I’m hating this. @AJ113 Please say something I disagree with so I can disagree with you.
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If we’re talking about a business, money is your end result and the only one that matters. A band, a label, a studio, whatever, can make the best product in the world. If they can’t monetize it, they don’t have a business. They have a hobby. Or a cause. Or a piece of art. Or an emblem of achievement. Who cares?
Don’t be fooled a by a non-profit label. Those things are just as much a ‘business’ as a local hospital and the NFL that are also official non-profits. In the US, non-profit is a technicality that has much more to do with administration and taxes than anything else.
You clearly have little first hand experience or knowledge of small record labels.
The acts they sign care. When you play in a band you have only one priority (ultimately). Sure, it’s great to sell records and sign albums and all that stuff, and maybe even make a bit of cash, but the only thing you’re really bothered about is playing bigger and better gigs. That’s where the enjoyment comes from. That’s where the rush is. There is no better drug than standing in front of a few thousand fist-pumping excited people who are singing the words to a song that you are playing, and that you wrote. If you could bottle that, you could control the world.
My band has recently jumped ship and signed a deal with a different record label. They are bigger than the last one, we are even getting an advance of both royalties and publishing. But we don’t really care, all we care about is that they have a big network and they can get us bigger gigs, festivals and tours. (We hope).
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Ok. I think I see what you’re saying. My first question would have been how is a small record label different than any other entrepreneurial startup? Why would the success or legitimacy of the entity as an incorporated business be measured any differently than a plumbing service or a commercial laundry startup?
…but that may have sort of answered itself as I thought about what you’d wrote.
The acts aren’t the label in some cases. Right? Obviously. In that case, the label is a business that partners with another business (the band). If neither are purely profit driven, or if the drive for profit exists only within the scope mutual artistic criteria, it seems the label would still identify as a business in the technical sense but maybe not ascribe to the same criteria of success as purely commercial purposed entity.
Hmmm…I think of having a startup project with the potential of turning a profit differently than a project startup with the exclusive goal of turning a profit. No one in their right mind opens a commercial laundry cleaner because they love cleaning things. You would ONLY do that to make money. I see where your’e going.
Best of luck with that! Sound exciting. Keep us posted on how things move forward 
I think that’s a condescending attitude. As far as I am aware, most people set up in business because they enjoy what they are doing - even commercial laundries. Just because the only reason you would open business would be to make money, that doesn’t mean you can legitimately impute your values on to everyone else.
That was miscommunicated and poorly worded on my part. Some people really enjoy their day jobs. And are very good at them. But as much as they enjoy them, are jobs that they would only do for money. You would not meet a person who goes around town cleaning gutters or pressure washing everybody’s houses (that are not theirs or their friends houses) free of charge for the artistic merit of it. Its just the kind of company you’d launch and apply yourself to with profit as a final means.
These are unlike music performance or home studio, which are equally valuable as hobbies as they are professions. We find many reasonable and normal people playing music for free, or recording music because its fun.
That’s what you said earlier, using different words. In my opinion, you are wrong. Nobody said anything about artistic merit, people set up businesses because the nature of the work is what they enjoy. Certainly the business must generate an income of some sort, otherwise ultimately, it will fail, but just as important is the satisfaction derived from engaging in the activities of the business. I think you have a problem with accepting that some people actually enjoy cleaning, sweeping etc.
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Ok…then if you understand what I was saying, I don’t see how its condescending at all. I grew up on a farm. We paid people to shovel cow shit and throw around hay bails. I guarantee you no one loved it. They may have liked putting on overalls, getting dirty, staying busy, being paid, and feeling like a good ole boy country farmer, but the actual act of bending over and scooping up cow poop and throwing it in a wheelbarrow so we could sell it to a fertilizer plant is certainly not what they liked. The enjoyment (if any) in sweeping a god damn barn, spraying it for bugs, setting mouse poison, and repairing a tractor is the fulfillment of taking care of something. Not the enjoyment of the actual act.
As far as imputing a value. If someone loves playing with cow poop for a hobby as much as I love playing with chess pieces for a hobby, they’re seriously not right in the head. That’s is not something a mentally stable person chooses for a hobby! C’mon. Think about it. Who washes commercial laundry for a hobby???
HAS ANYONE on this forum ever met someone who played music for a hobby???
Great! Ok… now…
HAS ANYONE on this forum met someone who cleaned loads of dirty used fabric napkins from restaurants for a hobby? In their spare time? For fun?
The only thing that could POSSIBLY be fun about that is providing a valued and necessary service to your market, making an honest dollar, growing a successful business, earning the respect, and the true appreciation of your clients. And it could be rewarding to look at a sparkling clean, perfectly folded cart of napkins. But not rewarding enough to do it for free. Its just not a hobby or a passion. The commitment to service is the passion. Not the act of running the washing machine.
For a buisness to be sucessful as a source of income to provide for yourself and your family it obviously has to cover its overheads and make a profit.
If the buisness is more of s hobby venture it doesnt matter if it makes lots of money but it still needs to cover its overheads otherwise it ends up costing money to run.
Small record companies start up usually from a local smalltime producer/manager who wants to support local bands and give them a chance to meet a bigger audience by promoting them and sorting gigs and merch. For them they mostly are doing it for the love of it. But if it doesn’t make money for them then it wont be feesable unless they are funding it and doing it out of passion.
But honestly, whatever buisness you’re in you expect some return for your hard work otherwise whats the point? You cant go on providing a service at the expense of your familys welfare?!
After a while if something is taking up a lot of your time And preventing you earning money elsewhere then it becomes unsustainable.
Like what happened to RR!
Brandon had the passioon, excellent I.T skills, a great philosophy, a loyal following, products, advertising etc.
Yet with all his hard work and efforts the buisness had to end.
He has a family and commitments and if something isnt making money and preventing him from providing for his family then its time to pull the plug.
Of course lots of artists start record labels to control the way their own music is distributed and hope to attract similar artists to join them and gain more of a following .
The u known guy like myself also often starts a label for similar reasons but more to say 'i have my own record label ’ as it sounds cool.
Anybody can start a record label, and good luck to them however they choose to run it.
But its really not needed nowadays. And if your music really is good enough the big labels will come offering money and exposure anyway.
The important thing is not about being with a record label or not but staying true to yourself, trueto your music and develop a strong local following. A crowd gathers a crowd and the more people that want to listen/watch you the more sucessful you will get.
Concentrate on the music and the performance and worry about record labels when people actually want to buy your records.
That’s the difference between a business and a side-income generating hobby. It seems to me, in the case of a label, as soon as the core purpose of the company is to sell something, its automatically a business to a limited extent. I see no reason people can’t sell something for a hobby, but don’t measure it by the standard of a business, or you end up pretty disappointed.
This is different for a band, but for these small labels or whatever the hell they are, it has to go one of three ways, and I do not see how its possible to be anything outside of this:
- A business “yay we’re selling shit”
- A hobby trying to turn into a business “yay we’re trying to sell shit”
- A hobby period “we love what we do, we don’t care if we sell shit”
yes , but it can STILL be a buisness providing a service to people in a professional manor and not care about making money. someone may have lots of money and just want to do it for the reason to give a little back. just because it isnt making money for them doesnt mean its only a hobby.
i.e charity workers and charity shop employees do it for free but its not a hobby!
not everything has to be about making money. money isnt the be all and eend all. if your aim is money then become something other than a record label or a musician. if u make it big and DO make money then fair play.
why do we feel the need the label everything (oh, excellent pun lol)
cant we just do what we do and see what happens. mix with good people and not try and out do the next guy or keep up with the neighbours.
money is such a pig fucker.
people with it think they are better than people without , and people without think they need it to become better.
we are on this earth once, its not a rehearsal.
who gives a shit about money!
yes i would like more of it as i provide for my family but to be honest the more money seems to be the more stress!
im probably just talking shit but it seems eveyone has to put things into importance over how much they areworth`.
everyone wants to give their opinions sat behind their keyboards and googling and raising issues, but why?
lets go outside and walk in the fresh air. or pick up a guitar and write a song.
i`m fed up of this online lifestyle orientated by wealth and celebrity bull shit.
the problem is there are too many dicks with too much money and too many nice people struggling to make money rather than just enjoying their lives.
its seems the wise people have no self belief yet the fools are full of confidence.
i might move to the jungle and live in a hut.
can i take my synths?..no i sold them for money!!! bugger
Just a reminder of what the actual question was here.
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I think you have a blind spot on this, or else you are being deiberately obstructive. Were these people on your farm keen to set up a shit shovelling business because they loved shovelling shit? No, you had to pay them to do it, they didn’t enjoy it, and they had no intention of setting up a business.
Did I say that all people like cleaning? No. I said that the people who set up cleaning businesses do it because they like the work that is involved in cleaning. What part of that don’t you understand? How difficult is it to believe that when you set up a business, you have a choice of millions of types, therefore you are going to choose one that you enjoy, not one that you hate.
What is the chance of a business, in which the proprietor hates the work, succeeding? [quote=“Jonathan, post:28, topic:1631”]
The commitment to service is the passion. Not the act of running the washing machine.
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Those are your principles, not mine, and not necessarily anyone else’s. Stick with them if you wish, but insisting that everyone else has the same principles as you is both arrogant and patronising.