We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Wizards Ink a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Wizards , thanks for joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
Two years ago, “Wizards Ink” was solely an idea, with a funny catchphrase (casting the illusion of professionalism). Mike and I graduated from Rowan University in 2021, both with degrees in Music Technology and Business, and we found ourselves living in Philadelphia with a strong desire to create a business that allows us to pursue music our way. In comes Joel shortly after, a spanish-classical and jazz studio guitarist. Much like any small business or start-up, we knew that this would take years to develop and created work-life balances that allowed us to put 20-40 hours a week in creating music and facilitating growth. In January 2022, our work begun in earnest. From that point onwards, Mike, Joel, and I got to work reaching out to all the talent we knew, and were constantly starting projects. It would be close to a year until we saw some of the fruits of that labor. From January to January, all we did was work. Our business model is entirely based on collaboration, genre-bending, and networking in the simplest form. As musicians, engineers, and producers, we had all the tools we needed to create music from start to finish. What we lacked was an audience. A&R (artist and repertoire) is one of the oldest jobs in the music industry, and with today’s technology there are no more middlemen required. In general, an artist is either small enough to reach via Instagram/email, or large enough that they have representation. Either way is a free and direct line to other artists.
Spotify and social media combined provide all the tools necessary for success. On Spotify, one can see how popular an artist is, and based on their top 5 songs and their monthly listener count, one can deduce how sizeable an artist’s fan base is. As a rule of thumb for growing in monthly listeners, artists and groups should seek to collaborate with others that have 3-10x their audience size. How do you find these people? Load up some playlists, find music you like, and make a list. You might not hear back from one artist, but if you reach out to 100, several will likely be interested in, or at least open to, working together. You might be nervous about reaching out to someone with a big audience, but they most likely got there themselves from collaborating with others and being prolific and competent while doing so. When an artist is willing to collaborate with you, make sure above all else that you do the simple things well: listen to your collaborator’s needs, communicate consistently and professionally, and put hard work into the track you are collaborating on! Music is very much a spiritual and ethereal thing, but sometimes people within the ecosystem of music can fall into the trap of thinking of it as only an ethereal, spiritual thing and allow unprofessional interpersonal habits to seep into their way of operating. Don’t do this! Be as creative as possible with the music, but being incommunicative and undisciplined in your efforts is not a necessary attribute for being a “creative” individual. The most successful people we have worked with exhibit the most successful habits, from cheerful enthusiasm and consistent communication to even so far as scheduling time in their calendar <i>months in advance</i> to work on a collaborative track. We have had the chance to meet and collaborate with some really awesome musicians and people, and are extremely grateful for the connections we made. On the flip side, if a smaller artist reaches out to us to collaborate, and we like their music, and they send out positive & professional vibes, we will happily pay it backwards within the larger ecosystem and collaborate with them. We average one release every three weeks, which is a good reference for how often producers should be releasing music.
Each year we create a quota for how many streams we hope to reach, and the total of combined monthly listeners for those we worked with.
Year 1: 20,000 streams and a collaboration network of 200,000 monthly listeners combined (Achieved in 2023).
Year 2: 200,000 streams and a collaboration network audience of 2 million (Achieved in mid-2024).
As of now, we are closing in on 600,000 streams for the calendar year of 2024, and our current collaborative network has a combined monthly listener count of well over 3 million. Our goal for the upcoming year is 2 million streams, and a collaboration network audience of 10 million. Based on the projects and collaborations we have already lined up, this is a surprisingly reachable goal. If we are able to maintain this current trajectory, we might just be able to retire and live off of royalties by 2030.
The best part of this strategy is that anyone can do it. It does not hurt us to share our business model, and this strategy does not only pertain to music. If you make lemonade, find someone who makes coffee and make a stand together. If you like to paint, find a collection of painters and have a show. If you stream videogames, stream with other streamers. Time, patience, skill, and the ability to work with others is the key to success no matter what industry you find yourself in. ALWAYS leverage your positive situations for more positive outcomes.
Wizards , 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?
My name is Greg Tomanelli, one of the head engineers of Wizards Ink, and I am a producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist. I grew up in the home of a Jazz Pianist and have played instruments ever since I could reach the keys. In high school I performed in marching band, acapella group, pit-orchestra, chamber choir, and all-county and all-regional choir. Afterwards I graduated from Rowan University Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in music business with a specialization in technology, and a minor in Law and Justice Studies. Since graduating, I have both produced my own music and taken on various production/engineering roles for other artists. I primarily work with the two other members of Wizards Ink, a production group based out of Philadelphia PA.
I strongly believe that musical exposure and focus is important when growing up, and am incredibly grateful for the Jazz, Classic Rock, Classical, and Soul music that I was shown and taught to appreciate at an early age.
I am very proud of the success our group has had in the first two years of releasing music, and especially the growth in skill that has come with hours of practice, technological research and technical application. Nowadays, I rarely hear a mix/production that I don’t know how to recreate, and when I don’t, I’ve begun to see it as an opportunity to collaborate and grow my skill set. One thing I would stress to potential future clients/partners is that our devotion to the music we create is unwavering, and our dedication to finding success will never cease.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Consistency and hard work are the best ways to foster brand loyalty. Only ever create what you want to listen to, and treat your business partners/customers like family. Never sacrifice your individuality for someone else’s approval; when your content/words aren’t your own, they are nobody’s. And quite possibly no one will listen.
Organization is also key: there are never enough excel sheets/to do lists.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Our quality music and partnerships helped us build our positive reputation. Early on we created several tracks with more prominent artists and have released with some of the biggest independent labels in the world. Most notably, we released a single with ‘Chill Select’ and our debut LP with ‘Vinyl Digital.’
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/wizards._.ink
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wizards._.ink/
- Youtube: https://music.youtube.com/channel/UC77h_UsrF5Yl3U6HhSU2s0Q
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3wl9W60HX2fhAkQLUZPEn9?go=1&sp_cid=3a40d1615362b1ab8d259d552aaa8415&utm_source=embed_player_p&utm_medium=desktop&nd=1&dlsi=c350d48557594249 https://music.apple.com/us/artist/wizards-ink/1662028841
Image Credits
Michael Pacca, Greg Tomanelli