Slicethepie Answers Your Questions V.2

After an interesting start to 2010, we decided to once again catch up with Slicethepie CEO David Courtier-Dutton (or DCD as he’s affectionately known at Piewatch).  In a similar vein to our previous STP Q&A feature, we put ‘your’ questions direct to David.  Enjoy.

Piewatch - Hi David, thanks for talking to us again!

DCD – No problem! (Raffity ghost-writes the answers anyway).

Piewatch - You were recently over in America for SXSW, how did it go? Any new strategic partnerships formed? How were Scars on 45? And most importantly…how did you get the horse over there…? (Cowboy video embedded)

DCD - SXSW was amazing! I had a great time, saw tons of brilliant live music (including Scars on 45, twice) and yes, sealed a number of major partnerships that we’re really excited about. Currently we’re doing some dev work to the site to enable full integration and we’ll give you more details as we roll these out.   Scars on 45 were brilliant, there was a real buzz about them at SXSW and it was a proud moment standing there knowing that they’d been discovered on Slicethepie, also had quite a few beers with the band, who were inevitably over the moon and blown away by SXSW too. If you ever get the chance to go to SXSW, strongly advise you grab the opportunity with both hands!  Re the horse (Olly), he went in hand luggage.

Piewatch – Slicethepie have recently started a blog. How did this come about and what kind of reads can we expect in the future.

DCD – We do a lot of thinking, talking, meeting and interacting with all sorts of music industry people all over the world. We realised that we have a pretty unique perspective, immersed in unsigned bands and music fans but also working with major labels, publishers, radio, managers and most of the other major digital music businesses out there; we have some opinions about where things are going. So, we thought rather than just talk to each other that we’d start a blog.

Going forward, you can expect to get a better understanding of who we are and where Slicethepie and SoundOut sit in the broader picture, our thoughts on the Music Industry as well as features from different team members.

Even though we’re just a bunch of ordinary music lovers a few of the team are actually quite bright too, so expect more thoughts and ramblings to come.  (Blog 3 is due any day now but I need to find the time to write it )

Editor: Because of the delay at our end, blog three is now ready to read here

Piewatch - In a recent post on the new Slicethepie blog, you commented ‘Fan financing has a great future and a critical role to play in the new music ecosystem, but it’s going to need to scale to be profitable’. Is it safe to say that investor driven fanfunding is still to come into fruition, currently propped up by Soundout and awaiting that missing ‘something’ to make it a viable standalone concept?

DCD – We learnt pretty early on that Fan-Financing alone was not sustainable. As I wrote, as a standalone concept, it is not a viable business. SoundOut, now over a year old, is powered by Slicethepie, so by no means will it be going anywhere, rest assured we’re putting additional resources into Slicethepie so it can evolve further through 2010. This in tandem with a further SoundOut product for publishers makes our business model dynamic and exciting; one which I hope will be servicing more and more independent artists, labels, publishers and sync agents.

Piewatch - In a welcome development, Slicethepie recently published Tunecore sales figures for the released Slicethepie financed albums. Will this be a regular 3 monthly update and what are your thoughts to the initial set of figures?

DCD – Yes, sales figures will be released every 3 months, the next ones are due in June (for sales up to March).

I think the sales are disappointing but reflect that unsigned artists cannot compete against huge label budgets for marketing resources. The web has opened up opportunities for artists, but without insight and analytics, it’s even more difficult to find and target their audiences than ever before.

Piewatch - Do the sales figures point to a problem with piracy, STP music quality, promotional budgets or digital downloads in general? Something else?

DCD – No I don’t think that the figures point to a problem with piracy or quality, but point to the inexorable trend that music has a diminishing perceived value to consumers. Historically too much ‘value’ was put on the Vinyl/CD as a physical product, rather than the ‘artistic’ and creative side of it. The internet and file sharing has inevitably enabled file sharing/piracy too. I don’t see it as a problem, just a shift in the music industry, and a challenge to us, to remain current and look at new ways of operating. We’ll be announcing developments on that side of things this summer.

Piewatch - Why did it take 2 years after the first released album to publish the quarterly sales figures?

DCD – We were waiting for sales along with activity and volumes on the exchange to build and create a more liquid market where the regular release of sales figures would create excitement and volume.  However, the proportion of people investing in artists that take up their contracts was (and remains) very low. Considering these factors it’s becoming apparent that the level of sales may not adequately support trading in its current form and we are actively considering a number of alternative options to address this.

Piewatch – Is it possible that some artists may have sold more physical albums than digital and does STP have these figures to hand?

DCD – Slicethepie have not collected any royalties for physical albums to date and therefore don’t have these numbers to hand. Without controlling the distribution for physical albums we don’t have a thorough way to audit artists for physical sales, which we don’t intend to do. We know that money made from selling physical albums at gigs has enabled artists to tour and put further money in to marketing, so, on balance we’re happy to let the artists continue to benefit from these sales .

Piewatch - Slicethepie currently promotes itself via word of mouth. How else can members help to promote the site, and are there any plans which might see Slicethepie promote it’s brand in a more directed way?

DCD – Yes, we hope to use tools like the discovery player more and you can expect to see our Social Networks refreshed soon. We’ve always said that we’re not a social network and that still holds strong (ask Bebo how tough that is) but we are a community, we’ll soon be introducing features to integrate more closely with other sites, this will no doubt become a more direct way to promote Slicethepie.  In addition, some of the new partnerships will give Slicethepie prominent exposure on other major sites that will drive traffic and investment – more on this in the Summer…

Piewatch – Slicethepie have recently taken on new staff members – Do they bring with them a wealth of new experience and do they have STP ‘names’ and important job titles?

DCD – Piewatch, you do your research well! (So much so that this interview feels a bit big brother) Anyway, yes the team has grown to reflect some key changes in the business, you’ll see a press release soon about our new Directors…

Piewatch – There is a lot of concern regarding the wellbeing of communications legend ‘STP Chris’. Can we enquire as to whether STP Chris is being provided with enough sustenance, and whether there are any plans to move him out of his 3×3 foot ‘communications’ cupboard?  Who chooses how long Chris gets to run around the paddock? Is it directly linked to the amount of emails he answers?

DCD – Who’s STP Chris? Oh the cupboard guy with the perm? Apparently he’s very well (although I’ve never met him), he enjoys running around the paddock naked in the moonlight looking for emails and swatting scouts. No plans to move him at the moment but we may introduce a daily 5 min comfort break at some point.

Piewatch – And finally, Piewatch is nearing its 1st anniversary (22nd April). We were thinking of gate crashing STP HQ for a BBQ and sleepover….How do you think our 1st year has gone and what present(s) can we expect on arrival?

DCD – Wow congratulations on your 1st birthday, and a genuine and heartfelt thank you for all you have done to support, publicise and challenge us.  It must feel momentous to have got this far without actually visiting STP HQ. But we’ll set the dogs on you if you roll up uninvited. You would not want to mess with them.

See:

(Raffity, Bee & Hattie)

Piewatch – Thanks for answering DCD, next stop is AOTM! ( Can you handle this many acronyms? )