We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jaime Bilotti. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jaime below.

Jaime, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I have always been someone who is fueled by curiosity and with that comes the fact that I cannot let my curiosity go unexplored. I place a lot of value behind my intuition because everything else can be learned but your intuition is what nobody can define for you and makes each of us unique.

Due to my curiosity, in addition to my professional experiences, I have listened to many podcasts, watched many documentaries, and read many books to soak up as much information as I could from various entrepreneurs. I’m a big advocate that you should never stop learning because the industry and the world are changing every day. In particular, one piece of advice that Jesse Itzler (whose career I admire), has stated on numerous platforms is actioning a long-term goal in digestible steps, while also following the larger vision and not compromising or giving up on it – cause it is hard! Which is to be expected.

Growing up, I can now identify that I had an entrepreneurial spirit but I did not know that until I started the journey. I think it’s important to note that I didn’t go to bed one night and wake up thinking “I am going to start my company today”, I was gradually creating a space I needed to exist. It’s like building a plane while flying it and there are certain lessons you need to learn but can only do so during the process. It’s not just about the skills and work that goes into it, but the emotional component of truly giving your all to something.

There is a lot of context behind the why of starting both companies, but the short version is that they all stemmed from my passion for being a fan. For Fan To Band, through working within major labels in college and participating in fandoms that went the extra mile for the favorite artists I identified two major gaps. One is that the overall stigma that fans are hysterical was discouraging and gatekeeping those niche fans who wanted to work within the music industry from getting started. Two is that the inconsistencies in the definition of what fan engagement was across the industry, making fans not properly catered to throughout. Through those two gaps, I started bringing fans together by providing resources on how to get started in the industry, best practices on what to do when you get in, and how to define your own personal definition of success, and we ended up making a community of like-minded individuals who could lean on each other and empower the overall mission that fans are smart and deserve a seat at the table.

It was a journey, to say the least, and it continues to be every single day. Thinking back to when I first said the words “Fan To Band” to a group of Why Don’t We fans, I often think little did I know where this is gonna take me. Two underlining themes that follow me throughout my career are longevity and consistency. I am interested in making meaningful relationships with fans, artists, and professionals, and it’s proven to me that what I like to call “extremely well-informed faith”, that if you are consistent with your work ethic, what you stand for, and your own opinion, those that may not currently see the value will see it eventually (and they seem to always do!).

I am extremely proud of the fact that the fans I have met along the way have continued to stay and feel empowered by our community at Fan To Band. Through our 3 year journey, we have learned that the innocence within that community needs to be preserved. Once we identified that, we made it our mission to bring on a team of people that could vocalize their perspectives, empower a community, and lead with the resources we have given them. By doing so, it has allowed Fan To Band to redefine what it means to be empowered by your passion, and act as a soundboard for anyone who may need to be encouraged to do so. Once we had a team in place for Fan To Band that we trusted, we knew it was time to launch my second company, mutuals Agency, in 2022 to create an agency to service clients in personalizing their audience interactions and relationships. We ensure audience members can feel seen, heard, and valued through targeted campaigns across a variety of platforms. By partnering with fans directly, we make sure to advocate for their needs and wants in the room to ensure a mutually beneficial fan-to-artist relationship.

Those same two themes come up again within mutuals – longevity and consistency – as we aim to work with artists who know what they want to say and can cultivate audiences who add value to the world we live in today. Not just in the short term but in building their careers. The music industry is extremely saturated. As consumers, we can listen to so much new music every week. We are aiming to release music that will last longer than your average 6-week cycle, campaigns you think back to that mark a time in your life that you will never forget, and artists whose careers fans will invest in.

So how did I get here? What tangible things did I do to get here?
1. There will never be a right time to start, so I just started, which is half of the job.
2. I told people about my aspirations and my plans. Putting your ideas out into the world is a hard thing to do and gives other people permission to potentially criticize it – to take that idea that as a founder you treasure more than anything, and say it’s not good.
3. Defining your own version of success. With a pen and a paper, I wrote down what success meant to me, and regardless if people love or hated my mission, I stood by my intuition and the definition of success I laid out for myself.
4. Giving myself permission to allow that definition of success to be fluid and follow where my intuition takes me throughout my career. But yet again, only I can redefine that.
5. I learned how to put together a business plan, pitch deck, branding, logo, and everything else that goes into the foundation of building a sound structure for a company. We skipped no steps to get to where we are today, and that will aid in our longevity.

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

Jaime Bilotti is a Forbes 30 under 30 lister who continues to help destigmatize fandom within the industry. From past experiences at all three major labels, Bilotti was able to see the disconnect between an artist and their fanbase – and specifically how to cater to them. Launching her first startup in 2019, Fan To Band, Bilotti has become an overall champion for the 1700+ global members in over 30+ countries through the Fan To Band Virtual Street Team. In her newest venture, mutuals Agency, Bilotti and her team will showcase authentic audience insight gathered through market research and that they are the best at implementing that through fan engagement strategies. At 23, her career is just beginning and Jaime Bilotti is a force to be reckoned with as an industry trendsetter and fan engagement thought leader.

mutuals Agency is an entertainment company with an emphasis on audience, using market research to empower and inform all of our work. By investing our time, energy, and resources into each of our clients, we seek out artists and audiences that add value to the larger conversations happening both within and outside of their work. We act as an extension of your team through the three avenues of agency strategy, market research, and management. In scaling grassroots marketing strategies and personable market research – we ensure audience members can feel seen, heard, and valued through targeted campaigns across a variety of platforms.
Website: https://www.mutualsagency.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mutualsagency/ – 466 followers
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mutuals-agency/ – 188 followers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mutualsagency – 115 followers

Fan to Band’s ongoing commitment is to provide educational resources to aspiring music industry professionals by hosting workshops, panels, monthly speaker events, and more. Founded in 2019 and publicly launched in 2020 by, founder, Jaime Bilotti, Fan To Band’s motivations lie within the passion that came from personal fan experiences in fandom and providing fans with opportunities to project their careers further. Our mission is to break the stigma around fans turned professionals. This is further amplified by our Fan To Band Virtual Street Team, which is home to 1,700+ people from 30+ countries. We host focus groups, workshops, and communication forums for this exclusive community and these activations help us keep a finger on the pulse of the real-time evolutions within the entertainment industry and also help us to be the most well informed when making all business and strategy decisions. In addition to our educational events, we host several fan-built projects, such as album listening parties and marketing campaigns.
Website: https://www.fantoband.org/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fantoband – 26.3K followers
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fantobandd/ – 8.6K followers
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fan-to-band/ – 4.1K followers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fantobandd – 2.7K followers

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is evolving daily with new platforms and features changing the landscape in how we interact digitally with our followers. Where we have seen the most success is through setting clear intentions for our content. While followers may seem important, it’s the intention for the engagement that truly matters in order to turn those followers into fans. Since our inception, we have put $0 into paid media and have grown organically throughout. By listening to the wants, needs, and demands of our audience while playing into ongoing trends and conversations, we have been able to insert ourselves as content thought leaders throughout all of our social media channels, including our recently revamped blog account. The biggest piece of advice I would give to anyone beginning to build their social media following is to be as authentic to your account’s mission as possible. Your followers, and most importantly fans, can tell when your content feels disingenuous. Staying steadfast and consistent with the goals you have set out for you and your audience will allow you to grow loyal and engaged followers, and most importantly a brand.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

My upbringing couldn’t have been more removed from the music industry. My dad was a sanitation man and my mom was a physics professor and X-ray technician. Yet, their work ethic has been instilled in me and helped propel me to where I am today. I cut no corners and skipped no steps to get to where I am and I am confident that in most rooms, I can outwork anyone. I also credit my family for keeping me grounded and true to who I am no matter what I do and who I work with. As a young female entrepreneur within a heavily male-dominated industry, I am often underestimated. While it is expected, it never makes it less shocking to have a stigma placed on me. If I had a dollar for every time someone referred to me as a young woman in a not-so-positive light, I would be able to fund ten companies. It is because of the amazing people I have met along the way and who have invested their time in me that I continue to show up in every room. Following the same two themes, longevity and consistency, I ensure that I help others who I have no obligation to help but do say anyway, just as others have done for me.

Contact Info:

• Other: I filled this in for each of our organizations in an earlier prompt!

Image Credits
Anna Boylan, Photography (headshots) Dominic Betances, Graphic Design (logos)