INDmusic, a four-person startup based in Brooklyn that aids indie artists and labels in managing their digital presence, had a big breakout earlier this year by helping Mad Decent monetize Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” on YouTube, claiming copyright to the thousands of fan-generated videos that flooded YouTube and made “Harlem Shake” a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1. Brandon Martinez, INDmusic’s 29-year-old co-founder/CEO, has been actively meeting with potential investors to grow his 20-month-old company. Guy Oseary and Machinima’s Allen DeBevoise are already onboard as angel investors.
8:30 AM The first thing I do every morning is always based on coffee. It’s springtime, so it’s all about cold-brewing iced coffee.
9:30 AMA French documentary crew is in the office to film INDmusic as part of a 30-minute documentary for a series called “Envoye” that airs on France2.fr.
11:30 AM Had a call with Abe Burns, head of digital for Guy Oseary, and SuzAnn Brantner, who runs a social media agency called Conception. She’s been doing some brand management for bands like Swedish House Mafia and we talked about opportunities where we might be able to work together.
12:00 PM Met with Jocelyn Johnson, our publicist and founder of JJPR, to discuss strategy around some recent news. We just announced a partnership with Pledge Music where artists on the Pledge platform can now opt in to INDmusic to help monetize their music on YouTube. I’m also scheduling a couple of speaking engagements in June, including NExT for music entrepreneurs at the Northside Festival here in Williamsburg and a panel at North by Northeast in Toronto.
2:00 PM My co-founder Jon Baltz and I had lunch at Caracas Arepas bar.
3:30 PM We had a meeting with a potential investor. As we’ve been growing, there has been a need for us to infuse some financing into the company so we can hire more people. We’ve had meetings like these at least once a week lately.
5:00 PM Exchanged texts with Kevin Kusatsu, who manages Diplo and has been a big help in our Mad Decent relationship. I wanted to congratulate him on the news of the EDM movie he and Diplo are producing for 20th Century Fox.
6:00 PM Met with a manager that we work with, Jonathan Pardo from Free Association Management. We just signed one of his artists, Milkman, a DJ who got pretty big on YouTube but was having some trouble claiming his name. Travis Hill from our company got his Google+ profile linked up to YouTube, so now when you go to youtube.com/milkman you get his channel.
9:00 PM Met some friends at Nurse Bettie on the Lower East Side. It was a divey burlesque club that played some authentic music from the ’60s called “tittyshakers,” which is exactly what it sounds like-a genre of music based on California surf rock.