Expanding the Ecosystem

[photo of Carlton by billwhit427 via Flickr]

Bon jour from Cannes, France, home of MIDEM!

We’re at MIDEM this year learning more about fellow startups, discussing the future of the music business with veterans of the industry, and meeting friends new and old discussing opportunities for Topspin. But we’re taking a break from shouting over the DJ this evening to welcome a variety of content partners into the Topspin family.

In the past you’ve seen Topspin work with artists on large and small labels as well as artists with no label at all. Tonight we’re formally announcing partnerships with labels large(r) and small(er) including Universal Music Group, EMI Music, Atlantic Records, ATO Records, Real World Records (UK), Dangerbird Records, Nacional Records, Thirty Tigers, and The Eleven Seven Music Group, as well as additional management companies such as Silva Artist Management, Jampol Artist Management, Inc., Goliath Artists, The Artists Organization, Supervision Management (UK), Maine Road Management, and Red Light Management. We’re also working closely with distributors as they expand their services including Fontana, Caroline, [PIAS] Entertainment Group (Europe), The Orchard, INgrooves, IODA, and TuneCore. <infomercialvoice>But that’s not all!</infomercialvoice>  We’re also very happy to be added as an arrow in the quiver of many marketing services companies from EMI Label Services, which serves independent labels and artists, and William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, to [PIAS] Digital Marketing, Terrorbird Media, On Target Media Group, Toolshed, Radar Maker (UK), Media Junction (UK), and many others. Sorry not to list every partner in this already-too-long paragraph (we lost count at around 60 partners), a complete list lives elsewhere on our Web site.

Despite the length of the previous paragraph we’re far from finished; there are countless folks we we simply haven’t had time to connect with yet. If you’re one such company we’re pleased to invite you to Topspin Content Partner Day in our Santa Monica, California office on February 25th. Any content partners we aren’t already working with are welcome to visit, break bread, meet the team, get a demo of the platform, ask any and all questions you have about who we are and what we do, and sign on up. Interested? Please drop us a line and we’ll reserve a place for you.

I’m sure some of you are saying, “Hey, wait, Topspin is partnering with labels? I thought the point was that people didn’t need labels in the future?” I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I’m actually a believer in the core value labels offer, and while I’m 100% certain labels will change one hell of a lot in the coming years (as any business that is shifting from physical to digital will) I don’t think labels are going anywhere. Artists need partners. They need cash flow so they can concentrate on art and they need people with expertise and relationships to help them market to their audience. The good news is that artists have more choice than ever before — it’s not a “no label no success” world in the future. But there is no question that labels of all sizes will continue to help artists create art and reach fans. Topspin is a marketing tools platform. As such, our customer is whomever is doing the marketing. Sure in some cases that might be the artist themselves (I can’t tell you how proud I was when John Forte told me he logs into his Topspin account every day to see what’s going on with his fan base) but in most cases someone else will be marketing on the artist’s behalf, be that label, distributor, third-party marketing company, manager, sister, or cousin. Professional artists hire professionals, those professionals will need professional tools, and we hope Topspin will be their tool of choice.

What does Topspin’s software do for these marketers? Topspin is a software platform for direct-to-fan marketing and retail. We make it easy to build awareness, acquire fan connections, manage direct/permission marketing, enable fans to market to fans, and get your content into the places people discover music. Once fans are excited about what you have going on, Topspin makes it easy for them to express their excitement with their pocketbook by purchasing your art in the form that most suits their level of fandom (digital, physical, tickets, experiential). Most importantly, we cut checks to artists every 30 days, millions of dollars in 2009 alone.

But don’t take my word for it, I’ll let one of our partners, Metric’s manager Matt Drouin, do the talking:

“I already consider Topspin to be a cornerstone of our current Metric strategy, and as we move in to the future I foresee its importance to our business growing exponentially.

The platform has certainly surpassed our expectations so far, delivering 6 figure revenues where none had existed for us before, and that within only months of releasing the last record. To me that’s incredible in and of itself, but the true value isn’t just in the incremental income Topspin has allowed us to unlock, but more importantly in the ability Topspin has afforded Metric not only increase its margins on each sale by going direct to fan, but in being able to own that relationship and superserve our fans in the process by offering them more value for the same or less money.”

Thanks, Matt. Seriously. That email made two years of nearly 2x more work hours than sleep hours every week worthwhile.

We’re incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to work with so many talented partners, all of whom have been marketing music long before Topspin wrote its first line of code. Thanks for welcoming us in and trusting us to be your technology partner and R&D resource. We have a talented team of engineers and artist services staff who are busting their asses overtime every single week building tools and techniques to profitably connect artists and fans. We know there will be bumps along the way — I can’t even count the number of mistakes we’ve made already on my fingers and toes, and we’ll make more as we push forward — but we appreciate your belief in what we’re doing. We’ll make you proud. I promise.

ian c rogers
Topspin