
I started a one-man biz that's beating VC-backed startups - pud
https://news.distrokid.com/what-ive-been-up-to-for-the-past-4-years-ef06ab9c5cd6#.pbxjucbsm
======
aresant
@Pud can undeniably build products that are laser focused and useful.

And his minimalist approach to company building is epic and I am a fan.

But it's sort of disingenuous to play David Vs. Goliath here like his line
about launching:

"I figured only a small number of smart people would somehow find us among the
masses."

He's just like the rest of us - just build a great product and be lean guys!

But oh wait he launched DistroKid on the back of the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of
registered musicians already using his other site - Fandalism - founded years
before.(1)

EDIT - why I am a fan of pud is in the children to this comment he brings a
data-gun to a knife fight and sorts out my impression w some facts.

(1) [https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/06/philip-kaplan-
fandalism/](https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/06/philip-kaplan-fandalism/)

~~~
csallen
A similar situation: Jason Grishkoff built and grew his music submission site
SubmitHub[1] "on the back of" his popular music blog Indie Shuffle. People
said it therefore must have been easy, but that's not actually the case. He
spent 4 backbreaking months sending over 1000 personalized emails to sign up
the initial collaborators he needed to make the SubmitHub marketplace
possible. The moral of the story is to be wary of succumbing to availability
bias[2] and underestimating the work that goes on behind the scenes.

The other lesson is, as Pud said in reply to you, always be parlaying.
Spending years building up an audience that you can market to might sound like
"cheating" to those of us without such an audience... but then again, spending
years acquiring programming skills before starting an online business might
sound like "cheating" to non-developers. In reality, it's simply a smart idea,
no more and no less, to leverage existing advantages like a unique skillset,
valuable knowledge, an audiences, personal connections, etc.

Specifically, building an audience is a great precursor to launching an online
business. Growth is hard, and starting from zero makes it harder. And anyone
can build an audience! I recommend checking out Ben Gelsey's analysis of
Product Hunt's rise.[3]

[1]
[https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/submithub](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/submithub)

[2] [http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/availability-
bi...](http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/availability-bias.html)

[3] [https://medium.com/@theunixbeard/product-hunt-s-
rise-d49249a...](https://medium.com/@theunixbeard/product-hunt-s-
rise-d49249a1a2c0#.ddbokz70a)

~~~
jstandard
This response only addresses the extreme criticisms about saying they had a
blog so it "must have been easy" or "it's cheating".

I don't think it was easy nor cheating. Both of the founders mentioned here
are smart, capable, and engineered whatever advantage they had.

Another perspective on self-promotional articles (not an inherently bad thing)
like these is they downplay or omit the influence another venture had on
building their current one. The SubmitHub article has a specific question
about 'what have been your biggest advantages' and it surprised me that
"running a high traffic blog in my target industry with a large email list"
wasn't mentioned there. That seems like a huge advantage.

This is a sentiment I've seen in many of the comments here and in the HN
comments about your SubmitHub writeup.

It's not meant as a personal attack at you, Jason, or Distrokid's founder.
You're all doing great things! It's about breaking down what were likely the
major factors in success so that information can be applied in one's own
ventures.

~~~
csallen
Totally agree with you. I know this is a nitpick, but in Jason's response to
"What have been your biggest advantages", he actually does talk about running
Indie Shuffle:

 _> As mentioned before, being "part of the problem" provided the best
advantage possible. There were a few competitors trying to solve similar
problems, but none of them were actually part of the equation. As such, they
struggled to convince others to sign up, and didn't have a steady funnel of
users to push their way._

Specifically, the knowledge he gained from running Indie Shuffle ("being part
of the problem") and the "steady funnel of users" really helped him out.

~~~
jstandard
On 2nd glance, you're right. It could have been more clear ("running my music
website was a huge advantage because..."), but it was indirectly acknowledged.
Thanks for calling it out.

------
brilliantcode
I love articles like this it's inspiring...but it really doesn't offer any new
insights other than the fact that

 _Every one man success story on HN was largely possible due to existing
audience from another entity that took years to grow_

It's pretty disheartening once you read the article and it boils down to this
very requirement: You Need An Audience First.

I'd like more insights and details in _how_ lone entrepreneurs of HN were able
to _grow_ their audience.

Because when Step 1 is _have a big enough audience_ the rest of the steps are
pretty much a no brainer. It's this step that most of us are struggling with.

I've spent years in seclusion writing a SaaS that ultimately resulted less
than the annual wage of a North Korean factory manager and it was rough both
physically and mentally but it all boiled down to the fact that VC funded
startups were able to do huge PR and buy ads, write blog posts, increase
Adwords bid prices etc while I was not.

So yeah, you can succeed with a one-man biz outfit but not without an
audience. It makes sense why Linkedin is valuable, why Pinterest, Whatsapp,
Oculus, Twitch gets bought out even without revenues.

~~~
cardine
I was able to bootstrap and launch a successful (5 figures MRR) SaaS by myself
with no previous audience. Now we are much bigger (in terms of both employees
and revenue).

How I did it was very simple. I found where my customers were and I lived and
breathed on the industry forums they were on. While developing my beta I had a
very strong sense of the problems people were facing, how my product solved
those problems, and why my product would be superior to competitors. Plus I
was able to establish myself as a reputable person within those circles of
people on those forums.

So when my beta was ready I was able to get people to pay for the beta by
offering them a lifetime discount and the ability to talk with me throughout
the development process so that they had some impact in shaping the product.
Just from those beta users I was ramen profitable and I was able to bring on
an intern for a couple months to help me speed up some of the development.

By the time I publicly launched I had a core group of evangelists (the beta
users), a strong reputation on industry forums, and an amazing product that
solved big issues my customers faced and I reached 5 figure MRR within a month
of launching.

~~~
a13xb
Ah, so the secret to launching without previous audience is to build up an
audience prior to launch.

~~~
cardine
A lot of people think along the lines of:

Step 1: Develop product

Step 2: Market product

But both need to be done in tandem with each other. While you are developing
your product you should also be working on some way to either build an email
list, establish rapport, get on people's radar, or at the very least validate
a product fit and a basic marketing strategy.

For instance if you plan on advertising on Adwords you should be running tests
to a dummy page (or email opt-in) before your product launches so that you
know if that is a remotely viable option before sinking tons of priceless
developer hours into a product with no proven way to market it.

Alternatively if you are going to advertise on forums you better spend a lot
of time on those forums to make sure you are creating something those people
care about and that those forums have enough visitors to move the needle.

Those are two examples - there are a million ways to market a product and all
of the promising ideas should be experimented on and validated before your
product is even finished.

Far too often solo cofounders are driven by a cool idea and then handwave (or
worse look down on) the marketing aspect of it, and then after their product
is finished they are left wondering why they spent huge amounts of time
creating a product that nobody is signing up for. When I launched there was no
uncertainty - I had already talked to tons of people in the industry, had lots
of beta testers, and had properly validated the promotional channels I thought
fit best with the product.

~~~
kpennell
The book 'Traction' does a great job at building upon this great comment and
giving good action steps for founders/makers to market their product

------
jtth
To be fair, any company making a net profit is doing better than most VC-
backed startups.

~~~
FussyZeus
I've gotten so tired of the VC model. It produces nothing. Just company after
company of the same rehashed ideas (or worse still, good ideas) that are
doomed to failure because they can't eat the world.

I wouldn't work at a VC unless I had literally no other options, and if I ever
start a business, I'm doing it the way the author here did: honest work for
honest wage. Maybe I won't get any Ferrari's but at least I'll have my
dignity.

~~~
brilliantcode
You aren't alone. The current VC model is destructive because of it's wasting
capital at perhaps the most riskiest and inefficient way of producing alpha on
other people's money-spraying & praying.

I don't know all the ins and outs but I have to echo the sentiment that it is
better to make $1 for every $0 spent than $1 for every $2 spent. The latter
makes _zero_ economic sense. Any fucking idiot can spend money and make
negative ROI. But the market dissonance is being fueled by low interest
capital.

We are going to see history repeat again this year and when the water goes
out, we'll see who's been swimming naked. They'll be back for the next bubble.

I'm convinced these bubbles are engineered who make money from the ride up and
the ride down. Pump & dump on a national level but of course the men who play
Gods need not play by the same rules they enforce on lowly mortals.

You will be able to buy a used Ferrari as they depreciate fairly quickly
unless they are rare. They aren't built with longevity in mind and the parts
do not depreciate in prices (expect to pay a Honda s2000 for clutch and F1
paddle shift pumps).

~~~
chrissnell
It's not really accurate to say that the VC game makes $0.50 on the dollar. If
that was true, they wouldn't be in business. They make money by hitting grand
slams--throwing out a BS number here--every 30 times at-bat. That's all they
need. What's unfortunate about the VC model is that 29 out of those 30 at-bats
is made on the backs of people who genuinely believe that they have a strong
chance of being that grand slam. It's those startup founders who end up with
the grey hair and circles under their eyes. As long as their are optimistic
dreamers, there will be VC patrons.

~~~
FussyZeus
Except it's not 1/30, it's more like 1/300 which still sounds generous to me.

As for founders with grey hair, I admire their passion, but I didn't get to
where I am now by lighting both ends of my life candle on fire for a 1/300
chance of being better off. Fuck that noise. I'd rather have a life and be
poor.

------
inopinatus
Really resonated with me, also being a micro-startup with a minimalist
customer-centric philosophy, albeit in a completely different market.

Steps to reproduce:

1\. Identify a poorly served professional segment where the business processes
are not the primary task,

2\. Automate their processes with vision and passion and empathy for the
customer,

3\. Make fans for life. Maybe also profit.

Minimum requirements to execute: at least one seed customer; wifi; coffee;
time.

Rock on pud.

~~~
pud
Indeed.

Rock on inopinatus

------
tom_pulo
I very much like reading this type of stories where founders candidly talk
about their business, how well they are doing, what did it take to get where
they are (remove a good chunk of the usual BS, add some numbers). Indie
Hackers is a great source
([https://www.indiehackers.com](https://www.indiehackers.com)) for this type
of stories.

I have a feeling that this is the dream of a lot of people on HN. Having an
easy to run business with a couple of people, without crazy competition, not
needing to go sell it to VCs, and making a good amount of money while running
it. Not judging, just observing.

------
econner
Met @pud once while he was CEO of Blippy. Very nice guy and great to talk to.
I also absolutely love his post: "Why Must You Laugh at My Back End"
([http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-
back...](http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-back-end)).
He's built lots of crazy impressive stuff by himself and DistroKid is no
different.

~~~
minxomat
Heh, I just wanted to checkout the DBaaS he mentiones, but it seems
[http://www.xeround.com/](http://www.xeround.com/) is now a really shitty
Alibaba "clone".

Edit: For reference, here's the old website:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20071019010255/http://xeround.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/20071019010255/http://xeround.com/)

~~~
econner
Yep, yep, my favorite part is using Dropbox to deploy code.

~~~
pud
I've since discovered the joys of git. Dunno what I was thinking with Dropbox.
Did the job I spose.

~~~
skrebbel
Couldn't you still use dropbox to keep eg server config in sync? you can put a
git repo inside a dropbox folder anyway :)

------
nagvx
Please correct me if I'm wrong - isn't this a terrible business decision? It
took a small team a year to make a product that is apparently taking the
market by storm. Their secret sauce is apparently not some special algorithm,
but common-sense automation. If the barrier to entry is actually this low, and
they advertise the fact widely enough, they will soon be joined by competitors
trying to do the same. They may be ahead of the pack, but they lose their
selling point and their advantage faster than they would have done otherwise.

Why give away your hand like this?

~~~
40acres
It's one thing to talk about your plan, it's another thing to actually execute
it. We've seen bloated startup after bloated startup, I think running a lean
(and I mean lean, 3 employees is nuts to me) ship like this is very hard to do
and also must be very tough being the sole programmer.

~~~
PaulRobinson
It might be tough being the sole programmer, or it might be bliss.

I've been daydreaming about running a microISV recently - the ability to
prioritise everything myself and crack on without justification appeals. Sure,
I might be wrong, but that's OK.

------
b_emery
So artist pay $20 per year, and to quote the article "100,000+ artists", he's
looking at $2,000,000 gross per year? Three employees. Amazing

~~~
pud
Plans start at $20 per year. $35 gets you more advanced features (ability to
set release dates, customize pricing, and more).

We also have optional paid services, such as cover song licensing ($12/year
per cover song), YouTube ContentID ($4.95 per single) and a few others.

~~~
mysterpaul
How does $12 cover the license of a cover song? Aren't those fees much
higher/based on number of sales?

~~~
citruspi
DistroKid is charging $12/year to handle the covered song fees for you - they
automatically withdraw the required amount from your royalties and send it to
the original author.

[0]:
[https://distrokid.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/2131024](https://distrokid.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/2131024)

------
myfonj
Minor complaint / remark: is there _complete list of all stores and services_
that DistroKid supports (directly, or better even indirectly) somewhere?

All I was able to find were murky statements about 'dozen mayor services' and
"150+ others" [0]. That page links "MediaNet Customers" page [0a] that
displays 24 logos and links [0b] that displays list of 286 "MediaNet Content
Partners". Is that it?

I was particularly interested about Bandcamp and all I've found that DistroKid
mentions Bandcamp [1] and Bandcamp mentions DistrokKid [2] but no proof they
really talk to each other.

[0]
[https://distrokid.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1276117-...](https://distrokid.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1276117-what-
stores-will-my-music-appear-in-) [0a] [http://www.mndigital.com/about-
us/customers.html](http://www.mndigital.com/about-us/customers.html) [0b]
[http://www.mndigital.com/about-us/content-
partners.html](http://www.mndigital.com/about-us/content-partners.html) [1]
[https://distrokid.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1601235](https://distrokid.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1601235)
[2] [https://bandcamp.com/help/selling](https://bandcamp.com/help/selling)

------
urs2102
Ah yes! The CFML guy - @pud (that's how I always remember him from that one
blog post he wrote)!

This is really cool, and love hearing about stuff like this. I love the idea
of running a small team and scaling a product which doesn't have a huge
overhead to make something which beats out the current market by just doing a
few things better. Hats off to you man. Great stuff!

~~~
pud
This pub, this very pub we're sitting in. I built it, with my own hands! But
do they call me the Pubmaker?

Naa!

See the wall over there, that protects our town? I built it, with my own
hands! But do they call me the Wallmaker?

And the bridge, you know, that crosses our river, I built it, with my own
hands! But do they call me the Bridgemaker?

But I tell ya, man! YOU F*CK ONE GOAT!

\- the CFML guy

~~~
urs2102
This is the reply I was looking for.

You really got me there 'the CFML guy'.

------
georgespencer
I love what you're doing! But have to observe disparity between:

> beating VC-backed startups

and

> DistroKid intentionally has a small team and no investors. We’re here to
> make the world a better place for musicians — not to make billions from
> them. We’d make ludicrously more money if we charged what the other
> distributors do.

It sounds like you're coexisting quite nicely with different objectives.

~~~
tedmiston
> beating VC-backed startups

Just to nitpick, CD Baby isn't really a VC-backed startup either, right? I've
been under the impression Derek bootstrapped it to revenue quickly similarly.

~~~
skrebbel
He sold it and they pivoted since. It's hardly the same company at all anymore
(Derek's CD Baby was an online record store. A webshop for CDs).

------
startupdiscuss
@Pud

There are many people who want to know about your tech stack. I think the
thinking goes: with one developer, it must be an insanely productive stack.

[http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-
back...](http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-back-end)

is old, do you still use the same set up?

~~~
Prefinem
As someone who works in an AWS / CFML shop, I would also like to know this

------
leroy_masochist
@Pud, would be great to hear your take on what it has been like dealing with
the record companies. According to YC:

> Because the alumni network is so large and tightly knit, investors or
> companies who try to maltreat a YC-funded startup can usually be made to
> stop. [--> footnote] Except for the record labels, which are effectively a
> rogue state with nuclear weapons. There is nothing we or anyone else can do
> to protect you from them, except warn you not to start startups that touch
> label music. [0]

Your service does various tasks such as cover song licensing which are record
label-facing. What has that been like?

And, congratulations on getting engaged.

[0]:
[http://www.ycombinator.com/atyc/#n3](http://www.ycombinator.com/atyc/#n3)

------
dyeje
Eh, I go with CDBaby because the math doesn't work out for me as a small
artist. I'd rather pay $50 and just have my album up forever. 9% doesn't
matter much to me because I'm making peanuts anyway. Maybe if I get bigger
I'll consider switching over.

It would be really slick if DistroKid had some kind of conversion process for
CDBaby / Tunecore customers.

------
omarchowdhury
The entire thing is built on the ecosystems created by companies that were all
venture backed at one point, though.

~~~
idoh
There is a big difference between having direct competitors that are VC backed
versus using infrastructure that is VC backed.

~~~
sidlls
I think the parent's point is that he's built his company on a VC-backed
foundation. Not saying it's valid (I have no clue about this business or how
it's built), but it seems he's trying to say this is a bit like Space-X
claiming to be beating NASA at space travel.

------
rmason
PUD has a well deserved reputation among solo entrepreneurs. I think Distro
Kid is his fifth startup.

All but one of his companies (the one unsuccessful one) were powered by CFML.

~~~
Cyph0n
CFML is not a "hip" language, so I don't care /s

This a lesson for all of us developers (myself especially!) who end up fussing
over what kind of language/framework/server to use before writing a single
line of code.

Props to @pud.

~~~
owebmaster
CFML is and always was an inferior tech. Worse than PHP, together with ASP.
But kudos to the Guy that makes itvwork the way he need.

~~~
prawn
In the time you've taken to miss the point, Kaplan's probably launched another
business.

~~~
owebmaster
And now he is launching the third one. As a software developer myself, what is
the point you got that I missed? CFML is awesome?

------
quadcore
_I started a one-man biz that 's beating VC-backed startups_

Click-bait title in my opinion. It's not because you don't need VCs to satisfy
your customers that VCs are bad. They are good when you need them to satisfy
your customers. Now distrokid-competitors' problem is not that they have VCs
money, it's that they "hired" bad ones. Now, I grant you, good VCs for
startups, those who gonna understand whats good and not for your customers may
be rare... But look at google and facebook, they did right by taking VCs'
money don't you think.

~~~
badestrand
One could very well argue that this success would not have been possible with
VC money. They would never have this business model of $20/artist/year because
VCs want loads of profits. And they would have >100 employees instead of
three, because, well, aggressive scaling.

It might boil down to your definition of success I guess. Having taken VC
money might have maximized their profit but at the cost of their top USP (very
affordable service). Also they probably would not be loved as much by their
customers and not doing as much of a good deed to the artists as they are now.

------
erichocean
[https://distrokid.com/](https://distrokid.com/) is a near-perfect landing
page for this kind of service. Well done!

Anyone know if there is an equivalent for independent films?

~~~
6stringmerc
Amazon Video Direct is a worthwhile enterprise to explore. It takes effort.
Quite a bit of legwork to fill out forms. Also, the content MUST have a
subtitle file...but those things considered, it's highly competitive and gets
things on Amazon Prime and pays out real $USD.

------
ajaimk
Fandalism launch in January 2012. Distrokid in mid-2013. Considering it took
@Pud near 4 years to reach these numbers with DistroKid, the year and a half
of building a user base with Fandalism is not that big a deal.

This basically would be the same as all the freemium companies out there that
offer everything they do for free for a while till they build their product
enough to start charging for it later.

My favorite line is in the original DistroKid TC article where @Pud says the
goal wasn't to make money with this but to get more people to the social
network.

------
tomclancy
I've been watching DistroKid since it spawned out of Fandalism. Awesome to see
how successful it's become.

Just curious, what % of artists gross over $19.99 a year?

------
drenvuk
This is pretty darn cool and the first I've heard of it. I thought there'd be
a cheaper way to do what your competitors have and here you've done it. What
your success also confirms is that reducing your workload with bots and
cronjobs are one of the keys to succeeding with a small team.

How do you handle support?

How are you able to find infringing music?

~~~
pud
> How do you handle support?

2 full-time support reps (who are amazing), so we're not really one-man,
anymore.

> How are you able to find infringing music?

Obviously I can't get into details (lest the baddies figure out how to get
in). But we have about 40 different checks to make sure the artist is who they
say they are (or manually verify if the check fails) and other things.

------
no_wizard
I think it's great that you have found great success as a pipeline service.

I also think it may be disingenuous to suggest this can or should work for
every type of business. While I happen to agree that services that simply do a
pipeline, aggregation, or intermediary service are A) not something I feel VCs
should usually spend their money on in great quantities if at all and B) are
often the most ripe for disruption, I disagree that finding scaled efficiency
for all types of businessses in this manner is possible.

I do however think it's wonderful you are promoting the more traditional idea
of a business with this product at least which is the more canonical
bootstrapping or self funding/ side job till you make it/ type thing that
doesn't need tons of employees to be a good value for those that are a part of
that business.

That's just my opinions though I'm glad it's been a success

------
bootload
Having quickly looked at the audience for DistroKid, then see what happens
with artists by major labels, no wonder the product is sought after by
upcoming artists. [0] Bandcamp is another company that uses technology to
squeeze out the middle man. [1] The first page is really well designed. You
can easily see what the product does, "let artists make music, then distribute
it for a fixed cost".

Reference

[0] "52 Ways to Screw an Artist, by Warner Bros. Records"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13648245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13648245)

[1] "Is Bandcamp the Holy Grail of Online Record Stores?"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12324350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12324350)

------
technologyvault
This is another example that it's a misconception that you have to have a big
team and lots of cash to get to the next level

Stories like this hearken to people like Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram's Kevin
Systrom and Mike Krieger.

~~~
sidlls
Mark Zuckerberg had "lots of cash" compared to most folks (his father, a
wealthy dentist, and his father's friends bankrolled Mark's business). He's
not the best example to use when it comes to "bootstrapping."

------
Futurebot
Interesting related statistics:

"The blockbuster effect has been even more striking on the digital platforms
that were supposed to demonstrate the benefits of the long tail. On iTunes or
Amazon, the marginal cost of “stocking” another item is essentially zero, so
supply has grown. But the rewards of this model have become increasingly
skewed towards the hits. Anita Elberse, of the Harvard Business School,
working with data from Nielsen, notes that in 2007, 91% of the 3.9m different
music tracks sold in America notched up fewer than 100 sales, and 24% only one
each. Just 36 best-selling tracks accounted for 7% of all sales. By last year
the tail had become yet longer but even thinner: of 8.7m different tracks that
sold at least one copy, 96% sold fewer than 100 copies and 40%—3.5m songs—were
purchased just once. And that does not include the many songs on offer that
have never sold a single copy. Spotify said in 2013 that of its 20m-strong
song catalogue at the time, 80% had been played—in other words, the remaining
4m songs had generated no interest at all."

[http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21716467-techno...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21716467-technology-has-given-billions-people-access-vast-range-
entertainment-gady)

------
stuffedBelly
As a part-time musician, I absolutely love DistroKid.

~~~
pud
Thanks!

------
haywirez
Hey, does (or can) Distrokid offer an API? I've been dying to find a
distributor that would let me programmatically submit/replace releases. It
would only be used for my label, no bulk stuff, reasonable per-call fees or
adjusting balances on a pre-paid account would be fine. Sale statistics API -
even better.

------
tedmiston
> By contrast, our competitors largely have millions in funding ... And
> they’re owned by venture capitalists and/or private equity firms who are
> banking on a large exit.

Disincentives of the startup model at work!

These days it feels like you if your startup doesn't have polarized outcomes
you're "doing it wrong".

------
mcguire
Hey Pud, since you are answering comments here, I have a question: what
failures have you had?

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sk24iam
This is very motivating. I am also running a site in the indie music industry
as a one-man biz. ([http://www.synthshare.com](http://www.synthshare.com)) It
has been a challenge to build up the community, I'm sure leveraging Fandalism
helped you kickstart your growth. Do you have any advice about user
acquisition? Recently I've been getting feedback from music production
communities which has all been positive and converted to users; however, it
sometimes feels like the site isn't growing as fast as it should be
considering all the positive feedback I've received.

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aurizon
I see the comments where you started running with a sea of clients who trusted
you to give them a fair shake. I see so many of the others where the music
makers suck hind tit. Looking at your competitors, you have a clear advantage
in your lean and efficient structure. In time your method will spread and and
drive many others out. The problem I see is labels tied to the big companies
may have restrictive agreements that exclude you. Couple this with the wish of
many people to feel they are complete when they have bought into
spotify/Apple/etc.

In any event, I wish you well, live long and prosper

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72deluxe
I am surprised that the development time of 1 year was considered a long time
by him compared with his 1-2 month initial estimate.

If only projects I / we had been working on for 2 years became so successful!

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stryk
Is this a digital-only endeavor? I don't see any mention of physical product
services such as pressing CDs & DVDs, printing covers/liner notes/etc. And
what about marketing materials like posters, flyers and so on. There's still a
market for that stuff, and it could be another revenue stream. Merch is also
pretty big for some artists, you could explore getting t-shirts and hats and
stuff printed. (just an idea, i've no idea if it's profitable, or more trouble
than it might be worth)

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luckystartup
This is amazing. How does one person build so many successful startups while
everyone else struggles to just do one?

Maybe there was some momentum from his previous successes? If you're already a
famous startup founder, then I guess it's easier to get users for your next
startups. I've heard that this was the case for Slack, but I don't know how
much truth there is in that.

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cyberferret
Great to see this. Stoked to hear that it is the same guy who started
Fandalism. I used to use Fandalism years ago to post my clips but just kind of
stopped. I never got any emails or communication from them and just assumed
that they faded away. Spurred by this article, I checked, and am amazed that
it is still going strong. Must remember to get back to posting on there again.

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kriro
Previous connections aside this is still very inspiring. Scaling this well
with only three employees (and resisting the urge to add more people just to
be bigger) is an amazing feat. I'd be very interested in more details. How
focused were you on being profitable and reinvesting profits vs. taking
venture money? My guess is profit was one of the key metrics?

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spir
3 employees, wow! Sounds like it would have taken 300 employees twenty years
ago. Reads like an advertisement for basic income.

~~~
tehno
I wonder what his contingency plans look like. That's a bus factor of 1 there
with just 1 programmer.

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buss_jan
I'd be interested how you arrived at this particular pricing. $20 per year
seems crazy low to me, have you experimented at all with raising the price.
Intuitively, I'd think that the next cut-off point is at $49, but that in the
range below that the demand is fairly inelastic.

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6stringmerc
...and please count me in among the users for the past 4 years who have seen
the value, enjoyed the service, had a lot of fun playing with metrics, and
feel inspired to continue my 100% rights ownership in music pursuit for 2017
and beyond.

Great product. Great support. Great example.

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pareshverma91
Does DistroKid track the usage/consumption details of the songs for artists to
look at or analyze? If so, what is the probability that they will expand to
also have a recommendation system for indie music based on these aggregated
stats?

~~~
pud
Yes we provide lots of stats to artists. No, we're not planning on a
recommendation system (plenty of online radio thingy thangies that are already
great!)

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mshenfield
It's awesome to hear about a swarm of bots replacing millions of dollars worth
of labor overhead. Are you worried about the maintenance and QA at all? Is
there anything about the problem that lends itself especially to automation?

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BorisMelnik
Would have been so much better if it was titled "YC startups"

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sidcool
>thought it would take 1–2 months to build DistroKid. It’s just plugging into
some APIs and moving files around, right? I underestimated. It took a year.

Wow. I would like to understand more about this.

~~~
wingerlang
Any technical tasks estimation is usually 3x of the intial. So let's just put
3-6 months there.

Then imagine talking to lots of 'stores', contracts, legal stuff and so on.

Just reading about what this is, I think even one year is quick.

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ejanus
Great! I would like to tap your brains. But now you have captured/conquered
the music world wouldn't it be wise to disrupt movies/films distributions?

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sidcool
A very well written and inspiring post. Congratulations and good luck. Do you
mind shedding some light on the tech stack you used for distrokid?

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Animats
It's Craigslist for music. Low overhead. This could do to the music industry
what Craiglist did to newspaper classified advertising.

~~~
overcast
The music industry still produces/mixes/masters music.

~~~
Animats
No, they don't. That's all outsourced. The music industry "labels" are mostly
marketing and funding operations. All the steps of music production are
available to anybody.

~~~
overcast
Right, which is part of the industry. Who exactly is paying for all of that
expensive studio time? The broke artist?

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omouse
What's interesting to me is how he focused on doing small things and building
up on them.

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rrtwo
How did you get the music industry companies to agree for you to directly
upload files to them?

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RainManDetroit
Good, there are better backers out there who will buy you out whole and let
you keep your soul.

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curiousDog
I probably missed it in the article, but how does Distrokid make money?

~~~
scentedmeat
"artist pay $20 per year" ... "100,000+ artists"

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tudorw
FC, oh boy, happy days :)

~~~
abraae
Many, many wasted hours.

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sandGorgon
You have dozens of bots, written by one dude ?

Really interested to know about your stack and your deployment methodology.
Did you build a bit/async infrastructure because of scale issues...Or is it
inherently a mental model that is easy to grok easily?

~~~
prawn
May not be up to date, but past info on his stack:

[http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-
back...](http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-back-end)

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yresnob
Is there something like this but for books and poetry books??

~~~
runevault
So there are a few parts to this. Raw distribution you've got stuff like
Draft2Digital which can help you distribute to Amazon/B&N/Kobo/etc. Limited
value outside B&N requires you to be in the US so they can help you get around
that if you are non-US based. But they also give some tools to make things
like putting links to the right store in the back of your book for each
platform.

However doing any licensing stuff if say you want to pay to put quotes from
book snippets/lines from poetry/etc into your book the way distrokid lets you
license a cover, nothing that I know of handles that space. I don't know if
there's enough of a market for it because it isn't nearly as good a business
decision for a writer as doing a cover can be for a musician, so smart writers
avoid it.

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sddfd
Great work! I'd like to see more startups like this.

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kyasui
I use and love Distrokid - thanks for the product!

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drewman
*one-person ftfy

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tomelders
a distrokid API would be pretty useful.

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jasonwilk
Congrats Pud.

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bwhites
nice

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ommunist
This is fantastic success story! Thank you for sharing. A schoolbook example
of disruption howto.

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blunte
Hey, nothing wrong with self-promotion - it can take you places! Look at
POTUS.

~~~
ejanus
OK.......self-promote your ventures ):

