Quotes from Jack Conte

I mean, when I went to go get a loan as a creator, when I went to get a loan from the bank, I was in escrow for 90 days. The bank wouldn't give me a loan when I tried to buy a house, because they didn't understand how I made money. They said, 'Send us your pay stubs from your job.' I said, ' What are pay stubs?' because I didn't have a job.

I love the idea of creators having leverage and control.

No one talks about the epic failures that we all have.

I usually spend my weekends working on my music and videos.

I think my ear is pretty good, but I don't have formal training so my ear isn't that good. I know when I like a sound.

I work on myself all the time, and I'm constantly trying to learn and falling on my face all the time.

Whether you have a barbershop or you're a local restaurant owner, there's lots of tech for you to understand your business.

I think it was iTunes that first proved that people would spend money to get things they really wanted.

I've started thinking of all my inbox trays almost like a social media feed. I'm not going to get to everything, but if it's really important, I will.

In truth, a label is nothing more than a corporation, and it funds artists. Why couldn't another corporation fund an artist? And instead of having Capitol Records at the bottom of your CD, it says Hyundai. Why not?

There's a tendency for young musicians - I certainly was guilty of this - of wanting to know what they sound like, before making their first record, before releasing things. But I think that's the wrong order of operations. You only find out what you sound like, when you have five records under your belt.

We're hyper-focused on providing the business infrastructure to allow creators to be successful in growing and running their businesses.

Artists deserve more than a check cut in half eight times by publishers.

In a perfect world, art and commerce, I think, could be in vacuums and coexist in full purity.

Concentrate on making beautiful things. Everything else will follow.

I want creators quitting their part-time jobs and being creative for a living.

The epic failures make up the journey along the way to getting the wins.

There's a history of artists being taken advantage of, and artists have to keep criticizing and keep skepticism at a high level. I think that's mission critical. Artists have to be educated, and choose wisely and watch platforms carefully.

Know your goals - it will help guide your decisions.

The problem that we're solving is: You're a creator, and you're reaching thousands of people, or hundreds of thousands or millions of people, and you're not getting paid, you don't have a monthly paycheck. What we're not is a distribution platform. We're not a place to find brand new fans if you don't have an audience yet for your work.

Patronage is a very old phenomenon that's occurred in people and in society for thousands of years. It stems from an emotional response to someone's art. It's a feeling of responsibility and importance and a desire to be a part of what they're making.

What I will say about crypto and NFTs in general is I really love the idea of creators owning their media and owning their content.

I've dealt with a record label in the past.

Unless you've given up your business to a record label, there's no such thing as just being a musician anymore.