Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jeff Betten. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jeff, appreciate you joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
I’m required to take risks every day as part of my job – every artist signed by a record label is inherently a risk! But some are bigger risks than others. Let me tell you a story about one of my prouder decisions, though:
A couple of years back, this college student on the other side of the country reached out to us at Misra Records – no social media presence, no tour history, just a couple of tunes that he recorded himself in his dorm room. Conventional wisdom says you can’t sign an artist like that, but I heard greatness in his songs. So we created his Spotify profile, starting off with 0 plays, 0 monthly listeners, and 0 subscribers, and then we pushed one of the best damn tunes I’ve ever heard in my life to over 1,000,000 spins. Never would have happened if I hadn’t taken a risk.
Shameless plug: check out “2am, Chinatown” by Primaveras and you’ll see what I mean.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
People always ask me about my background, and if I went to school for what I currently do – the answer is no.
Consider this: Robert McNamara was in charge of the Ford Motor Company when John F. Kennedy asked him to be his Secretary of Defense in 1961. McNamara said that he didn’t think he was qualified to be Secretary of Defense, to which Kennedy replied, “I don’t think there’s a school for Presidents, either.”
The point being, you can’t live your life making decisions based on what you think you’re qualified for. You’ll figure it out as you go, just do it. I started down this whole road because I just felt like running a record label, and so I did it. Mistakes were made along the way, of course, but it was certainly more instructive than if I’d tried to take some kind of classes or tried to get my MBA or something. It was a risk to take over Wild Kindness Records, my first label, and then it was also a risk to move over to Misra Records. It was a risk to start Hellbender Vinyl, too. But you’ve got to give things a shot. If it doesn’t work out, who cares? It could be the beginning of something amazing, though.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The secret of my success is that I’m pathologically resiliant. You’ve got to have a mindset of “Ok, that didn’t work. So what? Let’s try something else.” I really believe that’s what keeps people from doing great things – one can only get to that point if you have experience, and experience only comes from experimenting with good and bad decisions. If an album does poorly, I just make it a point to understand what went wrong, and I try to remember those lessons in the future.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
It’s a book, an audiobook, and a movie: my answer is “The Kid Stays in the Picture” by Robert Evans. Evans was the head of Paramount Pictures in the 60s/70s and was the person responsible for transforming the studio from being the least successful in Hollywood into being the most successful. His path to that role was unconventional – he wasn’t a business executive, he was an actor. Anyone who is looking to be inspired by someone who blazed their own trail would benefit from hearing the story of Robert Evans. 
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jeffbetten.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffbetten/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeffBetten/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-betten/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeffbetten
Image Credits
Brian Cohen