FLM: You’ve been recognized as an innovator and leader in the tech space for a while now, what initially led you in that direction?
Eric: Fascination with scale. My first business was a lemonade stand that I started when I was 6-years old. Over the years, I observed the competitive landscape and started perfecting my product and offerings. I then began selling fruit skewers and cookies along with two types of lemonade. I perfected my product and process by the time I was ten years old and had multiple kids in the neighborhood working for me, almost like franchisees. I knew what sold best and I'd deliver the product to kids in the morning, then skateboard over in the afternoon to collect the earnings. I loved building that process and "business". With all that in mind I considered the unique capabilities for scale in the tech space. With tech, you're able to scale globally in the same time it would take to grow a local business. With declining sales and opportunity in the music industry, I always looked for ways to scale any revenue-generating opportunity. I realized that the two best ways for artists to earn the most cash was through live performances and licensing their music for use in television shows, advertisements, film, and video games. When I was 25, I was placing music in commercials at Leo Burnett and a few other agencies. I developed a spreadsheet to organize the artists I represented and what type of music they made. One day, I received a brief that called for hip-hop instrumental music needed in a McDonald's commercial, so I searched through my spreadsheet to decide which of my artists would fit and presented their music to the client accordingly. My client saw my process and asked if he could have access to my “database.” At that moment I realized that if I had an actual database of artists and music, I could work with many different agencies at the exact same time all around the world without me being involved in the process. That's exactly what I put together and it became the world’s largest database of artists pre-cleared for commercial use in over 160 countries.
FLM: What were your 3 key factors to success when launching Music Dealers?
Eric: My brother, artists and a changing, unstable industry. I was lucky enough to have a very odd opportunity arise which led me to rap on a McDonald's commercial. My brother was a financial advisor and planner who knew I was running an unsuccessful music studio out of my apartment, so when he saw I had received significant checks for my rapping, he started asking questions. We learned that the steady flow of checks were from “royalties,” which meant that every time the commercial aired, I got paid. He asked if I could do it again with the same result. When I did my second and third commercial, he said “stop everything else you're doing, this is a real business you're sitting on.” But I wasn't totally convinced, because I so badly wanted to work with and manage artists. Once I placed a few local Chicago artists and saw the overwhelming demand and outreach from more artists, artists who I always looked up to, I knew we truly were on to something. The reason artists were so excited about the new revenue stream was because the industry was in chaos. Digitalization of consumer music consumption gave people endless choice on demand. And with the digitalization of music creation, bedroom artists were able to sound just as good as radio songs resulting in good product flooding the market. Artists needed something that stood for hope in an uncertain world and we were able to achieve that route of opportunity.