Episode 288
Exploring the Intersection of Music and Business: Our Journey
This podcast episode elucidates the multifaceted endeavors of three individuals within the music and media industry, highlighting the significance of adaptability and innovation in their respective ventures. The primary focus revolves around the establishment of the DNA Project, an initiative dedicated to providing employment opportunities for musicians, which has significantly evolved to encompass a wider array of live music services. We delve into the intricacies of operating an audio and film studio, where the confluence of music and visual arts fosters creative synergies. Furthermore, the conversation addresses the unique positioning of Canada as a nurturing ground for artistic development, particularly in the realm of media production, and explores the impact of governmental support and cultural influences. Our discussion also touches upon the pivotal role of mentorship and professional development in navigating the complexities of entrepreneurship within the creative sector.
The engaging dialogue encapsulated within this podcast episode reveals the multifaceted backgrounds and ventures of its hosts, who are deeply entrenched in the music and media industry. One host, a musician with a commendable tenure, elucidates his journey from being a dedicated bassist to establishing the DNA Project, a company dedicated to fostering opportunities for musicians. This venture, initially focused on corporate events and weddings, has burgeoned into a broader enterprise that supports various artists and live music projects. This segment not only highlights the entrepreneurial spirit of the hosts but also underscores the significance of providing a platform for musicians to thrive in an ever-evolving industry, thereby reflecting a commitment to the arts and community engagement.
Takeaways:
- In this episode, we delve into the evolution of our business, the DNA Project, which has expanded from corporate events to encompass a wide range of live music engagements, thereby providing ample opportunities for artists and musicians.
- We explore the significance of having a diverse skill set in the creative industry, as we each contribute unique talents to our collaborative ventures, blending music, film, and audio engineering effectively.
- The discussion highlights how our Canadian roots and supportive government policies have fostered a vibrant media and tech culture, allowing our projects to thrive amidst global competition.
- We reflect on the critical importance of mentorship and coaching in our professional journeys, emphasizing how strategic guidance has shaped our business practices and decision-making processes for sustained growth.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- DNA Project
- mpl
- Drumeo
- Palm
- Hitachi
- Strategic Coach
- McKay CEO Forums
Transcript
No, no, that's great.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:We're going to call this segment of this show get to Know Us.
Speaker A:So myself I've been a musician for a long time.
Speaker A:I play bass, a couple of their instruments but bass is my main thing and I started a company called the DNA Project and what we do is we book musicians.
Speaker A:So just providing work for musicians, artists.
Speaker A:We started off mainly for corporate work.
Speaker A:Corporate and weddings and it's grown to, I mean we do artists work, we back artists and everything music related has kind of been or I should say live music has.
Speaker A:Live music related has kind of been our thing in a nutshell.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B: the midst of like booking our: Speaker B: Is it: Speaker B:I'm so 21 right now.
Speaker B:It's 21.
Speaker B: I put: Speaker A:It.
Speaker C:That year is forever.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:But yeah, we're in the midst of booking our next year's artist so I'm sure you have connections to some, some great artists that.
Speaker B:Yeah, we should chat after this and I'll connect you with our content team and they can let you know what we're looking for and maybe we can find something there.
Speaker B:But that's cool.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:So along with helping Anthony at the DNA project, me and Matt have film an audio studio called the mpl which I'm actually at right now.
Speaker B:Oh nice.
Speaker D:And Matt's on the other side.
Speaker D:Yeah, Matt's over there.
Speaker D:So we're in two separate rooms doing this virtually and we kind of partnered up and has started this audio and film studio where we film and do great music with a lot a bunch of bands.
Speaker D:Matt's also an engineer.
Speaker D:I'll let Matt tell his story.
Speaker D:But yeah, entrepreneur slash vocalists.
Speaker D:Are my hats awesome.
Speaker C:I am Matt and this is my story.
Speaker C:Yeah, we just I think add kind of trailblazed this sort of thing.
Speaker C:I, I, I was always interested in music but also in film and also in photography and also in you know, this and that and even though I, I love them all, I kind of, I shouldn't say bored but I get antsy just doing one thing.
Speaker C:So I ended up coming up with sort of multi studios under one roof kind of situation and then I needed a pro's help to get this actually working.
Speaker C:So Tariki and I are working together and we built something beautiful.
Speaker C:So that's who we are and that's what we do.
Speaker C:And we also have a sweet Spot for drums because that's where I started.
Speaker C:And Duriki picks up drums like no one I've ever seen before.
Speaker C:And he's ambidextrous and he just switches between left and right.
Speaker C:Like it's not a big.
Speaker C:Yeah, you know those people.
Speaker C:It's so weird how.
Speaker B:I've never played this instrument before.
Speaker A:Is it really natural?
Speaker A:Been watching Drummy Odials for the last two years on subconscious stuff.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker C:You can watch all the videos ever and I still.
Speaker C:Well, now maybe I can after decades of practice.
Speaker C:But just switching your hands and continuing to play the same rhythm is not something that just comes naturally.
Speaker C:Doesn't come naturally unless you're Doriki.
Speaker C:Well, now that you know who we are, let's talk about what we have in common.
Speaker C:You kind of gave up, showed some of your cards when you mentioned hockey.
Speaker C:You're Canadian, you're in Canada and.
Speaker B:Yes, I'm in British Columbia.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So people sometimes don't realize that because most Canadians in major cities are chameleons.
Speaker C:Are American chameleons, basically.
Speaker C:And you can't tell from our accent or from the content we make that we're actually up in Canada.
Speaker C:And I'm wondering if you could shed some light onto why.
Speaker C:Because I would argue, I wouldn't even argue.
Speaker C:I would just state that Drumeo is the biggest of its kind in the world.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's the biggest hub for drummers.
Speaker C:Why do you think that happened in Canada and not in the States or in the UK or in Australia, in any of the other bigger English speaking, far reaching countries?
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:Why did that happen?
Speaker C:Why?
Speaker B:Man, that's a huge question.
Speaker B:Why did that happen?
Speaker C:Why?
Speaker C:Why here?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I feel like I can answer most questions but I'm not sure I could answer that one.
Speaker B:Why here?
Speaker B:Well, that's huge.
Speaker B:Well, I don't.
Speaker A:It's a great question.
Speaker B:I can't.
Speaker B:I don't know why, you know, Canadian.
Speaker B:That's why I think I, I think like, you know that the.
Speaker B:I, we kind of live like live in Canada.
Speaker B:We're under Canada's jurisdiction, set of laws and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker B:We have to operate within that.
Speaker B:And the Canadian government and in general is really supportive of tech and media.
Speaker B:Not that we're getting tons of money or anything from them, but they seem to build and are fostering a culture of people learning these types of skill sets like coding, software development.
Speaker B:When I put a job ad out for a media person, like a video editor, audio engineer, we get lots of applicants.
Speaker B:There's lots of available work.
Speaker B:I know other people are struggling to find workers now.
Speaker B:We're in a really good spot.
Speaker B:There's lots of people looking to do what we're doing.
Speaker B:Maybe there's that.
Speaker B:Maybe we like, like I would say for the first 10 plus years, it was literally just trying not to go bankrupt.
Speaker B:You know, I went, almost went bankrupt multiple times.
Speaker B:So I don't know.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:That's why there's a lot of luck that comes with it.
Speaker B: timing that we got in with in: Speaker B:And we had that at the time, you know, whereas other people were maybe focusing on trying to build it, we already had it.
Speaker B:When Covid happened, I was, you know, sitting on my couch, drinking some whiskey, being like, oh my goodness, my business is over.
Speaker B:It wasn't, it wasn't, you know, like we had a bit of a Covid bump.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker B:Because of everything.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's, it kind of feels weird because, like, other people are really struggling.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, but you know, we're trying to be good stewards of, of the, the luck that we got along the way and the, you know, things that were outside of our control.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:Yeah, but I don't know why we're the best, Matt.
Speaker B:Or the biggest.
Speaker B:I'm not saying that the biggest.
Speaker C:I'd say the best too.
Speaker B:You say the best.
Speaker A:He can't say the quotas on that one.
Speaker C:Just an interesting phenomenon with, with especially Vancouver and Toronto, where so many things to.
Speaker C:To all of our listeners around the world that seem American on face value were actually made in Canada.
Speaker C:You know, recorded, filmed, conceptualized, edited, and it's, it's nice.
Speaker C:I think we all got really lucky to be in this country and to be right next to the States.
Speaker C:I think that injects a lot of culture and idea and money into what we all do.
Speaker C:And I think that's a great position to be in.
Speaker C:So look out whenever you like something out there, folks, look it up and see if it's Canadian, because it might very well be.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:We're tricksters.
Speaker B:My dad always says I was born in the lucky sperm club because, you know, I'm born in Canada, born in Canada, great parents, you know, not a lot of, like, hardships growing up.
Speaker B:Like, I was very lucky.
Speaker B:I didn't get to choose that, you know, lucky sperm club.
Speaker B:I'M using that one type of conversation as well.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker D:That's hilarious.
Speaker B:We.
Speaker C:We have far more sperm conversations than we expected on this podcast.
Speaker B:Okay, that's good.
Speaker A:We haven't had any.
Speaker A:Lucky.
Speaker C:I always love the moments where Anthony kind of just looks away and he's like, I'm going to wait till things.
Speaker B:Calm down at point.
Speaker B:Yeah, I wrote it down right there.
Speaker A:Lucky sperm.
Speaker A:I'm taking notes.
Speaker A:Genius leaves clues.
Speaker A:So I'm not going to discriminate if I hear it.
Speaker A:I'm writing this down.
Speaker A:Jared, I have a question for you.
Speaker A:I know we're going to talk about some more music things, but being a musician and you mentioned kind of the learning curve and having to make adjustments to the business side of things, being a teacher and understanding the value in.
Speaker A:In learning and teaching.
Speaker A:Have you had any coaching or any business teaching anything along the way as you've.
Speaker A:As your business has grown?
Speaker A:Any mentors maybe?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I started this with a guy named Rick Kettner.
Speaker B:He was my business partner.
Speaker B:He's.
Speaker B:Since we've since parted ways, we're still good friends.
Speaker B:But he was really influential in the early days in that he dropped out of high school when he was 15.
Speaker B:He went to work for Palm in Texas.
Speaker B:You know the old Palm Pilots?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So he was part of that.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B: t how to put videos online in: Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:So he figured that out and he did a lot of the editing and stuff like that in the early days as well as he was really fun to jam with just on business stuff like business theory, talking about what we're going to do next, what projects we're going to tackle, how we're going to fund it, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker B:Like I said, my dad and my grandpa were huge.
Speaker B: private business coach around: Speaker B: I think it was: Speaker B:It was expensive.
Speaker B:This guy named Naksh Kochar, he's actually out in Saskatchewan and he runs his own business as well.
Speaker B:He used to work for Hitachi in Japan, I believe, where he was high up in finance.
Speaker B:And so when he came in, he's like, okay, where's your budget?
Speaker B:I don't do budgets, man.
Speaker B:I'm not doing budgets.
Speaker B:I just run this thing like it's you know, I just decide what I'm gonna do.
Speaker B:It's like you need a budget, you know, you need a budget.
Speaker B:You need to know where your money's going.
Speaker B:You need to forecast how much you're gonna spend, how much you're gonna make so you could accurately make decisions, you know, because so much at this level is decision making, right?
Speaker D:Yes.
Speaker B:I'll just get Slack messages, maybe 50 Slack messages a day and 50 or 100 emails, a bunch of texts, and they're all related to making odd decision.
Speaker B:And so I need to like have that data to make the best decisions.
Speaker B:So he, he helped me formalize the business in that way.
Speaker B:You know, make sure I had my finances really, really like locked in and then make sure I had things set up from a process point of view.
Speaker B:You know, anything happening multiple times within the business should have a process related to it.
Speaker B:Just because then when someone quits or someone leaves, there's someone else can come in and fulfill that business need as opposed to it just pulling the rug out from underneath me.
Speaker B:Yeah, so that, so that was.
Speaker B:He was really, really helpful.
Speaker B:And I did one session with him every two or three weeks for probably six months, you know, and it was like, I think it was like a thousand dollars a session.
Speaker B:It was not cheap.
Speaker B:He is not cheap.
Speaker B:But honestly, it's worth, it was probably worth double or triple.
Speaker B:Don't tell him I said that.
Speaker C:Are you saying he's not a listener?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker A:We're getting there, man.
Speaker A:One province at a time.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:But yeah, if you can get a private business coach.
Speaker B:Another thing out in Toronto there's this company called Strategic Coach which is run by a guy named Dan Sullivan that's in Toronto.
Speaker B:Yeah, super brilliant business mind.
Speaker B:A futurist along the lines of Ray Kurzweil and blanking on the other guy's name, but very forward thinking and really challenges you to think differently and change your mindset.
Speaker B:And so Dan Sullivan and his group and Strategic Coach was big.
Speaker B:And then I also did something with this group company called McKay CEO Forums.
Speaker B:And that was where I would go and I would meet once every six weeks with 10 to 12 other CE level people.
Speaker B:And we'd sit in a room and we basically just like air out or air our grievances and talk about what challenges we're having.
Speaker B:And we would get feedback from the group in the form of shared experiences.
Speaker B:It was never advice because advice is something that someone's opinion, whereas shared experiences is.
Speaker B:This is what happened to me and this is what I did, and this was the result.
Speaker B:Result.
Speaker B:And it's similar to what you're doing, and that's why I think it'll help you.
Speaker B:And it also helped me with professional development.
Speaker B:Like, I had to present every single time.
Speaker B:I had to present within five minutes, and there was a timer there.
Speaker B:So I learned some of those skills when it comes to, like, running a company at.
Speaker B:At this level and how to scale the company.
Speaker B:So I had to keep, like, leveling myself up.
Speaker B:Otherwise, the company is going to be like this and I'm going to be down here.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:I have to keep up with the company.
Speaker B:The company is going faster than me right now.
Speaker A:Yeah, good point.
Speaker A:It's amazing.
