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 9: really where the KYC process comes in with stripe, where
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 9: if an artist doesn't any refund gets refunded to the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 9: artists on their account, even if they already cashed out,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 9: that account is associated to their bank account and to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 9: that user. And that's where the STRIPE protection comes in
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 9: as an infrastructure since they fuel you know sixty to
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 9: seventy percent of the global transactions right now.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 7: God it. Well, appreciate it, my brother. Thank you. Tell
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 7: people the social website and everything to have.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 9: Of course, of course download the app, follow us on
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 9: social media, even dot biz on all social media platforms,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 9: or our website, even do biz across the board. But
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 9: it is just even. I think people think we're called
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 9: even do biz, but it's really just even. There's just
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 9: the domain. Maybe one day we can afford the dot com.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 7: Thank you, got rocking once to see you next week.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 9: Peace pase appreciated.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: That's sir, all right, bro, appreciate it.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 9: Thanks, Thank you. Rats, the rats of a lot of
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 9: you make thank you great questions.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 7: Do let's dog.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: Which pretty luck.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 9: Stake a quick picture?
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: Let me see if an illegal alien from Guatemala charged
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: member from Al Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: of Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: because of President Donald J.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: I'm Christy nom the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, your
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: next you will be fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: and deported.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: You will never return.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: Do what's right, leave now.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, America's law border and families will be protected.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,