Before we get started, the preview episode of my new podcast, featuring Andrew Southworth, Dustin Boyer & Matt Bacon, is now available. Find us on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform.

Part 3 Recap

Last week, we covered how big your target list should be: hundreds of artists at first, then whittle down over time. We talked about the daily research process: picking one artist each day and finding their team members, collaborators, and observing what they do that's smart.

We covered following targets on separate burner accounts and using tools to organize your research. The goal was to find opportunities: venues, playlists, press coverage, and community spaces.

The big insight was that what looks like luck is really "the connected mind" - you can see opportunities others miss because you've done the research.

Now for Part 4

Going Deep With Your Research

So in part 3/4, we talked about how opportunities aren't luck and that they're a connected mind making good moves. Now it's time to go deep into this research.

Digging Into The Details

Going deep means opening up YouTube descriptions and looking at credits for directors, producers, mixers, and mastering engineers. Different artists will have different answers to fill in for you to start finding patterns. This can even sometimes be in the dumbest nook of the internet, like a Facebook About section or the bottom of an artist's website.

But why does this matter? When you need to level up your mixes or masters so you sound as good as the other artists you're trying to get on the same playlist as, this is the list that will lead you to who to work with.

But not only that - the managers, labels, and booking agents of all these artists follow these mixers, managers, and directors. When they see you getting reshared by them, that's often how you get on their radar and get signed to them. I have seen it happen more times than I can count, and I’m pretty damn good at math.

The Answers Become Clear

Over time, you're going to get tons of answers. If you're watching YouTube and looking at the descriptions of these targets, you'll see who directed their video and you'll know exactly who you want to direct your next one. If you're looking through credits, you're going to know who to go to level up your sound. If you're seeing a manager's name come up over and over again in your targets, you know to follow them on social media and try to get in their circle.

Finding Your Best Fans

This work helps the answers become clear on what you should do and gives you the best answers possible on how you're going to keep leveling up. So many people do so little research and go with their first thought they have and wonder why they keep falling flat on their face. This work prevents that.

But most of all, it shows you the fans most passionate about your music with the most potential to lift you up. In the next videos on this series, I'm going to go way deeper on those fans and how you use this to find the best fans possible, and I'm going to show you how you introduce your music to them.

This work is what gives you the unfair advantage over lazy artists who think they don't need to do it.

The Chainsmokers 🤮… Did This Too

Here's The Chainsmokers on how they found artists to work with, which helped build their fanbase:

Community Work Pays Off Years Later

I'm going to leave you with one last thing - this work also pays off years later in bigger ways. Listen to this story of how Madeon and Porter Robinson (2 of the biggest names in electronic music) met on a message board when they were teenagers, which contributed to their career growth years later when they collaborated. This is how community work pays off dividends over the years.

Make Life-Long Friends

So go find the artists you will hopefully do cool things with, become friends for life, and do cool things. Here's an idea: as you get to know a few of them, introduce them to each other and drop a link to a video like this one, and start a helpful friendship where you all help each other out. As one of you grows, so will the rest of you.

Isn't that way better than getting bummed out every time you don't have more money for stupid Facebook ads or get dropped off a playlist? I think so too.

That's it for our Finding Your Community series. Get out there and start making those connections that will change your life.

Thanks for reading.