Today in LA at NARM and digitalmusic.org's Music Biz 2012 are presenting The Hypebot Sessions. Two thought leaders that Hypebot readers know well, Kyle Bylin and Hisham Dahud will host sessions with guests like musician Brendan Benson, manager Emily White, VC Larry Marcus and serial music tech entrepreneur Brendan Mulligan. In between, former WMG SVP and Live Nation Lab VP Ethan Kaplan will give a mini keynote: "The Nuclear Option: Starting Up During the Winding Down". DETAILS:
This Wednesday, May 9 • 3- 5 PM
Panel 1: Why Most Music Startups Fail
There are no shortage of startups working to transform how we discover, market and monetize music, but most of them will fail. Are they being defeated by licencing or are these technologists trying to fix problems that most consumers don’t really have?
- Kyle Bylin, Live Nation Labs (Moderator) Bylin is a music industry and technology analyst, who specializes in consumer products and behavioral trends. Bylin is spearheading the development of the Ultimate Chart and related content strategy at LiveNation.com. He was the Editor of Hypebot, a leading trade publication, as well as Social/Streaming Chart Manager and Columnist at Billboard Magazine.
- Larry Marcus, Managing Director at Walden Venture Capital. - He was a founding investor in Pandora in early 2004 when Walden led the rebirth round to focus the company on launching a consumer-facing service and was a director through its IPO. He is also a Director at SoundHound, Rootmusic, Aarki, and a Board Observer at PowerCloud Systems. Marcus also led Walden’s investment in Terayon and Telekenex. He is a member of the Advisory Council for Industry Ventures and serves on the non-profit Board of the JazzSchool in Berkeley, CA. Prior to joining Walden in 2000, he was a digital media sell-side Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank Alex.Brown where he lead the IPOs of Maxis, Terayon, CBS MarketWatch, Edmark, and Netflix among other equity and debt financings.
- Brenden Mulligan, OneSheet – Mulligan is in charge of Product & Design at Onesheet. He is a San Francisco-based entrepreneur who specializes in making complex things simple through thoughtful user experiences. He is a product designer and programmer, as well as an advisor to many entrepreneurs that are part of 500 Startups and ExcelerateLabs. Mulligan currently is working on several projects, including Onesheet, which creates About.me style pages for the entertainment industry. He has also recently launched MorningPics and PhotoPile, both small Instagram-based projects. Previously, Mulligan founded ArtistData, an industry leading marketing platform that enables over 40,000 musicians to syndicate content across the web. ArtistData was acquired by Sonicbids in 2010.
- Joey Flores, Earbits – Flores is co-founder and CEO of artist marketing company Earbits, which currently works with over 250 record labels and 4,000 artists, including numerous Grammy winners and platinum-certified artists. Flores has a 13-year background in online, performance-based marketing, was formerly Director of Marketing for a Top 10 Internet advertiser, and has fronted and managed a 10-piece original band in Los Angeles.
- Mike Dougherty, CEO and co-founder of Jelli , a social music service that enables communities to crowdsource in real-time the programming of traditional FM & online broadcasts, via Jelli’s iPhone and Android app and website. Dougherty has 19 years of experience with online and mobile services and corporate development, as VP business development at Tellme, a leader in speech recognition applications (acquired by Microsoft) and Sr. VP of Business & Corporate Development at Loudeye, an early leader in music web services (acquired by Nokia). Dougherty was named radio industry Power Player by All Access and has appeared on CNBC Squawk Box, G4TV and conferences including NAB, Digital Hollywood, TEDxSF, Paley Center, Radio Ink, and RAIN.
Mini-Keynote: "The Nuclear Option: Starting Up During the Winding Down"
- Ethan Kaplan, Live Nation Labs – Kaplan is the VP of Product for LiveNation. He is a co-founder of LiveNation Labs, a division of the company responsible for “disruption from within” and creating new mobile and web experiences for users and customers. Prior to LiveNation, Kaplan was the Sr. VP of Technology for Warner Music Group and Warner Bros. Records. Kaplan also continues to run the largest fan-site for the now retired band R.E.M., which he has done since he was 16. He and the band are good friends, and accordingly “Almost Famous” is one of his favorite movies.
Panel 2: Recreating Team Indie
“Emily White Is Remaking Indie” declared a recent Billboard cover. Hypebot’s Hisham Dahud will interview White, musician/producer Brenden Benson and Young Hines, the first release on their unque commission-based Readymade Records.
- Hisham Dahud, Fame House and regular Hypebot contributor (Interviewer) – Hisham Dahud is an independent music business professional at the forefront of the music technology and digital marketing space, and carries a uniquely wide perspective on today’s music industry. As a regular analyst for Hypebot.com, Hisham educates and informs fellow industry professionals on emerging trends and newsworthy topics within the industry, and provides readers with regular digital marketing commentary and advice. Hisham doesn’t just write about digital marketing, he is knee deep in the implementation of it. In addition to his journalism, he is the Project Manager and head of Business Development for Fame House, LLC – an artist and labels services company specializing in Digital Strategy, Marketing, and Management whose client roster includes DJ Shadow, Pretty Lights, Josh Wink, Mimosa and many more. At the core of it all, Hisham is a lifelong musician himself.
- Brendan Benson – Benson is a beloved musician, writer, performing artist and world-class producer. Benson released his first album in 1996, One Mississippi, with Virgin and followed up with Lapalco, which still pops up on many critics’ list as one of the best of the past decade. 2005′s Alternative to Love followed with V2, bringing Benson international acclaim. Shortly after, Benson teamed with long-time friend Jack White to form The Raconteurs, releasing Broken Boy Soliders and Consolers of The Lonely. In 2012 Benson formed Readymade Records & Publishing as a home for his new album, What Kind of World as well as to offer a platform for other artists he was producing such as Young Hines, The Howling Brothers, The Lost Brothers and a few additional artists Readymade will be announcing shortly.
- Young Hines -On September 20th, 1976, an unknown nurse wrote “Young Mr. Hines” on the patient info sheet for the yet to be named newborn child. As the youngest of seven children, Young seemed perfectly fitting to his parents and it stuck. The Georgia bred musician caught his break when friends who were hired to paint Brendan Benson’s house happened to be listening to Young’s music while they were working. The stunning songwriting caught Benson’s ear who instantly reached out to Young by emailing him asking if they could get together and write. The session went so well that Benson ended up producing Young’s debut album, Give Me My Change, which prompted Benson to launch Readymade Records & Publishing with Young Hines as the first signee. Young spent 2011 supporting The Raconteurs and heads out on the road with Benson in the US and Europe in May.
- Emily White – White is the co-founder of Whitesmith Entertainment, a music and comedy management and consulting firm based in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. In 2012, White launched Readymade Records & Publishing with Brendan Benson as a platform for Brendan’s production projects after he produced over 6 albums in a year, including his own. The team assembled around Readymae is commission based, which is a new model for how record labels are structured. In addition to Benson, White manages GOLD MOTEL and Sydney Wayser in addition to consulting on Eric Burdon (of The Animals), Urge Overkill, and The Big Sleep. White sits on the board of Direct to Fan music technology non-profit CASH Music. In her early career, White was integral in developing The Dresden Dolls worldwide and worked directly with Imogen Heap, The Fiery Furnaces, Secret Machines, Paolo Nutini, Angelique Kidjo, Taj Mahal, Jonah Smith, and Zac Brown Band at companies ranging from Live Nation Artists to Madison House Inc.
