We were lucky to catch up with Mike Flynn recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mike, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

There is so much going on right now at the nexus of technology and music, which is where Ten2 and our new LaunchPad application sits. As we all know, the big headlining trend right now is AI, but crypto was there previously, as was the metaverse, etc. The bleeding edge is exciting and ignites loads of experimentation and long-term thinking, especially in the music industry, about how this technology will impact things in the years to come.

That experimentation is good, it’s important, and it should happen…but you have to keep grounded and keep a majority of your focus on technology and analytical insights that are tangible and can help today with clear ROI. That focus is an important difference with how we’re developing technology at Ten2. Yes, we experiment with AI, but what can we build, with technologies, analytics, and data augmentation right now, that might not grab as many headlines, but can impact your goals, improve revenue, and get your music to more people today?

It’s a critically important balance, especially when it’s so easy to be distracted by shiny but unproven solutions.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been in technology, starting as software developer and progressing to CTO, across several different business models, from e-commerce to advertising, social media influencers, and now music, for over 20 years. I got in to technology because it’s just really fun to build things, starting off with writing games on my graphing calculator in high school and maybe getting in to some trouble on my college campus network!

What I’ve found over the years working at places like Answers.com and Studio71 is that I don’t just enjoy building technology and products, but also businesses, culture, teams, and everything in between. That love of building is probably what has drawn me to start-ups, and I’ve been able to return the favor by helping those start-ups grow in leaps and bounds to the point where they were acquired or got large enough to do some acquisitions of their own.

Being able to come in to a business, learning about how it works and putting together the pieces to find the best way that technology can supercharge it is always exciting. A couple of highlights in my career would be developing the technology that allowed a web advertising startup to skyrocket to the point it could purchase Answers.com, or building the platform and team at Studio71 that helped the company not only survive the “YouTube Adpocalypse,” but come out even stronger with new revenue streams. Now I’ve joined Ten2 as the CTO and have been working on our new application LaunchPad, which is essentially the front end to all of the ways Ten2 helps music creators and labels. We’re building some really amazing technology that is already making a huge difference for our clients and I couldn’t be more excited about the path we’re on.

Any advice for managing a team?

Open and honest communication seems like the simple answer, but it’s the right answer. You work really hard to identify smart talented people to join your team, so it always puzzles me when managers or executives will then keep these same people in the dark or treat them as though they aren’t the smart hand-picked people that everyone worked so hard to find.

Yes, at some point you will get a question that you can’t answer. Maybe that information needs to be kept at the higher levels for now, or maybe you just don’t know, but when those situations happen it’s perfectly acceptable to say that you can’t talk about that yet but you’ll follow up with them as soon as you can. Teams respect that honesty, and they’re smart enough to understand the situation. When you treat your team that way, they like working with you, they feel respected, and they are much more likely to work hard, stick around, and encourage others to do the same.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

It’s a little less true now that it used to be, but at some point in a technology career you come to a point where you need to decide if you want to go down the manager track or stay as an individual contributor. That decision was tough for me, really tough, but I’m happy how it worked out.

It was tough because I liked writing code all day, and I’m an introvert, but I knew that jumping to the manager track was the right move for me and my career. Learning to get comfortable leading team meetings, running interviews, speaking at events, managing up to executives or clients, and all kinds of other “soft” skills did not come naturally, but I learned to really enjoy it. Not only that, but it was a pleasant surprise to find that being a hands on leader, even with big teams, is possible if you prioritize it. I also take pride in being in a position now to ensure that technical people have options to pursue the path they want, whether it be in leadership or otherwise, and still have growth opportunities.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ten2.media
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flynn/