How Remote Work Benefits Creators

Adam Fine

I actually I'll jump in I'll say Riverside is a headquarter just down the street from Fiverr and my brother used to work there for about a year so yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so you know it. But again, just want to comment, if the quality seems bad, it doesn't really matter for me. Like I get full at the end. Cool. Yeah, no, I'm really, really happy with Riverside. Think it's a really good platform. If also, close to two years. Yeah.

Adam Fine

Yeah, for sure.

Adam Fine

You've been using it for a while? Cool, so do you use some of the new AI infused features or mainly stick to recording?

Jakob Wredstrøm

No. Yeah, recording because like we do manual everything, like even though like I started with doing AI automation on pretty much anything, but then when we started, know, remote working for me was more important to have quality checks than speed. And because the cost difference is not that big, like it's more important to me. Some of the guests we have on like, you know, none of them are hotshots, but they've, you at least in my world, they're, you know, some of my heroes. So.

Adam Fine

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Out. Yeah. So that's how it works.

Adam Fine

Sure that's cool

Jakob Wredstrøm

The way that we start the episodes are typically the same, which is I do a very brief introduction, and then I ask you to introduce yourself. So I'll say, who are you and what do you do? And then you do a tiny bit of an introduction, and then we'll talk about Fiverr. I think most people know it, so we'll talk more about the music side and basically what's happening there within sort of your realm. And then I'll probably lead the conversation. Bit fluently, more fluent than I would usually do. We'll cover a bit of your story into it and sort of your perspective on music and fiber and also remote work in general. But then I'm sure that I'll have a lot of questions. So normally I'm quite structured in a timeline, but because this is, let's call it one of my very current interests, I think, yeah, I'll take some freedom to like be creative in sort of how I do the interviews. That's okay.

Adam Fine

I love it.

Adam Fine

Yeah, and just so I, you know, kind of feel comfortable, if there's something that I can flip back to you, ask questions, that's cool. Awesome.

Jakob Wredstrøm

yeah, 100%. 100%. Yeah, that's often one of the last things I'll say about SAIT now because... If we can have a talk that's dialogue based, that is the best by far. And I see some of the interviews that becomes more monologue because I might ask some questions that might take a long time to answer. It's best to break that down and let me sort of interfere and do follow-ons. So if you want to flip something around, that would be amazing because that gives a really good dynamic. But as the bare minimum, what I would love to is that if... something would naturally lead to a long-winded answer, try to break it into pieces. That's just the most interesting. Yeah, cool. Do you have any questions?

Adam Fine

Sounds good. Awesome. No, let's go for it

Jakob Wredstrøm

Cool. I just want to get your title completely right if I'm going to say it in an interview. Is it Head of Music? No, what do call it?

Adam Fine

Head of Music and Audio.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Head of music and audio. Great. Cool. And how do you pronounce your last name? Fine.

Adam Fine

And just fine. Yeah. I had a music and audio and music producer. That's kind of how I introduced myself.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Great, amazing, Cool. Well, I'm ready and I'm excited. I'll pour up some, don't know, today I have Pepsi. I have water, yeah. In Norway, like that is the, like everyone only drinks Pepsi Max and it's Pepsi Max only. Like there's nothing else. It's so weird. I think it's the second biggest per capita.

Adam Fine

Okay.

Adam Fine

Pepsi. That's American vibes.

Adam Fine

It's crazy. They won in Norway. Wow.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Consumer of Pepsi Max in the world. Like it's something insane.

Adam Fine

Crazy stat. Alright, cool. You're helping that. Nice.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Great. Okay, I will start in five seconds.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hey guys, and welcome back to the Sound Connections Podcast. Today, I am very excited about this conversation together with Adam Fine. Welcome.

Adam Fine

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Jakob Wredstrøm

When we connected on LinkedIn somehow, was so excited to connect because you work as head of music and audio at Fiverr, which I think is incredibly timely in the day and age of AI, technology, what's happening, and obviously the podcast with music. But before I go into that, Adam, I did tell a bit about what you do, but for the people who don't know you, who are you and what do you do?

Adam Fine

Yeah, sure. So I'm Adam Fine. I'm head of music and audio at Fiverr and a music producer. I've been producing music my whole life and that's kind of shaped to where I go and what I do and how I think about problems and different things that I work on. But just a quick overview. I've been playing music my whole life. Quickly transitioned from playing guitar drums and piano to my computer being my main instrument ever since I was maybe 12. So, so it really was early on that I started producing and experimenting with, you know, how to express myself through music and through tech and these different tools, through throughout the years, kind of doing my own artists projects, working for other people doing music for commercials, different things. I've amassed over 300 million streams, which has been really exciting and really proud of that. And now over the past five years, I've kind of taken that music, knowledge and background and my passion with tech and business strategy. And I've been leading music and audio at Fiverr. So I'm sure many people are familiar with Fiverr and we'll dive into what we do, but, I'll give just a quick overview that it's, it's my job to again, to kind of bring that background of music to, to the world of

Jakob Wredstrøm

Amazing

Adam Fine

Fiverr and help make Fiverr the best music marketplace can be. My role there is to really grow, grow our community, improve the product. And again, you know, we have verticals across, graphics and design, music and audio programming and tech and how you might buy and sell a, a web developer is super different than how you might buy and sell a singer. So it's my job to really make that experience as good as can be. And, and yet continue to grow the platform. So that's a bit about what I do. Yeah, excited to be here.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, I've been sort of an avid user of remote platforms and also use fiber a lot. And I think it's incredibly fascinating and sort of my whole journey into our company right now and sort of the position we are right now where we have a bunch of people in Africa was also through remote platforms where there was no intent of like really finding freedom, I say. I was just like looking for a full-time person and that just grew and grew and grew. Even though we don't use remote platforms right now to find talent, like oftentimes it's also a good payment platform. So it's interesting to see sort of how that operates, but yeah, like I think I've probably spent, you know, over $100,000 on like these type of platforms. So I'm at least quite familiar with, you know, how to find talent. I think especially music, I'm going through the phases right now of building up a music team remotely. And I think it's incredibly interesting to talk about that and talk about remote work in general. But what's sort of, if we're to explain the potential of Fiverr remote work in the current landscape of the world, maybe particularly like with the West as like the buyers, if that makes sense, or the clients, how would you describe what's happening right now?

Adam Fine

Sure.

Adam Fine

Yeah, I think we're in the middle of this revolution that's been happening for the past 10 years or so. And I've really been watching it from the side of music, but now at five we're seeing other verticals too. I see how it's shaped industries and really transitioned how people work. I think from my perspective in music, musicians are natural freelancers. Know, some of the best musicians in the world are... are doing it freelance and working on various projects. And that's something that we're now starting to see in other industries. So we're seeing some of the best developers in the world are freelancers and some of the best designers, are not, not at the apples of the world, but they're at, they're running their own business and working with tons of clients. So I think now in the past few years, we've really seen that shift and we've seen the Western world, you know, be tapped into not just the best American designers or North American designers, but really the best freelancers in every industry from all around the world. And, you know, we've discussed those can be in Ukraine, they can be in Ethiopia. Really there's talent everywhere and Fiverr has done a great job at helping people tap into that and really build out their external team.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's, there's also some sort of like legacy assumption about the quality you can find on these platforms. You know, people who might have tried them early on where, you know, I don't know the difference in navigation now and then, but like, at least when I started using Fiber and I actually think, I can't remember how old the company is, but it was very early days to start using it. How old is Fiber by now?

Adam Fine

Were about 14 years old.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I might be lying when I say, but I do think I've used it. My first time I used Fiverr was probably 10 years ago, something like that. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was not that long ago. That was graphic design for cover art, I think. So yeah, so I think that was sort of like how I approached it back in the day. It might not be that long ago, but I've had the, at least, know, relationship with it for while. And what I had a hard time navigating.

Adam Fine

Could be, but what did you buy? What service did you buy? Okay, nice, classic.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Then was really like how to define quality and like the quality assurance. But for me, it's much easier now. And I think it's probably also bigger talent pool and platforms like yourself are probably better at sort of helping the customer get to what they want. But how would you address maybe that prejudice of quality in music, music production, songwriter and talent on these platforms right now? Like what's your perspective?

Adam Fine

Yeah, I think that's a totally fair concern. Think finding quality is hard on these platforms, but it's also hard in the real world, you know, finding collaborators that, that you trust and that really, you know, you might get a recommendation from someone, but, you never know what that person might,

Jakob Wredstrøm

You

Adam Fine

Might entail. But I think we've worked really hard and I'm sure other platforms have also to improve the matching experience and help people kind of find the right collaborator. But now over the years, it's become easier because some of the best talent is there. If you look at our platform, for example, it's Grammy nominated producers. It's, it's audio engineers that work with some of your favorite artists. You know, musicians, I get to work with musicians on my production that just come off tour with, you know, world-class act and then are recording stuff for me in the studio. So it's really, I think it's changed who's on these platforms.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Adam Fine

And especially on Fiverr, we've just seen an influx of crazy talented musicians that started really, I'd say, noticeably in COVID, where many musicians were... You know looking for other ways to diversify the revenue stream and since then it's just continued to grow and we just see You know kind of the industry standard of pro producers pro musicians are there so, you know There's people out there and also by the way It's super fun to collaborate with people that are early on in their career, too You might find someone that's kind of just getting started or some crazy talented 18 year old guitarist So it really lets you kind of tap in and find that pro level collaborator, also find inspiration and kind of a different angle to pursue your work with.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, that's so interesting. So basically what you're saying is, again, interpreting my own question into your answer is that maybe the association with talent earlier was more like it's sort of perhaps low, medium level talent, but now... you know, it attracts all specters, you know, from the very, best to newcomers. And for clients, this gets really, really interesting because it's not necessarily like a quality perspective. Can you get quality from this? It's more like, can you find the match at also the sort of appropriate price that you're comfortable with? So do you see like, you know, freelancers, professional freelancers, maybe from the Western world using this as like a, this is a solid revenue source for them, like a founding work, finding work.

Adam Fine

For sure.

Adam Fine

Without a doubt. It's been overwhelming to see some of the stories that... that have taken place on Fiverr. So we have Fiverr millionaires, which we actually started to do a recent kind of award ceremony for these people that have made over a million dollars. And there's a lot more than you'd expect. One of my favorites is someone that's a good friend of mine, Bo Valles from Miami, who's a Fiverr millionaire. He has been on the platform for I think six, seven years and has been a audio engineer for Beyonce, Kelly Rowland, literally, you know, tons of, of incredible people.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Adam Fine

And now he's done over, think, 4000 orders on fiber doing mixing and mastering different things. So. people have, have made their careers on Fiverr. You know, Beau was, was super accomplished before he got to us as well. but we've seen people that have started literally, you know, graduated a, a chorus in music production and created a profile on Fiverr and from there have made millions and, been able to work with people from around the world. So it's been totally a viable solution and something that I wanted to address later on in terms of kind of tips for, for freelancers and music professionals. But the one thing I. always say is diversify. know, you can't just be a music producer. can't just be a, you know, it has to be, you have to do many things, and be on, on different platforms and be open to different revenue streams. And so the people that have used these freelance platforms as a way to, to get additional revenue, I think have benefited, benefited greatly.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm-hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Amazing. One of the things that I sort of, I'm pursuing right now a lot with remote work is basically back to the model of like India 20 years ago, Vietnam 10 years ago. And we're very deep in amplitude ventures in East Africa. when we see a lot of potential, very, a lot of untapped potential, especially Ethiopia, it was half full. presence in Nigeria, believe it or not, Malawi and Burundi, and some of the poorest countries in the world. And what we see is very unique. Actually, I have a case from Burundi, which I think is incredibly interesting. And that is Burundi is, in some measures, probably the poorest country in the world. finding quality, you would assume, is hard. And it is, because internet connectivity, infrastructure, all that kind of stuff. But there's a few people there. And then a few people of like, you know, 20 million people that amounts to actually a decent amount of people have like, you know, gone to, let's say Kenya, opened a bank account because they've lived there, moved back to Burundi. So I actually have like a way of working online. And one of my best developers, he's from Burundi. And, you know, he has Starlink connectivity, that cost a fortune down there and fairly stable internet. And he told me he also, he's, he's brilliant. He also, teaches at the university in the capital. And he said that of all his students, 1 % gets a relevant job after college because there's just no, like even, so you need to get a degree in order to have anything, even like working in a store, you need to have a degree because it's so competitive for work. So everyone who can does a degree, but 1 % of students get a job related to their education. So for self-taught development, you wouldn't believe the talent there.

Adam Fine

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

That just like only the best gets a job and it's, you know, nothing, nothing like again, locally, you know, you can make a decent living, but we pay our people quite decently. And in order to get the best talent there is so easy because we just like, if you have one person there, hey, who do know who's great? That person's great. Then we've sort of normally work with a remote platform and say, okay, then we pay like this or B Sometimes we need to be creative with cash payments and all kind of stuff. It's a bit complicated. But my whole point is that there are parts of the world still where sort of the talent pool is so incredible and there's still not enough international focus. And what you can get from that is amazing. So, and that's what I'm sort of focused on right now with platforms like Fiverr, Upwork or others is there's still so much on tap potential.

Adam Fine

For sure.

Jakob Wredstrøm

In the financial differences between some countries. And you're actually able to, as a freelancer, make a very meaningful living at a very, very competitive price for clients and get extremely high quality if you spend good time finding the right people.

Adam Fine

Right, and I think something I'm curious about is besides cost on your end, what else have you noticed as kind of difference makers with some of this talent from remote places?

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I get better talent than I can get here. Sorry to say, like we have 45 developers. These guys, because we basically pick on top of the shelf and to be honest, like it's 4.0 students from the best colleges, incredibly intelligent. And when we work with like local companies, we provide better developers. So... People are better. Like one person I mentioned, I met there who's on our staff, who's an AI scientist called Johannes. He's from Ethiopia. He lives in a fairly poor part of Ethiopia. Hands down, I know a lot of smart people, but hands down, he's probably my top five of smartest people I've met in my life. Top five. I, you know, I'm pretty, I like to learn and I would consider myself fairly knowledgeable, but some people you talk with are like, I have like... No competition. guy outcompetes me so bad. And this is a random guy from Ethiopia out in like a bit war-torn area. Sometimes we talk with him, there's no lights, there's nothing, but the capacity of this guy is insane. so that's what I'm seeing. But on the flip side, if there's not international focus or there's remote work opportunities, that will not be left out to its full. And if the world is missing out, they're missing out.

Adam Fine

Ha.

Adam Fine

Yeah.

Adam Fine

Yeah. Something else that's interesting with, with kind of your experience now, bringing in a superstar team and, and developing them is a concept of working with people one off for, for a set kind of project versus creating a team or, in the world of music, what I call an external band, a remote band. One thing that people don't realize is sometimes it does take a decent amount of work to get this team onboarded and set up that it's not just an instant, you know, plug and play. Of course, there are projects that are, you know, a one-off. need a, I need a baseline here. I'm going to hire a base player and it's simple, or I need a designer for this logo. It might be a one-off project, but can you tell me a bit about your onboarding process and how you've done a good job of kind of infusing these people into your team?

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Adam Fine

They start at a high level and you bring them up to an even higher level

Jakob Wredstrøm

Sometimes, but I actually I'll take I take the angle for music because I think that's particularly interesting so we have a We're so remote in the traditional sense. We're talking about now. We probably have around 80 people full time and a lot of people like especially on the sciences like it's very high level and we bring them up, you know Maybe to a way they can apply those skill sets differently, which will show itself to be very effective But in music, we have a team of five people. We have two full-time music producers. And one of the guys, he's an interesting story and I'll actually just tell it. I was working on some experimental projects because we do a lot of research and then we also do a lot of like, I wouldn't really call it research, like trying out the newest tools in the most creative ways to see is there businesses to be made. And in music, obviously it's sort of my core expertise. I have a master's in music production. So like I have that angle. I was looking for people and I found this one producer who also was a great manager so I hired him as like my team leader for music and then I started hiring some people and I met this one guy he's called Nath Nail. I believe he's 22 and when I was in an interview with him he told me five years ago I heard Avicii for the first time and my life was changed and Avicii the Swedish DJ producer.

Adam Fine

Sorry, I heard what for the first time? Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And he said, that's been my life since. And you know, his dad is a policeman and didn't really approve of going that career. And he basically took a leap. lived out of the countryside, very north of the country and moved to Addis, which is the capital and rented like this slum of a room with he somehow saved for a computer. That was a big journey for him. And then went to music school and just producing his room. And I'm like, okay, let me hear your tracks. And if I found a 21 year old producing this kind of music in Norway at that level, was like, he would probably be signed to a publishing company. okay, cool. So I took five months, trained him up. And now he is delivering music to projects now released on major levels in Scandinavia. Five months from finding a guy in Ethiopia, I pay him well. Like he supports his whole family. I still get it at a fraction of a cost if I would be able to produce that level of quality to major labels in Scandinavia. And so again, a guy from rural Ethiopia. in five months of training, intensive training on now releasing tracks with major labels in Scandinavia. And that's just one of the journeys we have. some of the companies, for example, within development, we now have projects with some global tech companies where we have, you know, one of our developers, not going to go into the story, like war torn part of the country, he lost his brother three months ago, was killed in the war. And now his next project is onboarded with a global tech company. So that's the crazy thing. Like I'm fairly well connected, but I don't compromise on quality. And still, like these people who are somewhere you would never think of, deliver on international level. And it's just about investing time in the team, building it up, spending time. So even though they're technically freelancers, obviously we have a lot of ethical agreements that takes care of them and that kind of stuff. It's... It still takes like five months to invest in a person full time to get them to a place where I can provide value for the projects that I do. But the results are pretty mind blowing.

Adam Fine

Incredible. No, you identified that talent and I think it's clear for the people that are worth to invest that time. It's paid off. So that's really cool.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, and obviously, you know, that's also a very untraditional way of using models like Fiverr, but I think ultimately, at least for me, the connectivity to whoever around the world to big degree, trading things together is incredibly interesting right now. Does that make sense?

Adam Fine

Yeah, I think so. I think it, you know, it also might change the perspective of, of developers in this example or producers, you know, in, the Western world that are now competing with people globally. think it, it changes the perception of how you think about, you know, building your career and building these skills that make you relevant. and so that's, that's also going to be really interesting to track.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So what's your perspective on music and remote work and AI tooling and all this kind of stuff? Because the barrier of entry is lowering, which means maybe places in the world where there would be less of a natural in to purchase hardware that would help you learn music and produce music is also slowly sort of dwindling. What's your overall commentary on the future and remote work and AI?

Adam Fine

Yeah, I mean, it's a big question and I'll stick to music and we can expand it if we want, but...

Jakob Wredstrøm

You

Adam Fine

I think music is at a really interesting crossroads right now with tools that have been developed over the past few years, making it so much easier to produce music to just generally to take an idea from in your head to real life. And I think that's been super powerful. and so what I kind of predicted a year or two ago has not necessarily happened, but it's, it's unfolding, which is basically the, the Instagram moment of music where Instagram turned people into photographers. photographers, know, first the iPhone and then Instagram turned people into photographers. And now with a matter of prompts or kind of humming or different inspiration, anyone can be a musician or music producer. And so it's kind of started to unfold, but we're still not there yet. But we do see, and we've seen on Fiverr, people that get an entry from AI. So people that create a song on Suno or other platforms, then go on to actually get into more what I would consider more serious music production or kind of music creation. So we've seen an influx of people that come with Suno made music and then use that as inspiration to then work with real musicians and producers. and so I think we're, as I mentioned, we're in this crossroads, but it's important. to remember that music creation is fun music is about you know connecting with people whether it's during the creation process or at the end of the journey when you release a song and you're connecting with people that way by sharing your emotions but it's important to not lose that element and so that's where i feel like fiverr is in the middle of this where we're all about collaborating with each other and really connecting you with talent but all those people that you're collaborating with are going to be using tools to just increase their inspiration and their productivity. So I think it's a super exciting time.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Thank you. Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

One commentary to that, which I haven't spoken out on for a while, but I think it's very appropriate, is the nature of which people create and also the sort of personas. you know, back in the day, let's say 30, 40 years ago, Rick Rubens of the world were more usual. Like, you know, these very executive types, maybe not hands-on, but like more psychologists and sort of creators, like, you know, film directors to some degree.

Adam Fine

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

that has at its time where that was less and less so the case for many different reasons. What I see now with AI tooling is that's coming back a lot. My own personal journey is I would say I'm a very good A &R, but I did spend probably seven, eight years hands-on music production. And even though I attended some of the best schools in Europe within music production, audio engineering, I ended up just looking at it like... It's not feasible for me to make a career here just because I don't play instruments well. And because I entered into music fairly late, I began seriously when I was 17, I went full-time professional as 19. So I never had the time to really like work on my craft as a musician. And that's only like, let's say, how old am I? Seven years ago, I had that realization or eight years ago that I cannot live from this full-time. But if then was now, I would think very differently about it because

Adam Fine

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I can A &R the shit out of this music, if that makes sense. And that I think is interesting because people who might not have, again, back to Natnil, he's never played an instrument. He just sits with his computer with his keyboard. And that type of persona in music, I believe can have a new entry into the market, which is how interesting can you think? How can you facilitate the creation? Does it make sense?

Adam Fine

Yeah, no, totally. And it makes me think about it about a few things. One is, you know, when I was getting into production, I wanted to be a big pop producer. And I remember watching clips of Benny Blanco and he would say, I have no idea how to use Pro Tools. I don't, I don't know how to use Pro Tools.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Adam Fine

I thought to myself as someone that was studying Pro Tools and trying to know the ins and outs, I was like, what? How can this producer say he doesn't know Pro Tools? Turns out I think he's a Pro Tools expert and he kind of was trying to be in his Rick Rubin vibes.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Adam Fine

But then fast forward and it does really make me think, okay, that's not his bread and butter. That's not where he's winning. And now I love that direction. You're saying where people are able to think about the vibes, the curation. And that's something that I've really noticed as well with successful artists recently is that it's not just about the proficiency and how good are you at your instrument? Because that's changing. That definition is changing. What's really interesting is now the whole art direction and thinking about the full package. So, okay, you know, you can collaborate with expert producers or your it's easier to turn your idea into full production. So then what's kind of the art direction here of this project? What's the messaging? What's the distribution? How not that necessarily musicians need to turn into business people or managers, but just they're able to think about a project more holistically and be that curator that tastemaker for their for their music.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I agree so much. Had a really interesting episode on the podcast with Mike Holland, who's the manager of Logic. He commented on, basically his commentary on Logic was that he's a holistic businessman. And even though he might be some of the, you know, one of the greatest rappers in the world right now. But he's also inherently business-minded and concepts and the whole branding thing. And Mike's argument based on his relationship with logic, but also how he sees the world changing is there's going to be a much bigger need to be your own businessman, to be able to curate things. And I think because of the structures and limitations of technology in the past that maybe has been less so. I believe there's gonna be a very big shift on who sees success in music in the future. And it's gonna be intertwined with business, it's gonna be intertwined with branding, but it's also gonna be intertwined with accessibility to create. And I think artists that might be looking for collaborators can also... think about that with the collaborators. Like when they go in fiber, think about, okay, I want to have a producer that can push back. I want to have a producer that can be fast, interchanging productions and styles in order to match my life. Somehow also an A &R and a music producer. And I think because you're the barriers of music entry, then it's not just the skilled instrumentalists that can do this now, but it's the concept thinkers. So that's the shift I'm seeing happening now.

Adam Fine

Interesting.

Adam Fine

I think that's a great point and something that I've tried to do at a small scale on my production and I see other people do that utilize fiber. Something I mentioned earlier, which is really just kind of thinking outside the box and not just outsourcing sometimes for proficiency or for a skill, but outsourcing yourself for a different set of inspiration or a different set of background. What I mean by that is, you know, you might have a conception of what this guitar sound might sound like, but if you bring some guitar player from West Virginia who's only heard a certain type of music before, he brings a whole other set of flavor to it. And that's kind of the A &R on a song level that producers can now do and musicians can now do. So that's a really great point that you bring up where it's not just about skill, but also about kind of flavor and curation.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So what I'm excited to see is basically how these opportunities and changes and mindsets and execution will affect the community aspect of music. Because, know, traditionally speaking, music creation has been very, you know, this is someone I have a bond with. And obviously digitally that can be different. What's your take on that? The community aspect of music creation?

Adam Fine

Yeah. I mean, I think it goes back to just again, this simple concept of what, is music for? What's the goal of your music creation journey? And what's the goal of putting out music? And I think it's, it's all about connecting with other people. So that's at the core of it. And then you kind of go back to it and think, great, just because there are tools that might replace an individual in the process. We still need to think how we reach that ultimate goal. And that, think music.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Adam Fine

Without any collaborators or then releasing something without any listeners, it strips a lot of the joy out of it. So I'm not advocating against tools. I find myself recently using... Do you use Logic?

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Well, that's the primary thing I use when I do.

Adam Fine

Cool, so I find myself using the session player tool a lot. They have a revamped version of that isn't just a simple drum beat. It's really can follow along chord progressions and different things with a variety of instruments. And so I do find myself working with pianists a little less. But then because of that, I think about...

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Adam Fine

Okay, where can I get more influences and more collaborators in different areas that I didn't have before, whether it's in the music or outside the music. So outside the music in my music videos that I'm working on, or in the music with different kinds of audio engineers that have a, have a different perspective. So I think the community is always going to be a part of, I'm very confident that it's always going to be a part of the consumption side of things in terms of, connecting with people that, you know, share a similar interest in music and different

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Adam Fine

things but I think on the music creation side it's going a bit out of style right now but it's so important and going to be a staple of music creation going forward.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

That's very interesting, a very good answer. And it gets me to think basically how I have been reflecting the last couple of weeks. So I was recently, last week, guess, in Leish in Belgium for Wallifornia, which is a music tech conference. I've said it before, but I say it even more so now is that I actually prefer the digital interaction with work and with colleagues. And I actually feel more foreign with the physical meeting. And I'll explain a bit. It sounds a bit sad, but it actually isn't. When I go to conferences, a lot of music industry people listen to this podcast, so you get me. A lot of the main value is relationships and meeting people in person. And maybe there's something about the panels that's interesting as well, but like most people would say it's sort of the relationships. But obviously now I have the privilege of having a podcast where I get to talk with very interesting people like yourself very deeply. But for me, the relationship building, the connectivity is so much stronger digitally than it is physically. Physically can maybe incentivize random meet in a new way. And I think some people need like a physical interaction in order to themselves emotionally bond closer. But for me personally, the digital experience is much stronger.

Adam Fine

Interesting.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Community wise, friendship wise. And that might just be me. That's a bit, you know, forward leaning or neurodivergent. I'm not quite sure, but, but coming back to the community aspect that you've covered, it's like in my personal life, I believe that digital interaction generally speaking is stronger than the physical action because it scales differently. Can speak with more people, find that individual that I bond with rather than these random physical interactions. So what I'm trying to say is comment on your comment, which is

Adam Fine

you

Jakob Wredstrøm

The community with the audience is the constant, but maybe the community of your collaborators is shifting and it's perhaps not a bad idea. No, bad thing per se.

Adam Fine

Yeah, totally. Mean, I think what you're saying is my interpretation is the medium might change. You know, it might be that you connect with people better through different channels, through different mediums. But at the end of the day, the core concept is still there. You still, you know, seek these connections and seek ways to collaborate just with different tools.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, and if you were to sort of like take a parallel to gaming, you know, that's what's been going on the last 15, 20 years is that online interaction, which now is the standard, like, you know, kids creating friendships, bonds, communities, only online, bonding on certain things. And a lot of these cases, they're also very creative. They're also very like collectively creating and engaging and defining things. And I think with music, there's more source space now for that, especially in young generation that there was in the past.

Adam Fine

Totally. Think that'll be an interesting angle where, uh, you know, taking a lot of music collaboration online now is still in a way offline, you know, thinking about concepts and then not doing things in real time, different to how we see it. And, you know, gaming, you're seeing the same thing. You're, you're dealing with the same situation. So I think that's an area that might see a lot of change in the next few years now too. We're thinking, how are people kind of.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Adam Fine

living in the same, seeing the same thing, living in the same situation and then creating those spontaneous reactions to that.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm Maybe the last comment I'll do to this because again, this is something I've been thinking a lot about but not expressed really anywhere yet is The shift of type of creators that will thrive in the future like sort of standing on top of the commentary We've had the last five minutes. I Know a lot of creators probably hundreds of artists, and there's a big part of those, maybe the majority of those, they're very dependent on this interpersonal inspiration. So, you know, I need to be in the room with X person in order to be inspired to produce Y product. And there's another category which I believe is more interesting right now, which is people who have holistic opinions and expressions, more these like, as singular sources of artistic integrity and expression, where they more invite people into their universe than needing people to create the universe, if that makes sense. And I don't really have an opinion of what's good and bad or what's preferred. I'm just saying as things are evolving, I believe that the efficiency and the financial reality of creators will favor those who inherently can create universes and invite people in rather than the ones that need other people to create the universe. Does that make sense?

Adam Fine

Interesting. Think so. And, and I'm trying to think about different creators and kind of fit them in those buckets. But at the end of the day, why do think that is? Because it's a more compelling experience when you go into someone else's kind of state of mind and.

Jakob Wredstrøm

The way that I think about music is very financial because I believe that whatever the macro financial environment favors, that is what's going to spring forth. So if the monetization of music is difficult, it will favor the journeys where you're able to do a lot yourself if you have that capacity. And that's always been the case. The problem is that's incredibly difficult. But now that the barrier of entry is lowering, which means more creators will be in the space and also creators that maybe wouldn't have entered for many different reasons before. And I still believe that if a person can create things more themselves, define the universe, and it's less so about I need this, this person to collaborate in order to create something, or even on a business side. It will be favorable to people who are able to do that. And as more creators enter the market, more like those will enter the market. And therefore the financial feasibility of those careers are going to be higher, which means they're also going to be the ones to sustain through time statistically. So it's basically just that math I'm doing. And I'm seeing it as well express itself, especially when you intertwine the generation who are deeply ingrained in gaming communities that come into the creative aspect of music.

Adam Fine

Yeah. I think like one piece that I'm taking from this, it kind of sounds like what you're saying is the people that will succeed are the people that have a vision, let's say, a direction. And that's something that I totally agree with and think it goes back to our kind of tastemakers and curators where if you have this strong vision and direction that you want to go, I think it's way easier to, to then monetize from that and, think about possibilities.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And where do you see music within Fyber? We've covered that things might be changing, barriers of entry might be lowering, and also the amount of people on Fyber is much more broad in quality than what it might be before, all the way from new to incredibly established. So what is the next step in music within Fyber? Where do see this going?

Adam Fine

Yeah, I think there's a few, few directions at its setting. One kind of something I mentioned towards the beginning, but musicians are natural freelancers. You know, some of the best musicians in the world are freelance session musicians and producers. And so I think one is that we'll continue to see the high end, continue to use platforms like Fiverr and diversify their revenue stream and, and grow their business. Another is, think we'll see an influx of new creators, know, again, tons that will use Fiverr to buy services, to work with people that might be more experienced or knowledgeable and level up their craft, but people that are just getting into music through these AI tools or are experimenting through different methods. Um, and then another is fiber is, you know, it's the home for, have over 500 different services. So not just in music, but in, all, uh, verticals. And I think the interesting thing with what we're building is we're not just building the roles of today. We're building the roles of, of tomorrow, and five years from now. And a big part of my job is thinking about, okay, what role might exist in six months? It doesn't exist today. What role might exist in a year? Because then we kind of create inventory and product around that and, and help people create gigs in those services. And so what I've seen in my almost five years at Fiverr is that roles. changed drastically. They've changed a lot slower in music actually than they have in other industries. So we see in design and in tech it's evolved way faster, especially in the past few years, where we have AI artists in the design of vertical or prompt engineers and writing and programming tech.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Adam Fine

We haven't had quite that AI music producer in Fiverr yet, but these roles are shifting. And so what Fiverr music looks like in three, four years might be super different than what it looks like today. But I think the roles will change, but the same kind of collaboration and passion and drive that musicians have is still going to be there. So just thinking about kind of what those roles are and how we build the infrastructure for collaboration around that.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, and that's incredibly interesting and also the unknown. And one of the explanations that I sort of lean on for this, let's call it a slower moving of disruption is basically that disruption happens where capital is behind in the AI space. And this music is a more niche market and the return on investment, traditionally speaking, is lower than other creative industries or industries that's expressed through human expression. That progress has also been slower because there's less things happening. We have Suno in the market, but if you want to compare Suno to let's say mid-journey, there's hundreds of mid-journeys. There's basically just Suno and Udio. So the financing behind these disruptive technologies are less. But you could argue that over time there would be similar type of disruptions, slower, and then that's the unknown that you're talking about. What is going to be the next thing? Do you think it's going to be so hard to recognize the future of music production as we sort of progress to this new technology adaptation?

Adam Fine

Yeah.

Adam Fine

What do mean by recognize?

Jakob Wredstrøm

Is it going to be so fundamentally different how people express themselves with tools in the future? How do see this happening?

Adam Fine

Yeah, I think it's a good question. I haven't really thought about that angle. If it'll look, you know, if it'll be something that I can't distinguish. My gut reaction is no. If I think about the evolution of music creation over the past 40 years and then thinking forward 40 years, just as a random number, I think the tools have changed drastically and the processes have changed. But the general concept of taking an idea from in your head to something you can play back and share with people and share it in the company of other people and experience that. I don't think that's going to change too much. Again, thinking about different mediums of video and photography, there's a joy to it and there's a... creativity and a curiosity that comes with, okay, wait, let me see if I can do that. And what if it sounds like this? I think, again, just the tools and instruments will change. And that's already changed drastically in the time that I've been producing. But the concept will remain the same, I think, I don't know.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Well, I tend to support that mindset. Like I said in a podcast recently, but I think this is very sort of spot on. Copywriting, so writing has been, let's call it severely disrupted since late 2022. And there was definitely a dip in 23 where everyone says, all copywriters will sort of be out of job. We now like mid 2025, the technology for writing is amazing. Copywriters is probably my most interesting subject hiring people in because... Like I have a great copyrighted from Nigeria who've worked with us for a year. And then I have a few other copyrighters also very talented. But everyone has the same tools. This particular guy. amazing and you know from meeting a client or working with us and expressing the true nature of that brand and identity and tone of voice and expression with all the tools available like you need to have years of training even in copywriting in order to get to that level and oftentimes we actually, you know, say okay let's not use AI not for any other reason that If we really want to be that good, we can use it only as a tool to support our clarity, but still back to the old craft. So something that people believe was dead two years ago in my world, like it's probably more relevant than ever because when everyone can do everything decently, I need someone who can do it great right now. And I think copywriting is on the way back. So, and that's really interesting.

Adam Fine

Totally.

Adam Fine

Do you think we'll be able to make that decision of, you mentioned maybe we won't use this. We'll use this just as a tool, not as a crutch to kind of create our whole copy and tone of voice, but we'll just use it as a tool here and there. I'm trying to think if in a few years that'll be an option to kind of toggle it on or off, or if it's going to be embedded in everything that we know.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I think, you know, this is my personal opinion. I think it would be embedded in everything we know, but it will express itself differently than what we might think. For example, I do once in a while write a text message that I haven't run through like, you know, a model, like, it's, you know, all professional stuff, 19 out of 20 times. And now it's become my tone of voice. Like I don't sound like myself writing it myself.

Adam Fine

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Like, does that make sense? So I have catered an opinion of tone of voice that I've sort of have an opinion on and I've created, phone, you know, I love Claude the most and like you can do these tone of voice kind of things. And then this is me. This is my full expression. I personally cannot express how I am through just writing myself. Like I'm dependent on AI tools in order to be that person I actually believe I was the whole time, but I didn't have the skill sets or patience or whatever. to actually express. So my truest form of my own writing, which I'm very obsessed with writing, is only possible through AI. Does that make sense?

Adam Fine

Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. think. Sorry. You continue.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Nope, that was it.

Adam Fine

No, I think the next iteration of that might be might be thinking how we tailor models and AI to really be more, more you to give more input, to make it more personalized. It's something that we've experimented with a lot at Fiverr over the past few years. I think before even all, all this AI frenzy, something that we did, I led the, the creation of the first kind of gen AI tool on Fiverr, which was to allow voice artists to create an AI. clone of themselves and offer that voice. And so the voice, you know, as something that's so personal to you, let's say even more personal than your writing, than your opinions, it's really your fingerprint. And we allowed people to, again, create this custom model and think, okay, how do you want to use it? Do you want to help it? give you auditions. Do you want to sell it different things? And, and now, we're seeing that being done with singers and with producers, different people to kind of. create a model of their brand, their tone of voice. And I think maybe a few years from now, that's just going to be the standard where everyone you work with does have a model that's kind of their sound does have a writing model that's in there kind of with their guidelines, but also with their background infused into it. What do you think?

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm-hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yes, and I'll explain what I'm working on right now because I totally agree and I'll explain what I'm working on right now. I'm good at high-day it digitally, but I used to be a singer. Well, I still am to some degree. you know on like back in the days 15 years ago, I did a lot of YouTube stuff. So I probably like released a hundred tracks like that and then actual professional release tracks have done like

Adam Fine

You

Jakob Wredstrøm

four albums, I've done a lot of like singles. like I have professional grade recordings, I probably have, you know, at least 40 with my vocal on and then a hundred more. So I've expressed my vocal. I'm a data three, I run a company, 85 employees, I have a lot of investors, investor reporting. And I love to still express myself, but I don't have the time to an energy or like responsibility to go in the studio and do this. So it was like, okay, uh, I've been playing with Suno since it came out, uh, probably done like 10,000 tracks. And so I have it, I have a good sense of. Yeah. Okay. Um, and I've, I've explored like in a research mind to some degree, where does it take? And I do that every like two or three months because everything new comes.

Adam Fine

That's more than playing. That's a power user.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And what we've done now is super basic, but I believe this is the true expression of what you're saying is, what we've done now is because we have a great production team. Now we're experimenting with taking, lyrics that I write, obviously very personal, but still AI assisted. So I built some custom models to help me do the structure and all kinds of stuff. We, we've also analyzed what constitutes a good lyric on Suno. So there's an up-up information, just through trial and error, like how do you structure things? It actually works well with like melodies. how to put the boxes and like there's a lot of formatting things people don't know. And then I just like, okay, this is the lyric that I want to do. And I make a lot of songs. When we take these, when I'm really happy, we take these productions, you know, stem separate them. We rebuilt the whole production with some personal expression, but you know, heavily inspired. And then we take the vocal and then we've trained a cost of model on my vocal, like condensed singing material over like hundreds of tracks.

Adam Fine

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

and take that and put it into the voicemail and it sounds exactly like me. And this is my lyrics, this is my genre, like I've prompted all the songs. So now we have versions of songs that I believe is more me, back to the more me, more me than I've ever been able to express myself with my voice, with my words, and I've never sung them. And, and... You know, it sounds like, well, the world isn't there. Like this is public available tools. And I would assume a lot of people have done it. So I'm not saying it's incredibly novel, but back to my point that this is in my world. This is the truest expression of myself through music that I have ever done. And I have not sung, but it is, is 10 years of my past that has led me to those stories that I'm writing. And it's 10 years of my past of my vocal. that is expressing itself with my words. And does it make sense?

Adam Fine

I love that. I love it. Yeah. And it's what you just said. It wouldn't have happened without that. It's not like you are sitting on these songs and it's just waiting to be recorded. It wouldn't have existed.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And the most interesting part is the legal aspect because technically speaking, you know, I know it's the gray area ethically and you know, it's in the name of research, but like in Norway, for example, you are, it's not legal to co-register with AI. So I wrote the lyrics, AI made the melody. It's 50 % me, it's 50 % AI. And that's legal now. And that's a legal registration. And when you've reproduced all the masters and there's nothing of the actual audio, that is from trained models, you technically speaking own the master. So again, it's gray area ethically, and I'm fine with that because I research a lot. But technically speaking, that's a legal release because the voice model cloning is also legally licensed. So now you have AI music that is created and able to reproduce modeling commercial releases fully legal.

Adam Fine

No, it's a great process.

Jakob Wredstrøm

That was basically my long answer to your question.

Adam Fine

Really cool.

Adam Fine

Yeah, showing a real life use case of creating something that's yours and you own it and it's you. Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yep. And we're doing some commercials releases now, which is very interesting. So I think this is a great place to of close the interview. And I'm sort of outspoken again. was giving you a warning. think this is incredibly interesting. What you guys are doing with Fiverr and remote work in general, I believe is going to open a new world with new tooling that we haven't seen before.

Adam Fine

Super.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And I think we have the luxury to your point that because things have moved slowly in music compared to disruption of the industries, that people can be ahead of this. People can think strategically. How do I place myself? How do I work internationally? How do I get the best talent at the most appropriate price point for what I can do and build a career around that?

Jakob Wredstrøm

Adam, it's been a pleasure. I would love to talk more about this as I we should have you back probably like at six months time as these things are progressing because I believe you work in the most interesting intersection in the world right now, which is global talent in music where everything is going to be disrupted.

Adam Fine

It was incredible to get your perspective too and thanks again for having me.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Thank you.