SxSW: A New Generation: Creativity and Open Source
For my final session of the day I attended an interview of Ryan Leslie by Matt Mullenweg titled “A new generation: Creativity and Open Source”.
Ryan Leslie graduated from Harvard at 19 and on the forefront of technology and music. Ryan gave us all his cell phone number so we could text him during the session because he’s very in to being open and giving back. “As creators we try to find our way in the dark – we don’t have any concrete data on who’s buying our music”. When his second album was released he wondered by the label couldn’t just email everyone who bought his first album to tell them about his album. The problem is that the labels don’t have that info. So Ryan shares his info with his fans so that he can keep in touch with them. He used the Twilio API to create a tool to reply to text messages he gets asking the sender for their email address.
Ryan decided that he was going to sell records on his own instead of through a label and has made significantly more money that way. When working with the label it’s like the worst business loan that ever. Instead you can use tools like Tilt, Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites to get that loan to start up the business and publish your own records. When you’re able to connect directly with your users you can identify who your real supports are.
Instead of spending money on a tool like salesforce Ryan decided to spend 40 days on CodeAcademy and learned Ruby on Rails and wrote his own tool using Twilio to now gather info on his audience. Before he would just get sales reports from iTunes – once he started selling direct he got a better feel for who it was who was listening to him music. “Everyone you know, whether they buy your album or not, can contribute to your project” – contacts as currency. “It’s beautiful when the communication can be two way”.
Ryan shared a story where he and several other musicians were all together and started coming up with a song together and collaborating on the sound. Matt said this was the story that was the most like open source – where several artists come together to collaborate and build something special together.
Ryan made a very open source comment – some of the most successful solutions are when they solve for a problem they face personally. He wants software that was developed by people like him. He mentioned TopSpin which never really worked for him because he didn’t know who wrote it – or where they came from (life experiences). It comes down to shared experiences – even moving up in the music industry is about the people they know and their relationship equity.
Matt recommended that we all read 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly.
“When creators are inspired they share it” – Ryan Leslie
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