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In this episode of the Producer Life Podcast I talk about two related issues: how to determine your Minimum Viable Product as a DJ and a producer, and how you can use the Musical Turing Test to help determine if you’re there with your production.  I’ll also talk about the importance of using metrics to drive your decision making and finally give you a cool new marketing idea for your tracks on Spotify.

You’ll Learn

• What your MVP might look like as a DJ and producer
• How to use my “Musical Turing Test” to give you an idea if your music is ready (Pro tip: Make sure to select people you know will be honest with you!)
• What are Spotify Cards and how to use them to promote your music on the platform

Resources

• Spotify Cards – free and only takes two-minutes to create!
• Heroic Hump Day House Party playlist

Transcript

What’s up Heroes, welcome to the Producer Life Podcast episode 45.  In this episode I’m going to talk about two related issues I’m wrestling with as a producer and DJ: what’s my MVP… no not Most Valuable Player… Minimum Viable Product and how you can use the Musical Turing Test to help determine if you’re there yet.  I’ll also talk about using metrics to help determine the best use of your time as a musician.  Finally, I’ve got a cool new marketing tip for your music at the end of the show.

But first, cue the intro music.

2021 is going to bring some big life changes for me. I’m still not sure quite which way things are headed, but music will remain a big part of it and my plan (pandemic willing) is to start doing shows in-person once a vaccine is broadly available. 

Which brings me to my first point about knowing your Minimum Viable Product, or MVP. An MVP is like a business hypothesis… it’s having a basic product with core features that you can release to a small group of customers to ensure there’s a market for your product and to get feedback and improve.   

What I’m trying to ensure is that I’m at that point with my producing, DJing, and branding and ready to play out once the pandemic is largely under control.   So what does MVP look like for a producer/DJ?

If you’re looking to play club gigs, you need 2-3 times as much music as your longest planned set, you have to have some basic mixing skills, you need a name,  website, social media, and a mailing list. The producer part is a little more thorny.  How do you know when your music is “good enough?” Do you need a certain number of followers? A certain number of streams?  

One way you might be able to test this is through something I’ve dubbed a“musical Turing test.”   The Turing Test was originally developed by Allan Turing to test Artificial Intelligence, and the gist of it was that you would have a person and a computer answering questions in a remote location. If a human judge can’t tell the difference between the two, you’ve attained true artificial intelligence.   I’ve adapted that concept for producers. Get a group of friends together, preferably more casual listeners who don’t know every song and artist in your genre. Then put a mix together of 10 songs and a few of your strongest tracks in.  Number the tracks and tell them when you’re playing which track (ie. This is track one, this is track two).  Ask them to try and identify your tracks from the commercial tracks. If at the end of the mini-set they can’t do that… … you’ve reached MVP for your music.  I tried this about four years ago and failed. My extended family was able to pick out my tracks without too much difficulty but I’ve come a long way since then.   While I haven’t repeated my musical Turing test,  I’ve had three tracks selected by ill.gates for mixtape compilations over the last couple of years… so if a major artist is willing to attach his name and brand to a few of my tracks, I feel like at least a few of my tracks meet an “MVP” threshold.   I need more though and I realize there’s plenty of room for improvement. Ultimately, I’d like my sets to feature more of my songs and mashups… and my music is my most important product. 

I want to play club gigs, and ultimately festivals, and so as I look at where I am today I’ve got all of that set up in a basic way. Check, check, check.

However, I also have a concept for a live performance that I want to try for small to medium size venues that also offer food, or perhaps even upscale asian restaurants which match my branding.  This is where it gets a little more complicated… because now I need all of the above plus the right gear such as microphones, speakers, cables, lights etc.  Additionally, the show I’m envisioning combines not only a DJ show but also an edu-tainment pre-show looking at music production and genres, so now there’s scripting, branding, and rehearsals for that portion of the show too. 

So where am I in terms of that? I’ve got most of the gear, although I’m lacking subs… which may be OK for a small venue where my QSC K12.2s are fine by themselves. It may be enough to test the concept without investing thousands in the subs.  I’ve got a rough script, but I’ve never tried it out in front of anyone. I need a lot of practice on that pre-show element to make it flow.  I’d also like to launch an online course along with the show, but aside from lots of notes I’ve taken over the years I’m nowhere near that goal.

You may be thinking, “Why not just focus on playing clubs and small venus and keep it simple at first?” Two reasons. First, that’s the same market everyone else is going after and I want to have something unique to offer.  Second, I think the live show I’m planning will ultimately allow me to ask a higher price from the venue, sell more merchandise, and eventually market a course… all of which may make DJing a viable career rather than just an expensive hobby.  That’s the theory.

Which leads me to metric driven decisions. I just hit episode 24 of the weekly livestream, the Heroic Hump Day House Party, so I’ve been doing it for six months now. I realized I hadn’t dug into the numbers in a while, and it’s consuming a lot of my time.   I spend several hours each week selecting and preparing music, editing videos and updating the backgrounds, rehearsing the set, performing the set, cleaning up the audio mix for Mixcloud, and saving my best combinations of songs out as Ableton Live Set files for future use.

Between that and this podcast, I haven’t had as much time to produce music and no time to work on the pre-show element of my live performance or my course. Which makes me wonder: am I making the best use of my limited time? That’s where the numbers come in.

My livestream has given me an incredible opportunity to practice DJing and it’s forced me to regularly prepare music and perform it while simultaneously VJing in a limited way.  Particularly while the pandemic is going on, I’m going to continue livestreaming because it’s great practice… but I’m wondering if weekly is too much.  

So what’s the state of my livestream today?  I use Restream.io to broadcast out to Twitch, YouTube, Dlive, Trovo, Periscope.  I have practically nobody watching me on Dlive, Trovo, or Twitch.   Periscope has been my biggest success (aside from Facebook, which I stopped streaming to in August after it looked like they were about to crack down on DJs performing there). Over the last 19 shows I’ve done on Periscope, I’ve had 504 views averaging about 27 people per show. That’s split pretty evenly between live and replay.  I’m also seeing some engagement there, with 354 hearts most of which occurred by live watchers.  Unfortunately, despite the number of views and hearts that hasn’t translated into many subscribes which is odd. 

YouTube, in contrast, has been my biggest success for post-show viewing. I rarely have anyone watching live, but I’m averaging about 60 replays for each performance.  That sounds great, until I look at watch time and engagement. Most people watch for a little over a minute, and I haven’t received nearly as much engagement on YouTube as I do on Periscope. 

So, after digging into the numbers I think it may be time in December to back off the livestreams a bit.  I may shift to a monthly performance so I can refocus on the music production and preparing this unique live show I have in mind.  I realize the algorithms prefer weekly content… but I just don’t think the numbers justify the amount of time I’m spending.

What’s this mean to you? Well, make sure you’re regularly digging into the numbers on your platforms and ensuring your making efficient use of your time. We’ve only got so much time in each day, and if you want to be successful you have to be willing to say “no” to some things in order to say “yes” to others.   In this episode I gave you an example of my decision to trim back on my livestreaming, but it’s important in every decision.  Which social media platforms should you invest the most time in? Which cities should be your anchor points on a tour?  Which Facebook ads are performing… and which are not?  One of the beautiful things about this age we live in is the amount of data that’s available for free to us as musicians.  But it’s only useful if you use it. 

I wanted to wrap up with a quick, actionable marketing tip.    Spotify recently launched their free “promo cards” for artists. It’s super simple and fast.  Just go to https://promocards.byspotify.com/ and click “get started.”   The site will walk you through creating a custom card based on your artist name, an album, or a song which can then be shared on social media or downloaded as a graphic.  After selecting the artist, album or song you can adjust size and colors.   You’ll then be presented with a sharable link or an option to download the file.  Super easy!  Give it a shot, I’ll have a link in the shownotes.

If you found this show useful please share it with your friends, and don’t forget to leave a rating and review wherever you’re listening. Until next week, this is the House Ninja reminding you to be someone’s Hero today.