Guest
Mathilde Neu
Mathilde Neu is Founder at Resonance Agency, as introduced on the show.
Episodes (1)
Mathilde Neu, founder of Resonance Agency and co-founder of Music Tech France, explains why founders must adapt their message to reach the music industry.
Questions these episodes answer
What is the most common communication mistake music tech startups make?
Neu says the biggest failure is founders speaking to the music industry the way they would speak to any other industry, using technical language without adapting it to a field with its own specific way of talking. She has also seen founders tell rights holders they plan to redefine how rights work, which shuts a conversation down instead of opening it.
How did Mathilde Neu get into music tech communications?
Neu started in music industry PR, working with artists, then moved into a broader innovation role in France before returning to music. She led the French tech delegation to Midem in 2017 and 2018, where she saw firsthand how little music people and technology people understood each other, and decided to focus her career on bridging that gap.
Why did Mathilde Neu help found Music Tech France?
Neu says the founding group were nine people doing different jobs in the same industry, such as advising, ticketing or audio operations, who kept running into each other at conferences but never really worked together. They created Music Tech France to build a shared ecosystem, hold regular meetups, and give small member companies more weight with institutions like France's National Center for Music.
What mistakes do music tech startups make when pitching investors?
Neu says startups often try to give investors every possible detail to sound reassuring, which ends up overwhelming a generalist investor instead of building confidence. The other common mistake is founders downplaying how passionate they are about their own niche project, when that passion is usually what convinces an investor who is not a music specialist to take the risk.
How does Mathilde Neu suggest music tech startups talk to non-music investors?
Neu agrees it can help to talk about music as little as possible at first, then show a B2B investor you understand the technical, data and rights side of the business She says this works especially well for B2B companies, since it shows an investor the founder understands their world instead of only the music side of the business.