We were lucky to catch up with Mark Brathwaite recently and have shared our conversation below.
Mark, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
I’ve overcome countless obstacles of gatekeeping and barriers to entry in entertainment. I encountered it when I first launched MCB Music, despite the accolades of producing for MGK, French Montana, Wizkid and more.
My mission is tied to seeing creators, industry professionals and businesses more successful and profitable, & to see the barriers I encountered while building MCB erased. This is why Collab Universe exists.
Mark, 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 am an acclaimed hip-hop artist, actor and producer from Toronto, Canada. I’m the founder of collabuniverse.com, a digital contracts & payments company for the entertainment industry; I’m known for producing French Montana, Wizkid, Kardinal Offishall, and SonReal with a duo called Burd & Keyz. I’ve headlined Canadian Music Week, the TD Jazz Festival, and opened for Machine Gun Kelly as well as The Trews. Other career highlights include a collaboration with Columbia Records artist Coleman Hell, releasing my debut album Phoenix and featuring my singles “Rain” and “Sunrise” on MTV Online / VH1 Soul.
Collab is solving a global payments problem (delays due to wire transfer & cheque) while also providing additional transparency for the entertainment industry.
I’m most proud of the successful businesses I’ve created, and of being a dedicated, loving person.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
We used business financing to build the application. A lot of lender applications, tenacity to put together the capital to construct a profitable product.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I built a 60000+ fanbase with the help of a social media manager and scaled the rest myself through a CRM. To build anything you need to be scrappy and be able to run off of fumes if need be in the beginning of your venture.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://collabuniverse.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/mcbmusic
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/mcbrathwaite
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-brathwaite-148a7928/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/markbrathwaite
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/markbrathwaite
- Other: https://linktr.ee/markbrathwaite https://linktr.ee/collabuniverse
Image Credits
On The Rise photo credit: Mike Meehan Shirtless Photos: Nika Belianina