301 – Investing in Music – with Justin Longo

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What if there was an easier way for your fans, friends, and family to invest in your music? What if you could diversify your revenue streams to make your music career more sustainable and profitable? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, David passes the mic with MariNation founder & CEO and friend, Justin Longo. Tune in to discover how MariNation is evolving to meet changing demands. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:17 – Returning guest, Justin Longo of MariNation 00:33 – MariNation’s new direction 02:01 – On diversifying revenue opportunities 04:17 – The Music Entrepreneur Triangle 06:34 – Music Entrepreneur HQ’s lens 08:01 – Why do people invest in music and who does it benefit? 09:34 – The constantly changing music industry climate 11:35 – What MariNation is aiming for 13:41 – What has Justin learned from pivoting his venture? 17:13 – Sunk cost fallacy and finding your path 19:39 – Paradoxes in success 21:19 – What tools and resources did Justin rely on while pivoting? 23:41 – Know thyself 35:40 – Elite Players: All Access Pass 37:26 – Closing thoughts Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: The first of its kind – David’s new premium book covering productivity for artists, featuring content from Music Entrepreneur HQ, his personal blog, his many books, and even Start Your Year the Right Way, which is included in its entirety. Be fully unleashed in accomplishing your dreams and desires! Transcription: David: Today I'm chatting with a return guest, the founder of MariNation, Justin Longo. You can hear our previous conversation in episode 243 of the podcast. It's great to connect with you again. Justin. How are you? Justin: I'm excellent, David. Thanks for having me. David: Good to see you again. I know that MariNation has been evolving, and to use a bit of a buzzword, you've made a bit of a pivot recently, but your concept is still centered on music investing so that part hasn't changed. So, what has changed with your app and what do you see coming next? Justin: Yeah, so basically the first direction we were managing artists' money on their behalf, investing in index funds and the general stock market. So, obviously, we didn't pursue that. It was kind of more of an intuitive decision, but we've pivoted into this next direction where we allow fans and investors to invest in music, invest in artists as people, and benefit from their future earnings and future careers. So that's kind of the different direction that we took with it now. David: So, people can invest in pretty much anyone, right? Like Justin Bieber or Rihanna or whoever their favorite popular artist is. Justin: Eventually, that's the direction, right? We want to have the big A players. Obviously, they'd come on for different reasons. Other than like an indie artist or somebody just beginning, right? They would probably want to fund, projects, and studio time, and probably the A-list celebrities and big stars would want to do it more on a fan-to-fan, a fan-to-artist, like engagement, like connection. David: I would definitely think that with mainstream artists if they see that it's a viable opportunity, they would sign up for it. It's not like a super well-known fact, but you can start looking for all the revenue streams for producers, and people assume, “Okay, they're making music, right?” And that's true, but then oftentimes they'll have their own trademark plugin for a DAW, or they'll also have sample packs, or they also have beats. So, they're pretty well diversified. And it's really the same thing for musicians in the sense that people assume they just go out and perform and they make loads of money, right? Or they just release something on Spotify and it helps them make some royalties, which is true. But then you'd be surprised to find that Beyoncé plays the same bar mitzvahs and weddings and birthday par...