We were lucky to catch up with Donna Budica recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Donna, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mission with TEN2 MEDIA stems from a blend of personal passion and professional experience that shaped my journey. As a first-generation Iranian-Italian growing up in Philadelphia, it was expected that I would follow a far more traditional career path. However, my love for music and culturally innovative industries led me down a different road. My degree in Finance from The Wharton School and my MBA in Media Marketing catalyzed my multi-faceted, and less traditional, career across music, film, TV, marketing, and education, starting with my first job at CAA in film/tv to music management working with A-list artists, to brand strategy for behemoths like Spotify, Samsung, and Bacardi.

As I delved deeper into music, management, & entrepreneurship, I witnessed a stark contrast between the structured corporate side of entertainment and the struggles faced by independent artists. Emerging artists are often navigating with little or no access to marketing resources and insights that their corporate counterparts rely on. This was particularly jarring to me, given my start at CAA, a resource-rich corporate heavyweight. My time managing independent artists further highlighted the lack of support and knowledge available, which fueled my desire to build a solution & platform driven by a mission to bridge this chasm.

That vision led to the conception of TEN2 MEDIA. As a co=founder of the company, the goal was always to democratize access to resources that drive impact — to knowledge, data, tools, templates, vendors, best practices — all designed to help artists navigate YouTube monetization, content optimization, and music marketing. Our mission is deeply rooted in transparency & partnership, empowering artists to grow their audiences and monetize their digital presence. My cross-industry expertise and unique perspective has helped to reinforce our distinctly differentiated position — fundamentally neutral (artist/label/distributor agnostic); vehemently collaborative; always artist/content first. Our commitment
to fostering artist independence & democratizing access to information are the fundamentals that drive our mission and continue to ignite our success.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Donna Budica, Co-Founder and COO of TEN2 MEDIA, the parent & partner company of LaunchPad, which is our tech platform & client portal we have built in partnership with Google to centralize, streamline, & revolutionize the way artists navigate the music industry and YouTube monetization. My background spans music, film/tv, corporate finance, (I graduated from The Wharton School with a degree in Finance and later got my MBA concentrating in Media Marketing) and it has been evident that there is a pressing need for trusted resources, transparency, and educational tools for artists. This inspired the conception of LaunchPad.

LaunchPad is a comprehensive hub that empowers artists by offering a suite of tools and services designed to maximize their presence and revenue on YouTube. Our platform provides always-on, on-demand advertising with full transparency, ensuring that artists’ campaigns are targeted and effective. We offer search ads to place artists at the top of relevant search results, in-stream ads before videos to reach desired audiences, and ads in the related videos section to enhance visibility.

One of the key features of LaunchPad is its robust data analytics. Artists can verify their channels and pull API data from YouTube to track performance, audience demographics, and engagement metrics. This real-time analysis helps artists make data-driven decisions about their content and marketing strategies. Our extensive data sets, gathered from numerous high-performing campaigns, provide insights into audience behavior, allowing artists to tailor their content to maximize impact.

LaunchPad also offers detailed audience profiling and UGC (User-Generated Content) insights, enabling artists to understand how their music is being used and shared across the platform. This transparency extends to our advertising services, where we ensure that campaigns are not only effective but also honest. By avoiding common industry pitfalls, such as irrelevant ad placements, we help artists reach highly convertible audiences.

Our platform simplifies campaign management with user-friendly tools. Artists can launch campaigns by choosing between targeted or maximum views, setting budgets, selecting genres, and prioritizing campaign goals. This streamlined approach allows for efficient and effective advertising, helping artists grow their reach and generate more revenue.

LaunchPad’s origins lie in addressing the exploitation artists often face with traditional YouTube advertising. We noticed that many agencies ran cheap ads in random locations, resulting in irrelevant views and wasted budgets. LaunchPad was created to provide a transparent, effective alternative that genuinely helps artists grow their careers.

I’m most proud of LaunchPad’s impact on our clients’ careers. By providing artists with the tools and knowledge they need to succeed, we’ve helped them turn views into value, build lasting connections with their audiences, and achieve sustainable growth. Our mission is to democratize access to these resources, ensuring that independent artists can thrive in the digital age. At LaunchPad, we believe in the principle that when artists succeed, everyone benefits, and this drives our commitment to empowering artists through transparency and innovation.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

1. Peter Drucker has been a pretty prominent force in my life since I was 17 — Management-100 is a core class that every Wharton freshman is required to take and while at the time, seemingly suffer through, there is no other curriculum that has singlehandedly had a great and such long-standing impact on my personal POV, resilience, and evolution as an entrepreneur. Drucker’s permeating ethos around building and maintaining a solution-oriented mindset — focus on opportunities not problems is the sentiment — has fundamentally shifted how I think and manage challenges, in business and life.

2. All things HBR, and specifically the Emotional Intelligence series. I think empathy is often conflated with sympathy (erroneously) and thus frequently shafted in business as an indicator of weakness. The reality is quite the contrary. Empathy — the true definition of empathy — is one of the greatest skills to hone for longevity of success & is the greatest indicator of strength of character and humanity. None of those things are ever flaws or weakness of persona.

3. Never Split the Difference. This is one of those books where a physical copy is the only way to go. I’ve read mine cover to cover more times than I can count and think WWCVD — what would Chris Voss do — often. It’s far less about the negotiation tactics he shares than it is about his approach and why — tactical
empathy. Having a perspective rooted in “how do we make this a win-win” beats gouging your adversary and transactional-only mentality all day. This book does a great job articulating that and providing anecdotal applications.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn a hard lesson about the concept that talking about money or establishing compensation boundaries early in your business conversations in fact DOES NOT make you greedy or any less mission-oriented. Early in my entrepreneurial career, there were instances where prospective partners or clients tried to guilt me out of financial discussions, citing “relationship first” or “we’ll get to that conversation” as a reason, while they extracted service and value out of me in the meanwhile. I mistakenly was momentarily convinced that somehow, establishing and talking about the business of business would detract from my mission.

I quickly got over that error and tapped back into the reason I wanted to go to Wharton — I built a foundation through superior education opportunities exactly because financial literacy & career stability is crucial for sustainable growth — across artists and entrepreneurs alike. Open conversations about money are essential for ensuring that artists can continue to create and thrive. Embracing this mindset has allowed me to better support our business and clients at TEN2 MEDIA, demonstrating that financial success and mission-driven work are not mutually exclusive, but rather, complementary.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ten2.media
• Instagram: @donnabudica
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donna-budica/