We like to describe crowdfunding as when a large group of people, called backers, each make smaller donations to back the project they believe in. It is done on different plattforms online such as Indiegogo, Kickstarter, GoFundMe etc. We view crowdfunding as a part of democracy where power comes from being many people wanting something and making it happen together!

Fun fact is that crowdfunding is an old phenomenon and was used for the Statue of Liberty already back in 1885. As you probably know the statue itself was a gift from France, but the pedestal it was to stand upon was not included. So with the help of crowdfunding the statue eventually got its pedestal and the historical statue could be assembled.  

The real value according to us, other than being a crucial part of something big with a potential of being historical, is that you get to be a part of the exclusive journey of this artist! This is a journey that is normally only available to a handful of people within the music business working close with the artist. But by backing the campaign, you and the other backers get to see the progress, help the artist make important decisions, hear the music before the release, be welcomed behind the scenes, watch the record in the making etc.

And as experienced backers ourselves, we know you get to be a part of something that even us music business people don’t. You get to be a part of an amazing community, the community of other fans making this record come to life. People to meet up with at concerts, people to develop and pitch ideas with to the artist during the campaign, people to share this experience with and all the excitement, maybe even become future real life friends with. You just gotta experience it for yourself to know what we’re talking about! IT IS AWESOME!

Of course there are more reasons to do a crowdfunding than us being able to help more artists. Or than being able to offer a unique experience to the backers or let fans and artist connect early or get your opinions during decision-making. When a new idea for a company is thought of it is almost always to solve problems. We saw a few reasons why many of the artists are not getting paid by their record company today. The first one being debt.

When an artist record their music they get an advance of the future royalties to pay for the recordings. And before that advance is covered with the artists share of royalties, the artist won’t get paid. It’s fair and reasonable, especially knowing that if the record don’t make money the artist won’t have to pay back the money at all since it is only royalties that can pay back this debt. Which leads us to the second reason, low royalty…

The high risk that the record label is taking naturally results in a lower royalty for the artist. Since the only sane reason to take a high risk as a company is if you can gain a lot on a win. And with a lower royalty for the artist it is even harder to cover that debt. Especially since streaming services don’t pay much to begin with.

So we do crowdfunding to lower the risk and wipe out that depth, hoping the artist will get money from the first stream or sold album!  

We do have a record deal and provide all the services that a record label does. We think of ourselves as equals in our collaboration with the artist. We are a team.

So as you probably figured we split every cost and every profit equally with the artist. We pay for everything at first and take all the risk, then when we make money we cover our expenses before splitting the profit. This means we won’t make any money unless the artist does.

We won’t leave the artist disappointed, or you as a backer for that matter! We have made a promise to record and release the music. And we will! But, we will have to adapt the budget for two reasons. One, we will not be able to afford the budget we were aiming for. And two, we know that the risk is a little bit higher than we thought since the artist might not be as popular as we hoped, so the buget needs to be changed to be more realistic. It is sad to admit that but we want to be honest and as transparent as possible. 

To be honest, it has a lot to do with us being new on the market. We don’t have loads of money within the company but we have knowledge. And you may already know that doing a crowdfunding campaign is not exactly free. It is rather expensive with all the marketing. This means that if we do “all or nothing” and fail, we will have lost a lot of money and not to forget, time and effort without even have recorded the record. And as we said before, we do crowdfunding to lower the risk in order to make better record deals with the artist. That’s why we go for the lowest risk.

But it is also because we made a promise to the artist and backers to release the record no matter what. So even if we didn’t meet our goal, know that every penny still matters to our budget. Because we will keep our promise to the artist and to all the backers, you can count on it! 

We’re so happy that you want to know! Here are some suggestions.

• Talk about the artist with your friends and family.
• Share the campaign on your social media so that more people become aware of it and let them know you are a proud backer.
• Play the already released music on Spotify or other services where music can be found to increase the popularity of the artist.
• Tips a newspaper or blogger interested in music about the artist.
• Comment on the artists posts on social media and share.