Turning Up the Volume on a New Blockchain Use Case

It’s hard enough to earn a living as a musician. Throw in a multi-year pandemic, and it became even harder. But what if you could earn your future revenue – today? In this episode, Ed sits down with the co-founder and CEO of Labelcoin, Mark Miller, to discuss how his startup has become the Robinhood for the music industry by stamping out artistic poverty through  blockchain technology.  

Featuring guest Mark Miller, co-founder and CEO of Labelcoin. 

 

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
And as we started working alongside further, we started thinking more about, “Okay, how do we help artists not just survive covid, but actually become stronger on the other side. Like we set up for their next success?” And that's when he, he shared this idea that he had initially for athletics, and he, it's like, what if we bring this to artists? What if we can somehow securitize music? If we can forecast what an artist will make over their career, bring it forward to the present and let people invest in it. And I was like, oh man, this is really, really interesting.
Welcome to SHI’s Innovation Heroes, a podcast exploring the people and businesses making a difference in our constantly disrupted world. I'm your host, Ed McNamara.
The music industry took a huge financial hit over the course of the pandemic. And I'm not talking about the Beyonces or the Bruce Springsteens of the music world. I'm talking about the thousands of musicians who rely on touring and live gigs to earn their living. It's hard enough in normal times to make money in music. Add those two years of lockdowns, and it's even harder, if not impossible.
But what if I told you that my next guest has made it possible for musicians to bring years worth of future earnings to the present, and that he's doing it through Web3 technology.
Hello and welcome back to Innovation Heroes. I'm your host, Ed McNamara. Today I'm speaking with Mark Miller, former recording artist turned co-founder and CEO of Labelcoin the self-proclaimed Robinhood for Music. Labelcoin is a revolutionary song exchange platform that lets fans invest in the next big song and allows artists to sell digital streaming royalties so they can earn their future revenue now. Mark's here to tell me how his startup is ushering a new era for the music industry by creating unique blockchain opportunities for artists and investors alike. This episode traces Mark's heroic journey from SOA music artist to co-founder of a music startup on a mission to stamp out artistic poverty. Mark, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for joining us today.

(00:35):
Thank you, Ed. It's awesome to be here.
To start things off, can you tell me a bit about your journey from solo music artists to starting a national booking agency?
Right. It kind of feels like the national transition for where artists tend to end up on the back end at some point, right? But when I started as an artist coming outta college in 2005 is when I first started trying to make my money that way. I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I'd gone to Nashville, recorded an album with a guy there, I went there thinking I was the best guitar player I knew, and then I went there and I realized, oh, I'm like the worst guitar player, like in this entire city of Nashville. And this is like learning how do we make money? How do we do this? How do we build a career out of this? And so it was a long journey. Uhm, you know, it took me to, I spent a year in Japan as an artist in residence.
Uhm, did a lot of house shows, small venues, and just kind of tried to work my way up and, and build and grow. And then met my wife in 2009. And then in 2010 on our honeymoon, she told me she wanted to quit her job and join me in music full-time. And I said, okay, that's awesome. A, and B, we need a new business plan. And so, that's how we got started together. So we became an indie pop duo. And because I was working part-time at a recording studio too and doing a show, I was probably making 2000 a month on average, you know, and just, squeaking by. And so we had learned about the college market and about how there's, you know, colleges hire for their student activities, with fees, and artists to come perform. And it's a very hidden niche market and has been for a while, but it's places where, I mean, people like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan did this, you know, that's where they got their start absolutely.
For many of them and got into that next area. And, uhm, yeah, Andy Graham, on a more recent note, that's where we were going up. We've learned from one of our friends who had done the college market how to get into it and find this world. And, and from that we were able to tour colleges for about five years and grew our income up to making by the end $120,000 a year. And we're like, “Hey, this is great! We're doing it!” And then we had our second child and decided to get off the road after freshly moving to Nashville and to help other people do what we did. And initially we thought, how hard can it be? Like we've never hit more than 3000 followers and we're making six figures now doing this. Like, right. Surely, like it's not gonna be that hard to get five artists doing what we were doing, you know, at a 20% commissions on normal in the college world.
So we signed some really amazing artists, some great YouTubers, and you know, people just, just came off the voice and friends of ours. And we discovered pretty quickly that the college market wasn't actually as big as we thought it was, and that we were actually one of the most booked acts in that space. And so we had to learn how to shift pretty quickly because it's shocking to me as we started working with these artists that, you know, had great runs on shows like The Voice or American Idol and had hundreds of thousands, or even millions of listeners and followers that many of them were having the same struggles that we had early on where we were having to work second or third jobs to try to survive. And still figuring out how do we make that next step of making this a living that's consistent.

(01:00):
And so that was kind of the, the journey of learning. How do we, and it kind of stepped into more artist development and artists be able to craft their careers to build their teams to know how to do those next steps and way more than just booking. And so we launched the agency 2016, and by 2019 we were voted the College Agency of the Year, which was pretty awesome. And our artist won awards like Entertainer of the Year, Female Artist of the Year, band of the Year that year. So it was, it was a good run.
That is impressive. And I know you have to be brave to take the dive in to do what you do, but you remember the economic climate in 2010 when your wife came to you, and said, “I'm gonna quit my job and do this full-time”. Like you had to take a pause right there and be like, “It's been kind of a crazy two years from ’08 to 2010”, right?
Yeah, yeah, 100%! No, I was fairly naive to the financial world at that point. And so, you know, I didn't have a lot of, of savings going into, into Wall Street in 2008. So, but yeah, it was, it was crazy and I didn't know what I didn't know. I just knew that I need to figure it out and, but it was exciting too because I'm like, I knew this is what we were meant to do and to get to partner on it together, it really elevated us to that next level.
So, and I think it's important because as a startup you can't have failure on your mind, right? So I want you to take me for the booking agency to co-founding a startup. What inspired the idea for Labelcoin and how did that all come about?
Yeah, man, it was that like, you know, in the music industry when Napster started, it really shook everything up, right? All of a sudden CD sales, that was the, the, when they started to decline and people were making tons of money off mechanical realties, the amount that you pay every time a CD is printed? You know, and all those other kind of elements. And so Napster started to take the first ding into that. And then when Spotify really made it legal and mainstream, those revenue models really dropped and shows would be the way that you survived. And so that led into a lot of the challenges we were seeing with artists that they were having a hard time. And the whole industry as a whole was trying to figure out what do we do? Like how do we adjust to this new thing?

(01:22):
And it started swinging up, right? And I'll kind of get to that upswing, but that took us up to, you know, 2020 when it was supposed to be our first year actually being profitable as an artist agency. You know, things were looking really great, had a lot of awesome shows on the books, and then everything's canceled. And, you know, colleges are pretty much the last thing to reemerge from all the intensity. Even when we did first have shows, they were putting up stanchions, where the students would have to be 30 feet back from the stage and the artist still had to wear a mask while singing into a microphone. And it's like, this makes zero sense at all. And you know, it's gonna affect the sound quality. It's not protecting anybody. That's what they're 30 feet in between there. But you know, that's what was being handed down by the higher ups above who, you know, want policy for everything.
And so it was just, we were in that environment, it was extremely damaging. And my co-founder of my new company Labelcoin, Chad Petterson, was on Wall Street in 2008 and he was an investment banker and then he worked in the VC space and he lost his job in 2008 with a lot of people and actually started a nonprofit called Wall Street Exodus to help people who had their lives devastated, get back on their feet, and ran that for a number of years. Uh, long story short, ends up moving to Nashville, uh, to take on a CFO job for a studio. And so he's in Nashville now running other nonprofits when Covid hits, when 2020 comes. And then he sees, you know, Nashville Music City with tens of thousands of people losing their jobs, losing their livelihoods. And he says, “Man, I don't know much about music, but this looks a whole lot like Wall Street for the music industry back in two, 2008”.
So he is like, um, well I could start a nonprofit. So that's what he did, called Hope 20. He got a, a rather large grant and then was just trying to figure out, okay, what's the best way to really serve artists? So that's how we got connected as a mutual friend of ours said, “Hey, Mark can help you with some of this stuff”. That's how we got connected. And as we started working alongside further, we started thinking more about, okay, how do we help artists not just survive covid, but actually become stronger on the other side? like we set up for their next success? And that's when he shared this idea that he had initially for athletics. And he, he’s like, “What if we bring this to artists? What if we can somehow securitize music, if we can forecast what an artist will make over their career?
Bring it forward to the present and let people invest in it?” And I was like, “Oh man, this is really, really interesting”. And so as I just started sitting with and thinking with them more, I'm like, “Hey, what would happen if we actually, if we take this concept focus on songs specifically that are easier to value, less risk for everybody, and less commitment for an artist. You know, they're not having to lock up their whole life right now trying to value it somehow, but really focusing on songs and then making that investible to the average fan and building it upon blockchain technology that was now available to us?” And he said, “Man, that sounds great. I don't know a lot about blockchain or the music industry, but if you do, let's go!” So he brought all his acumen from Wall Street, and then I brought up what I knew from being an artist and then an artist agency and running with everything that people tackle in that space. And then my first call to our third co-founder, final co-founder was to John Platillero who literally built the first music SaaS platform called eventbooking.com, which he had just sold that year. And so it was just, it was a great timing all around to kinda the perfect storm of something that we really believe will fundamentally change the music industry and lift tens of thousands of people out of poverty.
You know, it's funny that you mentioned Napster because I was researching for this episode, I saw that September was the 20th anniversary of the liquidation of Napster. Like, so it was always the two months ago was the 20th anniversary, 20 years down the road, are artists still living with that legacy of Napster and what it did. And you know, I look at Napster and I see that the people who were getting the music. You know, they're like, oh, Napster's like the Robinhood of the music consumer. It's like, wait a minute! Like Robin Hood's supposed to rob from the rich and give to the poor. Right? There's this whole other segment where that's not what was happening, right?

(01:45):
Yeah. And you know, when you're an artist, most artists do not have good business sense. And that was my case for sure too. And many of us believe that, the idea that, hey, just the more exposure the better, you know? And it's like, well actually that's not gonna end up paying your bills. And you really need to have something that's equitable. You know, where music gets valued and where people's work is valued, that's how you get the best work. And so to your question, we really are starting to see our swing out of it. It was a massive shift. It was pretty devastating. But also whenever something’s destroyed, there's opportunity to build. Right? Right. And so it actually ended up really laying a, I think a better framework and groundwork in a lot of ways. Uh, that moved us into where we are now and we're seeing a massive swing back in the music economy.
You know, digital streaming. I mean, Spotify has shared their numbers pretty publicly. So back in 2020 they paid out $5 billion to creators, but just last year, 2021, that number is up to $7 billion. Uhm, and Goldman Sachs just released a report just a number of months ago, where they're estimating that music streaming alone is gonna make up, I think it was $34 billion by 2030, if I'm remembering my numbers correctly. And so it's definitely, I think an exciting time. It's opening up those doors and lots of other ways and people are starting to recognize to the importance I think, of valuing work that's being done and there's better legislation being created around it. We're finally getting stuff brought up to speed more and more. I mean, it's still not great, but it's definitely improving and more and more people will be able to make a living off doing what they're made to do.
Absolutely. So your mission as we're talking about it now, is to end artistic poverty. Right. So I have a question about an artist relationship to hardship and pain and what it contributes to the creative process. Like so much of the world's great art like comes from that place. What are your thoughts? Is like, is it possible to go too far and say, well, some of that, like when you were talking about, you know, really getting started, you know, from a management perspective in 2009, 2010, and I'm sure there was some hardship that, is there any concern that removing too much hardship means it's gonna affect the art in some way?
I love that. I love that question. That's awesome. There's plenty of pain. You know, I think taking away the financial hardship is not gonna, uh, if anything, great improvement because what's happening right now, for the vast majority, you know, right now they, the estimate is 98% of music creators in the US make below federal minimum wage for their work. So that's, there's only 2% making even minimum wage, not even talking about a living wage. And so right now people are working their jobs all day long, then they're trying to create at 7:00 PM and go into the studio and make something that's actually meaningful and powerful. And you know, that's definitely not your best time to really think and ponder the mysteries of life. You know, there's, there's, all we have to do is look at, you know, the celebrities that are unfortunate enough to make the news in these ways, to know that there's hardship and heartbreak no matter how much money you make, no matter how successful quote unquote “You are”. You know, and I think it's artists' jobs to help people understand and be able to navigate those storms in their life by putting words to their feelings, putting songs to their feelings that help people be able to know that they're not alone and to help give guidance into that space.
Yeah. And, and I completely agree with you because you look at authors and musicians and there's art coming from every socioeconomic class, the question is, how do you put in your 10,000 hours of practice on, on some, to become expert on something when you're working two jobs and have almost no energy to get back to it, right? So I think the gift of time has gotta be a huge contribution to these artists as well.

(02:10):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, there's a lot of great art that's made from other emotions such as joy and gratitude, and fun. Yeah. Yeah. Which is great. I think maybe we'll get more happy songs.
Awesome. So the name Labelcoin is immediately, you know, reminiscent of Bitcoin and maybe purposefully so how does Labelcoin leverage web3 technology to be the Robinhood of music?
Yeah, that's a great question. So it's definitely evolving over time from we first began to where we are now and kind of the roadmap for all the ways we integrate. I see it in our current iteration where more like a web 2.5 and intentionally so. When we first started out, I had been getting pretty deep into the, the crypto space and you know, I was mining. Yeah, and then investing it and figuring out what's the best stuff out there and seeing all the things that people were creating, the way they're doing yields and creating their own tokens and the ICOs. I'm like, it's obviously working. Like how do we take all these different elements and apply them to this on top of all like just the basic economics of the music industry, and thankfully I got, uhm, pretty quickly when we launched, brought on some excellent blockchain consultants called Rewired One.
And man, they've been in the space for a number of years and built, you know, blockchains for governments, worked in regulation and they just really helped steer us clear from a lot of potential landmines that ended up being proven landmines that you see everybody stepping on right now, you know, the whole crypto space? Uh, you know, depending on when this airs, I think we're two weeks, uh, into FTX has blow up and filing for bankruptcy and we know that the whole cycle things have been happening, uhm, with yield and so, so thankfully we avoided a lot of that. So the way that we're using blockchain technology right now is really on the transparency side specifically and the smart contracts for ease of paying out royalties. So royalties and transactions on chain and that ownership on chain showing that. But even then, it's only within our network and our app. So people will be able to buy and sell song shares, which we call notes for those digital streaming royalties. And so they'll be able to do that all within our app, buy, sell, trade, and earn right there and all based on real world value, like what's getting paid out by the digital service providers like Spotify and Apple Music. So they get a share in those royalties. So we're not basing the value on speculation or rarity, which there are some fun things that are happening there. You know, it's kind of an exciting space in some ways and then devastating space at times, like right now. Uhm, but that's really what we're building it around while also creating a foundation for knowing what the future is gonna be. Cause the truth is, there's some cool stuff and music NFTs right now. There's, there's fun things happening, but the only ones investing are not them fans of that artist. They are crypto enthusiast people that are investing into the blockchain space as a whole and you're not reaching your fans. And typically it's the people that either are lucky or wealthy, uhm, that get to invest in people early on. And we wanted to create something that's fully fractionalized so that uhm, no matter how popular a song gets when an artist gets the average fan with 10 bucks can still invest in that song and be a part of it. And so that's how we've structured it. And when we get into phase two, we will start having a lot more NF tie-ins. Like right now the notes are tokenized, but they are fungible tokens, uhm, meaning they all have the same value versus having two NFTs that of the same song. But one could be a totally different value than another. But we will be creating a, an aggregated NFT marketplace in phase two where people will be able to sh, wherever they have their music NFTs, they can have them under that one profile on Labelcoin where people can find them easily. And we're also working on, uh, being able to mint our own fts that are tied to song ownership and other elements for things such as meet and greet passes, getting into merch discounts, lots of different avenues for rewarding fans and also just for status and things like that prove, “Hey man, I was thinking of the first one to discover Ed Sheeran and back when he was playing house shows”, you know, that kind of thing. And then we plan to get into the concert world and making concerts investible to fans and basically treating them as promoters, which will obviously include NFT concert tickets as a fundamental necessity. So there's a lot of, of things further along the roadmap, but the average fan base is not ready yet to engage and download a meta mask wallet and figure out like, how to do that, how to resell their shares on OpenSea or whatever marketplace they want to choose. And so we had to make something that was really accessible right now using this technology that benefits us the most while making it, yeah, powerful and effective that really ends artistic poverty in our current state.
You know, I hate as a Gen X-er, I, I don't like the labels that everybody puts in it, “Well that generation likes that”, you know, has that attitude and “This generation has..”, I'm like, I think people have had generally the same attitudes, you know, for forever. And then at different ages you exhibit those and the other generation judges you on them, you know? But I'm just kinda curious with millennials getting the label that they like, experiences over commodities. Right? Are you finding that there's a real audience for investors there who are much more interested in investing in an experience? Like what music is, you experience music, right? Are you finding that to, to hold true?
Yeah, 100%! And our hope is that we're kind of marrying the two together. Right? Because right now, you know, savings in the US are I think an all time low. People really are not thinking that far ahead into the future. And it's kind of the expectation and thing that we're, we're presented with a lot of opportunities right now and where people are just engaging. And so if we give them some fun experiences that can also help them pave away from their future, even as an investor, then you know, that's, that's a really exciting combination. That it's not just about artistic poverty for the artists, but hey, can we actually help, uhm, create really good asset classes that, that raise the wealth and the lifestyle of everyone that's involved in the project and the world. And so we see other verticals coming out of it too for other spaces and other countries. And so artistic poverty is where we're starting, but we're trying to recognize like how do we help lift up everybody and how do we contribute to what's happening? And there's a lot of great people doing awesome things, so how do we just be a, a piece of that that helps to encourage and enable more people to use their ideas to lift others outta poverty?

(02:35):
It's really great cause I'm always, I've always marveled at artists who are the first ones to say, “Yeah, we're gonna play at a fundraiser”. You know, and sometimes I've looked at that artist and I'm like, man, I, that you are the most giving person because you're kind of trying to get by now living in, you know, all of our cities. You know, when Bob Dylan was in Greenwich Village, it did not cost what it lives, it's what it does now to live in Greenwich Village. You know, so it's, uh, they're, they're always the first ones to step forward. Really cool to see.
Web3 is the next big internet wave and its goal is to democratize and decentralize the worldwide web through different use case applications, much like what Mark is doing with Labelcoin. But I was curious to know if there are other companies trying to do what Labelcoin is doing for the music industry and how Mark and his team are doing it differently.
And I'm curious, are there any other companies out there doing what you do? And if so, what makes Labelcoin different?
Yeah, there are a few trying to tackle it. Nobody trying to do it the way that we are? So some of them are going after, making it kind of a scarcity like, uh, a collectible NFT that there's a hundred available or a thousand available, whatever that could be. Which then of course you're limited again to the wealthy or the lucky to be a part of that. Most of them right now, and there aren't that many, but most of them are doing it through NFTs and issuing a set number of NFTs. And I think that I can't, you know, judge their motives. But if I were to guess, I think one of it is because it's an easier way to, to do it and to potentially skirt SEC regulation, which I don't think will work in the long run. I hope the SEC gives NFTs passes and create some good uhm, abilities there. But I wouldn't count on it. All of our songs are registered securities with the SEC, so we're going through that process for reggae plus with our broker dealer, the Dalmore Group. And so that's really important. There are, I think, two others that I'm aware of that are also going through a regulated uhm, manner. And then a lot of them are also just having to do it from hand selecting artists and just making it very, you know, three to five at a time basically that they're choosing and it's not scalable at all. And some of them are out also just buying the, the rights up front versus making a marketplace and then they're reselling those rights and making a profit on that as the middleman. So really what makes us different is 1, being fully fractionalized, so that there's no cap on how many investors can be part of it and they're able to invest a very low amount. Also the experience of it all being within the app so they don't have to use other third-party services and learn how to use uh, a meta law for example. We price in, in whatever their, their currency is from their country versus pricing in ETH or another cryptocurrency like that, which is so volatile. So if I'm an artist and I list it at 3 ETH and then that price crashes 50% in a week or two all of a sudden from something that happened, like what just happened, then all of a sudden I was expecting to earn say, you know, $10,000 and now I'm getting five. So those kind of elements to you. So, and then we just like the features we're really trying to, we've been building for a year and a half. We haven't rushed the things, we haven't rushed to putting out a minimal viable product so to speak, because we feel like it's really important to think through everything as much as possible with as many people as possible, to try to cover every single possible red flag and have a robust product that's secure and that'll be here for years to come if we just pop up real quick, make some money and people are investing? You know, that's just, I feel like a, a terrible human being cause we deal other people's livelihoods in their long-term assets and their savings. And so it's gotta be something that's sustainable and that's set up for long-term success. So another thing that we're doing that's really unique with our first launch is the song mutual funds, which we call curated collections. And essentially instead of just investing into one song, you can invest into a whole suite of songs that are chosen by a tastemaker such as a playlist or just a super fan that knows how to pick the next great song, or it could be a venue or label or you lots of different avenues where people that they curate these songs are gonna do well and then people can trust their taste and invest into that. And the curator for the first time can actually make income from that cause they earn 5% of the royalties generated from that collection. And so we really wanted to see how do we help support not just the artist but everybody that's part of this, of the music ecosystem, how do we make this a win for everybody? And so, curated collections was one of our answers to that.
It's pretty interesting because if you're a curator and you know there are things you can do to promote your own investment, therefore the songs that you're invested in. I hadn't considered that, but you know, now we're getting into, in a whole influencers market where they can kind of actually put their money where their mouth is, you know, on an investment and growing that, right?

(03:00):
Yeah, precisely. Yeah. Which is a great benefit for artists too, who, you know, marketing's typically been always a challenge that most artists hate doing. I've met very few that actually love to market their music. You know, but making it something that where people can earn from it and that they benefit not just from the music itself but from their belief in it is pretty exciting.
So this is a fantastic use case for blockchain technology and I'm wondering if you, you think it could expand into other creative mediums, you know, for fine artists, indie filmmakers, you know, and anything else? What are your thoughts there?
Absolutely. So we actually just went through a, a corporate restructuring to, to set us up for that exact scenario. And so we do plan to create other verticals cuz it just makes sense, right? Once you build a platform that works, uhm, who else can benefit from this? So whether that's books, a TV film, you know, going into, there's a lot of just creator economy spaces, but even into more traditional spaces such as agriculture or athletics. And so those are all avenues that we are actively exploring.
Yeah. I'm kind of putting myself in your shoes and wondering if you thought you'd be sitting here one day talking about corporate restructuring of the, uh, of the company that you're a CEO of. So no, I guess, I guess..
It's not two years ago, that's for sure. Yeah, Yeah!

(03:25):
So now I guess it's a good time to ask you to, of what you remember, what were the challenges you faced as you were launching and and how did you overcome them? And I'll say, what was the most satisfying hurdle that you had to clear?
Yeah, I mean it's daunting, right? I think it's why it hasn't been done before. It is because, it is a very big task to think through all the different possibilities, all the ripple effects, all the convoluted mess that is the music industry, especially along the royalty side and monetization. And so it, it's a lot of building the right team and the right partnerships and it's been really, yeah, I'm, I've been kind of in awe of the way that the last 20 years in the music industry has really helped prepare me for being able to do what I'm doing now, that I could never have planned. I'm not that good of a strategist, but just the network of people that I trust and that trust me. And then our networks of people that I'm like, okay, these are, people of integrity, people of brilliance, and there's fear. They're doing it really well and they’re bringing all their unique gifts to the table. So that's been pretty amazing. I'd say the biggest hurdle for me was, you know, that first investment, uh, of funding besides our, you know, our co-founder cash coming in and so that felt pretty great to clear that first round and be like, okay. And, and then I, and I got thrown in, of course Chad was very comfortable with the whole fundraising space and you know, talking about the rounds from your angel investment pre-seed, seed, series A, series B, you know, all the, is it your valuation pre-money, post money, and then how much are you asking for and how's this, the share structure and, shareholders agreements and all these things that I knew nothing about two years ago that now I'm, you know, I, I’m definitely way more comfortable since having these conversations almost every day for the last year and a half, uhm, with loss of people, and many pitches.
That was a, definitely a big one. Learning how does that world work and navigating that space alongside while pushing every other thing forward, you know, from, it's not just the development of an app, which in and of itself is a big deal, but we have amazing development team there. But just the whole legal side of it, this and making sure that you're covering, when you're doing something new that has so many, so much prior legislation and case law around it. Uh, there's a lot to take in, a lot to figure out. I mean, right now we're literally engaging three law firms at the same time and two CPA firms to like, to cover all of those different spaces in all those areas of expertise that are needed. And it's just, you know, it's, it's mind blowing to me. And so I hope that we can continue to improve that legislation to make it better for innovation in the future. And there are some really great legislators right now, especially ones in such in Tennessee, Wyoming, but others that are really looking to improve the process.
So, we've got multiple law firms and accounting firms. And you're married with two kids at home. Do you still pick up the guitar every day?
Not every day, but more than I used to. Yeah, that's a good. We just, we just met today. But I feel known, uh, when I started the artist agency, man, I think I almost immediately, it was so much work and not knowing how to balance that new startup and trying to make it work that I lost my calluses. That's how bad I got from going from playing all the time, you know, hours per day to after a few years realizing I had picked it up less than 10 times and that was pretty crazy. So I'm starting to build them up again. We just start doing it more, but just within the family with my wife and kids, and yeah, we love to just sing together, you know, and we have people over from our community just for like, worship nights and things like that, which are just fun. So a little bit of co-writing again, so I've missed that. So starting to co-write with other artists again just for fun and keep that going.

(03:50):
Well, I suspect the, if the actual calluses are gone, you've replaced them with figurative ones elsewhere, you know, from your business acumen. So somebody who's reported to a CEO of a startup for 20 plus years now, I know that there's other skills there that are definitely being developed every minute of every day. For anyone who wants to know more about you and Labelcoin, where's the best place for them to go and how should they find you?
Yeah, you can find us at Labelcoin and basically all the major social networks and Labelcoin.io is our website, so people wanna sign up. The artists can join our wait list right now, get into our beta before our launch, our soft launch in February, official launch down at South by Southwest in Austin and March. So I'd love to have them come meet us there, come to Labelcoin House. Yeah, I'd love to see him on the socials and, and share around, so.
Awesome. Mark Miller, CEO and Co-founder of Labelcoin. Thank you so much for joining us here, today.
Ed, thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.
There are an infinite number of ways blockchain technology can be leveraged to make people more money without having to lift a finger. Mark and his team saw a unique opportunity to help artists in need by combining web3 technology with music making creativity. If this isn't the stuff of heroic innovation, I don't know what is. I'm glad companies like Labelcoin exist and I hope we start to see more of these kinds of efforts in the web3 world to wheel technology for the greater good.

(04:15):
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