CEO Ethan Diamond On Bandcamp’s Success and Why It’s Working
Music Ally spoke recently with Ethan Diamond about the phenomenal success of Bandcamp. In fact, Bandcamp has grown from success to success from indie ecommerce to social destination to streaming music on mobile. It's a company that's based its approach on the needs of the artists and the community and that approach has paid off.
Bandcamp is on my short list of new music companies that I think are vital to creating a positive future for the music industry. From the launch of For Fans to mobile streaming of users' music collections, Bandcamp has really outperformed in supporting DIY artists.
Music Ally recently interviewed Bandcamp CEO Ethan Diamond. Here's a sampling of what he had to say:
Bandcamp Numbers
“The big number for us – our core metric – is how much fans are paying artists through the platform. We’re up to $3.1m every 30 days, and our total to date is now $70m."
“We’re about to hit 10m transactions through the site. And the other big stat is that every day, about 6,000 unique artists sell something through the site. In a month, it’s around 50,000, and last year we had about 160,000 artists selling one or more items through Bandcamp.”
A Social Music Discovery System Based On Ownership
“To me, the key piece of this is that it’s a social music discovery system, but it’s based on this concept of ownership, which is a high-friction concept in contrast to what was the hot thing a couple of years ago, which was frictionless sharing – watch a movie, play some music, and have that activity automatically go out to your friends and followers."
The Social Music Feed Goes Mobile
“The feed plays from track to track: it kinda becomes a personalised radio station programmed by the people’s tastes you respect enough to actually follow."
“We brought that into our mobile app relatively recently, and it becomes this rabbit-hole of music discovery that’s extremely fun to go down. Whenever I’m commuting I just put on the feed, and use it to quickly dig through stuff I would never otherwise encounter.”
The Changing Habits of Users
"People are moving away from downloads, although there will always be people who want the high-quality file they can take offline."
“What we’re seeing more and more is providing access with these fan accounts. Yes, you get a download, but what it’s really about – besides supporting the artist – is getting instant access from anywhere.”
Artists Who Are Successful On Bandcamp
"All of the people who I’ve seen who are successful on Bandcamp, they’re not unified by any particular genre. The unifying factor is that they hustle a lot, both online and offline. They talk to their fans a lot, they’re constantly trying new things, and they make that direct connection available."
Lots more at Music Ally.
More:
- Musicians' Biz Tools Updated: Bandzoogle, SoundCloud, Bandcamp
- Pick A Band Name While Streaming Bandcamp Music
- DIY Merch and Marketing: Bandcamp Adds Gifting, Topspin Intros Cross-Promotions
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) also blogs at DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
