Speaker 1: I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tach, Green Money.
Speaker 1: Ryan Leslie is a Grammy nominated musician and producer, having
Speaker 1: produced hits for artists like New Addition and Cassie, which
Speaker 1: he found in nurtured as an artist, and wrote and
Speaker 1: produced her hit single Me and You. He's also founder
Speaker 1: as Superphone, which helps creatives and businesses increase engagement, drive revenue,
Speaker 1: and build better relationships with SMS, m ands marketing. I've
Speaker 1: been a fan of Ryan since I heard about his
Speaker 1: work in the early two thousands, So this is what
Speaker 1: is the phone for me. We're seeing so many of
Speaker 1: our great artists selling their catalogs and the rights to
Speaker 1: their music for sums that are very large and others
Speaker 1: that are at least we as the public don't feel
Speaker 1: are large enough. I asked Ryan to explain what's happening
Speaker 1: in the music business that's brought on this trend of
Speaker 1: sell off with so many others are preaching ownership.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I would say for me, when you look at
Speaker 3: money in hands versus money in the future, there's a
Speaker 3: lot more that can be done with money in hand,
Speaker 3: and that's what's so important. And so when you have
Speaker 3: the ability to navigate financial markets, navigate investments, decide whether
Speaker 3: you want to make investments in a number of different categories.
Speaker 3: The way financial markets work is it takes money to
Speaker 3: make money, and so to actually decide to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: maybe I have two hundred million dollars at some point
Speaker 3: in the future versus the ability to actually put that
Speaker 3: money to work right now, in my opinion, becomes a
Speaker 3: no brainer when you have that much future value that
Speaker 3: can be unlocked immediately.
Speaker 1: So what kind of artists does it make sense for
Speaker 1: If you're on the other side, you're a financier and
Speaker 1: you're seeing, Okay, here's this artist X and they've had
Speaker 1: some pop hits. They've had some hits that you know,
Speaker 1: some would argue are not like, you know, classic, but
Speaker 1: they maybe hits. What at what point does it make
Speaker 1: sense for them to have conversations with artists where you know,
Speaker 1: though that long term value is.
Speaker 3: There right Well, what I would say is this is very,
Speaker 3: very detailed and data driven.
Speaker 2: So they just look at the streams.
Speaker 3: They look at what they would call steady state, meaning hey,
Speaker 3: no matter how long it's been since this record came out,
Speaker 3: this is how much money is being generated on a
Speaker 3: consistent basis, and so they make an extrapolation on the
Speaker 3: catalog to decide what they believe the future value of
Speaker 3: that catalog will be. And that's how they that's how
Speaker 3: they do these deals. These deals are very, very specific.
Speaker 3: It had nothing to do with the subjective. Do I
Speaker 3: like the songs?
Speaker 2: I like the catalog? They literally just look at.
Speaker 3: How many streams are these records making, and how many
Speaker 3: streams are these records generating, and what is the actual
Speaker 3: what will actually be a great return on investment for
Speaker 3: them in terms of ownership, and then obviously the partnership
Speaker 3: and when we look at some of the big players
Speaker 3: that are doing this, the partnerships are able to potentially
Speaker 3: even rejuvenate the music.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So when you have investors who also have their hands
Speaker 3: in film, television, sports, other arenas of entertainment, then they're
Speaker 3: able to acquire these catalogs and then give a song
Speaker 3: of brand new life because now it is the soundbed
Speaker 3: for a hit series somewhere, right, So they understand what
Speaker 3: they need to do to actually take this to the
Speaker 3: next level. And it's you know, when you talk about
Speaker 3: the accounting and the mathematics that's done in order to
Speaker 3: come to the valuations of these catalogs is very it's
Speaker 3: very data driven.
Speaker 1: At the risk of making this even a little bit
Speaker 1: more technical, you know, we hear this argument from artists
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, they may get point zero zero
Speaker 1: zero zero five to seven cents on these streams. But
Speaker 1: then you have these you know, financers who obviously see
Speaker 1: the math and you know, they believe that they can
Speaker 1: get their their investment back. What is it that they're
Speaker 1: taking advantage of that that artist can't take advantage of
Speaker 1: to be able to make that math math.
Speaker 3: Well, they're taking advantage of money up front. Okay, So
Speaker 3: that's you just have to think about this, all right.
Speaker 3: So if and just for simple math, let's just do it.
Speaker 3: Let's think about it in terms of simple math, all right.
Speaker 3: So let's just say you got a penny per stream,
Speaker 3: all right, instead of breaking it down to the fractional
Speaker 3: it means a million streams you would get you would
Speaker 3: get ten thousand dollars, all right.
Speaker 2: So when you have a record that just you know, goes.
Speaker 3: Crazy, right, ten million streams, one hundred thousand, right, a
Speaker 3: billion streams, right, ten million dollars. Right. So when you
Speaker 3: really think about this, the ability for these records to
Speaker 3: actually generate this and if the artist wants to wait
Speaker 3: until the revenue is paid out, then obviously they can
Speaker 3: wait the difference though, And you know, this is kind
Speaker 3: of what I've definitely worked with a number of artists
Speaker 3: that have come to me that are looking for mentorship
Speaker 3: in terms of how to get their finances right.
Speaker 2: Is.
Speaker 3: Look, when you have the ability to navigate the financial
Speaker 3: markets in the right way, you can take one hundred
Speaker 3: k today and turn it into two hundred thousand by
Speaker 3: June of this year. You know. So you know, we've
Speaker 3: got folks, I got our artist managers, etc.
Speaker 2: That I work with.
Speaker 3: They'll come to me the beginning of the year and say, look,
Speaker 3: you know, I just got this advance and I'm looking
Speaker 3: to actually go ahead and make it stretch. You know,
Speaker 3: I know that the label is going to take care
Speaker 3: of all of the expenses, but this advance, I need
Speaker 3: this to stretch. And so really it's about giving people
Speaker 3: the edgection that has been missing from the our middle
Speaker 3: school to high school to college education system.
Speaker 2: How do you navigate financial markets?
Speaker 3: And this is these are these are concepts that are
Speaker 3: really you know, very very We talk about middle school
Speaker 3: math to understand they have just been sort of shrouded
Speaker 3: in secrecy up to this point. And so the difference
Speaker 3: is not that an independent artist or an artist would
Speaker 3: not be able to realize that, uh those returns. It's
Speaker 3: just do they actually have the ability to sit around
Speaker 3: and wait for that to actually be accrued to them.
Speaker 3: The difference is when someone has money, their money is
Speaker 3: losing money if it's just sitting there. So when you're
Speaker 3: an artist and you don't have the money and you're
Speaker 3: waiting for the money to come to you, well, then
Speaker 3: that's great because at some point that is some some
Speaker 3: some value that will be accrue to you in the
Speaker 3: future when you are financia or you actually are even
Speaker 3: an artist that has money that's just sitting there. When
Speaker 3: that money is not deployed, then it's actually losing money.
Speaker 3: And so that's why I went especially over the last
Speaker 3: couple of years, where we saw the rife that was
Speaker 3: you know what was the we found financial markets that
Speaker 3: were reeling from over extension due to all the money
Speaker 3: that had been you know, sort of pumped into the economy.
Speaker 3: That is when you started to see smart folks looking
Speaker 3: for alternative places to put the money to work. Because
Speaker 3: the usual places where they would put money to work, Google, Apple, Amazon,
Speaker 3: the Nasdaq, the S and P five hundred, those places
Speaker 3: were over extended, and that money, while it was deployed
Speaker 3: in those places, those far reaches of the financial markets,
Speaker 3: was actually moving in the opposite direction that was desired.
Speaker 3: And so when you can find and alternative ways to
Speaker 3: put the money to work where those returns are let's say,
Speaker 3: uncorrelated to the stock market, then that really becomes a
Speaker 3: prudent investment.
Speaker 1: You've seen like as many of us have these you know,
Speaker 1: fake drake AI, you know, recreations of artists and their sound.
Speaker 1: And I wonder with us, with us giving up these rights,
Speaker 1: do you foresee any potential regret that may come because
Speaker 1: we don't know what, you know, these things may be valuable,
Speaker 1: what the value of these things may be. Because AI
Speaker 1: blockchain the center is happening so fast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think to look at it that way is
Speaker 3: really looking at it from a scarcity mindset.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It's almost like when I first got into the music business,
Speaker 3: there was a record I had that I thought was
Speaker 3: gonna be my singles called hot Tonight. The single ended
Speaker 3: up being a single for New Edition, and I just
Speaker 3: knew at that juncture.
Speaker 2: Being a creative when you look at just.
Speaker 3: Life in general, as a creator, you want to be
Speaker 3: able to create. And so, yeah, maybe you have the
Speaker 3: song that got away, maybe you have the you know,
Speaker 3: the show idea that got away nine time out of ten. Okay,
Speaker 3: when you decide to put that piece of intellectual property
Speaker 3: into the hands of a different custodian, the hopefully that
Speaker 3: custodian has an incentive to actually make that a very
Speaker 3: increase the value of whatever you have have delivered to them.
Speaker 3: And so in a case of new edition, in the
Speaker 3: case of writing and producing me and you for Cassie,
Speaker 3: for example, instead of thinking of this from a scarcity
Speaker 3: mindset and saying, oh, you know, if I give this
Speaker 3: catalog away, you know, you know what did I leave
Speaker 3: on the table? I am always thinking in terms of
Speaker 3: my gift is the fact that for what they just bought,
Speaker 3: I can actually create one hundred two hundred one thousand
Speaker 3: more and they wouldn't even have to pay me to
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: It's something I want to do anyway.
Speaker 3: So whether they paid me upfront now to do this
Speaker 3: or they didn't, I would still be in the studio
Speaker 3: the next day.
Speaker 2: Deciding that I wanted to create.
Speaker 3: And so when we look at our lives from that
Speaker 3: through that lens, when we look at our lives through
Speaker 3: that lens, we are able to really kind of strip
Speaker 3: away all of those kind of distractions around what really matters.
Speaker 3: And money really is just currency. It just kind of
Speaker 3: flows through accounts if it comes to your account. The
Speaker 3: only difference is and the reason why you want it
Speaker 3: to flow through your account is because you can exercise
Speaker 3: control on where it is distributed. And so really, the
Speaker 3: shrewd musician, the shrewd businessman, the shrewd person in general
Speaker 3: is looking to understand the science because it really is
Speaker 3: a science of how to get currency to flow through
Speaker 3: your accounts, because when it flows through your accounts, you
Speaker 3: can direct the flow.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about your brand a
Speaker 1: little bit. I've been following you for a long time.
Speaker 1: I meet YouTube videos where you would jump off the
Speaker 1: keys onto the drums, jump off the drums onto the guitar,
Speaker 1: and it will be these You were a pioneer in
Speaker 1: that way, you showing that one person could be in
Speaker 1: the studio doing all these things. I mean, you had
Speaker 1: artists who could do that, but they didn't have the
Speaker 1: gift of YouTube to be able to show the world.
Speaker 1: And what we've learned about brand is that if you
Speaker 1: can build a successful brand, people will follow you wherever.
Speaker 1: They'll go, buy your thing, they'll come to your show,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Congrats on your successful crowdfunding raise. What have
Speaker 1: you learned about storytelling and branding that allows you to
Speaker 1: deploy your brand in any direction you wish?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think really stories are what connect humans and
Speaker 3: even just what we're doing right now, we're telling stories
Speaker 3: and that's why people are going to tune in. And
Speaker 3: stories are the way that we convey and communicate.
Speaker 2: Our value to one another.
Speaker 3: And so whatever it is that you do, your ability
Speaker 3: to tell a story, a story of success, a story
Speaker 3: of challenge, a story of obstacle, a story where people
Speaker 3: can relate and see themselves in that story, that will
Speaker 3: give you sort of a universal appeal on a human level.
Speaker 3: And when you strip away, hey is this music, is
Speaker 3: this technology?
Speaker 2: Is this finance? And you get down to the human
Speaker 2: level and you realize, hey, what is it that people
Speaker 2: really want? Well, they want to live their best lives.
Speaker 3: They want to be able to spend time with those
Speaker 3: that they love, they want to be able to not
Speaker 3: have to trade their time to be employed in some
Speaker 3: kind of work that they you know, that they that
Speaker 3: they wish they could do something else. So when you
Speaker 3: can help people to improve their lives in that way,
Speaker 3: whether it's just hey, you know, a record that they
Speaker 3: can play over and over and over again when they're
Speaker 3: at the job that they probably wish they were doing
Speaker 3: something else, or when when they are able to learn
Speaker 3: how to to finance whatever it is, maybe it's a
Speaker 3: new business or a vacation that they might have, or
Speaker 3: or some medical procedure that will you know, or to
Speaker 3: hire a trainer or get to the gym, whatever it is,
Speaker 3: to eat better. You start realizing that as you can
Speaker 3: empower people to live their best life, the brand therefore
Speaker 3: becomes universal.
Speaker 1: Aside from Prince, you probably want them at least my
Speaker 1: earliest memories on people talking about, you know, ownership and
Speaker 1: taking your own path in the music business, and again
Speaker 1: back to those early YouTube days. What was obvious to
Speaker 1: you about because you had labels coming to you saying
Speaker 1: here here's the contract, and you decided to take your
Speaker 1: own path, what was obvious to you was obviously not obvious.
Speaker 1: No point intended to so many other talented mes issues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think really.
Speaker 3: Music is one piece and the business is another. And
Speaker 3: what we understand now, which became very very apparent to
Speaker 3: me early on, is that those businesses who had a
Speaker 3: direct relationship with their customers were going to be the
Speaker 3: businesses that would have exponential success.
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: That means that when I am a massing of following
Speaker 3: on any platform, that platform, because it's free, I am
Speaker 3: the product, meaning that Instagram is selling me to acquire
Speaker 3: data and users.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: And though it may seem that I am a massing
Speaker 3: of following, when I look at the engagement, when I
Speaker 3: look at the clickthroughs, when I look at the conversions,
Speaker 3: I'm saying, wow, I really don't own these people.
Speaker 2: And it was very very i would say, very very clear.
Speaker 3: When we had built this quarter million person following on
Speaker 3: MySpace with Cassie and then all of a sudden that
Speaker 3: was no longer the platform DuJour, and so once everyone
Speaker 3: migrated away, we realized, oh man, we got to go
Speaker 3: do this all over again, and what a what a
Speaker 3: shame and a waste of time, energy and resources to
Speaker 3: go and do it all over again. So really, for me,
Speaker 3: it's always just been about understanding that the companies in
Speaker 3: which I invested when I got my advanced checks, the Amazon,
Speaker 3: the Google, the Apple, the Facebook, now Meta, those companies
Speaker 3: were really very clearly paving the way for businesses that
Speaker 3: had a direct relationship with their customers and not just
Speaker 3: the ability to contact them, but the ability to build
Speaker 3: a profile, to personalize the products and services that were offered.
Speaker 2: Those were the business that would be able to thrive,
Speaker 2: and in their.
Speaker 3: Ingenuity and their ability to create an infrastructure to do
Speaker 3: this for themselves, they were able to build platforms on
Speaker 3: which other businesses could also be built. The number of
Speaker 3: people who have built multimillion dollar businesses on Amazon's platform,
Speaker 3: the number of people who utilize Facebook's advertising network to
Speaker 3: build multimillion dollar or multimillion dollar businesses, the number of
Speaker 3: folks who rely on Google's cloud services, the same cloud
Speaker 3: services that they use to deliver their products and services
Speaker 3: to their users. You find that the ability to have
Speaker 3: that kind of close relationship with those who support you
Speaker 3: allows you to refine your products and services so that
Speaker 3: you can even price them in a premium fashion, and
Speaker 3: so that also reduces the number of people, the number
Speaker 3: of customers, the number of supporters that you need to
Speaker 3: hit a threshold financially.
Speaker 2: To live and thrive in business. The way that you were,
Speaker 2: that you that you aspire and in the way that
Speaker 2: you aspire.
Speaker 1: So I became aware of you in early two thousands,
Speaker 1: late ninety late nineteen nineties, I was writing for Brian
Speaker 1: Michael Cox. I was a songwriter and him and a
Speaker 1: guy named a Donna Shropshire, you might know a Donna's
Speaker 1: we're having a conversation about you. And we were at
Speaker 1: Doppler in Atlanta. Oh, we had stink Onnia in Atlanta, actually,
Speaker 1: and the reason your name came up was because they
Speaker 1: were talking about ownership and studios like you were. You
Speaker 1: were the only guy back then when everybody else was
Speaker 1: written our studio time, you were building your own and
Speaker 1: buying your own equipment, your own keyboards and your own
Speaker 1: drums and stuff. And that's how I became aware of
Speaker 1: Ryan Leslie or Less. And we have these conversations about, well,
Speaker 1: if we got you know, the Lebron James of the
Speaker 1: world to go to Africa and build the NBA there,
Speaker 1: like they could own it and they don't have to
Speaker 1: be tied to this organization. And if the jay Z's
Speaker 1: of the world built over or wherever else they could
Speaker 1: start their own. Why do those things not connect to
Speaker 1: reality in the way that we don't have the people
Speaker 1: who have this amount of wealth and power decide to
Speaker 1: seceed away from institutional organizations and build their own in
Speaker 1: different ways. I mean, you have ice Q doing it
Speaker 1: like with the Big Three, but you don't have it's
Speaker 1: not like a proliferation of people taking it away from
Speaker 1: the institution and doing it on their own like you did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I would say that first and foremost, though,
Speaker 3: there is an infrastructure in a history with those institutions
Speaker 3: that allows them to continue to grow, acquire, consolidate to
Speaker 3: the point where like the government has to get involved
Speaker 3: and say, hey, antitrust.
Speaker 2: Right, So that's number one.
Speaker 3: Number two, we also need to think about the fact that,
Speaker 3: you know, we are probably just one generation away from
Speaker 3: the kind of wealth that we control as a people.
Speaker 3: To do that, when we think of the institutions, those
Speaker 3: institutions were built on our backs, and to build on
Speaker 3: the backs of those to amass that kind of wealth
Speaker 3: and influence, you had to actually you had to do
Speaker 3: that in such a way that completely separated them from
Speaker 3: the math and mechanics around how.
Speaker 2: To actually generate that kind of wealth.
Speaker 3: And so we are starting to see this now. But
Speaker 3: how many players in the NBA did it take? How
Speaker 3: many success stories and failures did it take for us
Speaker 3: to have a billionaire athlete in a short amount of
Speaker 3: time as it took for Lebron to get there. How
Speaker 3: many artists did it take, mega, massive, ultra multi extra
Speaker 3: platinum artists did it take to have the ability for
Speaker 3: a jay Z to then shorten the time for Rihanna
Speaker 3: to get to that billionaire status. And at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, when we think about this, we need many, many,
Speaker 3: many many of those folks, and then we also need
Speaker 3: sort of care, concern, consideration, and collaboration to actually happen
Speaker 3: amongst them. And what we've seen so often, especially in
Speaker 3: our community, is that besides, almost in contrast to care, consideration, concern,
Speaker 3: and collaboration, we have competition, right, And so when we
Speaker 3: have that, it starts to sort of pit us against
Speaker 3: one another as opposed to having the kind of fabric
Speaker 3: that can actually collectively when the money's pooled, when the
Speaker 3: influence is pooled, to actually build the way that we
Speaker 3: want to build, and so I think we're probably just
Speaker 3: one generation a way.
Speaker 1: One of the business lessons I learned later than I
Speaker 1: wish I would have, but I did learn it was
Speaker 1: about reinvesting the profits. So yeah, because you you know,
Speaker 1: put in nine hundred, you got a thousand, don't go
Speaker 1: spend that hundred. Put the one hundred in to grow.
Speaker 2: You know the.
Speaker 1: Origination. So obviously you learned that lesson and you were one,
Speaker 1: you were the one buying your own equipment in et cetera.
Speaker 1: How did you learn that lesson? And how do you
Speaker 1: communicate it to other entrepreneurs or creatives who would be
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs to take the revenue that they generate put it
Speaker 1: back in. Because I heard you say before and the
Speaker 1: end of the interview which we were talking about you
Speaker 1: were completely fan funded in so many ways.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And I would say that that reinvestment is
Speaker 3: on so many different levels. It's not just finances, it's time, energy,
Speaker 3: and resources. And those resources are not just finances, it's
Speaker 3: time and energy as well. So what I would say
Speaker 3: is Number one, I had great mentor. I had a
Speaker 3: great mentor and other great mentors, and I showed up
Speaker 3: the way I needed to when I had the ability
Speaker 3: to actually learn, and I invested in my relationship with
Speaker 3: those mentors because I wanted to. Just as we saw
Speaker 3: Rihanna's ability pathway to one billion dollars was roughly half,
Speaker 3: if not shorter than Jay Z's pathway to a billion dollars.
Speaker 3: And that really is a direct correlation to the kind
Speaker 3: of mentorship but also the ability for the mentee to
Speaker 3: show up and be coachable. And so as I you know,
Speaker 3: it kind of touched on the beginning of this interview,
Speaker 3: I personally because I am only where I am today
Speaker 3: because a great mentor took an interest in actually, you know,
Speaker 3: investing time with me. Obviously I compensated that mentor, but
Speaker 3: took an interest and gave me a shot. I have
Speaker 3: made a commitment that any and I'm talking about any artist, manager, attorney,
Speaker 3: software engineer, mail carrier, doordas driver, anyone who has an
Speaker 3: interest in understanding the mindset, the mentality, the math and
Speaker 3: the mechanics when it comes to money in the markets,
Speaker 3: as long as they can come to me with the
Speaker 3: spirit of a student and a respect for my time
Speaker 3: and the energy and the expertise that I will share
Speaker 3: with them, I make it a point to actually take
Speaker 3: them under my wing one on one, and I have
Speaker 3: literally a program that has been running to help folks.
Speaker 3: You know, whatever they're starting with, let's get you to
Speaker 3: a pathway to not just six figures, not seven, you know,
Speaker 3: let's get you to eight or nine figures. And the
Speaker 3: beauty of compounding is that when you have the patience,
Speaker 3: you can actually get there. And I've literally shown folks
Speaker 3: how to start with a if your investments only. I
Speaker 3: was literally talking to one of my mentees today, I said, look,
Speaker 3: if your investments grow by thirty eight dollars this year,
Speaker 3: I can show you a pathway that you'll leave ninety
Speaker 3: million dollars to your family when you pass on. Now,
Speaker 3: that obviously means that he's starting at age thirty three
Speaker 3: and he's looking to leave whatever he's leaving at ninety
Speaker 3: five or one hundred, but all of those years, with
Speaker 3: the right kinds of decisions, the right kinds of techniques
Speaker 3: and strategies, you can do what so many others have done.
Speaker 2: And you know, and then maybe they don't.
Speaker 3: They're not the same shade that we are, right, but
Speaker 3: so many others have done because they learned it early.
Speaker 3: And it's never too late. You know, they say the
Speaker 3: best time to start investing was twenty years ago. The
Speaker 3: next best time is right now. And so for those
Speaker 3: where they're right now.
Speaker 2: Is right now.
Speaker 3: That's the way in which I lend myself and make
Speaker 3: myself available to anyone that wants to learn. And so
Speaker 3: it's very easy to get in touch with me. You
Speaker 3: go to your browser, you type in text Ryan dot
Speaker 3: com is going to ask you for your phone number.
Speaker 3: And I have built a system. I built a technology
Speaker 3: that allows me to actually find the people that are
Speaker 3: really serious about making that kind of difference. And so.
Speaker 2: It's been super rewarding.
Speaker 3: And so also, you know, I was just looking at
Speaker 3: a documentary around Warren Buffett and he said, look, you know,
Speaker 3: at one hundred billion dollars, you know a guy that's
Speaker 3: worth one hundred billion, He said, look at one percent
Speaker 3: of that, it still will be so much more than
Speaker 3: I would ever need to live. And I'm at a
Speaker 3: place now in my life and career that one percent
Speaker 3: of what I've been able to mass and earn will
Speaker 3: allow me to be very very comfortable for the rest
Speaker 3: of my life. So the rest of it I want
Speaker 3: to actually and in terms of time as well the
Speaker 3: rest of it. I want to be able to pour
Speaker 3: into folks that actually want to reduce the time that
Speaker 3: it takes for them to realize some of that same success.
Speaker 2: So that's the way that I that I pay it forward.
Speaker 1: I've been a fan of yours obviously follows your story,
Speaker 1: you know, about twenty years now, and one thing I'm
Speaker 1: have been I've always always thought it was remarkable is
Speaker 1: how you built an international presence. And I wonder, because
Speaker 1: you were talking about going to Switzerland and Belgium before
Speaker 1: I saw our stars, you know, on stage in these countries.
Speaker 1: How did you grow that or was it something about
Speaker 1: the music that just spoke to that those audiences over there.
Speaker 2: I believe it was really a combination.
Speaker 3: And also I believe that, you know, very early on,
Speaker 3: I was using technology to identify and pinpoint where the
Speaker 3: audiences were, and so when I realized that my listeners
Speaker 3: were in a specific locale, I wanted to make sure
Speaker 3: that I was providing even higher level of service by saying, hey,
Speaker 3: I see that there is an appreciation and enjoyment of
Speaker 3: the music, let's step it up to the live experience.
Speaker 3: And then I would go and do sort of that
Speaker 3: research there and say, okay, what is it that you
Speaker 3: love when an artist comes from another country to come
Speaker 3: and perform. Well, they said, well, we don't know exactly
Speaker 3: what we love. Also, we love the music, but we
Speaker 3: can tell you what we don't love. I said, okay,
Speaker 3: well tell me and they said, well, you know they'll
Speaker 3: come on, they'll just you know, have a track playing,
Speaker 3: and then you know they'll do thirty minutes and act
Speaker 3: like you know, it was such a pleasure and privilege
Speaker 3: for them to come over and be on stage. And
Speaker 3: I said, okay, I'm gonna do you one better. We
Speaker 3: ain't gonna just do the track with the DJ if
Speaker 3: I have to pay for it, I'll bring the band
Speaker 3: out and we're going to do two and a half
Speaker 3: hour sessions.
Speaker 2: Why because it's music.
Speaker 3: Music is so beautiful that you know, you can the
Speaker 3: record might only be three minutes, but when you do
Speaker 3: it on stage, you could do it for ten minutes
Speaker 3: and people love it and they're rocking with you, and
Speaker 3: so you know, I really just look to, in any
Speaker 3: area of my life, deliver the highest level of service.
Speaker 3: So if as a music producer, look what is it
Speaker 3: that folks need? If folks need x number of tracks
Speaker 3: per day they need too, I try to give them nine.
Speaker 3: If people say, well, you know what, it's not enough
Speaker 3: to just do the tracks, I need a top line too,
Speaker 3: where we'll record a top line four year as well. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, somebody will come to you and say, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I also want to think about a rollout
Speaker 3: strategy as well. We helped to devise that four you
Speaker 3: as well. And then when it came down to being
Speaker 3: of service to my fans, my community, the ability for
Speaker 3: them to come have a great experience, have it curated
Speaker 3: for them, have them be able to you know, write
Speaker 3: in the set list and choose all of those kinds
Speaker 3: of different elements of the show. I think really all
Speaker 3: of that lent itself to the relationship that I have
Speaker 3: to this day, where you know, my last record per
Speaker 3: se may have been years ago, and we'll still fly
Speaker 3: across on July to eighth, and we'll fill out a
Speaker 3: three thousand person venue in Cologne, Germany of all places.
Speaker 3: So I believe that, you know, technology nowadays gives you
Speaker 3: the ability to actually pinpoint the audience, the supporters, where
Speaker 3: the listeners.
Speaker 2: Are coming from, where the supporters coming.
Speaker 3: From, and then it's up to the entrepreneur or the
Speaker 3: business mind of your operation to actually know what to
Speaker 3: do with that data. And you know, I think we're
Speaker 3: talking obviously about it all being self contained, and yes,
Speaker 3: that's great. The other piece of this puzzle is it's
Speaker 3: also important to just understand when your special gift is
Speaker 3: the creativity and someone else's special gift may be the
Speaker 3: business acumen. And when those two minds, those two worlds combined,
Speaker 3: you really have a scenario where one plus one may
Speaker 3: equally leave it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I told you. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: superphone just for one second. Many companies have recognized that
Speaker 1: email just doesn't do what it used to do. They're
Speaker 1: trying to get the phone numbers. Now, how does this work?
Speaker 1: How the superphone particularly work to work. I may not know.
Speaker 1: I can't put a call to action in every message,
Speaker 1: you know, I may need to, you know, just actually
Speaker 1: provide value. And it's easier to do. And so in
Speaker 1: the top of mind via email, maybe a little harder
Speaker 1: or maybe not. I'm gonna let you say that. In SMS.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really look at SMS as a more inbound
Speaker 3: versus outbound.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I find it a number of folks to say oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I want to build a big list, and then I
Speaker 3: want to, you know, broadcast. I think email lends itself
Speaker 3: to that kind of exchange.
Speaker 2: I believe that the.
Speaker 3: Communication channel of SMS is personal, it's intimate, it's the
Speaker 3: most important real estate in everyone's phone, and it works
Speaker 3: extremely well on the inbound side. So if I say,
Speaker 3: and really this is how I launched Superphone. I said, look,
Speaker 3: if you want my album, send me a text. So
Speaker 3: that means the intent has already been captured. From the
Speaker 3: time they send a text, I already know where this
Speaker 3: is leading they're looking for the album. So at that
Speaker 3: point I can say, okay, great, I want to provide
Speaker 3: you the highest level of service. What's you're at, what's
Speaker 3: your email address? And where can I ship it? If
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you something, if I'm going to
Speaker 3: deliver you something that's physical, and so in that exchange,
Speaker 3: the intent has already been captured and the ability to
Speaker 3: actually have that communication. And also the beauty of a
Speaker 3: phone is that it can vary very quickly sort of
Speaker 3: upgrade to an actual real conversation. The beauty of thinking
Speaker 3: about intimacy when you're thinking about your supporters, friends, family,
Speaker 3: followers whoever.
Speaker 2: It may be.
Speaker 3: The beauty of thinking about intimacy and a pyramid is
Speaker 3: that when you start with social media you can think
Speaker 3: about the expected response time or expected response rate. So
Speaker 3: when you post something on social media, people are I
Speaker 3: guess the response is optional?
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Then when you get to email and it's a broadcast,
Speaker 3: once again response optional. And even in personal relationship, you
Speaker 3: might spend an email and it's very easy to be
Speaker 3: oh I and get that or within the spam e s.
Speaker 3: Once you move up to text, the text is a
Speaker 3: much more intimate and much more important real estate in
Speaker 3: someone's mobile device. And then the beauty of text is
Speaker 3: that it can actually upgrade to that in person real
Speaker 3: time conversation.
Speaker 2: So if you send someone.
Speaker 3: An email and they don't respond for a couple of days,
Speaker 3: you might actually say, ah, it's all right. You send
Speaker 3: someone a text, they don't respond for a couple of hours,
Speaker 3: you start getting worried.
Speaker 2: You on the phone, and it's a live conversation.
Speaker 3: Someone doesn't respond within moments, you might have to say, hey,
Speaker 3: you all right? Right, So you see that there's sort
Speaker 3: of a pyramid in terms of expected response time. And
Speaker 3: so with superphone we really want to unlock that SMSs
Speaker 3: to voice because of how powerful that communication channel actually is.
Speaker 1: I was reading an interview and you talked about this
Speaker 1: is a quote from you. I'm fan funded. The people
Speaker 1: that come to my concerts and pay double and triple
Speaker 1: the prices of an album to watch the music being
Speaker 1: performed live is the way that future albums, videos, and
Speaker 1: tours are going to be funded. Talk about what you
Speaker 1: see when you recognize startups and projects taking on a
Speaker 1: lot of investment without that product market fit, you know,
Speaker 1: and we've seen a lot of companies burn out because
Speaker 1: they took a bunch of money and didn't have the
Speaker 1: revenue coming in. But just valuations are magical numbers, but
Speaker 1: they thereby they give up so much because they don't
Speaker 1: have the leverage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think that every sort of business,
Speaker 3: and I believe that every sort of business has a.
Speaker 2: Has a unique path.
Speaker 3: And in the same way that so many businesses have
Speaker 3: been successful, the ability to just apply a template and
Speaker 3: say this is going to work for someone else, I
Speaker 3: believe sort of undermines the unique value proposition in each
Speaker 3: product or service that a business innovates. And so I
Speaker 3: believe that it's just important to be almost machine level
Speaker 3: in your ability to analyze the data and allow the
Speaker 3: data to tell the story and drive your decision making
Speaker 3: in business.
Speaker 2: And so you know, in some.
Speaker 3: Cases, growth may be more important than revenue because to
Speaker 3: a mass a large audience is when you can then
Speaker 3: monetize the audience with advertising, et cetera. So I believe
Speaker 3: that every business, every artist, every entrepreneur, really it really
Speaker 3: makes sense to find an expert, find someone with some
Speaker 3: great experience, whether that may be a mentor a coach,
Speaker 3: or even whoever comes in as an investor. They need
Speaker 3: to be truly invested in not just a return from
Speaker 3: whatever the business may may yield, but also they must
Speaker 3: be committed to the growth not only of just the business,
Speaker 3: but the humans that run the business. You know, we
Speaker 3: can name off name brands across the board, and it
Speaker 3: is those name brands that have leaders business minds that
Speaker 3: we relate to on a human level that we sometimes
Speaker 3: may remember more. And so in my businesses in you know,
Speaker 3: some of the great businesses that I've invested in, these
Speaker 3: CEOs and founders have become synonymous with their businesses. Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 3: Steve Jobs, you know, uh and Elon musk right a
Speaker 3: jay z all right with rock Nation and many of
Speaker 3: the other businesses. So at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I believe that when we realize that, you know, product
Speaker 3: market fit and just looking at data in and of
Speaker 3: itself can help to drive our decisions at the end
Speaker 3: of the day. And I think the the theme of
Speaker 3: this interview even is just that we are looking to
Speaker 3: derive and provide value. That is what gives us purpose
Speaker 3: as humans. And so when we understand how to quantify
Speaker 3: that in a real way, we can really find we
Speaker 3: could really find some extraordinary success.
Speaker 1: All right, Less, it's an honor for me to talk
Speaker 1: to you, man, be if I'll even twenty five years
Speaker 1: So this is.
Speaker 3: A pleasure, Yes, sir, Yes, sir Man. Well look text
Speaker 3: Ryan dot com man drop the number man. And literally
Speaker 3: I say this all the time. I say it on
Speaker 3: every podcast. I'm really interested in building real relationships, and
Speaker 3: you know, folks have to show up for those relationships.
Speaker 3: So for folks that I had people that sent me
Speaker 3: text messages before, and we've gone on to you know,
Speaker 3: co investing businesses together, we've gone on to you know,
Speaker 3: take trips together. We've gone on to you know, build
Speaker 3: businesses together, and so I'm very very committed to that
Speaker 3: being My driving purpose in life is to be a
Speaker 3: living example of everything I talk about, and really that's
Speaker 3: about connecting on a human level.
Speaker 1: Black Tech Green Money is the production of Blavity Afro
Speaker 1: Tech on the Black Effect podcast Networking Night Heart Media,
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas,
Speaker 1: with additional production support by Sayah Ergan.
Speaker 2: And Rose McLucas.
Speaker 1: Special thank you to Michael Davis, Vanessa Surruno, and Maya Moldrew.
Speaker 1: Learn more about my guests and other tech This rupt
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