Changing the Music Industry’s Artist Revenue Model

Jakob Wredstrøm

Start lagging a bit, it will just need some seconds to catch up. But the way that Riverside works is that it streams, downloads, and uploads the conversation at the same time, which also means it might get laggy, both video and audio, not so much audio but video. But I get full quality at the other side, so you don't need to worry about that. We also have pretty good noise suppression tools, which means if there's background noise, you don't really need to worry about it. That's usually taken care of. And if for some reason the internet disappears, you just need to re-log back on and it understands where we were and stuff like that. You can always default back on link. Yeah.

Mag Rodriguez

I've used Riverside a ton, so very familiar. But it's also great every time I use it because it gets better every time I'm on.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Good.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, it's been on a journey. Started with it like almost two years ago and it pretty rough.

Mag Rodriguez

No, the UI has gotten so much better even in like three months ago when I last used it. It's really good. I literally just sent the screenshot to the team. Like, hey, we should revisit this. Yeah, sorry.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah. Cool.

Jakob Wredstrøm

It. The real product guy. Great. Well, the last thing I would say is do not disturb on devices. It's super helpful. And the most important thing, the most important thing is the podcast is better if it's dialogue based. So if one of my questions leads to a natural long-winded answer, try to break it down into pieces so we can go back and forth from that. Particular question or topic, it becomes unimaginably better when it's conversation based rather than monologues. And I say it so clearly just because it can happen for the best, know, it's performative being a podcast. So if that's the only thing you remember, that's that. Just, know, it's a conversation.

Mag Rodriguez

Yep. Sounds good.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Cool. Well, I'm happy if you're happy and then I'm ready to go.

Mag Rodriguez

Let's do it. I'm excited.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Cool, okay, I will start in five seconds.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hey guys and welcome back to Sound Connections Podcast. Today I have Mag on the podcast. Welcome.

Mag Rodriguez

Man, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I've been looking forward to this for a while. So you run an amazing company called Even and I have been following on LinkedIn and in newsletters and PR campaigns, whatever. It's so interesting the journey you're on and I'm so excited to dissect fandom, but you know, done in very particular way that I'm a fan of. So Mag, for the people who don't know you and what you do, who are you and what do?

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, well these days I say this as a joke, but I feel like I'm the glorified intern at the company. And that always feels like a cliche thing to say as like a founder, but genuinely, well, I'm the CEO and founder of even.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Thanks.

Mag Rodriguez

Also make the joke that I'm a recovering artist manager. That's how I got my career started. Straight out of high school, managed two classmates, built a roster of producers, songwriters.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay.

Mag Rodriguez

And had a really exciting late teens, early 20s. And then I started working in venture in 2018. Worked for a firm called Generator. They're a startup accelerator slash VC firm. And I oversaw all of their music initiatives. So I worked there for about five years and then had a Jerry Maguire moment in 2021. Of like there has to be something better or a better way to really think about the industry and that turned into the founders of Generator, Joe and Troy, pulling me aside and saying, man, you should go and take a shot at this idea. So they wrote me a check, kept me on salary for a year, moved me to LA and that's kind of the beginning of the journey of even. But yeah, every day I get to help artists make their first 100, 1,000, even if it's just their first dollar for music, it ends up being the most exciting part of not only my career, but also just like my everyday life. So that's a really long answer to who I am, but hopefully that makes sense.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, no, it's also a very unconventional way to become a startup founder, I can imagine. And we'll dissect that a bit and how and why that happened. But I think it's also really important to set the scene of what even does. And I'll sort of put in my own two cents. And I said right before the podcast, I've lately become a bit of a troll on LinkedIn. Not really, but I've started commenting on music industry people writing. Bullshit on LinkedIn about power dynamics and all that kind of stuff, which I believe is absolutely not true, some of them. And I think it's really difficult to navigate what is actually a value and what is not value in the music industry. And fandom is one of the most overcrowded, noisy spaces when it comes to industry people and their own small to large entrepreneurial journeys. And even in my book, is doing something that's quite traditional, like, you know, You're not reinventing the wheel, but you're just doing it really well. Maybe in your own words, would you describe what you guys do?

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, so we're infrastructure that partners with labels, distributors, and artists. And we help them do something very obvious. We help them sell their music directly to their fans, but before it's made available on streaming platforms. Our thesis and just vision since day one is music should not be free initially. And what happens when you sell music and you tie it with experience, proximity to the artist. As other fans, you end up cultivating community. And it's not necessarily about... you know, creating community because I don't think you ever create quote unquote. All you can do is nurture it. And that's essentially what we do in a way that feels seamless to, of course, fans, but it also feels seamless to the industry. We're not anti-label, anti-distributor. We're not anti-streaming. It's truly about growing the pie for the industry. And we've been able to do it in a way that's intentional and makes people feel good. And I think a lot of it is tied to the name. It's supposed to feel even. No one feels like they're being taken advantage of, fans don't feel ripped off, labels don't feel like they're being excluded, the artists can feel like they're truly in the driver's seat and that's really what we built. And yes, very simple by design and I think I've always been a big believer that the best ideas are the simple ones that anyone can understand and you know the... As much as we can lean into that, think the more that we lean into it, would say the more adoption, the more excitement we get. So yeah, hopefully that makes sense as far as what we do.

Jakob Wredstrøm

You It does make sense and sort of a comment or a talk I often have in the podcast is obviously what's the future of fandom and connectivity, especially when comes to the reaction to AI. And one of the common themes in those talks is that the niche audience or the tight knit audience is probably going to be the ones that are going to stand out in the future, which also was the case back in the day oftentimes. But the problem with the stream model or other more traditional monetization models is like you need scale, you need critical scale in order to actually make the capital. And even as sort of reintroducing just the concept of like, you don't need scale, you need to tighten it community, which I think is sort of like a beautiful nostalgic moment that sort of was lost in digitalization and sort of that you are enabling. And I've read some beautiful stories of people that... that are able to finance the production of their actual album and they actually didn't go bankrupt and they had that small thing. And oftentimes it's almost these small wins that might only be like a... a few $10,000, which for some people obviously is a lot. But then the cost of pursuing the honesty stream is just so high. If you can sort of alleviate that pain and then whatever long tail income that comes afterwards doesn't go to covering debt is a beautiful thing. And that's why my interest rate was really sort of, really, that's why you're here. Because I think it's just so simple, as you said. What is the, if, you walk us through like a, you know,

Jakob Wredstrøm

Typical user journey. Like how does Anasys use your platform? Like how do also fans use your platform?

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, so the way that it works, let's use a distributor partner, for example, like a self-releasing DIY distributor. The way that it works is initially we have an announcement that goes out that says, even is partnered with ex-partner. Most cases that happens internally, although we did start making those public, just because I guess the industry really cares about those things, so we started to lead in. But the way that it works, the artist receives

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Mag Rodriguez

Notification that says X distributor has granted you access to even and then the artist just simply has to click claim and then from that moment forward whenever they deliver content to the distributor the content can show up on even X amount of days weeks months or in some cases it only shows up on even because they don't have a DSP release yet or the artist can just simply log in to their even dashboard and start releasing. So there's a couple different journeys that they can go in, but it's pretty straightforward. We've designed even to kind of fall under the parameters of like how a regular distributor would work. Although we're not a distributor, our backend essentially is designed to connect directly with a distributor, which will also allow the artist to just upload their content metadata the same way. Essentially the artist logs in, they create their release, they set their pricing. All of our releases for the most part are pay what you want, which is just basically you set a minimum, a suggested price, and then fans can pay whatever they want above that. Although they can do a firm price, we don't necessarily recommend it unless it's like kind of a part of like the artist strategy. And then we also have regional pricing. This is a newer concept for... Honestly, most digital businesses, not just music, where an artist can actually set pricing based on the currency and the location of those users. A big part of what you'll hear us talk about at EVEN is really our focus on the global south. There's a massive opportunity through globalization.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Mag Rodriguez

Where if you support the currencies and the payment methods, but you also set it up in a way where it's accessible to those fans, you can have real volume of transactions in different parts of the world where those fans might never have direct proximity to that artist because either the artist can't tour in those regions, touring might just be nascent, or those fans can't travel to the country that you're touring in because of visa restrictions. So ultimately, that's really where EVEN really steps in. Now on the fan side, the way that it is after an artist creates a release, they promote it on social media or their existing mailing list and they say, I have this new body of work, I have this new single, I have this new experience, video, whatever it is that they're selling. And they say, before you get it anywhere else, you have to get it from me. Here's the link in bio. Click the link in my story, whatever the scenario is. Fans show up, they enter their phone number, email, and then from there they simply select how they wanna pay and then they immediately get access to that content, to the community chat. Every single release has an embedded community chat that lives inside of the platform that allows them to connect with other fans, but also for fans to talk to other fans as well. So hopefully that makes sense. Again, not super complicated.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Sure. It makes sense. Makes sense. Again, that's also beauty. It doesn't sound like magic, but that's also what makes it quite magical when it works. But before we go into more of the topic of fandom and your platform in general, let's just go back to you working at that Accelerator VC fund. So what I can imagine is you have this deep domain expertise you've developed through managing producers and songwriters and artists and... And you work with tech startups, I guess, that sort of are in the music space. Is there a particular problem or frustration you have that sort of makes you want to start something?

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, well, the initial... Program that I launched inside of the firm was an accelerator for artists and managers So we were taking like the white combinator model but doing it with artists and managers and for me like I remember my first conversation with Troy and joy Troy and Joe from generator and it was like that's artists development. We do that every day and You know the way that it worked we would award artists $20,000 grants and then managers $5,000 grants we would put them through a 12-week program we introduced them to

Jakob Wredstrøm

I'll tell ya.

Mag Rodriguez

All the major streaming platforms, booking agents, managers. We basically built the network for them and we had a good number of breakout success through that program. It was in Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland. The partner for the Detroit program was Universal Motown Capital. So that was the introduction. That led Generator to launch a music tech program. It's called G Beta Music Tech. At the time, I was the managing director for All Things Music, so I worked really closely with my colleagues who were the actual director at the time who was spearheading the program. And I think the biggest frustration that I saw was great founders, great ideas, but they didn't understand how the music industry worked.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Mag Rodriguez

And I think this has been a long, you know, it's been a problem for the music industry, especially when it comes to technology. Everything feels very complex and it's in many ways feels like it has to be. Complex, but I think for anyone who's worked in music before there's only certain pieces that really need to connect and instead of disrupting from the outside in you have to disrupt from the inside and just get people comfortable to kind of get a sense of How this works and how it's gonna benefit their business and that was really a core part of our again It starts with the names designed to feel even I think the disruption that we're doing isn't designed to take any business away from the industry designed to make those businesses more sustainable and for them to be able to better serve their artists and partners essentially within those buildings. So that's how we took, that's how I thought about even and every time I would preach that to.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Mag Rodriguez

Founders I understand there. I understood their frustration where they were like I want to revolutionize the music industry I want it was very radical thinking it was like there needs to be a better model for streaming we can build a better Spotify or We need to bypass labels and distributors there needs to be a better form of distribution and the thing with those two models a good so Anti-industry that you're gonna be left with a platform with no rights holders onboarded And then you're gonna be left onboarding artists one by one, which has been the broken model of music tech. And the ones who've gotten it right really focused on partnering with the partners that ultimately make up the industry. I'm also describing this like it's like a forbidden playbook, but the truth is it's like this is the playbook that was always available.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Mag Rodriguez

We just showed up and had those conversations. And sometimes we have to keep knocking on those doors every single week till some of them opened and some of them opened on day one. Think there's probably gonna be doors that we're gonna be knocking on for years, you know? And I think that's just kind of like the name of the game.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, it makes sense. And I think it's so interesting. And I think about this a lot, like why people are overcomplicating it and why people are, you know, going so much further than what is actually necessary when it comes to disruptive forces. Like Cherry Hu that you probably know from Warner Music, like she says something very interesting that I've just sort of stuck in my head for years time is boring is back when she talked about sort of, you know, financing the music tech companies. And the truth rings further in my book. Um, then financing it's that the boring element to some degree, which is like partnerships and infrastructure and all that kind of stuff is just basically what works. Like, you know, it's not an industry that, um, thrives with too much friction of, you know, current balances and, and power dynamics. And I think the, amount of force and capital needed to actually disrupt is just showing Insanely big that probably won't happen and you know, we have a lot of especially in Europe in recent years we have a lot of You know people trying to do that and failing miserably and not saying that you know one or two Mistakes is what is actually the truth. But like it's probably not gonna happen But when did you have that realization is something you had like early on that you need to play along the industry Or is that a realization down the line?

Mag Rodriguez

Well, mean, transparently, I've been trying to run away from music for almost 10 years. In 2018, I was 23 years old, and I had been a manager at that time for seven years. And I felt like I had lived so much life at that point in my life. It was like in high school, my career started, and then it just kind of took over my life and went around the world and back.

Jakob Wredstrøm

No words here.

Mag Rodriguez

And that's when I joined the Venture Fund and I was like, this is gonna be good opportunity to leave music. And I think now I've accepted it that this is just kind of my calling. I'm very spiritual in many ways where this is the thing that I'm supposed to be doing right now. And the moment I started to just lean into it, I realized that like, okay, cool, this is kind of working. But I also, I try not to... Like if, I can tell you the 100 things that are stressful and difficult and this feels impossible or this other thing feels impossible, but that's the easy thing to do. I think for me, the most exciting thing is for every single thing that frustrates me in this, there's 10 things that get me really excited or there's 10 conversations that I have with people that are like. Mag, you're getting, and I sense that we're getting closer every single week to our goal, mostly because of the people that are start reaching out. Like in the past, I would say six months, we've started to attract a lot of the folks who have done it and who have been successful in the space. And they reach out and they're like, Mag, what you're doing. Like I'm always the first to say it's like what we're doing is not an original idea people have been talking about this for a long time. It's really about focusing on the execution hiring the right people working with the right partners. Messaging it correctly and then making people feel comfortable. I think it's really the key. So yeah a hundred percent like one in ten startups succeed. In music tech, it's like probably less than 10 % of that. I think I'm not focused on that. I'm focusing on what's working and doubling down on it. I'm on a 24, 48-hour cycle every time of like, what needs to get done? What can we focus on? Who needs to be served? Who do we need to talk to?

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Mag Rodriguez

I spend so much time just talking to everyday artists using the platform. I see when they're posting it on X or Instagram or Facebook. And I think if we really focus on making the platform so easy to use for those creators, it'll affect everyone in a positive way. So hopefully that makes sense as far as I'm thinking about it.

Jakob Wredstrøm

It does. I'm curious though, like, you take the step into finding this company, you know, in all honesty, and this is not directed your direction at all, but like, one of the things I find the most annoying in the incubation, acceleration space is like young dudes that's never run a company before giving advice to others how to run it. And, and you sort of like actually being able to go out of that and start your own venture and also successfully. At least thus far, like is that, how did he even feel qualified? Is just like seeing enough cases or like, did he actually build while you were there? What made you, like them, believe in you and write an initial check to build this?

Mag Rodriguez

I mean, to be honest with you, I never thought I was qualified. I still don't think I'm qualified to do what I'm doing. I always tell people at the comp, like, EVEN, I am...

Jakob Wredstrøm

That's the glorified intern. Yeah.

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, I mean, it's like I am not even just like, like on paper, I am the most under qualified person in my own company. Didn't go to college, barely graduated high school. Everyone in my company has a degree. Many of them have like more than just a bachelor's. Some of them have masters, PhDs. These are the folks that have chose to believe in my vision and want to be a part of this. Like, I'm still trying to figure out who's the crazy one. Is it me, them? I don't know. We'll find out. But like, I think the one thing that I do know is that I don't take that for granted. And I think that's probably been like my biggest strength is like I know how to ask for help and I'm relentless. When I need help, I will call every single person. I will try to figure it out one way or another. And you know, and I think the other part is like I make mistakes all the time. And every time I make a mistake, try to... And this hasn't always been me. I think when I look back at 23-year-old Mag seven years ago when I started working at the Venture Fund, like... ask anyone at Generator that I worked with at the time, they thought I was just like this arrogant kid who thought he knew it all and it was just like, I'm gonna come and build this program and then a lot of the things that I ignored, I started to implement once I started building even and this layer of like gratitude has started to set in of like, man, if only I would have listened to Abby, who's a partner at Generator or Maggie, who's another partner, like then, like how much more ahead I would be now.

Mag Rodriguez

But yeah, I think the key to being qualified is understanding that you're never gonna be qualified all the way if you just never try. And sometimes the only qualification is trying. And now there's of course tons of exceptions to that, right? Like I'm not a surgeon, right? Because I didn't get trained to be a surgeon, right? But I genuinely believed at the time that I could... put some of the pieces together. And for the first year of building EVEN, I was building EVEN through the lens of I'm gonna go find a CEO that should actually build this company. I'm just planting the seed and then we're gonna go and find someone that's gonna actually do this thing. And like, it wasn't until maybe like exactly a year into it where I was like...

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay.

Mag Rodriguez

Maybe I'm kind of lying to myself that I'm gonna find someone to trick myself into not feeling the pressure of having to build this company. And that's honestly what it felt like for the first year. I was just like, I'm gonna build it and I'm gonna pass it off to someone and then I'm gonna go back to doing my job and getting away from music. Then.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Mag Rodriguez

It just kind of continues spinning and here we are now, you know, three and a half years later and I'm still here. So, yeah, think, yeah, I kind of lied to myself for years that, you know, I wasn't going to be the person running it and that's kind of been the secret formula, I guess.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I think that's, you know, I recognize myself in that journey a lot. Currently at Amplitude we're around 80 people that I lead and I've been quite sort of, I've been doubling down on multiple occasions about finding a CEO for the company. Ultimately that's not going to happen. I'm not probably going to be the one doing it. And we all find like some angles of where we believe, well, suddenly we are qualified. We're like, you know, we're good enough to be in the room for me, for example, which is very contrary to most of my listeners. I'm pretty ruthless as a CEO. I'm kind and I'm reasonable, but I'm ruthless. I think I find myself to be thriving the most as a leader, very much compared to like a sports coach. That's sort of my leadership style. And really, the reason why I didn't believe I could be a CEO is because I tried to be this very listening, very... empathetic, very caring CEO, which I've been in the past, which I'm not saying people shouldn't be like, please, God's sake be that. But it's not me. Like, it's not me. Like, even though I can, you know, be resonant here in this podcast, my nature is ruthlessness in a reasonable way. But that's how I thrive. And as soon as I changed that, I actually built a company that made sense, which for me seems very contrary. And I'm not, you know, even proud of that statement per se. But like, there is ways to lead a company for any single person that has these capabilities and it might look different than what you might believe. What was it for you? What's your sort of hidden quality in that leadership? Like, why do you believe that people follow you? Why are you still asking the question, are they crazy, are you crazy? And why do you believe that they are actually following you and your vision?

Mag Rodriguez

Honestly, like, I sensed that's where the question was going. And I was just trying to figure, I was trying to like figure out, you know, what the actual answer is. And honestly, I, I don't know beyond the fact that, like, I understand that almost, actually, I think everyone at the company can probably go and make more money. And probably have a way safer bet working at a big company. Everyone from our product team to artist relations to client services, you name it. Everyone could be doing something else. I think the common thing that we share across the company is that we all deeply care about the work that we're doing because we know that I think for some reason along the way we all kind of drink the Kool-Aid that is even and it's hard like you work with an artist that's never made any money from music before and then they make their first five ten thousand dollars on the platform. Let's just go look first five hundred dollars. And that changes everything for them. It's not life changing money per se, but it changes it because it makes it real for them overnight. And they have something tangible to show. These are people pouring their emotions, energy towards this thing, and they never get anything in return. And then we all know the pressure around that, especially as a founder, right? Building something new that's unproven, have no experience with it, you're gonna get the friends and family and maybe just everyday people around you that are like, why are you doing that? Why don't you go get a job? Why don't you, at least in mine, there was a lot of people who were like.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Thank

Mag Rodriguez

Mag, especially everyone in music that I knew, like my strong close relationships, almost every single one of them, they said, Mag, absolutely not. Don't go try to build that thing. That thing did not work already. People have tried to build that thing. And all it took was one person. And he's to this day an investor, but also an advisor. Name's JR McKee. He, at the time, he had been very successful. Million plus album sold as an executive and he pulled me aside and he was like, Mac you're either gonna build this or I'm gonna go build this but like I think you should go do this thing and he's the one that got us our first two artists on the platform and then from there Like having that one person believe in it made me go so much harder than the following four or five industry people that I trusted were like, actually, this might be a good idea. And then those five turned into 10, 10 turned into 50, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it just requires that one person to really believe. And I think that has been my main priority from the beginning is when I meet someone that I'm going to be bringing into the company, can I plant that same seed? In them that makes them say, really believe that we can change the industry and I really believe that we can make this a more sustainable industry for artists and the industry at large. Because I know that every day, every single person at our company can go to sleep knowing that. We do good business with artists. We take care of artists. Nothing that we do takes advantage of artists and their art and their creativity or any of our partners. We know that we can do that. And unfortunately, that's not something that everyone can say historically they can do. And I think that really helps move the needle for people who really care about the space and music and art and culture ultimately. So.

Mag Rodriguez

There's an immense amount of pressure that comes with that to remain and keep that integrity intact. Since we are venture backed, we do have investors. There is a bottom line that needs to be met. But I do believe that we can do all of those things. We're going to make, of course, mistakes along the way. But I am pretty confident that we're going to get there. True to the name, it'll feel even once it's all done, all said and done.

Jakob Wredstrøm

That's a really good answer, but I'm still gonna rest you a tiny bit on it because you didn't answer me directly. And I'm gonna assume an answer to my question, which was like, what draws people to you basically was what I said. So I'm not disregarding your answer, which was great, and thank you for that.

Mag Rodriguez

Please.

Jakob Wredstrøm

It seems to me at least that you're really good at projecting the focus on a bigger cause rather than having the spotlight stay on you. And again, this is my only interpretation. Like going into this meeting, I never fully know who I'm going to talk with. I do my sort of research and... And I was assuming to some degree that you would be this very charismatic, highly spoken founder that really takes a lot of space. But I see a man that really does the opposite and does most of what you can to project the vision and the outcome to others. Also using things with being honest about your less of qualifications, at least in paper and all these kinds of things, which as I read it, you're really good at projecting the vision. And the goal towards the higher purpose than you as a CEO. Is that one of the qualities you believe though, why people follow you?

Mag Rodriguez

I don't know. I hope that's not the quality that they thought. Yeah, I honestly, I don't know. think, really don't know. maybe like, I'm trying to think about just like in the last seven days.

Jakob Wredstrøm

No, not one of them. Sorry, it's not, not the...

Mag Rodriguez

I really try to push everyone in the company to like, excuse my language, but like to talk their shit. Like that's always my thing. Like go out there and tell the world what you're doing and be proud about it. Because our work as a company is also your work. And during my staff meeting, maybe it was like a week and a half ago or two weeks, I told my team. If there isn't recruiters trying to take you away from even every single week on your LinkedIn or your email, you're not talking enough about the work that you do because everyone would be crazy not to be wanting you on their team. And I think that... I actually generally meant it. That wasn't me just trying to get my team excited. What I was really trying to tell them to do is, I want you to go on LinkedIn, go to your socials, and show off the work that you're doing, because that ends up being... my investment to them because they invest like everyone at our company. This isn't a Monday through Friday, nine to five. Like these are people that are giving up holidays, times with their families, seven days a week, whenever it's necessary, middle of the night releases. Like these are people that are giving everything to this. And while I do think we pay people fairly, it's not like we're paying them like we're a fortune 500 company, right? So I think for me, my only thing that I can give them in exchange for that is making sure that their values is being blasted to the masses. So whenever they go on to their next thing, whether it's building their own company or joining another team, they can show up with that same confidence that we give artists when they make their first $100, their first $1,000, where it's like, this feels real to me.

Mag Rodriguez

Because I remember my early days in the industry, you weren't really allowed to talk about the work that you did. It always felt very like the manager couldn't be loud about the things that they did. It was always all about the artists. I think that's changing a little bit. We're starting to see people really put a light on their voice, which I think it's necessary. I learned that a lot from my time at Generator. Like, Generator was really, you know, people always think they're like paying me to talk about them, but I genuinely learned so much from them that like, that was probably one of the most exciting things that I learned during my time at that company is how much the founders invested in the individual people without any like strings attached. It always felt like we want you to be very successful. So.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, again, I don't know if that fully answers your question of like, why do people follow? But I think for me, it's more so I invest in the people the same way they invest in me. And again, I'm not perfect at it. They get the messages at 10 o'clock at night on a Saturday like, hey, why didn't we do X, Y, Z? Like, they still get those pieces. But yeah, hopefully that makes sense.

Jakob Wredstrøm

It does make sense. I need to use a bit of deduction logic to get there sort of in my own satisfaction, but it does make sense. You know, maybe a atypical question and I hope you afford me the possibility to do so, but like where, where is your ego in all of this? Like, you know, to some degree, like being a founder, obviously the mission and the purpose on behalf of your

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

shareholders and all that kind of stuff is really important and also obviously the people you're serving but you know at least in my understanding having a Quite strong ego. It doesn't need to be selfish is also really important. So like why are you doing this for you?

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, I mean, think the obvious answer for me is always my family, ultimately. I don't come from much. I never really came from much. I come from two undocumented Mexican immigrants. I saw them literally give up everything for me and my siblings. I think ultimately, I know I'm gonna win if everyone else wins. I think I don't see a future where I only win and no one else wins. That's just not me as a person. I think like... We've had numerous opportunities to sell even, really early. We've only been in the market for 15 months, and there's been more than enough opportunities where we can, you know, and I never have to work ever again in my life. And while that's exciting, I also just turned 30. So it's kind of like, do I really want to do that now? It's not like I'm looking forward to retiring. That's just not the life that I live. I think I also don't have other type, I have some external pressures of just like life, right? But there isn't this like, I need to get to this thing to get here for me. I think I'm just a part of the equation that is the success that I wanna achieve for the company. And I know I'm a part of that. My staff's a part of that, the artists are a part of that, our partners are a part of that, our investors are a part of that. And you know, like, it's always, it reminds me of my time as a manager, where if the artist succeeds, they'll say it's because of it's the artist. If the artist failed, they'll say it's because it was the manager. So it's like, I already know that that's the pressure, right? Like I don't have to sit around and talk about it all day where like, I know if even succeeds, they'll say it's because.

Mag Rodriguez

It was the industry who adopted even and if we fail, it'll be all of MAG didn't do X, Y, and Z think right. Now I'm not saying that anyone's keeping a score. Hopefully they aren't. You never know.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Mag Rodriguez

I just pull myself into the equation and that makes me work and that's just the way that makes me work harder. Hopefully that makes sense, yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, it does make sense and...

Mag Rodriguez

Hopefully got you the answer you wanted.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I do get the answer. It's not because you, think what's really interesting about your answers is that you sort of, as I read it, think in an unconventional way. Like I'm a very, I'm a very direct guy. And for me, like the, the, the distance between, reasoning and an answer is very very short but what often gets lost there is the nuances and as I hear you like you operate in a lot of nuance which I think is beautiful and something that's far removed from my reality but something I'm also trying to learn but that's beautiful but like what Again, you've had these potential acquisition offers as I hear it, and you have now come to a point, at least if you wanted to exit, that could be a very favorable financial situation for you. But what is the next steps? Why do you want to take it further, and how do you see that taking, what is it you want to grow this into?

Mag Rodriguez

I believe in our team. I believe in everyone involved. That like, we are the right team to take it there. Being a button inside of a different engine that's not ours, that we don't control the vision for, is limiting.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Mag Rodriguez

Being absorbed by a different engine with its own mechanisms and habits and way of doing things. I don't want to compromise that this early. For me, it's truly all or nothing at this stage. And I would say that's just not me. That's our team. Everyone's like, let's go. We are a young and hungry team that you know, we've seen it. Our core leadership has been in the business for over 10 years. Every single one of us, we've seen it. Where it's like, again, that whole idea that we can go to bed every night knowing that we're doing right by artists, again, it's not something that everyone has been able to feel. And I'm excited to see what's ahead, right? Like, I think... Everything's evolving and changing. Also think that anyone who views even today, they're viewing us based on plans we had two years ago, that they don't even know what we already are rolling out now that will really play out two years from now. So if you're valuing us based on today, you're valuing us on ideas from two years ago. You don't even have the full scope of what we're doing and how we're going to do it. And again, I think that will be a disservice to the people who have worked on this, like night and day. And like, although I know they trust me, like, I don't think any, if I decided to sell even tomorrow, for example, I don't think anyone in my team would be like, my God, Mag, how could you do that? Right? Like, I don't think anyone's going to say that. I just know.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Mag Rodriguez

What this team is capable of doing and maybe sometimes that's why I am a little hard on some of our like core team members where I'm like, how else can we be thinking about things? How can we do these other things that we want to accomplish and pushing them? Because that investment that I'm making towards them hasn't ended. There isn't a single person in the company where I'm like, there's nothing more to invest in you. You've reached your peak. There isn't a single person. I would argue that everyone in the company has only reached 30 % of their potential of what they can really do.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Mag Rodriguez

And I want to see everyone get to that point. Because again, going back to it, it's like, that means I've only reached 30 % of my potential. And it's kind of a mirror. I invest in them. They invest in me. We all invest in the company. And let's see how far we can go. Hopefully that makes sense as far as the cycle or the way I visualize it in my head.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

No, it does, it does, definitely does. What I'm also trying to dissect in this, like, is there a chip on your shoulder somewhere? What, can you explain that?

Mag Rodriguez

100%. Yeah, we can list them all if you want. I think I don't think I have a yes, I think just like anyone or any founder, I think my chip on my shoulder is on.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, but like, go at it.

Mag Rodriguez

You know, I, it's more with myself in the sense that like, when I was younger, in my early days as a manager, I had this dream to become this like A &R, high level music executive. Like I had these dreams of like, I wanna be that. And then I realized. Years into it where that was a dream that I had as a kid. And as I was entering adulthood in my early 20s, I realized that's actually not what I want. I want to make impact. And my vision went from a very like me, me. I want to be a millionaire. I want to be this high level executive. And it turned into more of like, I want to make impact and I want to make a positive impact in the lives of people. And that's my chip on my shoulder. It's more so I need to prove to myself that I'm capable of that responsibility if I really want to earn it. And it's something that I want to make sure that's happening every single day. It was even helpful for you reaching out to those artists and being like, I'll see an artist post and they'll post their earnings and I'll reach out to them like from my personal account. Was even valuable for you? Do you feel like this was something that changed the outcome of this rollout? Do you think that this will positively impact your career? I asked a lot of these questions that are, again, tied back to this, like, am I capable of making impact in a way that will change the world in any way? And that is the thing that I am attracted to at this point in my life. And I feel like it's been that way for the last five years.

Mag Rodriguez

I mean, yeah, without being too vulnerable.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah, I it's really that balance is really important. Like I think I'm on, again, I'm on the opposite direction. Like I think most of my life has been about the impact and I'm trying to learn like how can it be more selfish? Like because, and that also sounds, you know, contradictory, but like I think that there needs to be this balance. How can I be too vulnerable? And in my case, that was what I was like, how can I make sure that what I do is more practical, more down to earth, more, you know, I have three kids, you know, I want to go running. Like, so like protecting myself, that's not all about granted. Vision, it's about practicality and then sustainability. So did you even have like an end goal in mind, like for you personally, like as a founder, like, you know, when, when whatever form of success you achieve with even if that's growing that very large and impactful or if that's selling the company, like how does, how does Mag's life look when you achieve that? How do you envision that?

Mag Rodriguez

It's changed so much. Mean, early 20s, it's like, wanna have the Rolex and the car and the things. And then I've made, I've done well for myself, I think along the way that I realized really quickly how empty a lot of that stuff is. And, you know, like I don't plan on having kids. Like that's just not the life that me and my wife's like. Think about. Think for us, it's more so we like peace, but we also like being of service. Do, think now, especially honestly in the last like year and some change, I've really realized that like, I think the next, this next phase of my life will be fully committed to just being of service. You know, and I think even aligns perfectly with that vision and mission of like, I want to be in the service of helping creators and artists and helping them achieve the dreams and the goals or getting closer to them, even if it just means unlocking something that takes them to another thing. And then in other ways, like being of service to other founders or friends and family. It could be anything. It could be a friend who's trying to start a business and they just need some support or a friend that needs help with a resume. I think for me it's like how can I help you? How can I serve you? And that's truly how I get enjoyment out of my everyday life. Sitting down and just watching TV is cool once a week, but what I like to do on my free time is just being able to help people achieve their next thing. Again, that's right now, like will that be the thing in 10 years? And I wanna make sure that I have the freedom to do that when the time is right. And yeah, again, that's newer, that's in the last five years I've had that realization. Back 10 years ago, it was a very selfish, like I wanna be the first millionaire in my family.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Mag Rodriguez

Do all these things. And then I got a taste of some money along the way and I realized that like that's cool, peace will bring those things and yes, would I like to have a little bit more money and all those things? Sure, right? But that's just not the thing that, you know. All that, it's, as I was saying that I was looking at, I have a mixer. It's a DJ controller. I used to DJ in my early 20s and I always wanted this DJ controller. And then I finally decided to buy it for myself last year for my birthday. I've used it twice since I bought it. The years of excitement of wanting to own it was so much more powerful than the moment of now.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Mag Rodriguez

Actually have it and now I literally leave it in its case and I never have really played around with it that much. So it's kind of like my ongoing analogy of just like sometimes the things that I want can come at their pace so I can enjoy them a little bit more when I finally get.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I think it's a very important part of the founder realization. I know there's no one way to be an entrepreneur, but one of the things that perplexes me the most is founders who are motivated by the wealth that could come with it, because it's such a small part of the journey and it might not even happen. And you gotta be motivated by something else. It's just not enough. That extra motivation, unless you're some sort of type I don't wanna be associated to, though. One question though, because It's a bit important and it will be one of the last questions in this interview is the way that you approach your mentality to the company, your own wealth and sort of your own success, you know, could at least be perceived from the outside as sort of contradictory to having venture partners and having investors that, you know, are ultimately looking for an ROI on their investment. Like how do you navigate the external pressures of performance and the way that you reflect about your own life?

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, it's the balance, right? Like I have a responsibility to my investors to, you know, return on their invest, create a return. But you kind of just highlighted it where it's like, you need more than just money to be the carrot, you know, and because if it's just money, that won't get you through the tough times when stuff go to zero. Because when it goes to, if it's getting close to zero and money's the only motivation, it's easier to just jump I'm bought a car and just be like, all right, I'm done. And then there goes the investment. There goes everything. I think when there's true passion in the work that we do, that is more impactful than the money that we're going to make. That my investors can know that their investment wasn't just in this business, it was in the people that are building this business. And ultimately that investment will pay off. In a form that might not be in the short term. It just might be those extra two, three hours or extra week or extra month of work that was required to get it to that next level. And I spend a lot of time creating that exposure for my investors. It's always been really important for my investors to know. Who my staff is and who the people are building this company, especially in culture, right? It's ultimately about culture buying. It's not something you can buy. It's something that you rent every single day and it's a core part of the people inside of the company. And on the other side, it's something that I'm always very open with my employees about. They see our pitch decks. They see us build. I build our decks with them, our investment memos. They are part of every single step of the way. And I think for me, it's really about them also sharing that responsibility that ultimately, you know, we're not a profitable company today. It's not like we're using our own funds to pay for the salaries to, you know, keep this ship going. And it creates that responsibility of like, this is how this machine works. And I've always been a strong believer that like the exposure creates responsibility. And

Mag Rodriguez

It also helps you weed out the type of people that are inside the company where if you expose them to too much and they're immediately like, I don't want anything to do with that, then it's like, well, what is your motive here? If you're just looking for a paycheck, I'll be your number one referral. Put me front and center. I'll call whoever you need me to call. But this is not going to be the company for you. And I think, you know. At this stage, we can do that. Think long term, of course, if the company grows, you're going to get people who just want a job. And that's totally fine. But that's just not the stage that we're in today. And that ties back to the responsibility that we have for our investors. And I would argue more often than not, that's what I would look for in a founder. I would look for people who were passionate about actually building the thing that they were building for something beyond just the money.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Mag Rodriguez

Anyone you can weed out people who just want money really quickly you know get rich schemes are you know You can find them anywhere on Twitter these days. So like, think, yeah, we've actually been anti every single step of the way where something can become a big, you know, thing that can make us a lot of money really quickly. Those end up being the things that we don't want to do right now. We're really looking for something that's sustainable for us as a business, but also for our partners, industry, et cetera. But yeah, boring answer, I know, but.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

No, no. I think you're speaking into something that I think is very interesting about music tech. I've been studying a lot of music tech financing, which should have become my domain expertise speciality in this field. And one of the things I talk about a lot is to set lower expectations to some degree of things will take time. And sure, you can build a great business, but it might just take a tiny bit more time than you're expecting. And I think there's also a mentality of like being capitalistic enough on behalf of your owners or your investors, but also having this more distant relationship to the capital gains yourself is a very healthy balance, especially music tech. Like I feel myself, like I, I've never cared about money. And honestly speaking, like even my company now is doing rather well, you know, school teachers still owns more than me. I don't, I don't. Like I have kids, I need to the bill, sure. Like it's, not the motivation. The cat, you know, I'm, I'm probably happier than 98 % of everyone else. I. Earned shit compared to what it should be. Like I'm pretty good at what I do. But, but the motivation to, to give return investment to my shareholders is so great that I can balance those things. I can actually be for profit. Can actually be savvy and ruthless, which sometimes is necessary on behalf of them and be totally comfortable with it because that's the part of like, that's what I sold. Like, you know, I want to give you money. I want to give myself the journey and sure, you know, I want my wife to have money as well. But like for me, that's a distant emotion, but I can combine those things to create this whole package. And I hate, that's also sort of what I hear from you that the external factors does create this sort of full spectrum of emotions, probably necessary in order to have that mindset.

Mag Rodriguez

Yeah, 100%.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mack, this is beautiful. I think I just want to round off by saying that you're not doing anything new. And I think that's the beauty of it. And I think that's also the comment you gave when people warned you for doing even when you were venturing into this. Like people have tried and they've failed. And what I think is beautiful here is that doing it nevertheless and then executing it well is, think, such a important story in music tech. Entrepreneurship that you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to double down on the problem. You just need to build a really good product that has product market fit and you need to partner. Like you don't need to necessarily disrupt but be with people. I think that's what we can learn from you right now and what I also hope will help you continue thriving as you grow the company and raise capital and get it to the place where you don't need to be a button in the ecosystem. So Mack, thank you for spending your time and thank you for sharing.

Mag Rodriguez

Man, thank you so much. This was fun. Of course, man. Thank you.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Appreciate it. We'll talk soon.