Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mike Locke. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mike, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so one thing we think people don’t talk about nearly enough is investments – either time or money. What’s one of the best or worst investments you’ve made and what did you learned from the experience?

The best investment I’ve made as a business owner has been paying advances to artists or producers my business partner, Craig, and I believe in early on, and took a chance with them. Over a decade ago, Craig suggested the pairing of two new producers to produce some cover songs. This gave birth to the artist project Hidden Citizens and despite it being untested waters at the time, our investment paid dividends for all involved as they’ve become a successful licensing artist and influenced others. That initial investment also paved the way for other similar types of deals we’ve made with other artists that has helped grow the business.

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 played in bands in High School and college, and was the person organizing practices, booking the tours, etc. I booked concerts at UCLA, often emerging artists before they broke big, and hosted college radio shows. Eventually, working in the music industry became inevitable. I carried my passion for independent music and the “do it yourself” ethos from hardcore/punk with me throughout my 10 years at Warner Music Group, and that inadvertently helped me develop a niche area within the synchronization department and then a template to start Silver Side Productions in 2011. My experiences at WMG, and then also working for reputable mid-sized music companies (distributor, Ingrooves, now part of Virgin/Universal, and Atlas Music Publishing) sets us apart as my business partner steadily grew our roster while my prior work relationships reinforces opportunities for our business. I’m particularly proud how we have tapped good people to work with us, taking chances on several interns in the earlier days of Silver Side, showing them the ropes, and now seeing those same employees excel in the Film/TV/Ad space (and we keep in touch about ways to work together).

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Fortunately I didn’t need a lot of capital to start the business, especially because I wasn’t going to have much overhead in terms of office space (I started it from home), or employees (initially it would just be me pulling a salary). Outside of some initial business start-up costs, I just needed to cover my own cost of living. Even so, however, it was a hard decision to leave a stable full time job with a salary to take a stab at my own venture. The catalyst for me to make the jump stemmed from others believing in me, combined with one independent record label owner who took his belief in me a step further and offered to invest in the business. That faith, and then capital investment, helped me take the leap to put in notice to leave my job and launch Silver Side Productions. That initial capital provided a security blanket as I’d have some funds to hold me over, if needed, while the business ramped up. I could afford to live, even if frugally initially, and happily the business did steadily grow. We paid down the loan over the subsequent years until it was all paid off, with interest, so it was a win-win for all parties.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Sure. I started the business with a co-founder I knew from my past role working in the music industry, and then also the investment partner I referenced. However I then met Craig O’Neill early on, who eventually became my creative business partner and joined the business full time. One of the artists Silver Side represents for sync licensing, The Shanghai Restoration Project, distributed their albums through the company Craig worked for at the time. Craig brought a sync licensing opportunity to the artist who then looped me in. On one hand, I could have taken an aggressive or proprietary stance (as we exclusively worked the artist), but that would have been ridiculous and we certainly didn’t want to lose any opportunity for the artist. So we worked it out for all to be involved. Perhaps Craig used some of his English charm (and he still does, doing an amazing job working with our roster) as we hit it off and kept in touch about other ways to work together until it made sense for him to join and partner in Silver Side.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.silversideco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silversideproductions
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-locke-749bb54/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/silversideco