Self Representation in the Music Industry: A Conversation with Nick Cianfaglione, founder of Artist Republik.

Nick Cianfaglione is the CEO & Founder of Artist Republik. He has proven himself to be one of the most innovative young entrepreneurs in the industry. His launch of the decentralized networking and management platform has received praise from Forbes, CrunchBase, Grit Daily, All Access, Medium Magazine and more. Now valued at over $5M, the company’s simple yet pioneer-driven premise has caught the eyes of major music industry players like Hopsin as well as top investors David Beirne and Humble Lukanga. Being an early adopter of the entrepreneurship mentality, Nick launched several small entrepreneurial ventures before the launch of Artist Republik. After the loss of his father, he was introduced to the inner workings of the music industry while initiating a charity concert series to raise money for cancer. The series entitled ‘Club For Cancer’ was the catalyst to his prior firm Northeastern Entertainment Solutions, which hosted local, regional and national artists in over fifty different venues across the country. As a student of Rhode Island’s Bryant University, Nick found success in college by launching NES360, a leading fan base growth and marketing company. His experience with NES360 introduced him to working with over 500 clients worldwide; interviews with these artists brought the problematic workings of the music industry to light. As a solution, he launched Artist Republik, an industry-first to widen the opportunity funnel by enabling self-represented music talent and industry stakeholders to sidestep controlling agents, gatekeepers and management when it is simply not necessary.

Kathy Li (BT): One of the first questions I had was what was your earliest exposure to the music industry or how did you get started?

Nick Cianfaglione (NC): So my earliest exposure -- I've been involved since I was in high school actually. I got deeply involved in the music industry when I was a freshman in high school. Actually when I was in eighth grade, I lost my dad to cancer and so at that point I got involved with Relay for Life and my freshman year we needed a way to raise money. And there was a whole music venue in my town, and I was like “guys let's rent it out and throw a  party!” And that's basically what we did. So that was my first exposure to the music industry which was basically during a concert for charity. After that I hosted four more of them and then I was like you know I think this is what I want to do for a living so at that point I opened up my first entertainment company and hosted concerts all across Connecticut, which was my home town until I graduated high school. And then I went off to school at Bryant and got involved with music marketing, and then yeah, that was the genesis journey of my experience in the music industry.

BT: Continuing with questions around your earlier career, could you talk about some of your experiences with startups and what you learned from them?

NC: Yeah! So I’ve had a couple start ups in my life. Obviously, I talk a lot about the music industry side of things. I ran the concert company. I then, you know, grew a marketing company in about nine months, it was the first company that I really grew. I had an apparel company that was a fun thing in high school that my buddy grew. Ended up selling it which was fun. And so I have experience in your lot of smaller small business start-up The first company that really was a company was my entertainment one. And with the entertainment company and the music marketing company, we really got into the weeds with all of that and that was when things really started to grow for me. And going off of there, was where I got involved in Artist Republik. And Artist Republik was a whole new level of startups for me, it was the first first investor funded company I’ve run. It was the first you know company we're done pulling together C-suite of operators and all that stuff. So Artist Republik has really the first big really start up for me.

BT: Following up on that, how has artist Republik evolved over the past years, and what challenges have you faced along the way?

NC: Yeah so Artist Republik actually started out as a data collection link and then we got involved in it and we realized that the data we were trying to collect, we wouldn't be able to collect. And so at that point we started going off these other ideas that we had with the data link. So the first idea was like “let’s have a link that collects the data and gives it to the artist.” But the artists need a portal to log in and access the data so then we started thinking once you can collect the data, we are like “okay let's go off of this portal idea.” What kind of things can we add in this portal? And then we just kind of kept adding and kept adding and then we started realizing like wait woah hold on this isn’t like a data link anymore, this is like a management company. And so I sat back and conducted about 400 interviews with independent artists across the world over a course of 6 months, and that is basically how I built the MVP.  Based on what they're saying these are the systems that we should build, and since then it's evolved. In lack of better terms, there's so many pools like Elite Reviews for example that I would have never even imagined us working on a year ago. So it has really evolved a lot. We are getting into new systems every day, there's new ideas coming up as we go, it's really a constant process of test, iterate, rebuild and repeat. And just because being in an investor funded start-up you have to test, rebuild, iterate, repeat 10,000 times quicker so we just moved very quickly in those cycles.

BT: What’s your opinion on the current music industry in the United States? What do you think is the greatest barrier to the growth of independent artists in the US? 

NC: So my current view on the music industry right now is: it is tiny yet huge at the same time. There are more than a hundred million independent music artists across the world, yet the industry itself only adds about two billion dollars in revenue a year to the global economy. So in the scheme of things -- very tiny in the sense of dollar amounts -- but with tools like artist Republik and these other technology systems coming out that enable people to make more money, that’s gonna be a huge addition to the music industry. Because it is big but small. It is just at the starting phase of growth where you can almost say where Fintech was five years ago. Musictech is very very early on for so many reasons. You know like in accounting where there are prophecies? There are no prophecies. There is no rule book. There is no database of “these are the most successful artists in the world, these are how much money this artist makes.” No one really knows and that's what we are going to start seeing over the next five years. Companies like us being able to aggregate that data, supply that data, and really grow that market.

BT: In what direction do you plan on taking Artist Republik in the near future in order to meet the needs and changing needs of artists?

NC: The biggest thing is adaptability. The biggest thing that I preach to all my employees is agile-ness and adaptability. The music industry changes overnight -- it's probably one of the toughest industries in the world and I always tell people that it'll chew you up and spit you out before you even know what happened. I don't know where Artist Republik is going to be in 5 years……. I have goals of where it’s going to be in five years, but really we want to be a centralized hub for all things music, whether you're an artist, a record label, a manager, you can come, you can use our platform, and you can really build something. Almost like building Artist Republik to the QuickBooks of the industry. We are not here to replace the manager like people thought QuickBooks were going to replace the accountants. We are changing how those people do their jobs. 

BT: Yeah, that is so interesting. And speaking of adapting and changing, what inspired your collaboration with the founder of Elite Review? How do you think Elite Review will add to the existing values Artist Republik is already providing to emerging artists?

NC: Yeah! So the biggest thing is actually kind of like a back story which is: I met Josh who founded Elite Reviews about 6 years ago. I actually booked him for a concert I was hosting in Connecticut, and ever since then, me and him have been friends. I always love saying that story because I always tell people that is the greatest example of why you should never ever ever discount any connection you ever make in life. Because six years ago I would have never thought that you would have come to me with this platform and six years ago if you asked him if I would be running a tech company, he would have laughed in your face. We stayed friends and now we're able to work on this together. So that was the biggest reason that started the collaboration, but when he came to me about it, he said, “Look Nick, I wanna build this platform, but I don't have the ability to code it and build it myself,” and so that was the big piece of why we brought in the Artist Republik network. And going off of that, at Artist Republik we really want to build something that enables users to see things, and we viewed it as there's no other way to help artists exceed, then to help them better their sound.

BT: This one is more of a fun question: every morning, when you wake up, what is one thing about your work that excites you the most?

NC: One thing that excites me the most everyday when I wake up is the unpredictableness of day. Like waking up this morning and being like “Oh my god. I have to get somewhere in a snowstorm and then still have to do work.” And it’s just like, you know, the unpredictability that is so fun.

BT: Now moving to something more serious: what advice would you give to college entrepreneurs who, in your shoes, are also establishing a business based in their interests? 

NC: Do it now. That's my advice. There is no other point in your life where you'll have less risk at starting a business than when you're in college. Because at any point in time if you fail, you have a bed to sleep on and food at the dining hall. No other point in your life will you have a guaranteed bed and a guaranteed piece of food. And people always say, “ohh, you gotta pay yourself…” Yeah, I paid my way through college. I took out loans and stuff like that but exactly, you defer that stuff until you graduate… Try it now. Because after that -- after you graduate -- you’ll always be in debt. You’ll always be busy. There will always be a distraction, so you’ve got to try it now or else you will spend the rest of your life saying how you wanted to try but didn’t.

BT: I see I see. And the last question I have is: who is your favorite artist that you have discovered through Artist Republik?

NC: Ooh! My favorite artist through Artist Republik. That's a good one. To be honest, I couldn't name any off the top of my head at this point, but there's been a good like 30 artists that I've met through this platform that I absolutely love. And that's the other piece I love about my job is being able to meet these people and network with them and help them grow, and talk to them about their careers. That’s definitely one of my favorite pieces of working at Artist Republik.