The Art of Storytelling in Music Tech

You can have the greatest product, the greatest projects if you don't know how to talk about this and who you're supposed to talk about this with. It's going to be great, but nobody really is going to use that. The Wise conference in Berlin is closing in fast. Today we have Mathilde Nau from Residence Agency on the podcast.

She works with PR at the intersection of music, technology and investors. This is a goldmine of advice of how to communicate as a startup within music and music tech. Hey guys, and welcome back to the Sound Connections podcast. Today we have a partnership episode with Wise Conference where we're going to have a great guest at the conference, Mathilde. Welcome. Thank you for having me. I just realized I pronounced that very Danish. Well, yeah, that's the right way to do it. Oh, that's good. Okay, great. We're going to talk about something that's very close to my heart.

these days and that's communication within music, music tech. You're one of the leading players in the space. You've done some really cool things. You are the founder, co -founder of music tech France. You are the co -founder of music tech Europe and you spend your days communicating on behalf with music tech companies. It's very relevant for our audience. But Matilda.

I normally ask the guests to make a small introduction of who they are and what they do, just to set the scene from your angle. So could you explain to us who are you and what do you do? So yeah, I'm the founder of Resonance Agency, which is a communications and business advice for music tech. So originally I've been trained as a communicator and I just wanted to put all these skills towards helping music and tech.

Dialogue better and it led me to work with music tech companies and helping them create the right message to the right people and make sure that their new products or projects were heard well. And since the field is pretty fairly new at least, we created Music Tech France as well four years ago now.

And this is a collective association based in France for French innovators in music as well. And we have about 80 companies that joined the association now. Okay. I'm going to dive right into it. I need some advice because I need to understand what is it the music tech companies consistently fail at communicating? Yeah, right into the main topic.

I'm guessing the most common thing that we've seen with resonance is usually the fact that some either you have people coming from the tech side and speaking to the music industry as they would speak to any other industry and that wouldn't make sense. I mean music is a very specific field and there are some very complex things to wrap your hand around. And yeah, so there is a, I mean, a language, a way to talk to you, to that industry that is very specific to it. And that's one of the main things. And sometimes we've also witnessed a few people in the music industry noticing something, an issue that

They could fix and they get on with their project. But the tech side, the entrepreneurship is... pretty rough as well to understand when you're not part of it initially. So yeah, that's always a bit difficult to know both these fields which are pretty specific to each other. And so yeah, that's usually the main thing, trying to just get the word around without really targeting and not adapting to who you're talking to. That's usually the main issue that we've been seeing.

Amazing. I see this all the time. We'll talk more about it, but I will take the freedom just to go a bit back and understand you a bit more and to see where you come from. So could you, for me, spend a couple of minutes explaining to me, what's your background and how did you transition into this? Yeah. So I started from the music industry, actually. I worked as a PR agent for some artists at the PR agency. And I...

Then worked in the innovation side. So I was working on content and some events in the innovation in France and the very generic topics. And I found music again there. So I was in charge of a few startups and trying to get them either financed or getting on various events. And I heard about a few music focused events and I ended up at Meadem.

Back in 2017 and I did that in 2018 as well. And yeah, I was in charge of the French tech delegation. So that was actually one of the first times that some music startups were getting to that kind of events, at least in that range. And that was very interesting because at that point I was really in between the innovation side and the music side trying to speak to each other. It wasn't really...

Easy at that point. And I decided to go and focus on that. So that's why I was hired at a company at that time. I left and I built my freelance portfolio there. So I used to do that by myself. Actually, I was doing communications for some startups, very specific, and trying to get some metadata providers or any...

any very specific topic in the music industry getting a bit heard. And at some point it got a bit, the workload got a bit rough. So I entered a mentorship program actually. So I got into Mellem, which is a mentorship program that runs for six months back in 2022. And I met my co -founder over there actually. So I co -founded with him.

Natasha, co -founded the Resonance which is now my communications agency for music tech specifically. That's how we got there. Amazing. There's so many things to unfold. One thing you said is that at Meetem in 2017, there was sort of a, let's call it lack of understanding between technology, new technology and the music industry. That seems to now maybe have, that's my assumption, bridged a bit.

But first explain to me, what was the gap in 2017? Well, for instance, one thing that we tried to do over there was to get everyone to meet the French institutions that were represented at Meet 'em. So we did an actual meetup when on the first day, they were on the level below us. So we just got there and we brought the whole delegation with us. And it was pretty difficult to engage in meaningful, connections. I mean, the first thing that these startups from our delegations were hearing was, what about the rights and what do you want us to give up for your solution,

Basically? And it was very, it wasn't really open to discussion, but we had all false as well, because I heard some of the people that we brought it on saying, yeah, we're going to redefine the way that we manage rights. You can't do that. You can't say that. That's not a way to... speak to the industry and it just rose that painful net. Actually, you're working, even if you're innovating somewhere, you're still innovating in an environment. There is something there. There is already an infrastructure. People are there. You can't innovate without taking them into account and

Work with the industry that you're trying to innovate in. So that's what came out of that. Amazing. And yeah, and that's, that's the stuff. I've been a lot of founders misunderstanding this point. And I think also underestimating the let's call it the complex nature of gatekeeping in the industry. And, um, somehow at least that's my sense of it. Most people want to work with one of their own, uh, in a way that, you know, we need to have a lot of things in common of our understanding of the industry or common network.

Okay. So, so you recognize this gap in 2017 and say, okay, I'm going to help some of these startups do this. Was that an overnight thing and how did you transition into that? It wasn't overnight, but it was pretty quick. I realized that I was, I transitioned first from music to innovation and, well, it was very interesting. I still missed the music side of things. So when I found this again, I kind of held onto it.

And I did meet them and after that I went to Malmö festival. So that's a convention in concerts in Paris. And we did a pitch session and I got to meet other startups as well. And I met up with a few people in the ecosystem in France who were pushing for the ecosystem of music tech to grow. So music tech, France wasn't around at that time. We created that a little bit later.

But I still met with a few people pushing for this who were at the origin of music tack fronts afterwards, of course. But yeah, that's when I thought that makes more sense to me. And while it's a bit difficult to just go by yourself, being a freelancer in an ecosystem that doesn't really exist. And I was out of school. I think I finished school maybe two years before.

So I wasn't very sure about myself, but I still got into it. And I just, I left that job and went to, to be a freelancer because I thought, well, not doing that now, I'm not going to do that later, obviously. And since I got these few people around me, I thought I'm going to get a little bit of, a little pushes from them. So that's how I got to moving on to the next phase.

Okay. There's so many things to unpack and most of the people listening to this podcast, I would define as innovators within the music industry. And that's sort of the consistent narrative we have. What was it specifically about? Now you said you had a, you know, maybe it was a hypothetical company of someone who wants to disrupt the way you managed to write. So I can't remember. Something in that direction. What was the first thing you addressed head on that people were getting wrong in the way they worded these kinds of stuff?

Um, first, um, I mean, the first people I worked for, um, were usually tech people who created the great platform, the great product, the great thing, but they're tech people. So they talk about very technical things in technical terms. And, um, you need to find the right person at a record label or major or anyone you're trying to target, uh, who speaks the same language.

Which is usually pretty tough to you to find sometimes they don't really exist within that structure. So first thing that I tried to do was getting the message of it clear for the industry. So that was the main thing. And I got started in 2018 and not all of the main companies in music had a director of innovation, for example.

So it was about also finding the right way in. And we strategized a little bit more the communication. So it wasn't just trying to get someone from that company or that label. It was more about finding the right people to talk to. And it was very, it was more precise. So that's the main thing. And I'm still doing that now. It's usually just strategize a little bit more and be precise in the communications that you.

You're setting because you can't address everyone at the same time, especially in music. It's really interesting about the thing with, let's say you have a company or product and that can be one thing and in one communication form be totally misunderstood and not be attractive. And then by tweaking the narrative or the way the wordings even, or who you speak to can become attractive. So there's something about no matter what you have, sometimes the key to unlocking the potential is how you talk about it and who you talk to. But did you feel when you started with

This that there was a lot of resistance from the industry to take these kinds of meetings and conversations? I don't think there was much resistance. I'm thinking there weren't. that many resources to answer the demand for these meetings, for example. I got to trying to create just create bridges, trying to open conversations. And sometimes it, I mean, sometimes I would have someone facing me say, we don't really know who would be able to answer your questions. Or if we have someone in house able to talk about these things. So I'm not sure it was.

Full resistance, it would be just, it took a little while to get up on the train. That might be the main thing that we noticed at least at the beginning. It's less the case now, but still in the early years when I was working with some startups by myself, that's the first thing that I noticed. And it was pretty surprising to me at least. But that's usually what I say to the people I work with is.

You can have the greatest product, the greatest projects if you don't know how to talk about this and who you're supposed to talk about this with. It's going to be great, but nobody really is going to use that. So that's a shame. So yeah, that's something you need to not overlook because communications tends to come at the end of the process.

So you develop, you create the product, you create a platform, it's great. But you still need to make sure that people know about it. And especially when you're doing a lot of B2B solutions, or if you're very niche, you still need to be upfront about what you do. And especially when there are, sometimes there is resistance, sometimes there are some people not really open to it. I mean, right now everyone is talking about AI.

We have a lot of people, I would not say scared, like worried about what it could imply to the music industry. And if you're not communicating about what you do and try to educate about what you're developing or what you want to use AI for and what you're planning on doing with your solution, there are a lot of missed opportunities. So that's...

That's really important to make sure that everyone knows where you stand, where you stand on the few topics, but also what you're trying to develop there. You're the expert. So I'm going to ask you this question, but I do have an opinion. And that is a lot of the times product, proper product development come from the correct conversations and the correct conversations are directly dependent on clear communication.

So also the correct product iteration comes from having at the beginning good communication. Is that an assumption that you would agree to? Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, again, something that I say very often, I'm fairly sure that everyone who has worked with me heard me saying this at least once, is that when you work in the music industry, even if you're working with a platform with a label or whatever, You're in the end, you're working for the artists and you should know what they're expecting because there are no artists, there is no music industry and you're not working with anyone. The end game is making sure that the industry works and they are at the center of everything. And I'm usually

Working with B2B platforms or solutions. So it's very rare that I get in touch with artists, but you have to make sure that you know what you're doing and where you're aiming at. And yeah, so that's usually what I say. So it can go from doing just some focus groups or some surveys to make sure that you understand the goal and the feedback that you could have depending on what you're developing. Or it's just getting some feedback from your users, making sure that you're developing the right thing right now, the right feature.

If you're developing something that nobody really uses, that's just wasted time. So you have to make sure that you understand again, you understand the environment where you're innovating. There's something about the strength of the ecosystem that you're working with as well, because one thing is individual companies communicating better, have a better PR strategy in order to, I would assume, optimize the chances of building something of success. But then there's also the surrounding industry that is dependent, but also separated from the individual company that you work with. And when you co -founded

Music Tech France, what was going through your mind? What was the intention there? Music Tech France was an interesting thing because at the very beginning there were, we were in nine, at the beginning there were nine people. We weren't doing the same job, but we were in the same industry. Meaning that we would see each other at MAMA or meet them for those who were there, but that was it. But we didn't really have the same job. I've always been, some kind of advisor communications, that whole thing in the music tech field that we have a ticketing specialist, a music price specialist, audio operations. I mean, a lot of things,

But we never really would never work together. We say, but we didn't really cross paths, but we kind of needed to have the everyone's feedback and making sure that the industry was working well. And yeah, so that's why we decided to create MusiTech for us because we felt like we needed the ecosystem. We needed to feel like we were part of something. But, and I mean, we weren't about to take any meetings together because we didn't have anything to work on together. But still, we still needed to create that whole MusiTech field. So that's how we got to...

To create Music Tech for us and we created that at the MAMA festival. So we were actually were at the same place at the same moment thinking the next time will be next year. And we can't really do anything with that. So yeah, that's how we created Music Tech for us. What is the benefits from having these synergy structures? How does it help?

Well, first, Music Deference was created because we felt like there is business that we need to work on together and we need to have more weight. So the first thing for Music Deference is actually creating some meetups and we have at least one every month, approximately. We try to keep that pace and we try to have some themes or try to have someone talk to us about some experience that they had. So...

First is just knowledge and making sure that everyone is able to connect with everyone within Music Tech France. That's the main thing that we're able to do. But we're also representing the full ecosystem. So we're in close contact with institutions here in France. So the National Center for Music, for example, we are there to just give them a bit of insights of what's...

Happening in the field and helping our members. So usually we have pretty small companies, not only startups and small companies, but that's the majority of our members who are trying to get some grants or some funds or it just helps them have a bit more weight towards these institutions. So that's the main thing that we're trying to do, just create that whole umbrella.

And yeah, that's one of the main activities. And we just released actually a survey of our ecosystem a few weeks back. What are the things that I see from the outside with companies missing these structures is that they get lost really fast. Like it's really easy to get lost in this industry. Like who to speak with, how to focus.

Who are my peers? You know, who can I talk with about this? And that doesn't help anyone. But you guys together with a lot of other offices took the step further and co -founded MusicTech Europe. Can you tell me a bit about what that means? Well, MusicTech Europe is the collection of a few other hubs like MusicTech for us. We don't really all have the same...

Infrastructure so we're not exactly the same in every countries but there are a few hubs like us who thought we need to do that but on a higher scale and yeah we created Music Tech Europe to create the umbrella association for the association so actually all members from Music Tech Friends are directly linked for example to Music Tech Europe because we are the bridge over there.

And we're just helping the ecosystem grow a little bit better and try to export the ecosystem a little bit easier. For example, next month we'll be at Sonor in Barcelona. So there is the Barcelona MusicaCub, which is another founder of MusicaCub. And they're planning a pitch session, some speed meetings with some investors and we're...

Involved in that, so we try to get the word out and have the collective meetup over there. We were at Eurosonic beginning of the year. We'll be at Line Check in Italy, of course, and the Music Tech Europe Academy has been launched as well. So that's an acceleration program for startups around Europe. So that's a great program as well.

And we'll be at WISE obviously, because we are putting together a mapping of AI solutions dedicated to life. And that was founded by a European fund. So that's great. And we'll be presenting that at WISE. Amazing. But I'm looking very much forward to WISE and AI space I think is extremely interesting, overwhelming. And obviously there's too much hype. There's too many services that doesn't actually do anything of value.

That will probably show itself in nine months time who's dead by then, but it is an interesting space. But on the case of investment, now I'm just talking out of personal curiosity, but I'm sure all the founders listening to this and innovators, I believe, and I would ask you to help me understand what it is, but I believe there are consistently communication gaps between music, music technology, and investors that are not from.

Music. Is this something you see a lot? Well, yeah, there is, at least in France, I'm not really sure about the rest of the ecosystem of innovators, but at least in France, we don't really have any funds or VC or any investor focused on music.

So usually people who get these investors interested are just addressing more, I'm going to say generic, so just wider interest. And that's always a bit tricky because you're talking about the music industry. So that's again, very complex. You really have to explain in details what you're doing, but we're still in the tech space and sometimes it's pretty tricky. It's always something...

I mean, it's rough to explain exactly what the music tech company does because already music and tech need to dialogue even better. It's great that now we have more open dialogues, but still, we still have some communications issues. So you're now supposed to talk to investors who aren't specialized in that field either. So that's, it's getting pretty complicated. Yeah.

Yeah, we don't really have anyone very focused on the specific topic in France. And I'm guessing it's not the case of Rehond. Most places, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's always difficult. And even when we have, we've just had a few companies who raised money. We have Groover that just got some money as well. And we have a few of them.

But when they raise money, it's not that much money. When we look at other tech spaces, it feels very small. It's great. That's really a challenge to raise money when you're in the music industry, but it's still a small amount. So you can feel that music is sometimes just, people just refrain from music. It's not a safe bet. So you have to play your cards well.

Yeah, there's so much to unfold on it. I'm in secret. I don't think I've said it on the podcast, but I'm secret also researching on like the topic of the intersection between behavioral finance and investing in music. Because there's so many things to be explored in that. I'll do that in a secret, but that's no secret anymore. But I want to understand more. If you could pinpoint for me some exact mistakes.

That you consistently have seen when a music tech startup communicates to an investor? I mean, I can be very specific here, but... Usually what we saw is some companies try to give everything, every details, everything.

They try to give as many information as they can to some investors. And the goal behind that is to reassure saying that, see, we've done that and we have this and it's great to do that, but it also gives an unsure... position and sometimes it's a little bit the investors and since we're in a very specific industry sometimes when you try to basically it's just overwhelming the people behind the desk and we've seen that a lot and sometimes also I mean what we've

Seen is usually when you raise money it also depends a lot on the founder. of the company. I mean, they're embodying the projects, obviously. And the music tech field, when you're creating and funding a music tech company, it's just, you kind of have to be passionate about what you do. I mean, that's a very specific niche sector. So you kind of have to love what you do. And sometimes not that much represented. I mean, we've seen a few people...

Trying to refrain from showing how passionate they were about their projects, which is weird, but that can only help, of course. And yeah, so that's maybe the main two issues that I've witnessed. Yeah. So in other words, simplifying, not overwhelming, and keep your cool.

Yeah, I'm guessing that's applicable to other industries as well. Since you're addressing what we've seen, at least for the projects that we supported, when you're addressing an investor and you're working in music, you're not addressing a fund that is specialized in music. You're addressing someone that kind of likes that industry and just is interested in what you do for what you do. So.

You have to have the right position. You're talking, you can't really think that's their main investment that they'll be doing. That's not their main project. It's always kind of the side because music can be their main topic. So yeah, I mean, passion has a lot to do with this. Yeah. As people might know, I also consult music tech companies on...

Things comparable to this. You have much bigger clients and you probably oftentimes work in later stages that I do where I work at the earliest stages most of the time. And one of the things that I'm exploring is what I call parallel narratives. And that is basically you have something within music where you can tell the same story but with a different narrative.

Like the easiest thing for me to describe is for example, if you work within, let's say a record label, you have a record label. So what are you doing? You're not developing an artist. You're actually building towards owning IP rights at one point that could be sold at X multiple for recurring revenue. And so that's an alternative asset class that can be traded on the open market.

So you sort of now went into, okay, this is shares. And obviously, you know, the pioneers, I believe in the public communication of this is hypnosis that, you know, really went out five years ago. Obviously it's been going on for a long time, but they were at least in my opinion, the first one to make a splash about it to the general public. And I believe there's many of those parallel narratives that can be used in order to lower the barrier of understanding that music tech founders can really work with.

Oh yeah, yeah. And, um, I mean, it's, uh, it's something that we've, uh, we've been working on with, I'm guessing all of our clients until now, because again, you're speaking to an industry that is very specific and, um, and you can't really address if you're working with Oracle, for Oracle label or in partnerships with a label and also addressing some artists, you can't talk the same way to you, to both.

These targets. So we've been working in defining and strategizing more your communications and it can't be the last thing that you add to the list saying, okay, we developed all the product, we have the platform, we have everything. And now we're going to say that it exists basically. You can't really do that now, especially in music now.

Another thing that I'm trying out and now, because you're the expert, so I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on it. Another thing I'm trying out with my clients, which I think is right, is we have this exercise where we see, okay, how little can we communicate about music? Not because we're apologizing for music, but like, you know, when you say music, there's already an assumption, there's already emotional correlance, and that sort of is already setting grain. And obviously you need to touch upon all the most important things.

But instead of like having plastering like artists all over a pitch deck, you know, set the scene, they get its music, now speak their language. If it's a marketing platform going for marketing investors, which might be the, might fit, then maybe we should set the scene, but then we talk about marketing, if that makes sense. And so that's sort of the thing I'm trying. So my question is, do you think there's a merit to that?

To talk about the music as little as possible sometimes. Oh, yeah. I think, I mean, we've been working with a lot of B2B solutions. So yes, I think it makes a lot of sense to show that you know. So it's something like this. Show that you're able to understand the skills and the actual job. Because again, you shouldn't...

Avoid talking about artists or labels or whoever you want to work with. But still, you have to show that you know your job. Something that we've been working on with a tech company that we're supporting with Resonance in their communications is talk about the technical stuff. Know you're a tech company working with music, so talk about...

The rights, talk about the data, talk about the tech side of things. Make sure that everyone is able to know that you're knowledgeable both in tech and music, for example. Yeah, so that case is like the other way around. Yeah. But you have to adapt, obviously. So it makes a lot of sense. And it's also something interesting to do and important to know how to do.

When you're asking for grants or some public grants. And usually there are, at least in France in the case, you have big submissions to do. Sometimes obligations can take a lot of times and they go through committees and selections and you have to be very specific and open about how you work. And that's not only about saying exactly what you do, but how you do it. And that's an interesting take to have as well.

Matilda, I'll let you go soon because you've been very generous with your time. And if the audience want to hear more of this and meet you, we're going to be at the Wyze conference in Berlin in I think two weeks. I haven't ordered the hotel yet, so I'll do that. But I do want to sort of pick your brain on something and is what do you believe is the future for music tech? Is this going to be a better place to be in? Is this going to be a more influx of capital?

What do you see happening the next five to 10 years in this space? I mean, it's going to definitely will be very exciting to be in the music tech field in the next few years because it's going so fast that everything is going to just move around at an incredible pace. I'm guessing the main thing that we, I mean, I'm witnessing that now and I'm guessing it's going to catch on, but.

We've seen up so far some waves, you know, you saw the NFT waves, you saw the metaverse and now we're in AI basically, you have these keywords and you always see some new companies just pop up a bit everywhere with, for example, we had NFTs all around the place for two or three years ago. Now it's not the case and the ones that stuck are the ones that...

Created something that the NFTs were a mean to an end, that the goal wasn't to create an NFT. And that's what stuck for those who were stuck. And even now, they're not really talking about the tech that they're using, they're just talking about what they do. And I'm witnessing that with AI, for example, we're supporting a repertoire that did...

An AI integration. So they went out and got the tech somewhere else at Cyanide actually. And they're innovating for a goal that they have an end game. They thought, okay, this makes sense. And we're going to integrate that now that we know how to do it. And we've seen a lot of innovation for innovation, basically just taking the first main thing, the fame and integrate that to your platform.

But right now we've seen more and more, I'm gonna call that sensible innovation. And I mean, it makes more sense. And I think the music tech field is now a bit more solid, a bit more structured, and there are more discussions and conversations. And innovation becomes a global discussion. And I'm...

I'm guessing that within the next years, people are going to talk a bit more about the innovation music and see what makes sense, what doesn't. And it's going to be a bit smarter. It's going to be done a bit smarter. For example, a few years back, we just got in touch with two companies that created speakers. One was in concrete, another one was in wood that you could carry on your back.

They realized that half of the tech that they developed for the audio was the same. They did that, each other, they did that, the exact same thing. And now I'm seeing a lot more collaboration, for example, Repertory and Cyanide, but there are more collaboration between music and tech, but also in music tech itself. So it's gonna be exciting to see how we can build that together.

Amazing. I'm very excited about it. And I think you've chosen the right field to communicate because first of all, there's a need and it's growing and it is fun. And well, Matilda, we won't spill the beans too much. You'll be at WISE. I'll be at WISE. Everyone listening, come to WISE. It's going to be fun. I'm going to talk about important stuff. We're going to talk about AI. We're going to talk about music tech.

We're going to talk about investment. That's some things I'm hosting. And... It's funny, it's funny. Like there's so many things happening and you see this as well. Like this is the place to be wise, obviously, but like this industry, it is not something I want to miss out on. Well, Mathilde, thank you for staying and enduring my awkward ending, but I am looking forward to meeting you in person.

Thank you so much. Of course. We'll see that on the panels at wise. Yeah.