We recently connected with Niko Kotoulas and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Niko, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

Over the past 5 years , I’ve made a full-time living income from my creative work. While it’s been extremely challenging at times, it has also been extremely rewarding. As a piano player and music producer, here’s my story to making a full-time income.

My first business venture was releasing piano arrangement of popular music on YouTube and then having large growth on Spotify. I started releasing music on YouTube in 2013, and on Spotify in 2016, where eventually by 2018, I was making enough off of Spotify to pay for my rent and some living expenses.

Realizing though that I did not control Spotify and they could take my music off playlists etc., I found other ways to monetize off of my music.

I had read books about people making money from online courses, so I decided to invest almost all of my savings into coaches and consultants on how to build an online business (and I wanted to focus on the music niche). At the same time, I really wanted to learn music production, so I invested whatever money I had left into online education.

Basically running my personal bank account to almost zero and living with my parents (to invest every penny into learning), I found out that many music producers struggle with playing piano and songwriting. So I decided to make an online piano course and find a way to license royalty-free melodies and chord progressions to the audience.

Over the last four years, I created MusicCreator.com, which to date has over 100,000+ users using our royalty-free melodies and chord progressions to produce music. We also have thousands of students from all over the world learning in my piano and songwriting programs. Having courses and digital products as a content creator is the best way to monetize. Some of our students include multi-platinum producers, Grammy-winning songwriters and music creators from every skill level.

Building this company (with no employees and bootstrapped) required many 60-100+ hour work weeks including 14 all nighters (yes I counted) due to product launches. It also required learning sales funnels, email marketing, FB and Google ads, video editing, hiring, firing, SEO, YouTube and many more skills. I scaled the company by setting up systems and running a significant amount of Facebook/Instagram and Google/YouTube ads. I was a meme for a period of time for my main products (Niko’s MIDI Pack).

Even though I love being creative, my former career on Wall Street helped me realize that I had to monetize my work in some way or else I would struggle to pay bills.

It’s crazy to think how far I’ve come and I spent the past year just creating music and songwriting. The business allowed me to take a year off just to do that.

Niko, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been playing piano since the age of two and have always loved music. I’m grateful to have multiple projects in the industry to fully explore my creativity. While working on Wall Street, I was lucky enough to catch a viral moment on Spotify that allowed me to have enough income to leave finance and pursue music. Ever since then, I have made a career out of my music and am looking forward to exploring my full potential.

1) Niko Kotoulas – my piano artist project that has accumulated 100,000,000+ streams across all platforms. I’ve also been lucky to have my music played on NBC, Peacock, ESPN2, Warner Music, Armada and official Spotify playlists.

2) MusicCreator.com – my e-commerce/learning platform that has helped over 100,000 music creators make better music. The main product “Niko’s MIDI Pack” has a variety of royalty-free melodies and chord progressions that anyone can use in their music. The company is still growing daily and I look forward to scaling it further.

3) Niko Levendi – my dance music project that I launched this year. While still in its infancy, hundreds of DJs have downloaded my remixes and have played that at major club venues.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Sometimes, it is best to know when to quit or move on from a certain project. Quitting is actually a very important skill that many successful artists, musicians and entrepreneurs have.

When I left my job in finance, I attempted to continue to grow my Spotify piano arrangement following. This is what was providing my income at the time. For six months, I continuously would release song after song, only to realize that I was plateaued and growing the account to a level I wanted would be near impossible/extremely hard as I couldn’t control what songs ended up on major playlists.

That is when I did some serious research into digital courses and online products.

The first product we launched was a piano course which did well, but I just didn’t think the marketing behind it was great. It wasn’t the “home run” that I was looking for.

So I decided to look into other digital products. We pivoted to MIDI packs (royalty-free samples of melodies and chord progressions) and that’s what really took off. Eventually this was the “home run” we were looking for and the MIDI packs are our best selling product since then.

So I started making income with my music from Spotify royalties, moved into piano courses, and then finally pivoted to MIDI packs. All of these generate income today, but the MIDI packs were the product that the market really liked.

Many would say the ultimate pivot I made was leaving finance to go into music full-time, but I think the above illustrates the pivoting required as an artist/entrepreneur.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is realizing one’s full potential. This can be done through finally being able to play a certain piece on the piano (that can take years to play) or producing a song you really are proud of. While outside metrics are nice, the internal feeling of knowing you did something and have achieved your potential is the best part of being an artist.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.musiccreator.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicbyniko
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niko-kotoulas-408a661a/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nikokotoulas
• Soundcloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/nikokotoulas