Scaling Music Tech: What Control Reach Is Doing Differently

Clementin

No, first time.

Jakob

It's kind of smart. Basically what it does, it streams the conversation, it downloads at the same time, it uploads at the same time. So I get full resolution at my end at the end, which also means that it might get laggy somehow. But you don't need to mind that because I get the full resolution at the end. Also, we have some really good audio suppression and processing tools we're using. So if there's background noise, you don't need to worry about that either, like most of the time to just cover that. When we're done with the call, if you just wait a few seconds with closing the call just because it can finish uploading. Just don't cancel that immediately. Cool. And I think everything else is fine. And your internet speed is good. It's fast on uploading. Great. Control, reach, cool. Well, do you have any questions?

Clementin

Cool. Yeah, correct.

Clementin

All good.

Jakob

Great, then we'll start in five seconds.

Jakob

Hey guys and welcome back to the Sound Connections Podcast. Today we have Clem from Control Reach in the studio.

Clementin

Hey, nice to be here. Thank you.

Jakob

We've been talking together for, I guess, a year's time, and I've been following your company on the sidelines. We had a few talks about it, and it's really exciting what you do, Clem. And today's episode is going to be in partnership with MusiTeq River Academy, where you, I guess, was a participant last year. And they've sort of chosen you as like the shining star, the poster boy. It's all about history as a startup, but you do really have an interesting story. So welcome, Clem.

Clementin

Thank you very much. There was a lot of great companies in our selections. I'm happy to hear.

Jakob

You

Jakob

Amazing. So Clem, for the people who don't know who you are and what Control Reach does, who are you and what do you do?

Clementin

So I'm the founder of Control Reach, used to call white web or your music marketing. And we can discuss that a bit later and all the changements. But yeah, basically co-founded the company with three other team members. And I take care mostly of the sales and the overall strategy.

Jakob

And what's your background? How did you get into music?

Clementin

So basically it just started with me wanting to set up a festival when I was a kid. There was this like a beautiful place around where I live and there was some like Muppet show happening. It was like, hey, you know, like it looks good when I see like a festival on YouTube, why don't I do that at my home? So that's how I get started. And from that point, I have done like several job or like volunteering related to music. So... I like to say like I didn't like properly choose music. I it just happened like this and I turned out to enjoy this.

Jakob

Yeah, well it also sounds like entrepreneurship chose you if that's sort of your go-to move when you're young to actually start something yourself. Before we get into your journey, because most of the talk today is going to be about that and the struggles and the wins and everything in between, but for people who don't know your company, what do you guys do?

Clementin

So basically, we help companies, many record labels, life promoters, and marketing agencies to grow the artist's audiences and convert those audiences into buyers.

Jakob

Hmm, and what do they buy?

Clementin

So it can be stream, if you consider this a buy. I mean, that's how we started with recording music, so converting those audiences into actual streamers. Now we do more and more ticket sales. So the live side of the scenes has become like a big focus for us. Physical, merchandising, and we're about to introduce other verticals as well.

Jakob

So to some degree you use sort of a marketing layer in between the artist and whoever wants to market to their audience, I guess.

Clementin

Yeah, I think the idea to say it differently is to say, OK, there is an artist and around the artist there is different partners. It be record label, live agent, manager, et cetera. So our job is to make sure that whoever is using our platforms or whoever is working around the artist ecosystem, we make sure that they have the right data and that they can collaborate and not just like working in silo each on their own.

Jakob

Hmm. I want to understand sort of your journey into this. And you said you sort of dappled with festivals as young person volunteering, but you just don't, you know, go and start a startup. What led up to you choosing to go into creating a company?

Clementin

So I basically like only not create company, but like create project. mean, the festival was like a first project. And then it was just like opportunities, I guess, things that were just coming like, hey, you know, help me to find some gigs and hey, do you want to manage me? And, you know, all this kind of stuff. So I think it was like a lot of opportunities and I just took everything I was able to get. And so that eventually lead me to move to Paris. Actually, the story is that one of the artists I invited in my festival, his manager, turned out to come from the same arm town as I. So we connected from that point and he told me, so I was still not having my high school diploma back in time, but he told me like, hey, I'm setting up like a booking agency and like PR, do you want to come and help me? So that's how I started and arriving in Paris, I started to have obviously much more opportunities. So it was just like, you know, taking a few jobs here and there. And it helps me to have quickly a great scope of understanding about what you can do in the music business and everything marketing communication related.

Jakob

And was that you because you were particularly structured or like what was attractive for these people to, know, why did they want to work with you?

Clementin

I think because I wanted to work. Probably at no price or not enough pricing. No, but I think it really helped the fact that this person that brought me to Paris, we share this hometown that somehow created a connection and that really helped. And from that point, was much me really willing to do some stuff and pushing to get this and that. Back in time, one of the first things I was working on was in a huge club in Paris that used to be called Showcase. And I was always the one coming, I don't know, like 2 3 PM, starting to just install everything. And I was always the last one ending up doing everything. like, fun story about this, but it was one of the first time I've done that. And I was... that involved in my task like 4 AM, someone told me, hey, the DJ that should close the club is not there tonight. Can you DJ? I was like, yeah, sure. So I started myself to go on YouTube, look for tutorial and doing this kind of crappy MP3 downloaded. And I just ended up finishing the night even though I've never mixed before. So I think I was really involved in that. everybody else.

Jakob

Okay. And again, my first reaction to that was this guy is a pushover. that's basically not what it was, I guess. It's just you were passionate. Like that you actually said yes to that much. Like why did he say yes to that much?

Clementin

I don't know. feel like it was never a question of, this like a work or I never envisioned that as a work. So for me, it was just like, you know, that's my passion and I just, you know, it's fun. So let's do that. And I think also the idea of like always learning new stuff. I don't know. It's just like keep drive you and say, okay, you know, let's try, let's meet, let's try to do some stuff.

Jakob

Your web.

Jakob

Yeah.

Jakob

Have you always had that amount of energy?

Clementin

Yes, I so. I think it's true. Now it's been like 10 years I'm doing that. So I think it's not about saying yes to everything anymore because you have a company, there is people in your company, so you can't properly do that. But I feel if I was in the same positions and I still get some money, I will still get the same energy. So I don't know. I feel now I'm taking energy from a different angle, different perspective. But I think what we're lucky about is the music industry, especially, and I will say any industry in general right now in 2025, it's evolving that quick so that I feel like every day it's a new task, a new something that you're learning. And that brings to me at least a lot of energy to just keep on going, always learning.

Jakob

Mm.

Clementin

Yeah, it's new stuff every day, I will say.

Jakob

Mm, okay. But before we get into what happened when you the company and the initiation of that, could you just give us the status of your company right now? Like, how many employees do you have? What do you do? Sort of what's the status of your current company?

Clementin

So now we're 12 people. We're all based in Paris. We have a few freelancers that are based out of the US as well, US and Asia. So we are slowly starting our international expansions. Right now, I would say the majority of the team is tech team. So how do we grow audiences and convert those audiences into buyers is through social media ads, mainly. So basically what we have created is an ad automation system where it just takes you a few minutes to run everything. I would say in a high-performing way. So by that, mean like creating all the custom audiences, A-B testing audiences, getting those reports, optimizing, et cetera. So we have created predictive AI models. We have a... machine learning based optimization system. So we try to make everything as simple as possible for the users. It is obviously quite complex in the back, but it's the idea to have this all-in-one platforms. And obviously we are coming from a marketing agency background and it's like social media based, but the idea to say, do we connect together the whole digital landscape that an artist and his partners could get? So that's what we're into.

Jakob

Yeah, really interesting and let's maybe just talk about how that happened. Did you just have an idea together with three friends or what was the introduction into that?

Clementin

No, not at all. So I mean, there is two stories. The easy story is to say we are the marketing agency. And the idea with this marketing agency, was we had a record label. So this record label, first budget, you go and you get to marketing agencies. They asked for five grand and you don't know what is happening with that. You're not really sure about the percentage and everything takes ages, et cetera. So we say, okay, let's just do that on our own. And even though we haven't any specific background of other than any campaigns, we just started to do that on our own. But I think like a lot of people, those in the music industry, it turns out that my colleague, Matthew, became very, very excited about that. So we had one campaign to campaign, very successful. And this artist started to reach out and bring some other friends. Like, hey, can you do marketing for us? So we eventually became a marketing agency, even though we haven't think about this. So that's how it became. But the longer story, or actually what we intend to do at the beginning, not your music marketing. but your music manager, and DID, because I was also manager on the side, was how do we automate this whole messy landscape with, I don't know, like Piero registrations, duplicating files, label, copy, and I mean, you know, know the hustle. And when I initially started that, because I don't have any tech background, any, I don't know, like startup background or whatever, I met with my friend Jules, who's coming from this, like, you know, like, a business school, et cetera. They had a couple of projects, has already run a company. like, Clem, it's super cool, but I think we're never going to get any money. So maybe we focus on what you already do great with Matteo. And that's how we became your music marketing.

Jakob

Wow, okay, so are you four in total or three in total?

Clementin

Four, me and three other people.

Jakob

Great. Okay, but how did that go about? Like you said, you hadn't done this before and no one had done it before, right? So you guys need to figure out what it meant to build tech and raise money and all that kind of stuff. Like how did that go about?

Clementin

So we were lucky because, so at the beginning it was Mateo and I, with whom I've already done all my business before the marketing agency I was mentioning. And then I met with Jules and Jules is more having like a, I would say project management, product management background and acquisitions marketing related. And so he bring on our fourth colleagues, Simon. who was just out of a startup that he didn't found it, but he was one of the first tech employees and they have done that for like four or five years. So we had a little bit of understanding about what the startup journey, how do you raise money, et cetera. So that's where we started. And another thing that really helped us a lot, especially in terms of how do you create a company? How do you get money? how do you apply to grant, et cetera, et is we started the company when we were in Bretagne in France. And we have a very great ecosystem for the startup and something called Technopol, which is basically here to help you free of anything. It's like an incubator, but they don't take any share in the company. It's just like something from the government. And that helped us a lot to get the first money. And also just to get started, how do you create a company? How do you talk to the banks? If you need to go to these specialized banks, et cetera. So that's those two factors that really help us to not be on our own and just browsing on the web and see, okay, what's the next step?

Jakob

Hmm. Okay, wow. And how long ago was this?

Clementin

So that was 2021.

Jakob

So what happened? Did you guys like all have your jobs on the side and you had to market to an agency and that slowly became a full-time thing? How did you transition into that?

Clementin

It takes some time. Basically, was just on the side. All of us, except Simon, were entrepreneurs. We had other companies. So was easier to just squeeze some day jobs, sometimes, sometimes. And Simon quit his job because the company he was working for before was acquired by a US company. So it was a good timing. And then I think we started to hire some people in the tech team. And then over time, so at the beginning we didn't have any clients. It was many hour marketing agency using for the automation. But at some point, know, like clients started to come, it requires more time, et cetera. So it's pretty new actually, but like nine months ago we merged. Our activities with the marketing agency and now we're like full time on the project for less than years, I will say. But it takes some time.

Jakob

And how early in that journey did he raise capital?

Clementin

So I think, so like the founding journey started with initial funding from our region and then national funding, then industry, government, industry focused fundings. And it was just like, you know, 5K here, 10K there, 30K there. So it was really like a step by step. And we started with a first like proper fundraising with SAFE. Back in time. I think it was the end of 2022. So almost two years.

Jakob

Could you tell me about that? Because obviously raising capital is really difficult and also in music tech. And I can't imagine this was easy either, but maybe it was. How did that happen? Like how much money were you raising? How much money did you end up raising?

Clementin

So was very, very complicated. I mean, complicated. I would say I get a lot of learning from doing that. But the amount of energy and time you invest for this return on investment, which I think back in time, mean, we were lucky, but maybe we get 10 people in the cap table for 100k, something like this, even less.

Jakob

Hmm.

Clementin

Took you a lot of time and when you say, I have seen, I don't know, like 50 venture capital, whatever it seems, I have lost so much of my time. Obviously now I would do it very differently, but back in time, you know, you're 24, 23, you're just like, my project is going to save the world. It's the most beautiful project. So obviously all the VCs, they want to invest in us. And then you realize that it's not like this. And I think we were, I'm not sure about that, but I think when we started to raise, it was already the end of like post COVID money, very easy to raise capital, people starting to look maybe further at the risk. And I don't know, maybe for six months earlier, it will have been more easy. I'm unsure, but yeah, it's always been very complicated. And maybe to finish on that, the thing is as long as you haven't done it. You don't know how to do it. And no one's tell you, don't spend your time talking to VC because obviously if you have just MVP and 10 clients, like no VC is going to be interested, at least for what we're doing. We're not going to save the world with music marketing, you know? So yeah, it's a lot of time you invest. I think like every new fundraising is also a lot of learnings because you are at a very different stage, but yeah, it took a lot of time.

Jakob

Yeah, no, I'm always very baffled about like people, how people actually do it with their own companies. Like I've been an entrepreneur for many years and for companies that we, we co-own, we've raised capital for around eight of those companies. So we've done it a few times now and, know, relatively successfully. But I can take the learnings from all the other races into new races. And that makes it still hard, still difficult. And still like, I need to pivot on the fundraising strategy multiple times. Know, okay, this is the direction we want to go for, this is the start thing we want to go for. And then we try like, nope, not working. So even me that's done it, you know, we have, I think almost 50 tickets over these companies. So basically we have had 50 investments over these eight companies, like in total.

Clementin

Hmm.

Clementin

Mm.

Jakob

Still struggle with raising cap, but like knowing what specific direction do I need to take this and I need to change my mind multiple times. So I don't get how people do it for the first time, but really.

Clementin

Yeah. I think like the, I don't know, like the issue is like, think everyone, I mean, let's say on the other side of the table, when you talk about like the investors, it seems for me that you always, for them, that you always need to present like the most beautiful project. Like we started at this time and it took us six months and we get the project right at the beginning, clients came in and yeah, we raised money, but like it was easy. Good timing, good valuations, the reality is, I'm pretty sure for 99 % of the company, it's never like this, you know? It's always complicated. Honestly, I don't know why everyone is asking you how much do you want to raise when you're like, you know, like just like a, not bootstrap, but at the beginning, you don't generate revenue. What do I know? Like first time I was in a meeting, this VC said, okay, I'm interested. So now how much do you want? Was like,

Jakob

Thank

Clementin

I don't know, two millions? And then you realize, even at our point, what would I do with two millions? But no one teaches you those kinds of stuff, you know?

Jakob

It's really difficult and I think one of things that Music Tech Europe Academy is doing quite well is having a focus on startups with particular music focus and I really love that they take this initiative because it is, you know, a long struggle not only to understand music, no startups, but also music technology and startups because that combination is also difficult because I'm going to assume, you know, most of your investors struggled to understand music or like how did what kind of investors did you onboard?

Clementin

Think it's the basic, I would say, friends and family and networks, especially during the first round. And now we have like, I would say like four or five like industry veterans or ex executives and so on that are in the music. So they obviously Anderson, but I think before it's just like people that, you I love your energy and I'm sure that no matter how you're going to find the right way.

Jakob

Yeah, and I think there's two things you can play on. Like if you're very early, you can either play on the story, personality, relationships, which oftentimes is what you have. And then when you get later, you also need to have the actual case. And oftentimes the domain expertise is what's standing in the way. So that makes perfect sense. Okay, so you raised a bit of capital. What did you use that on? Like subsidizing your income or did you have no income or like, what was the journey?

Clementin

Yeah, that was totally to make sure that what is out at the end of the day, we can pay it. And I think that also another thing on the fundraising journey is everyone expecting you to know, like, I'm going to spend X, Y, percentage on that. The reality is never like this. And you just play around with stuff and you get a little bit of fresh capital and a little bit of grants, but you're not sure if you're going to get this grant. And then you get some I don't know, like, you know, you need to manage with that and it just happened with what you have. But I would say that the majority of the investment was in the tech, which, you know, now that I look back in time, I think you're always expecting to get the best product and to get this, I don't know, predictive AI stuff for our case. It was one of our first expenses. Cost us like... I would never pay for that now. And the thing is, once we have the model, we didn't have the team to implement it all the time. So it was just waiting for like one year. So it was like, okay, I have burned like XYZ cash. I can't implement the things that I've built. So many to stack. I think I will do it very differently now. And I will say for the more recent fundraising. It was more invested to sales related. Hiring someone, investing on the marketing side of the scene, getting some external resources as well.

Jakob

Yeah, it's so, so difficult. That also just speaks to the risk of this space. You're four years in and there's still so much to learn. And the same with me, there's still so much to learn, things I don't know. It just doesn't work with going back in time and changing that. So the people who are early investors, they, you know, they take a bet, but even people who are late investors, like now, late on your journey, they're still taking a bet. But maybe it's a, it's a different type of bet that it was before. So you hired some tech guys, built some technology. Did he go over East capital again? Or what was, what was, what happened there? Did you go raise capital after that first round?

Clementin

What was the question, sorry? Yes, we have, I think we have done three, yes, three fundraising in total right now. So I think since the last fundraising, we've changed our mindset with now the idea was, okay, we are raising capital, but now the idea is to reach breakeven or to have enough time to reach breakeven. So whenever, if we want to do fundraising next, we don't have to run after time. And if we take extra money, it's going to be to scale our business, either operation or sales activities probably. But that was the idea with the latest fundraising.

Jakob

And you said you got like industry reverence on as investors. Is that the primarily of these new rounds people who reading new the industry or was it a mixture of investors coming on board?

Clementin

So I think it was key for us to find people that could be relevant angels, of course, for the money, but also advisors. And that can help us to validate or to iterate around some ideas. So we started looking for those people. And also, it was a mix of, have this product. We want to sell you this product for your company. And maybe like, the marketing person is going to talk to their founders or directors, like, hey, they're also fundraising, et cetera. And then it's, I would say, many word of mouth that's app.

Jakob

Obviously, know investors are one thing, but running a business and doing sales is another. How did you get into that? Did you feel like there was an immediate interest in your product and you just needed to build out the technology? What was the process from you went into the market and people starting buying it? What were the struggles you faced? Were the unexpected things that happened?

Clementin

Do you mean to start to sell the product?

Jakob

Yeah.

Clementin

So it's always hard to really back to all the struggles that you have because it takes us almost three years to get to that point where we know our sales pipeline, we can quantify, we know how much leads we need to get, what is our closing rate, et cetera. And now I'm almost in like, OK, there is deal that happened, deal that do not happen, but you We average good with what we know and it's easy, know, it works or it doesn't work. So I think there was a lot of struggles. Think the most complicated is how much time you're losing just to keep pushing and pushing and pushing for people that A, are not going to bring you really money and B, are just not interested in your product. So I think that is a big struggle to how Do you invest your time properly? Because obviously as a founder, you don't have just sales activities and we name it, but just fundraising, et cetera, et cetera. So that was one of the things. And then the second thing, I think, I mean, it's not an issue of the music tech, but I think it's a small market. So small markets means not a lot of potential customers. And also we're in an industry where it's still mixed with how much professional you have. Mean, people really generating money from their business and people that are aspiring professionals and that are just investing on their own money just to get started and maybe one day having something that can generate money and turn into a business. So I think it's a very complicated stuff because when we started, we're like, okay, we're going to help all the independent artists. Then you realize that, you know, when you have an independent artist that puts 300 euros in an ad campaigns, first, they don't know anything about marketing. So probably they're going to bring you like a horrible content that is not going to convert. And if you tell them that it's their fault, they're going to say, you know, it's your product default. And then you have people that if they put 300 euros, it's maybe like a fifth of their salary or, you know, it's real.

Clementin

I mean, it is always real money, but we're not talking about the same scale. So I think we were a lot in this stuff where there is those type of people, but then because of our background and the tech we're building, there is different companies. And it's how do you find a product that either match everyone needs because you think, okay, I'm in a small market, so I need to service the independent artists, but also the big companies. And then...

Jakob

Mm.

Clementin

At some point you need to choose because you can't have a product that works for both. So maybe to summarize, think like investing too much energy in something that is not going to bring you return on investment, finding the right market fit, because I think that's what we're talking about. And once you find the right market fit, it's easier to work on your product roadmap. It's easier to optimize your sales pipeline, et cetera. So I will say that's those three ones. Small music related market, but it's touching the point of which market you are focusing into as well.

Jakob

So in reality, you sort of decided let's go to the customers that maybe has a bit more money and complains a bit less and have a bit more control on what they're actually doing. So did you ended up just going only B2B or like what was your focus right now?

Clementin

Yeah, we only do B2B. We knew a year and a half, probably, we wanted to move and focus to B2B, but it takes so much time because you're just changing your whole system, not just producing, not just sales, but customer success, lead acquisition, et cetera. So it took some time. We're now full B2B. And yeah, I think the idea was not just like, OK, we're going to get those people because they get more money and they're less complicated, et cetera. I think it's more because of our background together with Matthew, we were already working with big budget and servicing bigger companies. So it's kind of came naturally that, OK, that's what we feel we are delivering the most value. And I think at the end of the day, it's the most important stuff. Whatever you do, it's like, Are you happy every day you wake up and you open your computer and do you want to get, you know, 10 people that say, Hey, it's not working or I'm not happy and whatever, or just people that, Hey, thank you. Know, that really helps what the advice you gave me or whatever the product has done for me.

Jakob

No, I definitely see that. I think, you know, as an analogy, me and my business partner, Taj, always says that the bigger the investor, the less of the headache. And the reason why we say that, and I guess it can sort of be compared to what you're doing now with B2B is it always hurts the most of our clients when they're using the little they have. I think that for me is, really applaud people who spent a lot of the time on B2C. Personally, I'm a very, very clear B2B guy, just primarily for that reason, really. It's difficult to being in that space emotionally and as a founder, because you take so much responsibility and ownership over your product and what you do, and it's difficult. I definitely see that. How did your co-founders react to all of this? Did you all handle the transition well?

Clementin

I think that's the magic of having four co-founders. I think one of us is not coming from a music background. It's like, yes, OK, I feel like we're just going backwards. And it's not clear, like the directions. But I think for the three of us that coming from a music background, it was more just like a relief. Especially because the three of us were like customer facing, whether on the sales, on the acquisitions or on the customer success. And at some point, like, you know, when you have just to deal with whatever emergency and also something that we don't say, but if you do like B2C, it's most likely that people are going to reach to you after work hours or on the weekend, et cetera. And, you know, that's another way of running the business. So I think when we just all sit and say, we're going to focus on that because we have one or two customers that are very happy and we see that there is more traction for that. And we are not going to answer on the weekend. We're not going to answer afterwards. And we're just going to focus on what people enjoy and how they're happy that the products gave them. Everyone was very aligned. Yeah, it just takes time because it's not like, you we're just pivoting and we do B2B and tomorrow you just scrap another email database and you just change, you know, it just takes a lot of time. And especially the bigger you get, because I think like 12 people, like now we're in the good in between, but you know, it still requires a lot of coordinations and teaching also to the people like so that they understand. It's not about, hey, we had an idea, let's do that. You know, it's a lot about like. Why are we doing that? How it's going to change for you, for us, between you and us. So that takes a lot of time to do it properly.

Jakob

Yeah, I think for me that when running the things we've done, I think that's been the most difficult part for me. That's like, how do you navigate change with people? Because as a founder, you often sign up for the journey. And if you're surprised or unhappy, it's just on you. Like, again, I'm responsible for my own unhappiness as a founder to a big degree.

Clementin

Thanks

Jakob

But that's different with employees because they did not necessarily sign up for it unless you were really, really good at setting expectations and finding the right people that things can change overnight. And what you thought we'd be doing would be something different. And yeah, it's hard to navigate a team like that.

Jakob

There you go. Back. I just said that it's hard to navigate a team like that. So even though you and your co-founders did agree at the end, okay, this is probably the best direction. How did the employees handle that? Was that like a natural transition for them or was that also struggle?

Clementin

Okay.

Clementin

I think it's never a natural transition because you've been working on something for months. And I'm especially thinking about the acquisitions team, like the communication people especially, that set up all strategic planning or strategic communications, turns or whatever the way you talk with B2C. It takes a lot of time to iterate. And at some point you're just like, okay, now I have found something that works. So let's scale, you know, and out of everything we have learned the past years, we're going to do a better job. And now you come to them and you say, okay, everything that you have done for the last years, just forget about it. We're sorting again. And in one years from now, maybe you can start an iterate. And it's kind of the same with the product. I mean, it's obviously different. And also now I think we have a lot of data within the product, so that helps a lot. You can see the user sessions, how do they interact, et cetera. So maybe that makes things easier, but it's also about, let's just change everything you have done. And as you say, as a founder, you're just down for anything that happens. But sometimes it can not touch your nerve, but just create some frustration to say, Is my work really useful? And how do I make the most out of what I'm doing for the customer?

Jakob

Hmm. Yeah, makes sense. And well, I do applaud you guys for making that choice because sometimes also founders struggle with doing the pivot and ended up that's sort of their demise. Yeah.

Clementin

And I think also that, I mean, obviously there is always like beautiful story and they, people know from day one what they need to do, et cetera. But I think pivoting, you know, is just part of the startup journey for everyone, most of everyone.

Jakob

Yeah, I sometimes when I speak with young founders that are convinced about the idea, I try to use sort of the picture for my own journey. So I've always been great with ideas and concepts. And since I was, since I was young and I've been a part of many startups now and consulting many startups. Now as a venture studio, we help build many startups. And I would say I'm way above average on concepts and ideas and understanding the context. I'm wrong nine out of 10 times.

Clementin

Thanks

Jakob

not necessarily overall concept, but like execution and strategy, nine out 10 times I'm wrong. And I would say, you know, with confidence, I'm way above average in quality, which means if you're a new founder, you know, expecting that you're completely right one out of 20 times is probably realistic. Like if you sat down and made a plan from day one and how much did that actually, you know, pan out to the most, most likely nothing. And the pivot and the change is really...

Clementin

Hmm.

Jakob

the essence of the journey. And for us, that happens almost like every two weeks, we need to tweak something we thought would work and it doesn't, or maybe it's the timing, maybe it's the market. There's so many things that changes, right?

Clementin

Definitely. No, and I think that it's also like, I think it's good when, especially in the founding team, but like, you know, in a small company, it's good when everyone knows like what they're good at and what they're not good at. And I like, you know, like every, every Wednesday we have a weekly with the team and, I'm just like, it's the roller coaster and just like, okay, we're going to do like this and this and no, we don't do like that and that. And I'm happy because they know that I'm this type of guy.

Jakob

Mm.

Clementin

And then just like, okay, let's wait. We have put together a new roadmap. Let's wait at least two weeks and then we can switch and discuss. So I think it's great when you have this balance where, especially when you have like key stakeholders and people that taking decisions that, know, Anderson each other and just balance the energy within the room. think at least for us, it helps a lot.

Jakob

No, it makes a lot of sense. One thing that sort of me and my business partner have really implemented in our workflow, because we speak to a lot of companies and help build multiple companies, is we try not to give advice on what to do, because no one really knows. But we have a lot of experience of what not to do. So our angle on doing BD or building stuff is always like... These are the hundred things you probably shouldn't do. So let's stay away from that. And then these are the 20 opportunities. We don't know which of them are the right ones, but let's at least try to eliminate as many do-nots as possible. And oftentimes, that's the most sensible way of working a startup, because you just need to explore those solutions. You need to figure out what works and what doesn't. I guess, marketing, that's the most prevalent thing anyways, right? That's the A-B testing.

Clementin

And.

Clementin

Yeah, it is definitely. And that's why I wanted to ask you, like, don't you think that even though you know that it's a don't, sometimes it's better to let people know by themselves that it is a don't at the end of the journey.

Jakob

Absolutely again My partner he has a saying said he says let them burn the ship and sometimes it's just gonna allow people to do that because Oftentimes a lot of the special things also there like, know

Clementin

No.

Jakob

I've done things in the company that he has fundamentally disagreed with that has turned out to be the best decision for our company. But again, nine out of 10 times we disagreed, he was right. But like that one time where I decided this is a clear don't, but I believe I want to pursue this, that was the thing that really made a huge difference in our company. So you can't always use that rule, but you can. At the end of the day, if you look at startups, I try to not look at them as individual companies, how weird that may sound. I look at them as statistics to some degree. what's the, you know, combined with of course the X factor of the founder and the market and all kind of stuff. What is the statistically the most reasonable route to take right now? And I think for me, I prefer to take the decisions based on that because everything is so unknown. I might as well try to have the math of my sort of on my team as much as possible. And that's sort of been my approach, which turns off and out to be fairly sensible.

Clementin

Hmm. I think like, you know, it's again, having like a well balanced funding team or just team in general can really help for that. And I totally agree with you and you know, it's just like pure mathematic and statistics. But I think, and I'm not necessarily putting us in that position and the future will tell us, but I think, you know, you can do a good company by following statistic, but you can do an amazingly good company at following your instinct. And I think it's the mix of both that can really help because if you just keep following your instinct, maybe if you're meditating five hours a day and still I'm not sure it's going to do a good company. So I think it's, you know, this, this mix that can really, really help.

Jakob

Actually, one of the things sort of to play off that one of the things that I've been very like bullish on is I believe there's potential music and music technology as a venture studio. When it comes to sort of looking at the financials that was really hard to prove and luckily we have a few rich investors that were able to see perhaps a lot of times. And then we say, a year ago, okay, we need to sort of figure out some things outside of music as well. And that's when things started to go well. But now we're in a point now where because we have momentum from pursuing things outside of music that traditionally speaking are more healthy, both in financing, payment, all that kind of stuff. But now going back into music with actually, you know. with actually some firepower because we use outside of music in order. So I'm back to my bullish mission, but very much aware that I need to get my lunch somewhere else and then I can think long-term with music. Yeah.

Clementin

I think what is very complicated and I don't want to steal you any thoughts because I think you were in this panel in Berlin. But, you know, we talk music tech, music tech, you know, it's just a tech and music is the vertical. I'm not sure if it was you or someone from the panel that said that. But I think this is a very, very true statement. And the only thing that we could say

Jakob

Yep.

Jakob

Hmm.

Clementin

in my opinion, that is music related tech or whatever, in the end it's FinTech, know, because music is an asset business. And so you just need to get as much asset as possible and then you can optimize whatever seems, but this can apply to music, but not only. And I think that's the issue we always make when we are passionate about music. And I think like the factors that make sense for that is that most of the music tech founders, they are passionate about the music. But I will be curious to have the same idea, but from someone that have never done any music, maybe they don't even play an instrument and would they really name it music tech, you know.

Jakob

Yeah, and probably not. And I think oftentimes that's sort of where people go wrong is that they're so caught up by the love that they try, fail to differentiate between business and love. you know, passion can drive things quite far, but you know, like having a relationship with someone you're together with for many years, like passion is definitely the foundation. But you know, I have three kids, there's more to it than just passion. There's commitment, there's sensibility, there's intent. There's many things that's beyond just passion. And also like, why is this good for both of us? There needs to be all these factors. And I think founders in music tech oftentimes forget that. And oftentimes they never get to a point where they're forced to think that, it just fails. So this is sort of standing illusion about what it takes to be a music tech founder. It just takes to be a good founder and then having some sort of angle in music, to be honest. So if the illusion of passion or love for music is overshadowing, I don't really see any argument where that's a positive thing, to be honest. It's just blinding. So, Clem, where are you going with your company now? What's the next steps for the company?

Clementin

Definitely.

Clementin

So now we have this new brand name. So we're going to roll out a couple of exciting stuff from that point. There will be more and more AI-based solutions. I don't like these AI words like a lot of us, but I would say it's the most easy way to frame everything we're going to work around. But yeah, it includes basically switching our predictive AI model, which is only turning in the back now and bringing it more in the front so that it answers real customers' issues. Benchmarking is something that a lot of people are asking to. Prediction is also a big topic. So this is going to take a couple of the upcoming months. And the idea with control reach is also just not to stop within the music. We have started and have successful campaigns within audiobooks, example, podcasts as well, which is in the end of the day, exactly the same business. You bring people from Instagram to streaming services via a landing page. So that's going to be a focus. The live event as well. We have started only the music right now, but in the end of the day, it's also same ticketing system. you bring people with specific audiences to buy a certain type of ticket. So I think that's going to be the focus to, let's say, to try new verticals. We're still very much focused on the music. We have worked for this three, four years to build a name for ourselves in the music to get those great customers. So it's going to be a top priority for us still. But we just want to keep exploring because now it's more like, know, let's try like this, let's do a beta with this and that. But we see that some clients are very happy about that and they are requesting more functionalities around those verticals. So yeah, let's see where we are in one year from now, but it's going to take us a lot of our daily work at least.

Jakob

Yeah, and that's the really exciting things about startups and also the terrible thing really. Like you guys are now here where you're pretty recognized as really exciting startup in this space. You have done a lot of right choices. You've unburied a lot of right people, but still the future is unknown. knowing how to...

Clementin

And I think also maybe to jump on that on the music side of the scene is just you need to accept that things takes time. And especially when you work with on the B2B, but with bigger clients, it's like, I'm not going to push any of this multinational just to get in the product and buy the product. You know, it's going to take times, but on this side, are 12 people. need to keep having new jobs. I think opening new verticals, especially when you are

Jakob

Mm.

Clementin

when you are in this very small and niche market, it can really help to take some energy elsewhere because whatever you do in the music space, and it's the same for other verticals, it's just going to take time. Time needs time. And it's not because you're forcing people to use your product that it's going to go quicker. So I think that's also one of the reasons why we are evolving and opening to other verticals.

Jakob

That makes sense and I think if anything that's really healthy for music that we try to combine the efforts with music with other industries and to some degree financing the long-term journey in music by having of the income sources. And I think, you know, that's just a parallel to being a narcissist really. It's like, yes, you might have one focus, but there's other ways to make money as well. And it's not just play music. You need to sell merchandise. You need to engage with fans. And it's just not about creating music. There's many other aspects to it. And the same with startups. You know, you might be passionate about your vertical, but at the end of the day, you need to make a great business and not just stay loyal to what you believe is cool to work with. Clem, thank you, it's been brilliant. I'm looking very much forward to sort of following your journey. And thank you for Musictech Europe Academy for setting this up, this partnership episode. They have chosen you as a poster boy and I understand why. So great, Clem. Hope you have success in the future.

Clementin

Thank you very much. was very great to talk and we'll keep talking very soon in real life, I guess.

Jakob

Thanks, Sam.