Hipset Launches Artist Discovery Program
discovery.hipset.com
discovery.hipset.com
Now, artists are quite an unique market. They will gladly pay for this type of service. I'd say you should test charging more, because $20 dollars might come off as being too cheap. I think $99 is a good number to test. Enough to only bring in serious prospects and not hinder the aparent quality of your process.
The record labels list would be better served with their logos. Record labels are powerful brands. Artists dream with having those logos on their productions.
Though I'm curious about the business model here. I can assume you will take n amount from the profits of an artist whom you discover. Do you aim to represent the artist or merely just introduce them to people in the industry?
I hope you are ready to sort green M&Ms. ;)
We're working on an updated design that includes record label logos, it looks MUCH better.
You are correct on the business model.
Green M&Ms, Yellow M&Ms, as long as they are making great content, whatever they want ;)
(Picture a website with an image of a backstage with some pretty sketchy looking folks in there).
We know you don't want to be taken for a ride. That is why we work with select insdustry people. You will be introduced to them. If you feel uncomfortable, will have the choice to decide against working with them. Our aim is to create a good team that will propel you towards the top of the charts and not nickel and dime you over every aspect of your career.
* And so on.
My hunch is that you'll have to provide more than just another artist's opinion for the $20.
Consider additional value you could bundle up for the $20, and create a 'killer offer' that you believe in, and that provides excellent value for the artist. Play with the parameters you bundle into the offer to make it absolutely irresistible. A/B test the offer of course.
Some ideas for bundling additional value into the $20 price:
1. Offer to make it a video review, and transcribe it as well. 2. Publish both the video and transcript on one (or all) of your web properties with links to the artist's website and top social media handles. Get the artist who does the reviews to also link to the artist being reviewed. 3. Create a 'discovery' directory with listings of each artist who paid the $20 for their review - I'm curious to find out about these artists myself - even the ones you don't want to promote - the $20 is an effective filter for both you and I!
Cool idea, and I LOVE to see people taking some risks and innovating the business model for music.
Our goal is to discover talented artists and then help them grow an audience and monetize it online.
I think there's definitely a market for helping artists get discovered, especially as more and more of them tend to operate online from their bedrooms instead of going on tour. So kudos for trying to help them along on that front.
From the other comments here, it looks like the $20 goes to the "feedback", and not the promotion to labels.
From an artist's point of view, this seems backwards. Personally I can't see why I would pay $20 just for feedback on a recording. If it's a demo recording, then there will be lots of things about it that could be improved, but I will already know this. If it's a professional recording from an album I've done, then it's sort of too late for feedback on it to do much for me. I suppose I could take it into consideration going forward, but my ability to act on this information still seems pretty minimal. So it's not clear why the "feedback" would be worth my $20, especially since there are lots of free ways out there to get feedback on your music.
"Submit your music for free, and if we like it we'll contact you about paying to have it promoted (and maybe give you some feedback)" is a model that would make more sense from my POV as an artist. That said, I know it's not the easiest model from your POV, as you'd be inundated with YouTube acoustic guitar covers.
So my advice would be to work on making it clear why the $20 will be well spent. I'd be more likely to pay up if I knew how likely I was to be "liked" by you, how likely I would be to get in touch with record companies if this were to happen, and exactly what benefit I could get from your feedback if I wasn't selected. This might something that gets easier once reputational effects start to play in.
Hope that's helpful!
P.S. My band, in case any one feels the need to investigate my boasting: http://doctorsquid.bandcamp.com/track/on-my-way
Here's what we're thinking:
- If your music isn't good enough to go viral yet then we can provide you with feedback on how to improve and reach that point.
- If your music IS good enough to go viral the we want to promote you, get you press, get you featured on YouTube, Ustream, etc (these are all things we can do very easily if your music is good - we already have these relationships).
- If you are really taking off we can help you monetize this growth in very interesting and artist/fan friendly ways. When you reach this stage we will enter into a production style agreement and take a % of the revenue we generate you. This is where we make our money and NOT on the original $20.
Concerns:
- If we don't charge we will be bombarded, like you pointed out, with low quality content. This is a problem we want to avoid.
- If we don't charge then we will be paying artists to review your content out of our own pocket.
Question: What would this site have to say so that when you saw it, as a musician, your reaction was "Holy shit I have to do this and would be stupid not to"?
Are you crowdsourcing feedback?
How many people are spending how much time/effort per song?
What criteria are songs judged on and how complete is the feedback?
What is the minimum amount of feedback artists can expect?
Basically, make it clear what the $20 is buying.
If you would like to talk more about any of these things, feel free to email me (listed on my info page), crowdsourced ratings are kinda my thing.
well, except if I go to hipset.com or www.hipset.com -> neither of which work for me (Chrome Version 23.0.1271.101 on Macbook Pro OSX 10.7.5). I get a whirly box that doesn't do anything.
I agree pay-to-play can be sketchy, but the alternative (which I do all the time) is put my music out there for free to writer's overcrowded inboxes and hope that they take a look (which they often do not).
I put in $20 just to give it a shot. If nothing happens, no big deal.
For a lot of real artists $20 is a BIG deal, thats dinner for the band or gas to the next gig, any real artist would never agree to this, by charging $20 your only going to get desperate bands that everyone else ignores because they suck. It takes a minute to listen to someones mp3, your kidding yourself thinking charging is going to give you better overall quality.
The payment is just acting as a low level barrier for initial contact.
"Forbes: Hipset Is Next Generation Music Site >>"
...which seems like it would be a link to the article. But I can't seem to click it. In fact, I can't even find that text in the DOM, which is confusing me something fierce.
Here's the link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2012/08/19/hipset-is-...
Thank you for trying our new service out!
Charging for maybe access to an old boys network of major labels if some random person likes it, is really taking advantage of peoples hopes and dreams.
Please ditch this idea and start a label, zine or venue instead. Something that will actually benefit artists and the art world.
We've already found quite a bit of incredibly talented artists. Check out this recent submission from an artist in San Francisco: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7jcfFrpvMA
Is the $20 for the feedback or the promo?
Our artists are good at reviewing rap, pop, edm, country, rock, etc. All genres.
Currently we can help the most with promoting rap, hip-hop, pop, and edm. We can help all genres find labels (we know a lot of them).
"Yeah, this sounds like a real song..." hahahaha great review!
Without some details like a list w/ credentials of the reviewers, it comes off as less than credible. I'd wanna know who was reviewing me and what makes them qualified. Even if they're not the biggest of names, I'd be less leery if seeing more than 'verified artists'.
Calling Rap Genius "the #1 hip hop site" adds to this leeriness. Aside from the fact that it's not (no disrespect to Rap Genius), specifying a hip hop site as the success story on a page with limited details kind of pigeonholes it into seeming like a "rap thing" - potential artists that aren't making hip hop music may think they aren't qualified, or may become disinterested.
A 'seasoned' starving artist is going to be looking for rep & credibility. Doesn't have to be major artists, major labels, etc. Just show me that the music is gonna be reviewed by someone who might know what they're talking about and I'm interested.
Some minor feedback: on the scrolling album background, one of the squares looks like the icon for Pandora, the music streaming service. Was that intentional? Bit of an odd choice in my opinion, since it's not really an artist.