The Journey of Capella Entertainment

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hey guys, this is Yagra Blustin talking. I am the host of Sound Connections. This is going to be a podcast about founders in the music industry, about how to empower them and to educate them. This first episode is introducing my founding team from my company, Kipilanta Center. I hope you enjoy it.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hey guys, this is Sound Connections. It's our first episode. Woo! Yeah, that's kind of exciting. And I've invited the most exciting guys for the first episode, which is the founders of Capella. Yes, sir. And not to be pretentious, but just to tell the story and give some information about why we're doing this. So my name is Jacob. I'm the CEO of Capella Entertainment. And this is Jonah. Hi, I'm Jonah. So I'm the operational manager of Capella Records and I founded Capella with these two guys. And Moi? So I'm Moi, call me Mo, I think. But yeah, and I'm the MD of Capella Entertainment. And we'll talk about, yeah, we'll talk about what all this means because it kind of seems like a bit out of context. But we're gonna use this episode introducing us, introducing what we're doing, where we came from, where are we going? And actually just set the scene for the podcast because the vision of this podcast is addressing a small niche audience that maybe hasn't... had a lot of podcasts before and that's about music entrepreneurship. And we're on the journey ourselves. We have been on a long journey where we didn't really know what we were doing. And now we know a bit more. We have a company that does exist and seems like it could do some interesting things in the future. And we're going to use this podcast and interviewing a lot of different guests with different perspectives telling different stories that hopefully we can learn from and use and the audience can learn from and use. So that's like sort of the purpose. Yeah. It's kind of funny because I met you guys in a weird context. So, yeah, so I'm actually from Denmark and we speak English together because we've spoken English together the whole time. I'm sort of becoming natural Norwegian, but not really. Depends on who you ask. Yeah. But I'm from Copenhagen and I've been in the music industry for quite a while. I think myself, I've been doing it full time for 12 years. I'm turning 30 today. Happy birthday. So yes, I'm officially adult now. And so now, now we can do a podcast. Yeah. Um, but I come from Copenhagen and I have a master's in music, but I've, I've been doing entrepreneurship within the music industry my whole life. Well, my whole grownup life seems to have 18, I started my first company. And three years ago, I moved to Norway because my wife is from here and we had a couple of kids, so it was natural to get here and here is Stavanger, Stavanger in Norway and.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Really, just to set the scene, maybe you guys could just talk about what does Stavanger mean, like music wise, because it's quite a funny city. Yeah, Stavanger, like music wise, I would say it's been lacking a lot of things. I would say definitely the more ambitious people that kind of want to create and build something bigger. So that's what I think is a bit interesting about when you came here. Because you did a lot of research on what is the music industry in Stavanger. And I don't think you found anyone quite as like-minded as yourself. Or as ambitious, if that's the right word. Yeah, I don't know if ambitious, but at least there wasn't a lot of community to structure to it. Yeah. So then instead you found a couple of young dreamers that you inspired and we became a part of. of your journey, I would say. Yeah. So what I actually did is I, before I moved here, I had, I think 50 meetings with different people, just talking to them. What are you doing in the city within music and trying to sort of. Understand the city and, and what I really realized is there's so little structure and all the tenant talent that's made in the city, uh, just disappears over time and like, because you, you're, you're a music producer. Yeah. I've knew that for a lot of years and you definitely felt that I got guessed that the lack of community and opportunities in the city. non-existent, it wasn't a place to, you know, you can explore as a producer. Like, you know, nothing about songwriting, about collaboration alone in my room in the studio for like seven years straight. Yeah. Before you came into the picture. And for the context of this podcast, that's a really interesting example, because we live in a region that's very large, it's like around 400,000 people here and there's really no structural opportunities for music. And That is why we're doing what we do, but we will take a bit of a journey to explain that. Um, but, but what I practically did is I located around 80 to a hundred different talents in the region, songwriters, producers, artists, and starting setting up co-write sessions. Um, and not to confuse people, but I've also had a few other companies before Capella, one of them is a publishing company that I still own called Mantic Music Group, and we live from setting up session creatively.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So I did that for a lot of these artists, producers, songwriters that had no experience with collaboration. And from that, you guys, I met you guys. And what was really interesting about you and me is I sort of saw you as some sort of talent deep down, even though you were a complete noob. Yep. And brought you to the studio and a bit like hire the studio and try to explore your artistry a bit, but try to explain like you are an artist. Yeah. But what's been the journey with relation to your own artistry and capela and how has that been a part of our journey? Well, you know, so both me and Moe, we're local boys. We're from here. We've always been here. I've always considered myself a creative in some sense, but I think before you came, I never kind of saw it as an opportunity to actually do this as my craft and do this every day. Yeah. Um, so, I mean, timing is a funny thing. You came, you came around the time of the pandemic. Uh, I worked on a bar, uh, got closed down. I had time to kind of look at what I wanted to do. And, you know, after having worked with you like for, for half a year and just, you know, kind of just dipping my toe into it, it became very obvious, very fast that, oh, I'm going to do this and this is happening. Yeah, and you were actually the first person I talked with about starting a label. Yeah. Because the city really needed that. And you were like, okay, I have my best friend, Mui. He wants to be a part of it as well. And I didn't really know Mui that much, as much as I knew you. And we started together and that's sort of where our journey began. And well, I knew something and you guys knew absolutely nothing. And we use you as a test bunny because you really hadn't been making music for a long time. So it's like, okay, how do we... one, start a label and two, then actually have an artist project. So we were able to make a lot of the mistakes on you. Yeah. And it kind of, for me, it started as a hobby project. Like, okay, I have Manseq Music Group, which is my other company, and I do audio engineering and music production. So I'll do that. And then I'll do this on the side in order to have something fun. And it slowly became more and more of a thing. Yeah. And something happened that we didn't really expect because

Jakob Wredstrøm

We signed a few artists, released a bit of music and we quite early got a lot of like radio support for artists that were completely new and kind of like, okay, wow, maybe, maybe this can become a company. So we kind of didn't, we didn't go all in yet, but like I had a 50% job somewhere and you guys had like a 50% job and then we just started working almost every single day at records. Yeah. And for you, how's that journey been Moe? Because it's kind of like. So I think like when we started off before we met you even with the pandemic and everything, me and Jonah had a lot of time. I'll just go a little bit back. And then that's how I, before we even met me and Jonah, we were kind of, okay, let's, let's do this music thing. I just got the studio. I've been trying to do music seven last year. So I started off like as an electronic producer and stuff like that. So I have, you know, visioned this for a long time. So we kind of were in the same frequency, like let's, let's do music before we even met you. Right. So when we met you, we were kind of all in. Because we just want to collaborate. We've never collaborated for us. It was just an insane thing. We could, you know, meet people, producers and songwriters. And from there on, the first artist, you know, you put us in sessions with, I just sparked something I know for both of us. Me and Jonah are very much alike in some ways. That being one, we're like all in, you know, he's educated. I'm not, didn't finish high school even. For me, it's like music was something I envisioned myself in. So with label being proposed, you know, I was just all in from the start and then, yeah. And I want to transition a bit and talk about, okay, what happened then? Because right now, Kipil Entertainment is a company with 18 people. Yeah. And we're just grinding and we have seven different companies, music related companies. And like in a short amount of time, like less than two years, this has happened, this transition. Yeah. What happened for me at least is I'm a creator. I used to be a songwriter producer, but that didn't quite seem as satisfying enough for me just because it's, it's very like, you need to work years and years and years in your craft and I'm not that patient. So for me, like, is okay. There's potentially a playground here for me to create. And that's what really happened is like we, we create a community and we created some sort of success with the artists. And then it's like, okay, we have a label.

Jakob Wredstrøm

That's losing a lot of money. Then we're like, okay, let's get an investor on board. And this is where the really interesting side of the story happens. Because in music in general, in the music industry, getting investors in music companies are really hard for many different reasons. I think the primary reasons are that people who are music entrepreneurs or starting companies don't know how to talk the same language as investors. They don't know how to communicate their worth in a good enough way for them to be convincing. Yeah. And, and I had that because I, again, I've started a few different companies at a company called Tamber, uh, once in once, you know, four years ago. And we were all about building a platform, democratizing capital investment in the music industry or in IP rights. And that sounds a bit complicated, but basically it means that you can value what music is worth when it succeeds. And then you can, for me describe, we will succeed at one point. And that's going to be the. Hypothetical value. And then suddenly you sort of speak a language that's almost like a tech investment. Like we're gonna create this product and we're gonna succeed with this product and we're gonna sell this product. And suddenly investors understood, oh, that's what you're doing, sure. They didn't know anything about music, but they understood tech and then understood startups. So we got a first investor and we never really stopped. Then we just, we have 14 investors now and like 25 different investments. And... And it's not raising money just to raise money. Like there's a point. So what happened is we started a booking company because we knew, okay, we're spending a lot of money on records, luckily we're getting some investment but like the money's just like running out. Like, so we, oh, we got to get some live jobs. So we started a new company, a booking company and that started to make money. I'm like, oh, oh nice. And it suddenly dawned on me like, oh, this could actually be a creative playground. We're building businesses. And that's sort of what we've done since we've started a promotion company that promotes concerts. We have a media company. Uh, we have a ticketing company and we have a few other companies and projects we were working on in the future. And Kapila Entertainment today has become a hub of music startups with different founders that we can help inspire, build, and get financing to. And that's sort of been key. So, so you guys came from like.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Being bartenders, no education, music, music. Not knowing anything about. So like before, and I have a point because like before we started booking, we didn't kind of know why, you know, we just followed you. So every time you propose something, we were very supportive. Right. So you were in the front of leading. So we started together, of course, but you were kind of, you'd say something like, yeah, we should start doing booking. We had no fricking idea what, what booking led, why we have like, you know, a smaller understanding, but I think with every company, like you empowered us in a way to like, just think a bit different. So we were very supportive, you know, when other people weren't just because we believed we did records, I went really good and, you know, started off really good. So booking and other the other companies also likewise, like you were in the front and then we understood, like gradually understood why. And I think a big part of what we've been doing is, you know, finding and locating the people that we can bring on to the team. Yes, you know, we started out as three people and then suddenly, like eight months ago, we just started. Finding or the people found us almost. Yeah. And now we're 18. Yeah. And you know, full transparency, like most people are on salary, but not comparable to what they would have anywhere else. Oh yeah, a little health. It's really a founder's journey for all of us. So what we've created is a founder's community surrounding around music. And that's the unique thing is like, okay, it's not just one or two founders that carries this vision. It's, it's so many people. Who buys into what we are. And we are a company with a vision of becoming the biggest in the Nordics on music and media entertainment. And we really about fairness, we're about accessibility, we're about creating opportunities that are sustainable financially. And that's something we've been working around because the music industry, at least from my perspective and most perspectives is sort of like a really messed up place. And a lot of artists really don't make a living and you can't just blame the industry in that. But there's not a lot of structures and intention about creating opportunities for the sustainability of the artist. And I think that's sort of the movement locally we've created. Yeah, but how has it been for you guys? Because now we're company and you never had the vision or dream of becoming part of such. Like, how does that feel for you guys?

Jakob Wredstrøm

I think like, you know, once while I stop and I just kind of, oh shit, this is pretty big. And like, with the people we're working with and just like, kind of, it's insane. But most of the time you just keep on going, just kind of forget. You're in the midst of it, right? So you don't kind of, the achievements are kind of blurry. You see like things you need to fix and stuff like that. But once while I'm like, holy shit, this is freaking insane. This is really insane. Insta-banger. Never ever thought in my life that I would... do something similar, even close to this. Yeah. That's also what's really interesting because right now we are at a point as a company where we have created something, but we're still not like hugely sustainable or have a lot of success. What we have is we have community and momentum. We have a lot of ideas and people. And we wanted to kind of like document our journey with this podcast. And, and when we bring in guests, it's going to surround like the problems we are facing. And the real intention, and I said it a bit in the start is creating some sort of content that people can follow with the same ambitions of becoming entrepreneurs within music Exactly and using the example of you guys like you had nothing clueless Yeah, I think they get the point but I just really want to I really want to say how clueless you guys were and What's interesting about that is we can create a company around that And, and what we've been really lucky with is having mentors around us. And we, we had vision, we had some sort of experience and hopefully this podcast will bring some new perspectives for people that wants to build in this amazing industry that's still like really messed up financially. Yeah. I mean, you know, we're, we're two and a half years in, but we're still kind of surviving on, you know, dreams and passion and You know, you know the saying they say, find a job that you love and you won't work a day in your life. I thought that was like, that's a good quote. That's a mumbo jumbo, you know, but then somehow we just got into it. And I'm hoping that, you know, maybe this podcast could show people that if you really believe in something and if you have the right people around you, you can dream pretty big. Yeah. And...

Jakob Wredstrøm

I want to define a bit where we are now. So we've redefined the company as a venture studio. And what does that mean? The best way to describe it is a movie studio. So a movie studio has ideas, they have scripts, they have actors, producers, and what they do is they gather all these people and financing and marketing it and they make movies. A venture studio is the same thing, they make companies. And we want to do that within music and entertainment. And that's where we are now. Uh, we have, you know, I'm going to be honest on the podcast. We have around $400,000 in investment so far. That's in a Scandinavian level, quite impressive because it's not really done on an international level, it's nothing. So we're kind of like a really interesting space because, okay, we can attract capital. Uh, we can seem interesting. Um, but we're nowhere near done. And we have a goal by 2030, we've created something amazing. Doesn't mean we're gonna end there, but that's like our internal goal. I wanna talk a bit about the audience for this podcast because in a way, you guys are the audience. Because what I've been quite lucky with, I think, is I've been exposed to a great network and I have mentors around me that have been help guiding me. And I think that's one of the many reasons that we are something now. Is because I've had these mentors, but that's been almost exclusively available to me because it's private network. And that's sort of what I want to open up for is those conversations. So do you think you'd need this kind of podcast? Oh yeah. No, if I'd had this podcast that we were trying to create now back two and a half years ago when you kind of first started taking us under your wing. I mean, I think it would have helped a lot just having some perspective. Yeah. I mean, the things that I've learned since we first started has been, I mean, the learning curve has just skyrocketed. Yeah. So, yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's also because that's been my, I've been telling you what people have been telling me, but instead if you could get it directly from the source in a way, like instead of like when we're talking about specific topics, when it comes to like getting investment.

Jakob Wredstrøm

In the music industry. Yeah. That's just been my way of communicating and maybe transferring the knowledge of experts that I've talked with. And because it's not just going to be like dry information about specific topics, it's going to be from a personal angle, like, okay, we're venture studio or music company, we're struggling understanding this topic or these perspectives, can you bring some perspective to it and tell your own story? And I think that's what's really interesting. Yeah. I agree. I, you know, if I've had this podcast when we started this off. It's just like the small stuff. I started off as a producer, right? I was only thinking about becoming this producer. Didn't see any other roles I could have in the music industry, weren't interested in the music industry. I think this podcast will shed some light for me while listening back to it. It's like I went from only wanting to be a producer to getting some insight into industry and gradually getting some more, being exposed to information, actually doing a lot of stuff I never thought I would. And then now I'm kind of shifting into not being a producer anymore. And that's pretty interesting. Like in two and a half years, the last 10 years, I only thing I dreamt of and envisioned was me as the biggest hottest producer. Now I'm like, okay, maybe I'll get my fix somewhere else. And that happened gradually, like small things, not the big questions we're talking about now, but like just gradually. Yeah. Well, thank you so much guys. It's been really pleasure recording this first episode with you. And we've sort of gone through the journey of like why we started it and where we've been. And there's a lot more to unfold to that story. And we'll talk more about that next time we're going to speak. It's going to be in a few episodes. It's going to be about where we are now, what needs to change in the music industry and how we see it could happen. And it's a really interesting journey that's unfolding and it's happening new things at the office every single month. So I'm really excited to follow our own story in this podcast as we move on. But thank you so much and I hope you guys can tune in to the next couple of episodes. This is Jonah. This is Moe. I'm Jacob with Kapila Entertainment. Thank you so much for listening.