8 Clutch Ways To Fund Your Music Career

And that's why I can't eat carrots anymore. Okay. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back. It's been a long day, man. I'm a little sleepy. I'm gonna try and bring the energy levels up, Henry. Cause this is such an important topic. It is. I'm feeling good too. So if I have to cover for you a little bit, you know. You never put you never pick up my slack. No. Yeah. I've high expectations for you. Pick it up, bro. I believe in you. But no, so I think probably the most common question that we get, or I would say the most common concern that newer artists have. Or thing that holds artists back in their minds. Oh yeah, you're already picking up the slack, dude. I'm doing it. It's like blah, blah, blah. it's like, what is he saying? No, but I I think the the number one thing that a lot of artists think holds them back is money, bro. Let's just cash. Let's just cash, money, moolah, the cheddar, the guapola. And it's fair because everything in this industry costs money, and who does it all? Who does it all fall on? The artists.

The fucking artists, man. Y'all pay for everything. And you guys don't really get paid like that, you know. The artists aren't getting money. I mean, we've all seen the headlines. Definitely not starting out. If you're a developing act, you're fresh in this shit, you're new, you have no fans, no following. It it's expensive to just get started. Like it takes investment, right? Now we've had we've probably done a whole other episode or talked a lot about like things that you can be doing for free, but this is an episode where we want to just brainstorm ideas on how artists can fund their music career when they're basically starting from scratch, right? Like whether or not you have any fans that will pay for anything right now, there are still some things you can do. For sure. So you're in the right place already by listening to this. Number one, bro. Let's just get it out of the way. Everyone loves to hate on it. They think they're too cool for this shit. Get a fucking other job.

Like, let's just get a job. Let's just like get a nine to five. Yeah. Like, we're not too cool for that, guys. Like, you're not going to make a sustainable living out the gate in music. So every one of the your favorite artists who was a new artist, like had a side hustle, had another job. So, like, let's just do that. We gotta normalize that a little bit too. I think it's cool that there's a lot of content formats on TikTok that are working, kind of showing off, you know, your job and showing that you are. It makes you, you know, look relatable. It's humbling, and it is going to pay the bills, quite literally, you know. And you gotta make you gotta carve out time in those off hours when you're not at work to make sure you're busting your ass to do everything you can to win, you know, outside of that. But yeah, absolutely, we gotta normalize it more. Bro, we all love an underdog story, and what's better than an artist putting in the fucking work at their nine to five so that they can, you know, make a living, pay the bills, take care of their family, take care of their loved ones, take care of themselves, but like they're chasing this dream, bro. If I see a guy like bagging groceries at Publix singing the most beautiful hook, I'm like, I need this guy to win.

I'm following his journey. Yes. Like, comment, share, stream, take my data, like whatever. Can I donate? For sure, man. So I I do think it's beautiful that you know the nine to five is becoming a little bit more normalized. Yeah, but like, let's start there, guys. Okay. So you have that option. Now we're gonna get a little more creative. Okay, now we're gonna get a little more creative. Crowdfunding. Crowdfunding. What the fuck ever happened to GoFundMe? Like GoFundMe Kickstarter Indiegogo. Indiegogo. There were a bunch of them. Yeah. Yeah. Like there was a huge. a moment. They had a big moment, bro. But they're still around. They're around. Yeah. And they still work. Yeah. I just feel like the only times that we see them is when like someone's house burns down or they have a operation they need to pay for. Like, it's it's a lot of these, like more, I hate to say it, but like, you know, sob stories, right? That kind of pull at our heartstrings. Yeah. But bro, like if you guys have just friends and family, like once again, you don't have to have fans of your music. You have to have people that like you enough to financially support what it is you're trying to do as an artist.

But like, look into crowdfunding, man. Like it still can work, especially like to get off the you know, get off the ground, right? Even outside of people you know, if you can tell a compelling story, you know, with text or even like by shooting a video, you know, like you can upload in these these platforms however you choose to present your story. You know, if you could tell a good story, you could convince a stranger to help you out, even I think. And you can even put it with no music, with no music. It's like no story's gotta be good. But but I I hadn't really thought of it that way. Totally. You're right. I mean, once again, whatever it is that you're trying to do, like what you want to do with your music, how you like present that story, and like basically what your pitch is to these people, like they might buy into it. Yeah, and you gotta, you know, you're an artist, you should be always thinking about how to tell stories. So yeah, this is maybe a slightly different format, but it's the same game at the end of the day, you know, for sure. Going from A to B. Bro, crowdfunding, crowdfunding, bring back crowdfunding. We should do it.

I think people- Yo, GoFundMe link is in the description of this video. That's why we're doing it. We, yeah, we need we need funds. I think people are kind of embarrassed to like set it up themselves. Ego. you usually see a friend set it up for someone else that's that needs it. You know, what I mean? my cousin's dog died. Yeah, I made this. for him. We need we need him to uh buy buy a new golden retriever, yeah. Yeah, maybe it is a little bit of ego, but like I think if you want the shit bad enough, you'll you know, tell your story honestly and hope people respond, right? Yeah, and just the shit's expensive, guys. Like, yeah, once again, a lot of stuff you can do for free. Yeah, don't get me wrong. But you know, this shit takes a little bit of cash to get going. We're team, you know, DIY for sure, but like we're not stupid either. Like, shit does cost money. So it's gonna be very helpful in the long run. So something that I hadn't really thought of, but as I was, you know, kind of looking around a little bit and and you know, thinking about this episode coming up. There's government grants out there, guys. I say what?

Like the the gov is is handing out cash to artists. Uncle Sam's gonna help me make a mixtape. Uncle Sammy has got your back, bro. How does that work? Uh, from what I you know, from what I was learning, it's like there's these local arts commissions and like councils and just these government funded agencies that are like all about like they want art to exist, right? Like it's in the country's best uh interest to have like you know, art as in like visual artists, like painters and you know, photographers, et cetera. And then musical artists too. So like there are these, like it's either local within your city, and then there's like federally funded ones, right? And you can literally like go online, search them up. There's grants and scholarships and like all these different types of things that you know you can apply for, and once again, like probably long application processes, probably not gonna get most of them. There's probably not many people that get them, right? Like, there's not, you know, thousands of these probably, right? But once again, I mean if you want the shit, if you want this shit, give it a shot.

Like, who are we to say? Not just because we haven't met an artist who's done this successfully, doesn't mean that they're they're not out there, you know what I mean? And grant, you know, it's I mean it's like in college, like that's free money. I'm not paying that back. There's no strings attached. Amazing, but nice segue. Did you did you mean to do that? Do what? No. Paying it back? No, loans, loans, dude. Okay, this is uh with an asterisk. You're talking about going on credit here. Like, this is a dangerous game. Yeah, wait. Should we even we're not financial advisors? We're definitely not financial advisors. This is not financial advice. But yeah, you there's credit and there's small business loans. You are a business at the end of the day. There are. And once again, you know, you kind of talk about like you gotta be willing to put in the work. Yeah. I think you have to you have to provide some like pretty extensive like business plan documents and this is how we plan on. Yeah. They're not just like the bank ain't just giving you money. Like you need a little business literacy, which I think most artists could just go for anyway. This is just yet another reason why understanding business in general, coming to terms with the fact that your music career is a business and treating it as such.

If you want it to be the thing that supports you in your life, that's just mandatory. And this is just another reason why having a little bit of business savvy is really gonna help you out a long ways, even when you're hiring, even if you don't wanna be that guy long-term. Yeah. And you want a business person to handle your business, so you can just make the art and focus on that, you still need an understanding of how it works so you can make sure that you're trusting the right person with that task. Shit, you you're actually right as far as it is kind of killing. Why do you seem surprised that I'm right? Well, I mean, it's once in a blue moon. You're actually right. Okay. But I feel like this is kind of a perfect opportunity to your point to uh to kill two birds with one stone. Like you should have a business plan anyways. Anyways, right? Like you should be very realistic and like goal-oriented and like metric driven, right? Of like, hey, how many streams does it take to make X amount of dollars? How many direct-to-fan sales does it take to make X amount of dollars? How long is it gonna take me on average?

Do I think, to get those amount of sales and followers and streams and merch sales and sync licensing deal, right? Like all these different things that you can include in your business plan. I think to your point, like it's it's great for you guys to be thinking this way anyway. So even if the bank denies you even if they literally don't give you the loan like that's still probably You've learned something. It's probably a good exercise. And you have a plan in place. Yeah. But Ben, it's not as sexy as going in the booth with my auto tune delay and reverb and vibe and well that sexy auto-tune might not get heard if we don't if we don't have a solid you know plan in place. Most likely let me take a moment to interrupt this episode and tell you about our friends over at DistroKid. DistroKid is easily the best DIY distributor on the marketplace. Let me tell you why it's only $23 a year. That's less than two bucks a month for you to upload unlimited music to all of your favorite streaming platforms on the planet. It's so easy that it takes me like five minutes per upload and that's when I'm multitasking dealing with my two year old son.

Hands down my favorite part about DistroKid is how easy it is to add credits to an upload. I don't know what distributor you're using but with DistroKid, it's super easy. You can put the artist, the producer, the songwriter I'm pretty sure you can put like the junior associate engineer of a song and me, I I want to know who's on the record. And if you sign up using this link, you're gonna get 30% off an already insanely low price and you can finally start adding your collaborators because they are checking. They will notice when their name's there and they will thank you for doing it. Let's get back to the episode. What do you think? Okay. Okay. Private investors I I know this to work. So I know artists who I mean, shit, we're in the rap world. You might know a freaking rich uncle. Yeah. You might you might know you know, someone who just has some money. So as opposed to crowdfunding, this is going toward like one kind of person and like really pitching them. Yeah, I mean, just like someone who believes in you, bro.

Yeah. Like, and they might have nothing to do. Like, this isn't you pitching a record label to sign you, and they're very music industry savvy. Like, this is just someone who believes in you. Yeah. Right. And maybe they see the talent super early and they want to be like along for the ride. I mean, I'm telling you, I know people who have once again, you're not gonna raise probably a million dollars from some angel investor who's like a savvy investor unless you know some really fucking rich people. Yeah, but maybe someone has 10 grand to get you exactly started. Yeah, and I mean, you probably don't have to, they're not gonna fuck you like like a label would either, right? Like I'm gonna I'm gonna say this. I've heard of these types of things being successful, and I've also heard them crashing and burning both ways. What do you mean? So artist gets support from you know in investor, and then uh become successful and like investor never set anything up, there's no paperwork, investor is sits on their ass and makes nothing and maybe doesn't even get their initial investment back and then loses contact with artist. Investor gets fucked.

And then also private investor that you know has artist sign something and essentially like a bad label deal. Same way so it can kind of go both ways. So I don't know if you you just need to be careful with how these things are structured. I think, whether or not you're getting like lawyers and paperwork involved, which I think we tend to agree is the better way to go, even though that can get expensive in itself. Yeah, so this is such a such a paradox, bro. It's tough, but no, but absolutely, people, you know, with money are always looking to grow their money, and the best way to do that is kind of taking chances and things that they see being way bigger. So if your art, your music is one of those things, then it's very possible. Yeah, I just think once again, for me, that one was easy because like I know a few artists who have like raised, once again, yeah, you know, even just thousand bucks, a few thousand bucks, right? Like, you got an investor that can that can, you know, handle that it could get you started, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Um, all right. Complimentary skills. Yes. All right. So the best example I have of this is an artist I know who just out of necessity needed to learn how to record himself, right? Then he became known as the engineer. The engineer. Like it was just like all of his rapper friends, his musician friends came to him, be like, yo, could you record me? Yeah. And because he could, right? And so he started making some extra, like, you know, pocket change to fund his own music career. Um, so I feel like something like that. Uh, someone else that we know, I think it was fucking Danny Wolf was like shooting music videos in the beginning. Like he was like a videographer, yeah, while he was trying to get his start as a producer. A lot of you guys picked up extra skills out of necessity already. So using those for, you know, other people. Even your main skill, maybe you can get paid for a feature. I I guess people that are early in their careers, that's probably not gonna happen. But yeah, I feel like engineering and videography that are more kind of like focused, you know, talent that you have. It um, I could see that definitely being a thing.

Even teaching, right? I think you could teach oh yeah, lessons on how to do you know, these things that you let's say you yeah, like let's say you're a guitar player, let's say you're a singer, say you're a keys player, drummer, whatever the case may be. Teach it, teach it. Yeah. Like there's you know, there's ways to use these like complimentary skills that you're already gonna want to, and it's also like good practice. You're gonna also already want to develop them anyways. Yeah, so why not? Like, once again, yeah, we all want to get paid as artists from the beginning, but if you got to get paid doing something else, that once again, this is all about like funding your career in different ways, right? So I think you know that shit mixing as well. So, like, you know, recording engineering, maybe make beats, sell some beats on the side. Um, yeah, no list is that graphic design. Actually, Pop Star Benny, this like super dope producer. That's right. Used to design cover art once again, because you're already around artists who need things too, right? So the same things that you've probably been trying to learn how to do yourself. Yeah, so why not?

Yeah, um, okay. It's a good one. This one you brought up before, social media monetization. Yeah. So tell them about the conversation you were having with an artist friend of ours, about what he's been doing and like how this idea, I guess, came about. Because like it takes time to do this too. So, like, you're not going to come up with this. This is almost a nine to five for sure. Like being a content creator is no joke, you can ask us. But uh, most of these platforms are paying once you do well enough. You know, I mean, YouTube is a very popular one that pays pretty well once you start getting into the tens and hundreds of thousands of views. You're starting to see like a real budget coming in. Um friend of mine is doing threads pretty well, and he said his secret was just threading a lot. He just did it a lot. They're pushing people, you know, it's still early, you know, getting on these platforms that are early, they're pushing stuff out. So you do enough threads they get enough traction, they invite you to a program that's similar to how Instagram was doing. Yeah, like some creator type of fund or whatever.

Yeah, they do bonuses. They split the money up. Cash, cash bonuses. Um, I know a DJ that made $1,700 uh this month on TikTok. I know a girl, I know a guy who knows a girl from TikTok, what the creator fund or the shop. The creator fund. Okay. The shop, I know I know a girl who made 20 grand or something in a month from selling stuff on the shop. Okay, so explain what the shop is. Like just your like high level knowledge. I know you haven't like dove into the street. Yeah, I'm no expert. You guys could definitely like look into this further. But essentially, TikTok shop. TikTok sells an insane amount of items, like items you probably already own. Um, and they pay you a commission if you make a TikTok about it, and that results in sales of the item. And you can. So it's like the ultimate affiliate marketing program. Yeah, and you don't need the you don't need any like prerequisites, you know, to do it. You don't have to get in contact with TikTok. You just choose the product and make the video. Yeah, and people can click on the product.

If they buy it, you get paid. 100%. Yeah. So yeah, try TikTok shop is an interesting one if you're you're already hopefully getting good at making content, trying to make content for your music career. So I would choose products that you actually like. I wouldn't be phony and start advertising like face cream if you never use face cream. I don't know, like nah, I mean, keep it genuine, but also get your bag. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, and then even, you know, X is like Elon's doing the whole thing where he's trying to pay people for views on X. So if you're popping on one platform, you know, that can be uh maybe not a main source of income, but there's definitely ways to make money off of your social media. Was that person that made 20k in a month? Were they already like a popular creator? Or was this like a viral video? It was yeah, viral video. Wow. So and I think she was at it for a while, you know. It took it took dedication. Okay. Maybe three, four weeks, even before one popped off. Well, shit. Doing it though. Yeah. And then it only takes one, clearly. Oh, I mean, y'all be on the lookout for like a burner account that Henry and I have where we're selling face creams and batteries and fucking shilling bullshit.

Yeah, towels, I don't know, whatever candles. We I you never know what we're gonna be selling on this burner account. Send me an angry DM if you see that. cuss me out. Hey, I don't know. If if the video went viral, maybe compliment, maybe applaud us. Can we go viral for something that we actually back? Okay, we gotta see what type of product. If there's music products on there, y'all might actually see some shit on our page. Thanks. Um, all right. So kind of last one I wanted to touch on that once again, this takes some degree of like creativity and or some level of an audience. Once again, they don't need to be fans of your music, but you might have to have a little bit of an audience to do this. But sponsorships. So you kind of mentioned like the social media monetization, it kind of goes hand in hand with that. Um, but even outside of social media brand partnerships, like once again, if you are like shit, we know an artist who's making a lot of dirt bike content. Okay, I just talked to him the other day about like bro, you have one dirt bike video that had 50 million views. Yeah, like that dirt bike company might give you a fucking dirt bike, bro, for another 50 mil. Seriously, though, you know what I mean?

Yeah, so once again, then you can sell that dirt bike and fund your music career. I mean, just as like as an example, and I don't know how y'all feel, but for me personally, I like the idea of you know, companies with a lots of lots of money helping fund my career, than like having to ask my fans. I hate like asking fans for stuff, even though you gotta get over it. You have to do that eventually. I was like, you gotta get over that, guys. I know you do. There's a donate button in the description. Um support the podcast. There is though. Yeah, yeah. But um, the big thing with this one, I think, is understanding how to pitch and approach a business professionally. Because if you guys are like sending some of these emails, I see y'all send like horrendous. Bro, sponsor me or something. Like if you're, you know, just DMing like at Coca-Cola. It's not gonna work. So is there any tips you can give people on like finding the right people to contact, how to appropriately pitch your idea for a sponsorship or show someone what you can bring to their company. Yo, if if y'all are in our Discord, let us know if you actually want us to like make a separate video on this whole topic.

Cause I do feel like I could open up a fucking can of worms right now that I don't think we have time for. Okay. But I will say this you mentioned it earlier with like the TikTok shop thing. Um, let's be genuine. Like, let's be authentic to us. Like the artist that we mentioned that's posting dirt bike content, he rides dirt bikes. It's a huge passion for him, right? So finding brands and companies that really um like resonate with who you are as a person and then who you are, obviously as an artist, right? Um, that's number one. It's got I think people artists love forgetting about the other side of them as artists. Like you gotta not just think about the your musician, musician self in that one thing. Like you are a person, you have other interests, and you have to lean into that. The complete picture of you is what people are gonna ultimately fall in love with. Yeah, like if there's a a drink that you drink all the time, right? Like, that's easy. Hit them up, right? Like they might at least give you fuck tons of products, like even if they're not giving you straight cash, like they might give you a bunch of product. If there's a clothing brand that you like, like.

Like once again, even if you know, if it's not a Nike or something, like if it's some like lower level clothing brand, hit them up. Um, local local stores and like local brands, right? Like if you're yeah, like if you're an Atlanta artist, like hit up Atlanta-based, you know, companies, restaurants, bars, et cetera. And shit, you might be able to work something out where like you make some jingle or some like song for them or something in exchange for some little bit of a sponsorship, or maybe you like shoot content at their you know establishment in exchange for once again like a little bit of brand. Have their sign in it. Because bro, it doesn't need to be thousands and thousands of dollars, right? Like if you got a couple hundred bucks from a local pizzeria, that could that could pay for your music video. Right. You know what I mean? So like let's let's get creative and not think that we gotta go like to the Coca-Colas of the world for like this brand sponsorship, you know, version to work out. Because shit, we've we worked with an up-and-coming music tech company who you know paid us, you know, enough that we wanted to support him and you know what he has going on. He wanted to support us, he did what he could financially.

It was a mutually beneficial thing. And we posted a piece of content about it because we genuinely, once again, we genuinely fucked with what he had going on, so it was a little bit easier to like make shit shake, you know what I mean? And people can sniff out bullshit these days, I think, you know, and it's it's very much a turnoff. Yeah, yeah.