Scalability in the Music Industry

What parts of the music industry are scalable?

I was reading an article in The Guardian last week that shed light on many misconceptions about the music industry – not external misconceptions, but internal ones. This made me think about which parts of the industry are actually scalable. Right now, artists only have their music and audience to scale.

Painting a picture of that model:

As an artist, we (YesYou) currently find ourselves among the top 95% of artists on Spotify, with 50,000 listeners each month. Our music has landed some TV syncs, and over the last 10+ years, we've roughly made $120,000. This puts us among the top percentage of artists.

On the audience side, we started before social media took off, and on Facebook, we have 10,000 followers, with just over 1,000 on Instagram and Twitter. We rarely post and never really totally 'got' our social media, even at the height of the project.

The point I want to illustrate is that the current business model isn't great, even for the top 5%.

So, how do we create a better model? The answer lies in technology – the one thing we fear as an industry, but need to embrace to develop a more scalable industry.

The question is, who leads the discovery of new models? Who uncovers scalable products that can redefine an artist's revenue streams?

Currently, investment in innovation within the entertainment industry is lacking. The entertainment industry, typically invest between 1-3 percent of revenues which places them along side some legacy industries like financial services, logistics, transportation and construction.

If the industry itself doesn't see value in investing, how can we expect external capital to find its way in?

We need to create pathways for technology adoption, and investment will follow. A new, improved industry will emerge – one we can't build while focusing solely on existing technology, neglecting the technology of the future.