THE MAKING OF THE INDEPENDENT ARTIST BLUEPRINT

Why I am on this journey now 

I started making music 3 years ago. 

Before then I did dropshipping online for a couple years. 

Dropshipping helped me learn many useful skills, including how to create effective ads on Facebook and Google, and how to market and sell products by understanding buyer psychology.

However, I never really fell in love with dropshipping because it simply didn't feel personal enough. 

Nonetheless, I believe that the process of guiding someone from not recognising a problem to wanting a product is crucial for any business, and this development really interests me.

Adopting this mindset has also shaped my music career and proven to be very rewarding.

What's exciting is that there are still so many strategies I haven't tried yet, and I'm eager to explore them.

Now back to why I wrote the blueprint…

To be honest, I’ve always had the idea of helping artists like myself at the back of my mind. 

You see, when I started out, 3 years ago,  there was no one really out there that I resonated with.

For that reason I was led to believe that the only REAL way to make it was by signing a record label deal, and for those of you who know my story, you know how that ended…

I always told myself that if I could, I would return the favor and be the person I needed when I was starting out and aim to demonstrate that it is indeed possible to make a substantial living by producing and distributing your own music.

I vividly remember all the questions and uncertainties I had back then.

But I never really took action. 

Until my friend Robin - who’s a super impressive entrepreneur who’s done a bunch of cool projects like: 

• Co-founding GSpot. A soft drink brand with Gillian Anderson when he was just 20 years old.

• Or appearing on the German version of Sharks Tank. 

• He also started a dark kitchen brand selling a famous Austrian dessert in london, and was able to sell that too. 

Sat me down and told me that I shouldn’t hide my business/marketing knowledge just because "I'm a DJ/producer" and that I should actually lean into it because that's what makes me unique. 

Everyday we would speak on the phone and share ideas, workflow systems, growth hacks, our own experiences etc. 

I agreed with him and I could totally see what he saw: Namely that there wasn’t really a voice, a face or an inspiring figure out there that didn’t feel to out of reach but that could help young independent artists with: 

• Strategies for marketing music and increasing streaming numbers.
• Exploring different revenue streams as an independent artist.
• The importance of systems and daily workflows as an independent artist for the best outcomes.

I told him all the things I knew and the way I go about marketing my music, and I think he got a real kick out of it.

And well 6 months ago he said: 

“Well why don’t we just write a blueprint based on your strategy, and I’ll help you write it”

So I said: 

“F@ck yeah”

And that's when the INDEPENDENT ARTIST BLUEPRINT was born: 

• We first dissected my own personal strategy and thought “how can we best translate this into a universal blueprint people can follow?” 

• Then we broke up the strategy into chapters that made sense in chronological order.

• Then we wrote a first draft.

• Then a second draft.

• And third - turns out we weren't very good writers... shock!

• Then we started the design process...

• We thought about our launch strategy and all the things we’d need to create so that we’d have an ecosystem running - including this blog - that would help as funnels leading to the blueprint.

And after 6 months we were done. 

Embarking on this path is an adventure I plan to document and provide advice on, hoping it inspires other independent artists. 

The goal is for them to create sufficient revenue streams that can be invested back into their music, allowing them to stay independent.

So this blog is dedicated to teamwork and my good friend Robin for pushing me to do this, for inspiring me to take action and for helping me in the process.

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You can buy my blueprint here.

If you already have purchased it, then please leave a review.

If you want some really useful freebies as an independent artist which i spent ages creating for now charge, snatch them up here.

Until next time,

Nico