We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bulat Nasibullin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Bulat, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Being an independent musician myself for the last 15 years, I have tried all kinds of ways to promote my music. I have tried pitching to playlists on Spotify, Sync/Publishing companies, hiring a PR company, Radio promotion… all of it being pretty much a total waste of time. Pretty sure some of them were blatant scams too! Until one day I discovered Facebook Ads for musicians and I haven’t looked back since. I figured that if I knew about Social Media ads for musicians from day one of my career and someone would have shown me a path forward as an independent musician, as opposed to trying to get ‘discovered’, I would have been much better off. And so NELA Records was born!

First I tested all different platforms and campaign types on my own music (Facebook, Youtube, Tik-Tok) and then I started talking to my musician friends about the results and if they’d be willing to let me test this stuff with their music. Eventually the word spread and the agency is growing!

Bulat, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in England and always wanted to be a musician. After 15 mostly unsuccessful years of it, I discovered Social media ads for musicians and decided to start an agency. We run campaigns for Musicians and Record labels on Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Youtube and Tik-Tok, as well as some other services like website building and search engine optimization. We can handle release strategy, live show ticket sales, merch sales, email marketing etc. and sometimes musicians just need someone to hold their hand as most independent artists are doing this alone and it can be daunting!

I am proud to have helped musicians avoid some of the pitfalls that I have fallen in through my 15 years of experience in all things music and I love watching my artists go from 0 to a growing independent music business. This is what sets us apart, anyone can run a digital marketing campaign but I know what these musicians are going through and what would actually benefit their career in the long term, rather than making the numbers look good.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

As an independent musician that grew up in the age before music streaming, social media and smart phones, I still had this 20th century view of what it takes to build a career in music. I was so sure I was going to be ‘discovered’ one day and the records label is going to take care of all the boring business/marketing stuff. I thought that making contacts with record labels is what you should be focusing on in hopes that I’d get signed one day and become a rock star. Sadly I figured out too late that that is not how things work anymore, and good riddance!

I had to unlearn this mindset of ‘pleasing the gatekeepers’ at record labels, radio stations, TV networks, booking agents etc. in this day and age you can record, release and market all your own music yourself for very little cost (at least in comparison to what it cost 20 years ago). You can run your own social media marketing campaigns and get your content in front of millions of people worldwide for relatively cheap.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I first started running social media campaigns for my own music, before testing it out on my musician friends for free. Eventually the word spread and I got a few clients through word of mouth and decided to expand into more platforms. At first it was just Facebook/Instagram, later I moved into Youtube and Tik-Tok as well, now we offer a whole bunch of services tailored to each artist depending where they are in their career. I think the first PAID client I had was a turning point, even though I was still fairly new and maybe not as confident about the success of the campaign, I decided I’m going to start charging money and not just a little bit of money, a decent amount for my services! It was a change of mindset that helped me to focus on client acquisition and growth as opposed to learning, experimenting with the services I offered.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nelarecords.net
• Instagram: instagram.com/nelarecords
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nelarecords
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nela-records-2b15891b7
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecordsNela