Slicethepie Answers Your Questions

After a brainstorming session on the Slicethepie forum, members put together a list of questions they wanted to ask Slicethepie HQ.   True to form, Piewatch put those very questions to Slicethepie and recieved a reply back from Slicethepie CEO and founder, David Courtier-Dutton!  So sit back, press play on the ‘Discovery Player’ on the right and enjoy!

Special thanks to the following members for their input;
SpoiltVictorian, soundozone, Atom Crewz, Melissa, Steve81, theArchitect, Ninja and  Kinetic X

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Piewatch - Hi Slicethepie! 26 artists financed, and over 3.5 million scout reviews! Sounds like it’s going well?

Slicethepie - Hi Piewatch! Yes, all is going very well! Needless to say we’re really pleased with the progress, and we are currently putting in place some even bigger and better things for 2010! 

Piewatch - In what ways are STP considering expanding on the level of artist promotion in regards to pre/post-album-release?

Slicethepie - Good question! Well, as you know, we’re not a label, and as such, have held back with actively ‘promoting’ our financed artists, with 26 now, it’d be more than a full time job.

However we are now starting to build a wide range of partnerships to build out an ecosystem of support and promotion for both financed artists, as well as the top rated artist tracks uploaded to the site. As a first step, the Bebo deal was a great example of this, as this is promotion that ‘could not be bought’, and other partners we’re going to be rolling out with will offer radio exposure, syncs, and lots more.

Piewatch - Where do you see the site in 1,2,5, & 10 years time. How much of that vision is based around the financed artists being successful?

Slicethepie - Well we’re hoping that we soon won’t be working out of our little office!! (the financed artists can tell you about the ‘scout hut’ as most of them have visited STP HQ!).

We’re already working with labels, publishers, social networks, radio stations, brands and sync agents, so we hope to see these relationships expand as well as develop some deeper strategic relationships with labels and publishers. Longer term, we hope that the scout rooms will be a central hub to filter unsigned music, enabling us to offer artists a real step up in their careers, be it through financing, or multiple other avenues with our partners. Success won’t be determined solely by financed artists being successful, although we do anticipate that a few will be successful!

Piewatch - How do you gauge artist success? If an artist sells under 10,000 albums, does that constitute a failure or disappointment?

Slicethepie - No! It is not up to us to determine what constitutes success for an artist. Artists have a myriad of different aspirations and goals and commercial success is often not that part of the mix. Success should be measured in the ability of an artist to connect with their true fans (wherever they are). Here at Slicethepie we see our role as facilitating that success, by filtering all artists on the site in a way that will allow music fans to search for great (not necessarily ‘the best’) new music that resonates with them.

Piewatch - Are there any plans to introduce an ability to download/ buy tracks from the site when scouting?

Slicethepie - Not at the moment… one for the ideas board though, thanks J

Piewatch - Does STP ever envisage physical album sales being included in the investors dividend?

Slicethepie - We may introduce the option for artists to use the Tunecore on demand service via Amazon, and these royalties would be distributed to investors if artists exercise this option. Broadly speaking as we have no control of physical distribution, we can only rely on trust to know exactly how many albums artists have sold. Slicethepie do not anticipate that this will change in the near future, but we will continue to look at other routes of distribution such as Spotify. To date, we have not collected royalties for physical albums from any of our artists, but we may introduce this at some point in the future.

 Piewatch - With new technology allowing greater (legal) ‘access’ to music without ownership, do STP see a long term future in the digital download market?

Slicethepie - Download and streaming are intertwined. ‘Free’ ad supported downloading sites do not have a commercial future as the commercial model simply does not stack up, so over the next 12-18 months we’ll see a move towards subscription only services at around the 4.99/month price point, and/or bundling with phone subscriptions or Sky. These services (such as Sky) come with a monthly download quota included giving consumers the best of both worlds. In terms of functionality a combined Spotify/download solution is the future, but make the most of it before it becomes chargeable for all!

 Piewatch - What partnerships does STP currently have and will we be seeing any more? Have STP considered a partnership with Google?

Slicethepie - currently we have partnerships with Bebo, Samsung, Back Street Merchandise, and Bauer Media. There are many more in the pipeline, but at this point cannot be publicised. Would we consider a deal with Google? Perhaps! It depends what it would look like, but it wouldn’t be out of the question!

 Piewatch - With STP paving a fresh way forward away from the conventional music industry model, is it still important to keep the music industry onside?

Slicethepie - Absolutely! We recently carried out a survey of our artists (a massive thanks to everyone who participated) and unanimously you guys thought that record labels have a part to play in the future – and you’re right! Even though we’re not a record label, by no means do we see ourselves as competitors to the majors, in fact quite the contrary. We have already begun a number of trials with these guys, and are confident that SoundOut has a major future in the mainstream industry. At the moment online music creation/consumption is running in a parallel universe to the legacy industry structure, however services such as SoundOut, Tunecore, Kyte and others are beginning to build bridges that will at first connect and then integrate the old with the new. It’s a very exciting time and one that will end in a far fairer system and greater opportunities for artists to achieve their goals.

Piewatch - STP is willing to consider artists wishing to raise up to £500,000 via Direct Financing. Is STP proactively looking for interested ‘big’ names for this type of venture? Might we see such an investment opportunity similar to that currently offered by *the other site*?

Slicethepie - Definitely!

Piewatch - The current scouting system would suggest Hip hop is not seen as commercially viable. Is this the case, or does this show a flaw in the current scouting system? Are there any future plans to create a fairer playing field for all genres? Genre specific rooms perhaps?

Slicethepie - Slicethepie don’t get a say in who goes through to the Showcases or who gets financed, so you could say that Hip Hop is seen as less commercial/investable by site users. That said, we do have more guitar bands and soloists on site, which is reflected in the artists that have moved on to Showcases. As the site grows, we will no doubt see a wider variety of genres come though to showcases, and we anticipate that some of the partnerships will focus more on certain genres, so yes, you will be seeing more genre specific scout rooms! However you should also be aware that to access other promotional opportunities (e.g. the Samsung Discovery Player) tracks are selected on a genre by genre basis, e.g. the top 20% of Hip Hop artists qualify alongside the top 20% of rock etc. so absolute ratings are not important.

Piewatch - You have recently introduced the Slicethepie Discovery player. What was the idea behind it’s conception and will be seeing any future applications or widgets of this sort?

Slicethepie - We LOVE the discovery player! This player was predominantly built to enable users to have a piece of slicethepie (excuse the pun) on their social networks, website, etc etc. It’s a great tool, to show that there really is some great unsigned music out there! By and large it is to promote new music, and this is its early days, we hope to develop this further, along with some other cool apps. Commercial interest in the player has been very strong, so watch out for some big new branded players streaming the best music from Slicethepie to their audiences next year…!

Piewatch - When can we expect to see the much anticipated Bebo scout room? Will it be worth the wait!?

Slicethepie - There’s been bit of a Bebo hiccup. They have just made 20 of their 23 UK staff redundant so the future of Bebo music is currently unclear. As soon as we have clarity on the future of Bebo we’ll let you know…

Piewatch - Are there any future updates or exciting developments in the pipeline?

Slicethepie - In short, yes, lots of developments. Slicethepie will forge ahead as a fan financing platform whilst the broader community of artists who have been reviewed in the Scout Rooms will begin to enjoy greater exposure and commercial opportunities as well. In addition, the top scouts will also soon enjoy additional benefits. As always, we will keep taking on board all your comments and criticisms and make sure we develop the business in a way that continues to add value to the broader user base. 

Many thanks to you all for your ongoing support, enthusiasm and passion!

All the best,

David and the team (and animals) at STP HQ

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