[New Pod] Designing jack (npub1sg6…f63m)'s favorite shirt, Creating an open music library, and Growing an indie music empire with ltngstore (npub1eeq…at9s) (Founder, lightning.store and wavlake (npub1yfg…v6vg))
Fountain: https://fountain.fm/episode/x3v4yu6AuXsmYvdljKZe
YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGimjeyTiwY
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hivemind-ideas-from-the-edge/id1731637285
Substack: https://hivemindvc.substack.com/p/designing-jacks-favorite-shirt-creating
SN: https://stacker.news/items/737103
I sit down with Sam Means, founder of lightning.store and Wavlake for a fascinating conversation about the future of the music industry!
Here are a few topics we discuss:
The genesis of lightning.store
Parallels between Bitcoin and the punk/DIY scenes
Max’s dad - indie artist who made some cool trippy nostr shirts (which Max is wearing during interview)
Sam’s NOFX Nostr shirt (which Max wears frequently)
How Sam decides what shirts to make
Making Jack’s favorite shirt, seeing it on the Super Bowl, and stress testing Sam’s Lightning node + btcpayserver setup
Sam needs a Lightning Shopify app that works (opportunity for listeners!)
Sam got started making a first website and forum for the Weezer fan club
Sam is the consummate entrepreneur: he just does the things that need to be done
Sam’s education was coming up in bands and working venues
Pinkerton - the Weezer album changed the course of Sam’s life
Can a band be big and not suck?
Why the music biz generally sucks for bands
The magic of finding a new band that “flips your lid” (Sam’s new favorite phrase)
The magic of David Bowie and artists who can reinvent themselves
Finding the weirdest 10cc record in Japan
A history of the interplay between music and technology from pre Internet to p2p file sharing to streaming to what’s coming next
Scott Joplin and piano rolls (artists were getting screwed from day 0)
Lars from Metallica will forever be known as the guy who wants to put 12 yo music fans in jail
Music Like Water (2005, Forbes) - early article explaining how to charge for music like a utility
The monthly subscription fee for everything was the first step to a new idea
~97% of artists on Spotify make approximately nothing. If this market can make anything somewhere else they’re likely to try it
Bitcoin is the real occupy Wall Street; Wavlake is the real occupy Spotify
Even though big artists are making money, they’re still leaving a lot on the table with all the middlemen
Wavlake is changing incentives so super fans can give uncapped support for the value they receive
We jumped into the internet super fast. Now Nostr is helping us rearchitect the web by letting people travel through the Internet and bring their social graph with them
Now Wavlake and Value4Value is doing this for Music; the industry was almost completely uprooted in the last wave, but ultimately failed; now we have another shot
The role of the curator in the new more p2p internet world
Wavlake’s grand plan: it’s not a music player with zaps, but rather an open music catalogue that disrupts all of music distribution
Bandcamp and SoundCloud are examples of building a new library from the ground up
Wavlake is following their example with the key difference that their library is not confined to one app but open to anyone (e.g. Fountain)
How does Wavlake compete with Spotify - they don’t
The magic of interoperable networks and instant payments (good clip around 1:10)
Artist still only had to upload track once but the potential for where that track can live and get monetized is unlimited
The negotiations between all parties is transparent unlike current opaque set of deals
We’re making podcasting for music (another good clip around 1:14)
Wavlake’s open music catalogue is inspired by thePodcasting 2.0 spec
Developer splits incentivizes developers to try adding and monetizing music in new ways
Now music can live in all kinds of different experiences (good clip around 1:16)
Interoperability means your social graph and comments follow you to any app you use! A comment in Wavlake shows up in Fountain
LN Beats and RSS Blue also working interoperably
Sam is not afraid of competition, in fact he’s paying to incentivize it
One artist monetizing via bitcoin and value4value will start the tsunami
Check out the Forbes article on Value4Value
Ainsley Costello might already be the first big artist. She had made about $750 over years across Spotify 60+ other services. In one year, she’s made >$12k on Wavlake, Fountain, and other Lightning V4V apps. She was the first artist to earn >1M sats
If 97% of artists can make enough to do music full time in value4value land, it’s game over for traditional music industry. And if they can do well, imagine how well the big artists can eventually do when they cut out the middle men
Superstars like Kanye, Snoop Dogg, and James Blake are just as pissed about the current state of extractive music industry
Average people may not understand exactly how they’re getting fucked, but they know they’re getting fucked with the current monetary and business system - largely because every system lacks transparency
In an open world, companies like Wavlake will need to add valuable services (e.g. licensing) on top of their library to compete and win
ASCAP (what a name lol) fails to live up to their promise to monitor song uage and pay artist royalties
Maxs ideas for nostr business models: #1 remix economy - stemstr for everything and #2 rise of the curator or DJs for everything - getting curators paid for their good taste
Wavlake’s plan to build split marketplaces for music and live radio shows where hosts get paid
Value4Value music podcasts are taking off on Wavlake and Fountain
Sam owns several successful businesses around the music industry (lightning.store, merch, label, venue, zine, wavlake). Each business feeds into this growing indie empire
Wastoids is crazy cool video zine; Sam and his colleagues interview cool indie bands like People Under the Stairs and Red Cross
Check out his pods like Click Vortex, a crazy show called Midnight Music Review in the Attic with an Argentinian dude dressed like a wolf presenting new music in his attic, and a Friday music show inspired by MTV News
Sam starts experiments that could feed into each other and scales them as they work
His buddy works at Aquarium Drunkard and gets major indie darlings to come on show
Goal is for Wavlake to become one of the channels on DistroKid that will catch artists’ attention when they wonder why they made $700 on Wavlake and only 9 cents everywhere else; Wavlake already has simple onboarding for artists, now just needs a simple onboarding for fans
Open library is already 10k+ tracks and growing, that’ll just keep getting better
Sam’s team of 28 pitches in all over his indie music empire
Sam’s secret: he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he just does what needs to be done! His intent was never to run a business, he just wanted to be in a band haha
Sam’s been doing Value4Value at HelloMerch for 17 years. He doesn’t make a penny until something sells; Wavlake will scale in a similar fashion
Max
npub18l…gugm3
2024-10-23 16:42:38
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"content": "[New Pod] Designing nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m's favorite shirt, Creating an open music library, and Growing an indie music empire with nostr:npub1eequz6v23szzyx9utphsh8kg6kll50wte6sfh4vah8gdjtplcz6qg7at9s (Founder, lightning.store and nostr:npub1yfg0d955c2jrj2080ew7pa4xrtj7x7s7umt28wh0zurwmxgpyj9shwv6vg)\n\nFountain: https://fountain.fm/episode/x3v4yu6AuXsmYvdljKZe\n\nYT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGimjeyTiwY\n\nApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hivemind-ideas-from-the-edge/id1731637285\n\nSubstack: https://hivemindvc.substack.com/p/designing-jacks-favorite-shirt-creating\n\nSN: https://stacker.news/items/737103\n\nI sit down with Sam Means, founder of lightning.store and Wavlake for a fascinating conversation about the future of the music industry!\n\n\nHere are a few topics we discuss: \n\nThe genesis of lightning.store\n\nParallels between Bitcoin and the punk/DIY scenes \n\nMax’s dad - indie artist who made some cool trippy nostr shirts (which Max is wearing during interview)\n\nSam’s NOFX Nostr shirt (which Max wears frequently)\n\nHow Sam decides what shirts to make\n\nMaking Jack’s favorite shirt, seeing it on the Super Bowl, and stress testing Sam’s Lightning node + btcpayserver setup \n\nSam needs a Lightning Shopify app that works (opportunity for listeners!) \n\nSam got started making a first website and forum for the Weezer fan club\n\nSam is the consummate entrepreneur: he just does the things that need to be done \n\nSam’s education was coming up in bands and working venues \n\nPinkerton - the Weezer album changed the course of Sam’s life\n\nCan a band be big and not suck?\n\nWhy the music biz generally sucks for bands\n\nThe magic of finding a new band that “flips your lid” (Sam’s new favorite phrase)\n\nThe magic of David Bowie and artists who can reinvent themselves \n\nFinding the weirdest 10cc record in Japan \n\nA history of the interplay between music and technology from pre Internet to p2p file sharing to streaming to what’s coming next\n\nScott Joplin and piano rolls (artists were getting screwed from day 0)\n\nLars from Metallica will forever be known as the guy who wants to put 12 yo music fans in jail\n\nMusic Like Water (2005, Forbes) - early article explaining how to charge for music like a utility\n\nThe monthly subscription fee for everything was the first step to a new idea \n\n~97% of artists on Spotify make approximately nothing. If this market can make anything somewhere else they’re likely to try it \n\nBitcoin is the real occupy Wall Street; Wavlake is the real occupy Spotify \n\nEven though big artists are making money, they’re still leaving a lot on the table with all the middlemen \n\nWavlake is changing incentives so super fans can give uncapped support for the value they receive \n\nWe jumped into the internet super fast. Now Nostr is helping us rearchitect the web by letting people travel through the Internet and bring their social graph with them\n\nNow Wavlake and Value4Value is doing this for Music; the industry was almost completely uprooted in the last wave, but ultimately failed; now we have another shot\n\nThe role of the curator in the new more p2p internet world \n\nWavlake’s grand plan: it’s not a music player with zaps, but rather an open music catalogue that disrupts all of music distribution \n\nBandcamp and SoundCloud are examples of building a new library from the ground up\n\nWavlake is following their example with the key difference that their library is not confined to one app but open to anyone (e.g. Fountain)\n\nHow does Wavlake compete with Spotify - they don’t \n\nThe magic of interoperable networks and instant payments (good clip around 1:10)\n\nArtist still only had to upload track once but the potential for where that track can live and get monetized is unlimited \n\nThe negotiations between all parties is transparent unlike current opaque set of deals \n\nWe’re making podcasting for music (another good clip around 1:14)\n\nWavlake’s open music catalogue is inspired by thePodcasting 2.0 spec\n\nDeveloper splits incentivizes developers to try adding and monetizing music in new ways \n\nNow music can live in all kinds of different experiences (good clip around 1:16)\n\nInteroperability means your social graph and comments follow you to any app you use! A comment in Wavlake shows up in Fountain \n\nLN Beats and RSS Blue also working interoperably\n\nSam is not afraid of competition, in fact he’s paying to incentivize it \n\nOne artist monetizing via bitcoin and value4value will start the tsunami\n\nCheck out the Forbes article on Value4Value\n\nAinsley Costello might already be the first big artist. She had made about $750 over years across Spotify 60+ other services. In one year, she’s made \u003e$12k on Wavlake, Fountain, and other Lightning V4V apps. She was the first artist to earn \u003e1M sats \n\nIf 97% of artists can make enough to do music full time in value4value land, it’s game over for traditional music industry. And if they can do well, imagine how well the big artists can eventually do when they cut out the middle men\n\nSuperstars like Kanye, Snoop Dogg, and James Blake are just as pissed about the current state of extractive music industry \n\nAverage people may not understand exactly how they’re getting fucked, but they know they’re getting fucked with the current monetary and business system - largely because every system lacks transparency \n\nIn an open world, companies like Wavlake will need to add valuable services (e.g. licensing) on top of their library to compete and win\n\nASCAP (what a name lol) fails to live up to their promise to monitor song uage and pay artist royalties \n\nMaxs ideas for nostr business models: #1 remix economy - stemstr for everything and #2 rise of the curator or DJs for everything - getting curators paid for their good taste \n\nWavlake’s plan to build split marketplaces for music and live radio shows where hosts get paid\n\nValue4Value music podcasts are taking off on Wavlake and Fountain \n\nSam owns several successful businesses around the music industry (lightning.store, merch, label, venue, zine, wavlake). Each business feeds into this growing indie empire \n\nWastoids is crazy cool video zine; Sam and his colleagues interview cool indie bands like People Under the Stairs and Red Cross\n\nCheck out his pods like Click Vortex, a crazy show called Midnight Music Review in the Attic with an Argentinian dude dressed like a wolf presenting new music in his attic, and a Friday music show inspired by MTV News\n\nSam starts experiments that could feed into each other and scales them as they work \n\nHis buddy works at Aquarium Drunkard and gets major indie darlings to come on show\n\nGoal is for Wavlake to become one of the channels on DistroKid that will catch artists’ attention when they wonder why they made $700 on Wavlake and only 9 cents everywhere else; Wavlake already has simple onboarding for artists, now just needs a simple onboarding for fans \n\nOpen library is already 10k+ tracks and growing, that’ll just keep getting better \n\nSam’s team of 28 pitches in all over his indie music empire \n\nSam’s secret: he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he just does what needs to be done! His intent was never to run a business, he just wanted to be in a band haha\n\nSam’s been doing Value4Value at HelloMerch for 17 years. He doesn’t make a penny until something sells; Wavlake will scale in a similar fashion ",
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