The Steve Minor Band Discovers the Future of the Music Business
The Steve Minor Band Discovers the Future of the Music Business
This is a fictional story about a WEB3 jazz band. I chose the jazz genre because I love jazz, have produced jazz festivals, concerts and tv shows for much of my career and believe that jazz is a perfect genre for the move to WEB3 music.
The History of the Steve Minor Jazz Band
The Steve Minor Jazz Band is a typical jazz quintet, piano, sax, trumpet, bass, and drums.
The band’s leader Steve Minor has been a jazz sax player for many years. He has toured the world including the US, Europe and other venues and has always made a good living. He didn’t make Beyonce money but has made enough as a professional musician and a university professor to take care of his wife and kids.
His current band plays local venues and travels occasionally when booked in nearby east coast cities.
Then the pandemic hit, and all live shows stopped.
Steve Studies the Music Business and Discovers He Needs to Run a Business Not Just a Band
Since the band couldn’t play gigs, Steve started studying the music business and how he could help the band grow. During his studies Steve discovered he needed to run the band like a business, meaning he needed to develop a system to capture fan info and a system for communicating with those fans.
While he had done a good job with the band’s social media, he was building the band’s fan asset base on rented land. If Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms changed policies, he could lose his connection to his fans. So, Steve did his research and realized one of the things he needed to do was develop a system to capture fan info. Steve learned a valuable business lesson that owning a list of fans was more valuable than fans on social media platforms.
Steve asked a friend who owned a construction business, how he tracked leads and was told he could use a QR code that connected fans to a signup form and that would add fan info to something called an autoresponder. Steve asked how the autoresponder worked and his friend told him he could create landing pages with a form that allows fans to in put their information. The fan info is stored in the autoresponder and Steve can use that list to communicate directly with his fans whenever he wants with a variety of content including video, songs, polls and because Steve captured the fans name, email, cell and zip code, he could, based on location target his fans specific geographic areas.
Because his fans were on social media, Steve needed to develop a strategy to get them to sign up for the autoresponder, so he created a small bribe, posted it on his social media and fans began to signup for the bands list which over time grew to about 1,000 fans.
Because of this list, Steve learned a lot about his fans. He learned that most fans lived in 3 cities on the east coast. Steve realized because he owned a list of fans, he had much better negotiating leverage with club owners. He learned he had a good number of fans in his hometown so he reached out to a club owner with an offer to bring 30 fans to the club if they could negotiate a way for the band to get paid for bringing customers to the club. Steve made a similar offer to a club owner about 100 miles away and the band got paid more money than in the past.
Steve sent the fans on his list all kinds of content, videos of rehearsals, song writing sessions and fans provided tremendous feedback. Essentially the fans on the list became part of the band and helped with sharing content and encouraging their friends and family to join the list as well.
Steve realized the value of the list and used it more and more.
IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WEB3 MUSIC, GET
How to Build a Web3 Music Business:
About Dwight Miller
With a dynamic career spanning the realms of technology and music, I've established myself as a pioneering entrepreneur at the intersection of innovation and creativity.
Beginning in the computer industry, I honed my skills as a computer engineer and educator, notably training engineers at Cape Canaveral and immersing myself in the cutting-edge world of technology. Transitioning to the music industry, I co-founded PKB Arts & Entertainment, producing iconic events such as the St. Lucia Jazz Festival and collaborating with legendary artists including Carlos Santana, Luther Vandross, and Patti Labelle.
Amidst the challenges of the pandemic, I delved into blockchain technology, aiming to revolutionize the music industry by empowering musicians through Web3 technology. My vision is to create a more equitable and sustainable music ecosystem, where artists thrive and technology serves as a catalyst for positive change. As I continue to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of entrepreneurship, I remain committed to driving progress and leaving a lasting impact on both industries.