Being 30 years old and having a savings account that couldn't pay my current gas bill, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my future and how I'll dig myself out of the hole I'm in. This is obvious if you've read through my 5 year plan and any of my other business related blogs. So I wanted to use this post as a way of breaking down why I'm doing certain things that I'm doing.
I currently run Skyline Sound Studios. My studio rate is only $25-hour, kept low because I don't have a very large marketshare in the recording market for Central Ohio at this time. When that marketshare increases, my rate will increase, allowing me to shed my day job even sooner and make Skyline my full time day job.
But let's look at the numbers.
$25/hour + 40hours/week + 52weeks/year = $52,000.00/year.
This is a calculation of what is coming in only, and doesn't account for the costs of doing business. I'd be making almost twice what I make at my current day job if I can make Skyline full time at it's current hourly rate, which will be nice, but it won't be enough to get me what I want in life.
Good financial planning dictates diversification. This means that you shouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket, because if the basket gets knocked off of a shelf, you're out of eggs and have to start from scratch. So I'm looking into other ways of generating an income, and have determined that the music business is where I should continue to focus. This time, it'll be on using the studio as an asset to produce products that will be sold. In other words, I'm starting record labels out of the studio.
Let's explain. I've already expressed my intentions to monetize off of Project DIVIDE and my solo career. This is something that's taking more time to start than I'd hoped, but I'm taking steps when I can. Meanwhile, I've also decided to partner with Nathan Froe to start F.R.O.E. Records, a hip hop label in Columbus Ohio. We've signed Jovy, our first artist. We're going to be hitting the studio soon to record Jovy's first release, which will be heavily marketed online and through other sources.
I'm also considering making deals with other independant artists to work toward promoting their products in exchange for a share of their revenues, essentually acting as a label without signing them to a label. I'd be working for an equal share of their profits.
So what does all this mean? Let's turn to Jack Conte and Natalie Dawn from Pomplamoose.
Yeah yeah yeah. I've mentioned this before, but basically, these two helped me realize that it's possible to make a living off of music independantly in this day and age. So if Jack and Natalie can sell over 100,000 downloads a year, and each of them have their own solo careers as well, then there's no reason I can't follow this model.
So now let's look at some numbers. Let's just assume that I can sell 10,000 downloads each from my solo project, Project DIVIDE, and from F.R.O.E. Records label artist Jovy, and we'll leave the speculated possibility of working with other artists out of it for now. So that's 30,000 downloads I've sold at $1 each, meaning that I'd have generated $30,000! Now, that's not $30,000 for just me, that's $10,000 for each of 3 different projects and I'd need to split those profits between the other parties. But let's just assume that from that, I am able to retain a profit of $10,000. If I add that to the $52,000-year potential revenue of Skyline Sound Studios, I'll be around $62,000 -year. This will be a decent living for an artist to be making, and if these investments continue to grow, then the sky is the limit!
So let's plug that into my 5 year plan.
By New Years Eve 2017, my goal is to have dual residency in Columbus Ohio and in The Greater Denver Area. My studio will have been built into an efficient, self sustaining business by then, and I'll have established income streams from F.R.O.E. Records and my other musical projects. I will have used my recording and musical careers to establish myself as a producer who now has national clients, and will travel the country and possibly the world to work on records. I may or may not start a studio in Colorado, as there are studios I've partnered with there that are already up and running that I can work from. If I don't start a commercial studio in Colorado, this may help me save the cost of starting a new facility and trying to gain a marketshare in that market, but we'll see. I would at least have a private production facility so that my musical career could continue without haulting, and that would allow me to continue working on Project DIVIDE and my solo career from either Ohio or Colorado. And now, on January 5th 2012, the clock is ticking. I have officially less than 5 years to implement these things. Fingers crossed. With luck, and hopefully with Laura by my side, I'll be looking back on this blog on December 31st, 2017, and be toasting my accomplishments to a glass of champaign from within the Rockies.
Happy new year!
No comments:
Post a Comment