What every start-up can learn from Chancellor Bennett

How does one get noticed in a crowded environment? This is the biggest question every aspiring artist needs to know. If we look at Spotify alone we would see that over 20,000 new songs are added to its library every day. That gives us a staggering 7.3 million songs in a year.

It’s quite obvious that there are too many songs than we can ever listen to in our life time. In fact, over 4 million songs on Spotify have never been streamed. The rise of the internet and advancement in music technology has made it easier for anyone to record and distribute music. However, where the challenge lies is getting noticed.

For years record labels have helped aspiring artists gain fame by promoting them to millions of fans. The paradox is that for every artist signed by a record label there are thousands out there who will never get the opportunity. Jay Z is one of the most successful musicians in the world. Early on in his career, he was refused a deal with all major labels. This made him start his record label Roc-a-fella records in 1993.

Enter the world of Chancellor Bennett aka Chance the rapper, the most successful fully independent musician of our era. In the 2017 Grammy Awards, he became the first artist to win an award for a streaming-only album; Colouring Book.

Chance the rapper receiving his Grammy Award in May 2017

What Chance has been able to achieve over a short period of time is remarkable and there are definitely lessons start-ups can learn from him.

It’s all about the effort

Have you ever realized that even the simplest task takes considerable effort to accomplish? We develop this fine idea and we erroneously think that by putting in just enough effort we should be successful. We are dead wrong. It takes a lot of strategic thinking, focus, and tremendous efforts to get an idea off the ground.

As an independent artist Chance knew the odds were completely against him. In his early days, Chance would spend many hours performing at several open mic events at Youmedia. On the heels of his suspension from high school in 2011, Chance wasted no time in recording his first album 10days. He then spent another 8 months writing, recording and making connections. The result was over 400,000 downloads on the music sharing site datspiff for his first mixtape. This helped him grow a small fan base.

Do what works best for you

Many founders tend to follow blindly existing rules. They study successful products and apply their growth strategies without a thorough research as to what works best for their product. The result is often not pleasing.

Chance knew right from the start that record labels wouldn’t give him the kind of freedom he desired in his music hence he chose to go with digital publishing. He even rejected several labels that came looking for his signature after the success of his second album.

Chance understood the power behind content marketing models and he executed it down to the letter. Give away all your best content for free, earn their trust and loyalty, and make money.

Learn to use free platforms and resources

Chance realized when starting out that his songs could reach millions of people by distributing on free music sharing sites. His first mixtape got 400,000 downloads without doing any advertisement. He also realized the power of networking and word of mouth recommendation which paved way for future success.

The internet has made it possible for anyone to reach out to a large audience at little or no cost through social media, email or news portals. There are several cases of start-ups that have leveraged on these to grow their start-ups.

Founders who are looking to grow their start-ups at shoe tight budget need to leverage on as many free platforms and resources they can lay their hands on.

No harm in experiment

According to Clade Bernard, “observation is a passive science, experimentation an active science”. Brands that want to distinguish themselves and stay competitive would need to constantly test different ideas and see which ones would work.

Chance the rapper started off rapping about drugs and bad behaviour. In 2015, he joined a band known as Dominic Trumpet and the social experiment and he started rapping about uplifting rap gospels.

This gospel rap greatly influenced his third album; Colouring Book and the album became the first streaming-only album to chart on a billboard rank earning it a Grammy.

This quote from Jeff Bezos sums up everything about learning and growing from experiments like Chance did. "To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment. Most large organizations embrace the idea of the invention, but are not willing to suffer the string of failed experiments necessary to get there".

Seyi King is the founder of Onemediafarm.com; a strategic content marketing agency. He helps start-ups and established businesses create contents that drive traffic and conversion online. To reach him, send an email to [email protected].