We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicolaas Ten Grotenhuis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nicolaas, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I feel like my parents gave me the perfect amount of freedom and support. They allowed me to make my own mistakes and learn from them, but not feel like I was on my own. In high school they were present, but they didn’t monitor every little thing I did and I didn’t feel like they were hovering over me. They allowed me to pursue different activities, like being in a band, playing sports, and socializing with friends. Even if the activities or pursuits were not necessarily the most productive things, they allowed and encouraged me to find my own passions and drive towards them in my own way.

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 am an artist manager based in Los Angeles CA. I grew up playing piano and was in bands in high school and college. I studied music business at Columbia College Chicago and started managing artists in my junior year there. I moved out to LA in 2018 and worked at APA for two years. In 2020 I launched 10 G Management with a keen eye towards artists with a blend of electronic and live elements. Some of my notable accomplishments include launching both Puppet and Tep No’s first ever US tours, and boasting a roster with over 500 million combined streams on Spotify.

For my artists I try to be as flexible as possible, only providing them what they want and nothing more. I find sometimes managers try to fit artists into their work style, but I try to mold my work style to each artist. I accelerate artists’ growth greatly by connecting them with more potential partners (agents, labels, sync companies, lawyers, publishers, other artists etc) and try to take as much off their plate as I can. I provide 3-6 month plans and help them reach any goals they set.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The longer you work as an artist manager, the more times you will be dropped by an artist, or have to drop artists yourself. There was one specific time where an artist dropped me because I had gotten too angry/aggressive towards their label because I felt like the label was adding too many expenses and not allowing the artist to get paid in a proper amount of time. In this instance, I didn’t match how the artist was feeling when I should have, and so the artist felt like it didn’t make sense to continue working together. Instead of being hard on myself, I took this as a learning opportunity and decided that going forward I would try to always match how an artist is feeling.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe my honesty/transparency, genuine enjoyment of the work, and relationship building skills has given me a good reputation within the industry. Artists know they can trust me with confidential information, they know I enjoy working with them, and they know I will represent them in a professional manner towards other people within the industry. There are a lot of managers who see their relationship with artists as transactional or as a stepping stone to another position, so for artists it’s refreshing to have a solid partner as their manager.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.10gmgmt.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/10gmanagement/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/10GManagement
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolaastengrotenhuis/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/10gmgmt?lang=en