We were lucky to catch up with Chandler Christopher recently and have shared our conversation below.
Chandler, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea.
So, doing something entrepreneurial in the music/art industry has been something I’ve been thinking about for years. While I had no idea how I’d get there or what that would actually look like, I kind of always held onto the thought of this. The way Happen Twice actually started was nearly completely on impulse, however. I was inspired by a company based out of Philadelphia called Downtown 500 that I stumbled upon on Instagram. They’re an art culture brand/magazine that focuses more on fine art, galleries, etc. But I loved their brand’s colorful aesthetic and the interview aspect of the media they were producing. I thought, “Hey, you know what? I can interview people, I can interview artists, bands, etc., and create a website to post them to.” So, I started to do exactly that. I spent nearly the next 72 hours straight teaching myself WordPress so that I could make a professional-looking website, and that’s the same website you’ll find today at happentwice.com! I interviewed about a dozen people over the next week and was pretty much just obsessing over this beginning idea. Something about it felt right, and I just remember an overwhelming sense of gratitude to have found something to do that felt so true and authentic to myself (and that lit a fire under me). Since then, we’ve expanded from just doing interviews to also releasing artists’ music on cassettes, booking and throwing live events, photoshoots/concert photography, collaborative merchandise, and more!
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 background and context?
I started Happen Twice when I was 21 years old, going into my Junior year of college at St. Edwards University. I was also working full-time during that time, so I was really pushing myself to some extremes in the workload I was taking on. While starting this venture essentially added another full-time job to my schedule, it has never felt like that even in the slightest. I feel so lucky to be able to share artists’ stories and also hopefully help foster a sustainable economy for artists. When we work with artists on a collaborative project such as merchandise or cassette release or a live event, we always put the artist first and make sure they are taken care of and have a good experience/that their artistic vision is heard! When producing interviews, we always make sure that the artist is portrayed in a light form that they feel is authentic and representative of themselves and their story. We want to help upcoming creatives share their voice and create productive projects without a budget!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I think what comes to mind is the way we started getting into booking and throwing live events. About a month out from South By Southwest this past February, someone made a passing comment to me that I should have an event for SXSW. At the time, I had absolutely no clue how I was going to go about that or that that would even be remotely possible, but I felt inspired and got to work. I sent out probably about 50 emails to different venues and spaces around Austin. The first (and one of the only) person I heard back from was Matt Rade, owner of High Noon, located on E Cesar Chavez St. We organized a meeting about a week later to talk about it, and boom, we were in business. I had about 4 weeks to book 5 bands, create an event and ticketing page, get a poster made, and organize Happen Twice merchandise for the show. Oh, and on top of that, I paid the bands by making them cassettes, which I make all myself from my apartment! All of this while finishing up my last semester of my senior year of college and holding a part-time job. This was, by far, the single most challenging time period in my life and is the time period that has required the most resilience thus far in terms of Happen Twice. For that first show we did at High Noon, I ended up booking some of my favorite artists from all around the country. It was truly surreal and set me on the track to having multiple shows a month like I am now! So, I want to give a big shout-out to Matt Rade and High Noon for taking a chance on me and Happen Twice and changing the course of my life and HT’s! It truly is an honor to work with so many great artists in Austin and around the world!
Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?
Luckily, starting this business didn’t take thousands and thousands of dollars, but I originally used my savings from the previous couple of years of working. It took about five hundred dollars to get the website up and running with good security, etc., and then all costs going forward have mainly been project-to-project based and I use money that I’m working for to fund that. Despite picking up traction and having small successes with Happen Twice, I definitely am living life paycheck to paycheck right now, and Austin is an expensive place to live. I am working towards getting Happen Twice to a place where we can be investible and more succinct as a business, but I’m not trying to rush anything. I’m taking it at my own pace, just like I have from the beginning! Oh, but if anyone reading this has ten thousand dollars laying around, call me…
Contact Info:
- Website: www.happentwice.com
- Instagram: happntwice.com
- Other: SHOWS- happentwice.com/shows