 What's up everybody once again it's brand man Sean and I'm back with another link up and today I am linking up with Dan Runsey this guy is the CEO of Trappital founder of Trappital it is a publication that focuses on not just music right um it really hones in on hip hop but from the business perspective in a way that you don't see anybody cover um there's one of my favorite publications by far he's one of my favorite writers by far because of the way he covers hip hop but from this business perspective we talk about branding and all those things so much from this channel but really integrating the business infrastructural back in and the economics of it is what you'll constantly get from him and it's it's something that you cannot miss I'm not only a reader I'm a paid subscriber to his platform I encourage everybody else to do the same so without further ado Dan what's up I appreciate you for being on man Sean thanks for that great intro bro not happy to be here for sure for sure man it's from the heart man I really really am a genuine fan of of the work man and I want to say like you've been a writer for a while and we can be able to touch on that but I want to go straight to Trappital so people can understand um just the value of it and obviously you know a little bit about my audience so like Trappital how would you describe it in your words in terms of what is your purpose of Trappital and damn I want to get into the journey because he's also doing some things in terms of building his own fan base and building independent uh infrastructure and funding his own his own um platform which anybody can learn from so I want to learn about that journey from as well so yeah definitely so Trappital is so rather I started Trappital to elevate the discussion about hip hop and this was important to me for a number of reasons I knew that there was an opportunity to highlight the business stories in the lessons that hip hop artists have done honestly since hip hop started but it just took years for us to be able to truly highlight and understand the value of that it wasn't until most recently that we saw Beyonce getting a Harvard Business School case study about her yes it was great that she did that surprise album drop but look at all the other masterful rollouts and promotional things that have been started from hip hop and we just didn't necessarily see those types of things unless it was this once in a lifetime type story and I think the folks like us that have followed this culture and grew up in it knew that we could learn just as much from your Rihanna's and your Drake's air or your Meek Mills from the small things that they're doing the same way that your Wall Street Journal will talk about what Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bob Iger or any of these other business magnets so being able to elevate that type of discussion it gives the people that work in this industry or the people that are partnering with the people in this industry that level of insight so that they can make informed decisions but it also shows people that no this is legitimate because this is what we're doing this is what we understand and I felt like I was in a prime position to be able to communicate that because I had done all those other types of case studies on all those other industries as well and I've been doing freelance writing before Trappableist even thought writing about hip hop writing about the business aspects of things and as I saw hip hop becoming more and more accepted by society I realized that there would be enough people that wouldn't just value it from oh this is interesting there is an opportunity here to be able to build a foundation that others can benefit from yeah man I mean I think that's such a it's such a sweet spot man from somebody who's an entrepreneur somebody who's who's a marketer like when you did that and started the publication I started coming across your articles I instantly realized yo there's this boy in this space and I never even realized the boy was there but I'm like yo this dude is feeling it right yeah so like just to give people an example really quickly man because I gotta ask you about this specifically like so here's the home page Trappable amazing my uh my my sister who's a marketing um she's like in healthcare now some stuff at Amazon like my like everybody not just like people in music I was like everybody I know who's in marketing everybody would appreciate business like they need to see this and and I just appreciate that you write that stuff that can excite people who kind of nerd out on those type of things but what made you write that article like how did you what kind of researching and process even goes into that particular type of content and we're talking specifically about that Beyonce let's start with that one yep yeah so with that one it was the combination of worlds with the way that I view Trappable because I knew that they're streaming and the streaming space both video and music is constantly growing constantly evolving and people are always trying to figure out what's happening but I think it's especially interesting with music artists because in many ways they are the ones that are the most multi-hyphenate status whether it's getting a Netflix deal getting a exclusive deal with Apple back when they were doing those things so seeing the magnitude of someone like Beyonce and most people following this remember how big of a deal her Coachella performance was Bechella and then the next year this documentary comes out we start hearing the deals it's a three part project 60 million dollars 20 million each so people are starting to pay attention but I think what sparked me to be like no what's right about this was when I saw people on my Twitter feed people texting me all over saying hey Beyonce is a part owner in title why would she not release this on title it is her platform she is an owner of this and that's kind of why you have this paywall right you have lemonade blocked for the people that pay you ten dollars a month why not do the same here and then she also had the Beyonce self-titled album paywalled as well and that's when I took a step back and I said no there's a rationale I was able to figure it out but I think being able to have that concept and understand that no there is a reason why you want to be on a platform like Netflix even though you have paywalled content elsewhere the same way that I have paywalled content you have a membership Beyonce has that as well but be able to reach the masses in some way and if you're going to put your art out there in order to get people why not have the opportunity to partner with a service that's going to reach 140 million people across the world like Netflix at their convenience you can do that and it essentially follows down the Beyonce sales funnel because if you look at all the things that Beyonce's done in the past five even going back 10 years you have the top of the funnel in marketing I know you know this Sean but just for everyone else top of the funnel is how you can attract the people that you want to spread awareness to they may not they may be less familiar with you you want to attract them you eventually want to interest them so that's why she performs at the Super Bowl that's why she does interviews with Good Morning America that's why she does partnerships with the Lion King that movie that's going to make a billion dollars and that's why she puts her stuff on Netflix then you get to the interest point where okay now we can start to attract the people that are the casual members of the beehive right these are the people that would be more likely to buy her album maybe if they really like her they'll buy tickets to the tour if you're all looking at the screen you can see this middle part of the funnel this is the group that would truly listen into and everything is love or listen to four which was a popular but maybe not as popular as some of her other recent albums and then eventually down the funnel is the diehard beehive these are the people that pay $10 a month proudly at least at the time I wrote this article Lemonade was still exclusive to title more than likely willing to do the next thing and that's ultimately how most artists should look at this and this is an example of how Beyonce had done that as well and this was one of the examples I wanted to create in Trappable and I think using you know the biggest entertainer of the past decade to be able to do it with was a great opportunity to show that through the lens of Netflix with Beyonce and the article got a lot of traction I think that's one of the reasons why yeah definitely man it was it was brilliant man it was perfect and I wish the the public not the publication the platform is leaving me now what's the name of the platform where people can pay for communities or like if I'm an artist and it's the you're a creator and people pay Patreon Patreon there we go yeah essentially like to sum it up for people who might not see the full relation right it's on it's an elevated level and that might be why people missed it but title is essentially like her Patreon in that in that scenario right right and you have so I encourage artists to look at that go find that you know go go to Trappable check it out and and I think if it's still like one on the on the free side I'll link to it in description and really start to key in the difference do the metaphor of what would be your version of it because then you'll be able to also continuously break down different levels of the game low and high and understand where you where you work because I think so many artists struggle and which is brings back to the value of your platform to they struggle to understand where they are they'll see a Beyonce strategy a Jay-Z strategy a Drake strategy these upper higher level artists and they don't they wouldn't do that but they don't understand that there's still logic into it and now you're where is my funnel what does my funnel look like now it can't look like that at a certain point so I really appreciate what you do from that standpoint and yeah and I think even with that we can use ourselves as examples similarly right because I'm like you know if we're to look at like what you're doing yeah I think you're I've given you praise for this you're I think your IG game is great and being able to have the videos there people want to get awareness they see that right and then further down maybe they'll get the you know I'm signed to myself shirt and then further down then maybe they'll you know sign up regularly for the network for your tier yeah to be part of the brand man network so yeah yeah I mean there's all these different levels of engagement and I want to kind of get the idea and the perspective of you writing or is that and having people pay an subscription model I understand that you know New York Times Business Insider so many these publications even billboard and all them now they have a paid model for a certain level of content but I hadn't come across an individual writer who was also offering a paid tier into content and and also a community which I just haven't been able to engage in yet but I know there has to be some value I want to get into that part of it more what made you think of that idea what are there other writers that did that and made you think of it what was that process like yeah I got the idea from seeing how people had structured their own independent publications in others fields so I saw that there were some prominent ones in tech so there's this guy Ben Thompson he has this site called Sturtecary focused on the business of tech so he's breaking down business model business models regularly and he was charging ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars a year there was another one this guy that focuses on e-commerce specifically Webb Smith he's looking primarily at direct-to-consumer brands his is writing but he also has some data resources so if you want to find out what are all the DTC brands people can pay for that content and his is like twenty dollars a month but 150 for a year and I think it highlighted a few things and I think a lot of this is true to how the music industry now is today there's so much technology out there that enables the individual to be able to brand themselves and to have that type of leverage that was only offered by the larger platforms because I'm sure for us growing up in many ways I remember getting ESPN the magazine or Sports Illustrated and I was less concerned about the writers it was more so I am reading a Sports Illustrated article and I think that a lot of people reading the New York Times were similar but now in the social media era transition from institutions to individuals so that now people can follow these individual writers or individual people on Twitter on social media and they themselves can often have the larger platform than the actual institution itself and when you saw the power of that it's like okay if you can be the owner of that so that's one aspect but I think additionally it's I think a little bit more valuable and it makes sense because you are focusing on a particular niche the New York Times is covering everything Wall Street Journal although it is business and nowadays is covering everything but each of these independent publications that I mentioned they are pretty tailored and there may not be enough business there to be able to staff a team of 50 or 60 the same way that other places are but if you're trying to keep a small shop with you know five or less full-time employees are just being like a small nimble team focusing on a niche you're able to do that and additionally the reason that I decided to go the subscription route instead of the advertising route is because although I do think that the internet has benefited greatly from having a strong advertising model you know that's why Buzzfeed or Huffington Post or any of these sites are able to do what they need to do that game requires so much scale and if you are talking primarily to a business audience and you are communicating to a smaller group of people that are passionate you're able to monetize that in a way that most people that you didn't that you can't necessarily do through ads ads if you look at it the way that way it doesn't matter whether you are the president of an organization or if you are a high school student your eyeballs or your eyeballs and you're getting paid the same but if you're able to charge and segment your audience in that way this kind of goes back to the funnel to that extent you can highlight the fact that there is a certain type of person that is willing to pay for this type of content and you're able to segment them off and it may it for most cases isn't going to be everyone on your list but you hope that enough with people on the list will and more likely than not if the content is good and if everything else is flowing those things do fall in line yeah and I think that's where I've definitely put my focus with this knowing that I'm speaking to a specific type of customer a specific type of person and as I've grown and learning things a lot about not only this business auto but this segment and who is most attracted to the type of traveler content so it's been interesting I love the fact that you're you're thinking about business models based basically that process that you went through because that scale also means more energy right that needs to be put towards it and you decided against it of course a leading back again to basic economics so I would love to know your opinion on the state of artists the independent artists in particular and their approach towards business do you think is getting better or worse and how do you think they can improve and how they they think about business as opposed to let's just say things that are actually more superficial when there's all these opportunities that are economically sound which at the end of the day of course just works out a lot better I think it's a better time for the independent artist honestly than it has been before and specifically from a branding perspective or from a business perspective you're able to leverage the tools that are out there leverage resources and not only try to put your content on a soundcloud or put your content on a distributor you're able to get your name out there and you're able to find the right types of organizations that can help elevate your voice I recently had Steve Stout on my podcast and he of course has put a lot of his current focus on this with United Masters and I think generally his perspective is that he feels like he's literally giving these artists opportunities that they wouldn't otherwise get I've also talked to a few of the other leads from other distributors and I think they feel similarly and I think it adds to a number of things right because if you are an artist you're looking at the way you're building your following whether that is the people that are following you on a social media platform if you're collecting email addresses from a website if you're collecting phone numbers I know that's something that you've done videos on as well the more that you have this and the more you have access to these things you're the one that can build up your leverage and when you want to be able to partner as an independent artist you already have the tools to be able to either try to get the type of licensing or distribution that you would want instead of just giving everything away and that part of it is interesting with that said I do still think that there are some limitations that a independent artist can have relative to you know your top artists that are at republic records right your breaks or your weekends and and so on I think that it would be great for us to be able to get to a point where I think that they can truly be on the same level I think that Chance the Rapper has been the strongest example of this that we've seen at least in the past 10 years through this internet wave but I think there's still a lot that we that we need to see develop there because I think that it was definitely a little bit disappointing that Chance sophomore album I mean from a quality perspective I don't think it was quite what his earlier work was but that it couldn't reach the sales numbers that he wanted to and I think some of that does speak to just how much things are still controlled by those big groups I think one of the things I was floating around a few weeks ago was after the Coachella announcement was made there was a follow-up graphic of the Coachella artist but instead of the artist names it had the agencies that represent those artists it was all the big agencies and although that's just one instance it just goes to show even if you are this rising independent artist that is controlling your domain if you want to get into these biggest biggest rooms where they are the gatekeepers the majors still have that ownership and that may change over time but we're just not there yet to that top level I don't know man I feel like just due to human nature I feel like there'll always be gatekeepers in certain you know areas right it might change it might become a new a different type of gatekeeper it'll be different a different DNA of person that's in charge but something will develop over time right there's always a establishment and then anti-establishment until right anti-establishment becomes established anti-establishment right right right yeah because yeah I think the one thing I think about are two examples I know that Drake will be up for a new deal very soon and I do not see Drake going the independent route I think Drake will continue on this I think he will leverage and use all his power to get the type of deal that no one else could get but I don't think he's gonna go the independent route and it makes me think back last summer Troy Carter was on a panel and they were talking about Taylor Swift and her whole thing with Scooter Braun and getting her masters back and he was just like hey when Taylor Swift had the option she went to republic it's not like she is on tunecore and that is not meant to be a knock on tunecore by any means it's more so an acknowledgement of the biggest artists even though they have the cloud to be able to do all the things that we know that an independent artist could do today are still choosing to go that route so why do you think that is? I think that there are strong business opportunities that those big artists get from having their name everywhere and from the backing that those major labels can do for them at that level and even if they have the strongest management team around them and all the people around them to do all this stuff it still won't get to that level and the benefit of them being at that level and all the opportunities that come aren't greater than the benefit that they would have had if they went independent and even though they had a higher ownership stake of their particular pie the opportunity still wouldn't be as big so I think that's one thing and I think the second thing is ego too I mean these artists enjoy the fame and everything that comes with it and honestly not everyone wants to do the chance thing of like okay my album isn't you know selling the way I want to let me hit up the lift and see if I can get free copies of my album included with anyone that drives a ride under ten dollars which is what he did shortly after his album came out the ego and all the things that a Taylor Swift or Drake would have to acknowledge to do that they don't want to do that got you got you I definitely could understand I mean when you're at a certain level of leverage you can make like you can make it make sense right right I mean this is an extreme example but it made me think there was some video a couple weeks ago with young jock driving uber and then people were trying to clown on them but young jock was kind of being like hey no you got to be able to you know mop the floors if you're going be able to do this right and that is a statement that everyone agrees but like when you actually see it in action people are kind of like oh yeah I'm not trying to do all that yeah exactly in practice is completely different well why you why you brought up Drake your perspective on the shift of the of labels to essentially push the agenda of one artist versus having multiple artists right I think that's a completely interesting idea that I personally hadn't seen until you had brought it up can you and you use obviously Drake and OVO as as an example right can you go a little bit deeper into like that concept and why you think it'll actually become a norm like when we're growing up there were a number it was quite common to see multiple superstars on the same label like the fact that dr dray snoop dog and tupac it was like platinum platinum platinum boom yeah this is death row we're on the cover of vibe we kind of took that for granted and bad boy had its version of that as well and cash money tried to do their thing etc I think that was so common just because of how strong those those essentially institutions were even though they were younger companies but over time as everything from studio time to how artists promote themselves the less was being solely um relied upon to have everyone together people didn't need to be in the studio to create music together people didn't necessarily need to all be on the same page you could have your person that was using the internet using technology to make things happen and when those types of barriers are gone it makes it easier and easier for the individual to rise so in a lot of ways it just speaks to the empowerment of the individual but with that said we started to see a trend of less and less groups right the reason that we had groups in the past in a lot of ways is because studio time was expensive and being able to get represented was expensive so it was like who are the three rappers you can get together and then maybe the star could break out and then maybe they become the artists in the days of individual artists you just see a little bit less of that and now if anyone does it it really is by choice and it isn't by requirement or by essential the way that it was before so that same type of mentality I think is transferred down to how record labels are as well because I look at an OBO and even to some extent a TDE or a Dreamville these are record labels that were started and founded with the vision of one particular artist in mind with TDE with Kendrick Dreamville with Cole and OBO with Drake so they're able to start there and build through that but with that I still think that there is an innate pressure that they are held to the standard of trying to recreate no limit trying to recreate any of the other iconic labels and try to sign artists to their label but when we truly break it down the teams and the people they have around them are best built to help serve their careers so one of the things with OBO is that they've often gotten knocked for it being a Drake factory and people are just there to either give Drake a point to jump off on what the latest trend is like when party next door was doing his thing like five six years ago and everyone was like oh yeah that's the wave that's the sound and people started to follow that I think that a lot of people have knocked that but honestly OBO has done extremely well from a financial perspective and most of it is based on the brand of Drake himself there's a peril OBO has its name on a practice facility for the Toronto Raptors OBO has a festival all of these things are solely focused around this one artist and even though the media may knock him for this like that isn't going to change any time soon I mean OBO literally put out a collection of loose albums and that album sold almost as much as most albums did this past year and part of that is Drake but yeah a lot of that is Drake and I think it's because when you have a team like that there are certain decisions I think we see that Ken and this is where I think that OBO differs from a Dreamville or a TDE we saw Drake get all of the focus and put out near annual releases and all of them dominated the charts whenever they did for the past five six years Kendrick and Cole were a bit more selective you can tell that they put a lot more things invested into developing their artist you have compilation albums like The Revenge of the Dreamers they which is on its third one now TDE had its nationwide tour he made sure to get all the TDE folks on the Black Panther album in some ways people may not look at it this way but they had to take a step back from their own career to make that happen and that is necessarily a bad fact I think I appreciate everything of J Cole's vision and what he's done to be able to nurture those artists but that means that we're not getting as much of J Cole as we probably would have versus Drake has been a bit more relentless to be like no this is I may not say that publicly to me but this is mine for me and Oliver those folks are here to support me and we are going to pump this train and I think given that and when we look back in retrospective I think more artists are going to start to follow that model because if we look at things of building the funnel and as the people listening to this they're thinking about how to do this for themselves so if they do that and then they have their teams around them that's only going to grow over time right since they'd have the ability to have more and more power in focused in-house anyway actually everything okay that makes sense you would have to actually be thinking about building a label infrastructure almost from inception to successfully do it or it makes it very difficult when you build everything around yourself to all of a sudden say hey I want to take in other artists and make these artists as successful as myself unless you take a huge step back young thug is kind of a a version of that as well because he took a big step back and really missed I feel like Roddy Rich is doing what young thug could have did yeah as far as level of success because his last album was damn good but I feel like he did that album and dropped it like three years ago the level impact would be ridiculous I know back like like if that was yeah if this album came out like right after barter six yeah yeah we'll be talking about a whole another young thug at this point but that that does make a lot of sense and I just feel like in society we're in that place in general where so many things are becoming more you know whether you want to call it selfish narcissistic or just self-centered in the most simplistic version of the definition because we're allowed to be in our own you know confines and build our own worlds up due to technology right it definitely would make sense for artists to have it would be a I guess the music industry would be many empires versus a few core empires with tentacles into some smaller empires that are still right right right so okay that definitely makes sense and I appreciate that that perspective because I like going back to you as a writer who's building his own platform and has the ability to do it you can right due to just the climate we're in today what has it been like in the actual development phase for the revenue process or how you look at sales is it more you just set them up right and you just do basic funnels and you don't really pay too much attention to it because it was like I want to write and you know let's see if this thing grows or have you really been focusing on it as truly a business model that you're trying to to grow intentionally yeah I would say it's it's it's more the latter because I did a good amount of thought and research before I had switched over to um or not even switched before I launched the paid platform and truly before I started travel because I said I want to be able to grow this I want first I want to be able to build an audience and use the newsletter as a way to be able to say hey this is a regular beat this is consistency each week I'm going to be in your inbox telling one of these stories that I think needs to be highlighted they're hopefully some insights that you could gain whether you're in this industry or you're indirectly related to it and knowing that I was going to put that out there those pieces themselves and you would be able to help service my marketing that is the reach so those are the people that are going to be a little bit more interested but I knew that the more I did that once people felt like they had trust in the voice they're going to want to know my opinion on some of the more timely things that are happening because so much of the content that I try to write on trapezole ends up being more evergreen at least from a um at least with the free pieces that come out but someone people are going to value hey what is the take on what's happening with the Grammys it looks like viewership has been down it looks like hip-hop artists aren't really coming out for it what's your take on it and I want to be able to have a platform for that where I could do it because you know I think that's you could do some things on social media here or there but I knew that being able to put something like that for the people that are most willing to um be interested in that would be valuable and if I did a Venn diagram of who are the people that would be willing to pay more content and the people that would be interested in something like that those circles are going to be fairly close so that's when I decided that yes I could put the evergreen content out as the content that is available for everyone it helps establish the credibility and the voice and then people that aren't aware of that once they've joined the email list can see more of what those things are that you're getting talked about on a regular basis so I knew that there was value with that so that was my intention with being able to structure my funnel that way and be able to structure what content is paid for versus what content is free and then additionally there's other things that I'm actively working on as well one of the things that I am creating I'm going to be launching soon is a series of data resources and libraries because I realized that I was able to integrate feedback loops for both members and people that are on the emails to say hey what do you think about this um what do you like about trapezoid what's one big thing you think that is missing what can make this even better and that's where I was able to get a lot of the ideas and get a better understanding for who people are because that's what I think makes the cycle a bit um iterative which does make it interesting is that I had my idea I had my concept but then by being able to get the um feedback from people that could then hone in on one of the additional products that I can create and honestly I think one of the interesting things about being a content creator is that it's not always the things that take you the most amount of time to be able to put out there sometimes the things that you're creating uh can you still hear me all right yeah you're back now you say it was not always what yeah it's not always the things that take the most time or the most time intensive that will be of value sometimes it's the things that you're creating on the process or the compliments that you're creating that can be itemized themselves as things to be put out there so for instance in order to write the articles I need to have a pretty good track for who is signed where who are these artists or what are the deals that have happened who is invested in what who are the rappers that may be cashing out big when this IPO comes out so instead of just having those things in my head and then scattered notion and Evernote pages why not take that curate those and put them in as resources that paid members can get that's something that I'm working on right now and I think just given the people that are in it I think that's something that will be valuable too and that's one way to share a little bit about the process bring people behind the the sausage making aspect of how something goes from one to the other and that's how I'm actively thinking about it so and I look at podcasting similarly who or what are the type of ways that I can either repurpose the content I have so there was another writer sherry who and her and I wrote about the same topic cross collaborate on each other's newsletters and that was dope I guess recording about it and those are the type of things I have in my head because one of the things that are top of the funnel to be able to attract people versus one of the things that the core customers that we can segment and I do think everyone whether you are an artist whether you are any type of creator you have people that are super fans people that are casual fans and more likely than not the super fans or the people that want this business perspective or the ones that are going to be more willing to pay and how can you increase value in a way that makes them want to be able to not just support but have something that they'll be able to find valuable and and useful definitely I've I can definitely attest to the fact that once you have a closed group right once you filter for people who have a certain level of commitment there's an infinite number of potential products or content or whatever you are trying to create right there is definitely an infinite amount of ideas that come from that it takes so much pressure off of you actually right you have to you pay attention is like wait hold on why don't I keep stressing myself what do I need to do next when they're pretty much telling me to do next so right right but one example of that actually was I included a sign-up survey for anyone that just joins the free email list and just had a few basic questions in there like what's one so if someone so first it was like what when do you work in the music industry do you work in tech do you work in brand or so on so if someone clicks it one of the questions is what's one of the biggest challenges you currently face and I asked this question again idea for what people are thinking of because if you're signing up for this list there's probably some interest you have in hip-hop and I heard a lot of things about what are the latest trends in distribution and streaming it can be hard to catch up what are the latest partnerships that artists are doing so what I did from that I got that information and then I said okay I have three articles that cover those topics let me put this into a pdf and make this a lead magnet so I know you know the shovel for those that don't know a lead magnet is something that you create that is a way to be able to capture some type of information or some type of content that you might want from the other person most likely than not it's an email address for some of you it could be a phone number if you're collecting a phone list or some other type of way to be able to exchange on and then you have a connection directly to that person and you're using content that you already have you're just finding a way to package that and using that as a lead magnet for the past few months since I've done it has been pretty powerful for me and I think I'll continue to do things like that and be able to just look at what people are telling me what are the things they want and if you're able to create those systems in your own product if you go a long way yeah man the idea of just content really living forever whether you're an artist whether you're a writer whatever you do right you create videos once that stuff is there digital products the idea of being able to repurpose it again and again and again it's so it's it's beautiful because the fact you just you're kind of you're putting yourself at a competitive advantage at some certain point because now you have this pool to draw from you've created a resource pool you now have an asset to draw from you create new content you can create a podcast based off of these topics you you know you create exclusive environment whatever those things are as an artist like just because your song did whatever it did individually to consumers it can still go into a cartoon it can still go into a commercial if there's all these additional opportunities there's still people who don't know what it is and haven't seen it I wonder from the the way you have I guess I could say the way you personally have built throughout your process right how what where do you think you would go after this core business model right is it something where I'll take this content and then maybe at some point even think about IP what would that look like like in terms of licensing that out to somebody or your voice you are building a a voice as you said like people want to know what you think now right it's your perspective which is just I try to tell artists that as well like the most important thing you can do individually is have a perspective that people value because I'm going to be like yo shit what did Dan say you know what did Joe like to say I want to win Joe bud and thinks about this right like whatever that is have you thought about different ways you want to do that with your content to after this scale or with you as a personal brand yeah I've thought about both of them I think from a from a content perspective I do think that there's a lot of opportunity with licensing specifically I've had a few of the larger organizations reach out some of the larger media players that also cover this type of information like oh yeah we should work together right and it's always this type of thing where yeah whether it's a type particular topic we want to do sure but you can't just go give everything like that's the IP right you want to be able to keep that even with the ideas that are thrown out there so I'm thinking about those types of things and I think that whether like video isn't something that I've necessarily pursued steadily yet as opposed to the casual instagram clip or story that I'll post so I'm thinking about that as well but the one thing I am thinking about is what trapital looks like being able to serve a little bit more of that business customer that is a bit more interested in a more integrated opportunity so one of the things I've looked at is there's a lot of people that read content and are trying to figure out okay how can we apply this to the strategy that we're trying to do at an American Express or some other type of major organization that looks at entertainment looks at partnerships and is trying to capture the wave of hip-hop and how that can be integrated into what they're doing almost similar to how you may see a Stefan Curry and Chris Paul in a state farm commercial or an ASAP Fergen Tiffany's like what are the partnerships that make sense so I've been thinking about what would a offering look like where I'm able to help serve those people so consulting is obviously one of them I've been reached out to about several types of consulting opportunities but I think doing one-to-one consulting even if it has a high price tag could be lucrative but how can you create that into a one-to-many type thing so I know courses are quite popular could something like that work or some other way to be able to have types of contracts in place where you can go whether it's a seminar or something like that to be able to extend capital because I know myself going bringing this full circle back to the niche I've been able to get a lot of people on the email list that are interested in those types of things so being able to create a product around that I think could be interesting as well because it is a bit more strictly the B2B product and I do think that not only works well from a financial perspective but it allows me to do more things on the awareness perspective too and be able to help extend the reach of that so it's one of these full circle things that I think it will hopefully benefit me down the road. Oh yeah you're definitely positioning yourself strong in that place I was actually going to mention consulting so it's obviously you're already on that and I think you're speaking of really your perfect example of the power of positioning and for artists who kind of missed or anybody was watching this they kind of missed the idea of how you said hey B2B is great from a financial standpoint less audience right don't need to be as visible but you're known by the right people and the right people that have larger pockets or they justify it because they have a business behind it right that you're getting in contact with you of will make a certain amount of money so it could be justified there's there's a lot of value in understanding whatever you are as a brand whoever you are as a brand even as an artist and sometimes looking at to put the how you're positioning yourself not just oh cool artist and blah blah blah I'm trying to get as many fans like how you position yourself and what those opportunities look like being that type of artists or you know from a business perspective have you seen an artist that's not huge right not Drake right not not any of those that you feel like you've that that you feel like has done a really good job at positioning themselves for opportunities from a lucrative financial standpoint not necessarily from a I'm the biggest star in the world snap point yeah I I definitely do think that there are plenty of them out there I think in one ways and definitely where you're probably at lune to Sean is that most of trapezoid focuses on the big artist and that definitely is a bit more not only a strategic move but understanding that most of the artists that get to that point are the ones that could make more strategic decisions especially the ones that I may be using that are comparing them directly to businesses with that said that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of others that are doing their thing I think though that there's like a few levels to this right let's say you're a writing artist and you're getting to that point where it's like okay you have 50 000 instagram followers maybe some people in your city know who you are you're really doing your thing and you're starting to catch wave on tiktok so I think the business model at that point starts to look a little bit similar to what you might see from an influencer at least the way things are set up today so what are the type of brand partnerships that you can get I think though that there's more opportunity for that if people just look beyond that I forget the name of the platform but there's some type of platform there that is it's specifically like an agency for indie artists I forget the name of it but yeah I'm drawn up like I think something like that is really strong and when I think of the people that do strong stuff I look at like the YBN crew I think they've all like stuck out to me of course Corday is the one that is Grammy nominated and performs on SNL but YBN Namir and some of the stuff that he did specifically with gaming and being able to build his audience there and I believe he had a few endorsement deals specifically with some of the video game type organizations they he was able to do that there and I think he is not someone that's a superstar but's been able to get to that level um I also think about someone like Lil Yachty also not a superstar but he's been able to get his investment money through the esports face clan group and those people being able to find the niches and knowing that okay I'm not going to get hit up by Nike or Adidas to go be the global distribution person there but there's a good opportunity for me to find this rising industry with this rising product in this industry and be able to take that wave I think gaming has just been the one that's been a little bit more popular from what you've seen in hip hop but I think the others will continue to do that too so yeah those are two I would say yeah YBN Namir right now and I think Lil Yachty at you and I have to ask you about your idea that the touring model for hip hop artists is broken can you explain that please yeah so this was an article that I wrote a couple weeks ago specifically about the touring business and especially for hip hop and I believe that it's broken right now and it's for a few reasons touring itself even though it's how artists are making 80 to some percent 90 percent of their money the traditional touring model requires a lot more time and the opportunity cost is higher than ever just given the type of culture that we're in now music festivals are popping up each day and artists are getting more often getting more money per show and it's costing them much less so that is now an option that they have to do and I think that a lot of artists specifically are getting a little reticent to try to sign the big nationwide touring deals and I think promoters are as well because a lot of the big name artists are starting to either need to cancel their tours or are not being able to follow through with them and I think several people had seen that T-Pain video that he put up when he was like yeah anytime an artist cancels a tour it's because of low ticket sales don't believe whatever Sean would tell you and I do I do think that it caught you know a number of people a bit off guard but in the past year we saw Nicki Minaj we saw Chance the Rapper these are large names and I think that it becomes especially tough when you are at that level that they are and by that level that they are not just like people that were superstars but you're either the quote-unquote once superstar that was at that level and then you're not as popping as you were five years ago but you're not necessarily trying to go down to an amphitheater but you were an arena tour artist and just from an economics and capacity perspective there isn't somewhere that you can necessarily find that is going to hit that exact cost and cost and demand like this isn't airline tickets where you can like price things to like the decimal point and do price discrimination and all that like tickets just don't necessarily work the same way so I think that artists are going to be a bit more itemized and how they do it and I think touring right now so if you're a rising artist in a lot of ways it's like yes at the club level it's perfect I think it still works out that club level you can find the small gigs build your rap in your city do what you're doing I mean this is what Megastarina has pretty much done up to this point this is what DaBaby has done up to this point but then when you're at the level that they are at now where everyone now knows who they are they've made it their money a lot of their teams are thinking what's next right I still do think maybe there's a level or two for both of those artists to go but eventually it's going to become this thing where okay there's an opportunity to do an arena tour but it's going to take all your time in this or we can try to get you this headline spot at Coachella and if we get you this headline spot at Coachella then all these other doors are going to open up for you because you just saw what Cardi B did she went over to Europe made her money and the only reason that she's touring in the US now is to go to the cities that don't get any type of music festival and that is what's now broken we used to see artists go on this linear path of just going boom boom boom boom and now it's like you go boom you go boom and then the opportunities start opening up and that traditional model isn't the way that it once was so you essentially you your your leverage now outweighs the traditional model where it doesn't make sense because we have all these opportunities like festivals that are going to pay a butt load and you're not going to have to worry about the optics so much of not having a crowd right all of those all of those things and as you get into intensity overhead all those types of things so right i not even add in the aspect of artists starting their own music festivals because that's now another option that necessarily wasn't there before that's definitely a thing in and of itself and it's interesting to see that i've i've seen i already a few artists with some good music festivals that i would love to go to based on their headlines her was probably the last one like already at a festival where i was like oh my gosh i wish i could go to that one all right and i think a lot of people would be surprised that like her has a music festival but it's like yeah she does because that's what you can do if you don't need to be a superstar but it means even hard not to call her you know whatever type of star it is she's been like nominated for out of the year for the past two years in a row but yeah so it's like she can do that but yeah i'm back to taylor swift this is someone that lived in football stadiums for the past few years and could sell them out of the diamond now she's like no i'm good with that i'm going to start my own music festivals in boston and la and when people at that level start doing those things that's when people really need to um take notice i'm gonna be very interested to see how Beyonce goes about um this next tour after this next album comes out that goes back to that individual model right with taylor swift is basically doing the drake right yeah building her own from ground up there's i've seen so many smaller artists do that i mean i think rory was probably the first artist that i saw it was on music festival i don't know if you know he is kid from melena with love renaissance that's how he broke in but it was called roar fest that was the first artist that i just remember was like upcoming had their name as a part of it and um that i really paid attention to and we're in that era where starting a music festival is easy like i started my my true breaking into music we came from growing a music festival from zero to one thousand almost out of nowhere right so i understand the nuances of it and the idea that was like i would like to love to get your opinion on it because one reason i don't outside of personal reasons and i just want to go that route and i felt like my energy was spent best elsewhere because it takes a lot you got to do with a lot of people in terms of music festivals margins are pretty low right my opinion of festivals is i think at some point there's going to be a a bubble right because there's this becoming this saturation of them there's festivals easy to create it's popping up every single day people are throwing that name on it the quality isn't necessarily always there and even if you think about Europe actually went through a festival bubble yeah you have a decade ago at this point maybe um maybe longer than that all right do you think that the u.s like has that opportunity well not the opportunity that there's that possibility is here and if it's and if it's soon do you think that there might be a bubble yeah it's interesting because i definitely um i definitely agree with a lot of the sense and i've heard a number of people um question this as well it's kind of like every spring when the lineups come up people are kind of like okay what's happening but i think the reason i say yes and no is because there is still an opportunity for a festival that hits a niche that isn't being served right now and i think when we see stuff like that i mean just for instance not that this is a niche but when Wayne has his Louisiana festival i'm not sure there's necessarily anything else that's like that so that in itself might be necessarily um hard to replicate or even say that that is adding to the saturation because that is always going to attract the fans from Louisiana that have grown up with this man and they won't go to that festival for as long as they live the festivals that saturate the market are the ones that are just started in cities for the sake of like oh our city doesn't have a festival so let's have one that seems like everyone else's it was a few years ago pitchfork had this chart that showed the those like both the saturation and the commonness of festivals and it was i believe is a festival like in bloom in houston or a festival like one um i think it's called boston calling or whatever the one is in boston those were generic festivals and those are the type of ones that will cause the bubble to pop and if the bubble does pop those are the ones that will suffer the most because yeah those are the festivals that are getting outcast to perform you know 40 times throughout the year and no one necessarily wants to do that but if you are unique and you're finding a way to get the voice out there like if the festival bubble pops it isn't going to affect Tyler the creators can't fly now but it may affect all of these other ones that are just trying to be like what is the houston version of lala palooza what is the um uh you know what do you call it charlotte version of bonnaroo those are the ones that will pop exactly so because my perspective from an inside i was thinking more from a a business model and where i wanted to if i were to grow right and i would want to grow to a certain side this is my core business model if i was a festival guy right promoter and this i just wanted to grow festivals i looked at it from the standpoint of shit you're dealing with a lot of people and the the margins are pretty small in comparison especially coming from tech right like it's like damn there's a lot of stuff and dealing with those margins and even if you look at sponsorships the larger festivals there's a lot of huge festivals that still have trouble dealing with sponsorships all right and then overhead oftentimes increases because you're dealing with more space over time so i hedge my bet a little bit by first doing your indoors right which allowed me to overtake production create a far more in-depth experience right which really cool louder to grow fast but also from a margin standpoint right there's a scarcity that gets created at some point right the building can only get by so big brand grows we can increase margin by just upping price right and creating brand around it and we had to stay within a niche though and as well which is cool so i'm all for the niche part but the other end of it though because i do believe those niche brands can stay the other end of it is actually similar to how it's the artist right in the same way these festivals are generic and those could be in trouble it's how so many of these artists are in trouble people say there's a shortage talent not necessarily so right it's not a short of a child of talent we have an higher exposure to the lack of talent you know right yeah yeah so it's like that in the music middle crack classes speak of increasing and the festival middle class is increasing per se right yeah yeah and that's that's where i feel like some of the bubble might come or the perspective at least of bubble because some of those people who are up here right but they them that aren't the best of the best those are the people who struggle right it's just like a recession right right right it's really less than always gets fucked over in this session yeah exactly we're like i've always been here and this rich people are going to be just you know up there so right yeah here you break that down it made me think about the last recession and a lot of the restaurants right high at restaurants were good mcdonald's was good mcdonald's i think actually thrived the last recession it was your apple bees and all the restaurants in that group that got hit positioning man that that really speaks to positioning i did this and it was actually with outside of music you know at all it was around retailers but when i charted this it's just like positioning is um that's the old that's like your survival right if you're positioned as that in middle somewhere but like you could be rainbow and like you know big donald's right back to use your example mcdonald's and the higher high-class restaurant if you're there on that edge and you're pushing something very unique or uh or just have a very high volume low you know high volume low margin business yeah those are completely different positionings but that in the middle hybrid those seem to be the ones that suffer why do you why why do you think that is i have my ever since and i don't i could do all that stuff and another yeah why i think yeah this is it's called the the barbell effect and i think we see this in media to a lot of extent as well the people that are on either end and are focused on either end or the ones that end up succeeding if whether it is high volume low margin high margin low volume those are the ones that end up succeeding the people that are the ones that are stuck in the middle are the ones that often suffer and i think just to bring it full circle looking at like what you and i are doing you and i i would say are a bit more on that like high volume or high um margin low volume not in that yes i know you reach like i know you reach a lot of people but more so low volume in that you are speaking to a specific type of customer when you are trying to attract someone to the brand man network relative someone that's trying to um join trapezole but on the other end it's like your buzz feed and you're having to post that literally put out hundreds sometimes thousands of articles a day or thousands pieces of content and they are going to be fine it's the brands that are or not the brands but it's the publishers that are in the middle that are kind of covering a few different areas and yeah when you do that you don't necessarily have an identity and i think they had an easier time because they used to be the niche ones before the individuals got their power right so they used to be the niche ones so they were at the barbell effect but then the culture moved the culture moved so then the individuals ended up being at the other end the barbell effect and then you became in the middle so then the people that are in the middle at that point those are the ones that ended up getting hit and i do think that that is the way that thing i've always been to some extent but the internet and technology just shifted the pulse and you always got to be ready because you don't want to be caught in the middle of that 100 never get caught in the middle it could simplify to one thing well well hey man i really appreciate you for hopping on man and the more it was something you said in the beginning that really clicked in a way that had had it before but just the value of what you do right it really like culturally it truly does not validate because it doesn't necessarily need validation but it truly does express the the depth and the the the brilliance of people in our culture who are really doing things right because that business aspect is not highlighted i never have thought about the fact that you know not that not being highlighted it is almost an absence it actually feeds this mentality of just being talent right this perception of us just being talent and just you breaking down the brilliance actually markets our brilliance you know for us right right no one's really doing that or very few people are truly doing it in that way and breaking down hey this person is really thinking this person is moving and they're not just this dancer or this great singer and it helps it's the foundation of people actually appreciating that aspect of it and it goes and there's so much that comes down from that um so i just want to say i really appreciate the fact that you're doing that because without that there's you know there's certain deals that won't happen like what you're doing is going to lead to certain deals of people thinking about us and perceiving us in a completely different way i appreciate it bro no thanks man i appreciate that i think one of the clicking points for me as well this is with one of the other subscribers he had said that him and his team and they're building up they're building an app related to podcasting it's curve and beta so i don't put all the information out there but they're building something in the podcast space and he was saying he's like you know we were stuck we're trying to think about how best to like get our customers and this and this and he's like i read your j Cole piece that you wrote on how his dollar in a dream tour was what is making him millions and how it's still continuing to do so and reading the breakdown of how those free concerts created his day one fans and that helped evolve the lesson of the story of j Cole and that feeds into his 2014 four soul drives which anyone that follows them know that that was kind of a pivotal album on what we think of j Cole he's like reading that that helped bring clarity for me and our team so thank you for that and i think we're hearing stories like that it's like okay yes because it's helps hip hop it helps hip hop but the way the stories are written you should be able to get something out if you are in an adjacent industry as well so i'm glad you recognize that i definitely appreciate the kind words and likewise man i know that this was definitely a conversation to learn a little bit more about shrapnel but like i mean just from a personal perspective text message marketing is something that i'm going to be exploring soon i remember looking at the video you had break it down super phone and i watched it a couple times just because i'm like no like there's other people experts that look like us and understand how this thing's works and leveraging each other and i really do appreciate that so now i'm in respect don't man thanks man hey tell people where to follow you so the what i do say if you are interested in this content first go ahead go to the website and join the email list if you go to trappaddle.co go there join the email list and then you will start getting these insights the same type of articles and these topics that we talked about today in your inbox if you do that and otherwise i'm at at runcy dan on twitter that's probably where i'm the most frequent but as nipsey hustle did say tell people to follow you on a distribution platform that you own so if you are interested go try to email us hey i love it i love it hey without further ado everybody that's dan runcy it's another episode of link up if you like this video go ahead and like button if you like your mind's well sharing if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe but it's