Company
Artist Growth
Artist Growth, as described on the show by Matt Urmy.
Episodes (1)
Matt Urmy, founder of Artist Growth, explains why he pivoted to enterprise software for labels and why raising money before a product was a mistake.
Questions these episodes answer
Why do apps built for independent artists struggle to make money?
Independent artists spend nearly everything on pressing records, merch, studio time and travel, so organizing their business sits low on the list of things they will pay for. Urmy's free artist app drew fifteen thousand sign-ups but zero paid subscribers within six months, which forced him to pivot toward labels and management companies instead.
Should a music startup raise money before it has a product?
No. Urmy raised a million dollars on a slide deck and a spreadsheet before Artist Growth had a working prototype, and he now calls it a huge mistake. His advice is to build something, get one real paying customer, and only raise capital once the product already works in the market.
How can a founder tell if their product is a must-have or a nice-to-have?
Urmy ranks buyers on a scale of must-have, nice-to-have and do-I-really-need-it, and only must-haves support a real business. His artist app stayed stuck on the lower rungs until he pivoted to management companies with rosters of fifty or more artists, which moved Artist Growth into the must-have category.
What has AI changed about building enterprise software for music companies?
Urmy says AI has made front-end interfaces trivial to build, but the back end has not gotten easier. Music data needs field-level permissions across as many as a hundred different roles at labels, managers and agencies, and building that securely still takes real architectural and data modeling expertise that cannot be vibe coded.