To those Musicians who...
√ want a complete answer to the question "how do I get a music career?"
√ would like that music career to improve their quality of life, not detract from it.
√ define success on their own.
√ accept that starting independently (as an "indie") is not only the norm for music careers, but also how to best strengthen your chances for success.
√ lack the rare luxury of a big budget, or connections to gatekeepers within the entertainment industry.
√ work hard and want efficient results instead of throwing shots in the dark.
√ value freedom in running their careers: creating music, playing shows, living an artist’s lifestyle, owning their product, setting their timelines, and enjoying (or at least not minding) the upkeep of the business side.
√ are ready to lean into the greatest era of music history — a world where anyone who wants to be a musician can "Do the Thing" and actually be one.
Welcome to MIC.
If you're interested in turning your music into a career, it’s you that we relate to, so we created The Mountain to support and train us all to become experts at running music careers, just like we’re experts at our musical crafts. In short, that means the goal is for you to set up a Business and balance it with your Personal life so you can prioritize making Art as much as possible. That's what you want, right?
We want that, too. We're called MIC: Music Industry Connected because we connect the puzzle pieces of what a music career actually looks likeeveal the industry secrets & human overlaps you didn’t know that you didn’t know will make or break you. We shed light on the behind-the-scenes secrets and illusions that often hold musicians back. We share optimized checklists of only the things that are absolutely necessary for the setup and upkeep of an independent music career, so you don't have to scramble around or risk missing something important that could roadblock you later. We share all of this through the tool we offer you for free here on our website, The Mountain.
We started creating The Mountain in 2013: our work as indie (independent) front-line musicians (artists/bands) working with other indie musicians gives us real-time experience in what it’s like to create and share Art in the music industry right now in history. Then we combine this insight with our expert Business research through case studies and experiments. Finally and most uniquely, we use our psychological, philosophical, neuroscience, and fitness research to incorporate the Personal: how to work with the human vehicle of body and brain.
Balancing the Art, the Business, and the Personal is what makes The Mountain realistic, creating music careers that achieve both quantitative and qualitative measures of success, while emphasizing improving quality of life instead of the unfortunate norm of detracting from it.
We get a lot of questions because what we do is rather unheard of, so now we're going to use our website homepage to cut right to our FAQ.
CLick the following QUESTIONS TO OPEN/CLOSE the ANSWERS:
The #1 question, we get it. It’s not just that people need help with music careers, it’s that they don’t know they’re at massive risk.
Every musician who truly wants a music career is at risk for a lifetime of potential bitterness and disappointment if they don't approach this topic correctly. It's more than a trend, it's a massive problem. Although there are surely some exceptions to the rule who feel satisfied with their careers, they're not the norm. Millions of musicians across history (including many famous ones) are unsatisfied by whatever their music career brought or didn't bring them, and they cradle that burden of a heartbreak for the rest of their lives. It's dramatic but it's true; we've gone out there and found this tragedy in action, in grand scale. No one is immune to this problem, because everyone is human, and the human brain is often wired for disappointment unless you work with it. This is quite the doom and gloom note to start off on, but it's the heart of why I started MIC in the first place (Emily Plazek here, nice to meet you) - it's a damn shame, and it doesn't have to be this way.
The Mountain offers the weapons of perspective and education to combat this problem:
Perspective means you've gone out and collected insight from other peoples' true stories of living through what you want to also live through (in this case, a music career).
Education means you learned about this world/industry you want to enter.
You need both of these in your arsenal to set up your "Expectation Management" so you're less likely to be disappointed. Here's an example: imagine the potential satisfaction difference between one child who wakes up on Christmas morning expecting perfectly specific gifts under the tree, and another child who has no specific expectations and is simply excited to open any gifts at all. The first child set expectations on a very high bar and risks not being satisfied because the gifts aren't exactly what she imagined; the second child is still happily in awe, dreaming big and excitedly, but with less paralyzing, ultra-high measures of success she's counting on to be happy. The second child's "Expectation Management" set her up with a higher probability of happiness, or "success."
We're not going to sugarcoat it, if you (1) often dream of a music career and (2) also want to live a generally happier life, you have a choice to make between 2 options to make that "happiness" happen:
1) You can pick another path in life with a good, healthy acceptance that a music career isn't for you. There is nothing wrong with this option - many people don't want a full career out of their music.
2) You can go after a music career by putting in significant amounts of hard work, patience, grit, financial investment, and continuing education, while continuously paying attention to your "Expectation Management" and personal "Definition of Success".
There really isn't an option 3 that offers a happy, satisfied ending because if you choose anything else, you're setting yourself up for disappointment by setting unrealistic expectations. Music careers are not easy. They're arguably one the most complex careers: they're an entrepreneurial venture to create businesses with backwards sales/production processes, tricky psychological traps in both creator and consumer behavior, and massive investment requirements of not only money but also time and energy (both tactical daily energy and also deeply personal feelings) - not to mention how they attract a wide range of negativity in jealousy and the illusion of "competition". The Mountain is here to make it simple, but it's not easy.
So to answer your original question: You will be interested in MIC at all if you choose option 2, because The Mountain is the tool we made for you to speed up your perspective and education. You're welcome in advance, we really are glad you're here.
That's the right question to ask next, well done. Maybe you asked it because you've been here before, trying to achieve your music career success goals, and you have a salty taste in your mouth from someone who didn't deliver on helping you. There's actually a very big chance you're one of the many people who's gotten taken advantage of by those in our industry that want to keep outsiders out, and raid your wallet in exchange for false hope. We're sorry that happened to you, it's happened to many of us, and we're honestly pretty fiery about the fact that this problem is so widespread.
In fact, hand us the mic for a moment, we're going to use some necessary generalizations for a moment, with a reminder that there are many wise, loving exceptions to this rule: It's absurd how many people inside the industry dangle impressive-sounding accolades and associations (accurately or otherwise), offering to "help" outsiders with advice or connections for a hefty fee, without expertise in how to give career advice effectively by analyzing unique scenarios in a scientific method, trauma-informed, consulting manner - instead they share only bias and anecdotes.
More and more music career degree programs are popping up, and some of them do offer truly a wonderful education, but others are way more shady - like some of the new ones popping up that are created by major record labels (dangling that impressive company name) that hold no accountability for job-acquisition upon graduation because they simply don't need that stat to impress people. People will flock to them regardless, in the intoxicating shimmer of this industry and its brand names. So many companies and people prey on the hopes and dreams of this massive market of music-career-hopefuls, luring them in with empty promises, dishing out biased & anecdotal opinions with no basis in research - they pocket the money and walk away.
All of that is to say that you should know we put our money where our mouth is:
We spent 8 years creating The Mountain through research among many populations of music career case studies, on a worldwide scale, using the scientific method to avoid bias and create a non-cookie-cutter approach for anyone to find their personal Definition of Success. Also, since some people want personal attention, we do offer services like Consulting, but we also offer The Mountain for free for those that really need it and don't have a bigger budget at the beginning.
You should also listen to us because we're street smart, both about our collective decades of real-time indie music career experience, but also about this weird "free" approach to help others with The Mountain. We've been in this long enough to know that because we offer The Mountain for $0, some people aren't going to be able to conceptualize it as worth more than $0 (it's a psychological consumer behavior principle of valuation) - but that's a risk we're willing to take to get The Mountain in the hands of those that need it now, which is the only way to achieve our vision of helping every musician around the world improve quality of life.
We're incredibly serious about what we do here, and The Mountain is a resource you should add to your arsenal of tools. It's not that you "should listen to us" though because that's sassy and forceful, it's more that you should trust us. We promise you that what we're offering you will significantly help you, without stepping on your artistic toes or trying to trick you into spending unnecessary money.
Walk away now if you're not willing to invest a ton of patience over many hours, weeks, months, and years. This is an industry where the squeaky wheels get the grease - you're going to have to keep working hour after hour, for days, weeks, months, and years, because even though we'll teach you how to be efficient, it's still a ton of work. Also, you'll need to keep building yourself up in your head when you feel discouraged, reminding yourself that everyone in this front-line section of our industry had to make something out of nothing on their own. No one else can get in your head and shout back at the bad voices for you - that's a muscle for you to grow by yourself. Anyway, you said to yourself you wanted a music career, and since careers are lifelong things you were probably already expecting this timeline was going to be so long.
Walk away now if you're not willing to investing a good handful of money, as well - at least a few hundred dollars over the first few months (dependent on if you decide to go to Step 5, you'll see). We keep costs as low as possible for you here in The Mountain, and you can expand your timeline to fit how long it will take you to raise your funds, but you will definitely need money to make a music career. (Good job on whatever you've saved up so far, or plan to!)
Walk away now if you refuse to dive into your own mind's expectations and definitions of what "success" means. The Mountain is not a quick fix or a magical trick to make you rich and famous. This journey is so much bigger than that. You're going to gain something so much greater than the simple riches and fame most people start off focusing on. You'll see. We know self-awareness isn't the easiest thing for everyone, so if you aren't ready to challenge your own beliefs yet, we hope you come back someday when you are!
Let's get a few other myths out of the way:
No, you will not immediately make your money back from putting your music onto DSPs like Spotify. No one does, it's a little more complex than that.
No, you're not going to immediately attract thousands of fans simply because your music is inherently that good. No one does, it's a little more complex than that.
No, you won't likely luck into a "big break" because someone discovers you and does all the business work so you can be comfortably rich and enjoy touring the world with no complications. No one does, it's a little more complex than that.
But all of this is okay - The Mountain will show you why the entire equation of a music career is so much bigger and more complex than doing some activities and immediately making money from it. It's simply not direct like that. You have to make many investments in time, energy, and money, while working around tricky human perception and hunting down the big opportunities ("Lifts"). Read The Mountain and you'll see what we mean.
MIC: Music Industry Connected is a music career research and consulting company that helps the most musicians possible across the globe by sharing a music career process called “The Mountain” for no charge, here on our website. MIC also offers Other Services for purchase, like Consulting, Workshops, and Network Hookups.
MIC was founded as "MIC PGH" in 2013 in Pittsburgh, PA, USA by market research expert and indie musician Emily Plazek (hello there!) and the internship classes she hosts to sift through experiments and case studies. In 2017, MIC went national with a move to Bloomington, IN, USA. In 2021, MIC went international through the first intern classes via zoom, with worldwide talent ranging from Seattle to the Philippines.
MIC is the Home of The Mountain - and it's many, many wonderful people.
The Mountain is a 6-step process for for setting up a music career.
Here's another way we like to say it, because it's got more juicy detail:
The Mountain is a music career perspective for musicians (and managers) who want to create a successful “front line” (artist/band) music career very seriously and long term, towards a unique Definition of Success, without sacrificing quality of life by balancing the Art, Business and Personal. Let us emphasize this last point because it’s our true passion here at MIC: A music career can and should be a tool to improve quality of life, not detract from it. Unfortunately, that’s not the norm. Most people are very dissatisfied and disappointed by whatever their music career brought them. It doesn’t have to be this way. The Mountain will convince you of this, as it did for us.
The Mountain is offered for free here on our website. It's a 6-page outlined checklist of The Mountain's 6 Steps (The Preparation Steps [1-3], and The Climb Steps [4-6]) that simplify, in an optimized order, all of the steps you have to take to pursue a music career efficiently and achieve your personal “Definition of Success”. We give it to you in this written way first, because we found, through our research and experimenting, that this was the only means of sharing it that worked to cover such a sheerly massive amount of material. There’s a lot to go through. It’s a whole industry and career integrated into your lifestyle, so of course it’s a lot.
The Mountain zooms out to give musicians an eagle’s eye view on how to set up music careers, so they can either pitch themselves to sign to labels one day, or remain independent - all while seamlessly integrating Art, Business, and Personal to create a satisfying lifestyle. A perspective like this does not exist anywhere else in our industry, and it never has - it’s why we’ve been working to make it since 2013.
Here's what we mean by that: there are tons of helpful educational materials in our industry, but we've found they usually zero in on one expert topic - understandably so! Yet while trying to find other materials that cover "the entire music career", we've been disappointed at how they end up being rather overwhelming and impossible to act upon, due to their encyclopedic fact-explaining styles, because they fail to address sequence, prioritization, every sector of the industry, and what to exclude (because very often what you choose *not* to do is as important as what you choose *to* do.) So, while those resources are still truly helpful for the nuggets of golden information they provide, it was that feeling of overwhelm and disappointment that drove us to create The Mountain.
Lead by our founder Emily Plazek (and fellow indie musician Millaze), we’re musicians, students, and professionals who've spent many years testing The Mountain's suggestions through our experiments and clients’ experiences. We aim to build a method that creates long-term, sustainable music careers. Together we're able to cut out a ton of fluff and bias, instead of regurgitating biased, untested opinions. We try to be scientists in this way by using the scientific method to test out hypotheses and gather quantitative and qualitative data to inform our conclusions.
See, the thing is, you’re about to set up a business. That's what a music career is. It takes time and learning to build any business infrastructure - if you want it to be sturdy at all. No one emerges from the womb knowing how to do this, and even years of experience in the industry usually misses the integration of some pieces of the puzzle. Of course everyone has to learn. So we’re thrilled and proud to share our unique perspective and efficient method of doing so with you, to help you save valuable time and jump ahead in your career more quickly.
However, we do feel obligated to tell you right now that it is not easy. It’s simple, but not easy. Anyone can do this, but not everyone will. If you matched the description of our introduction poem "To Those Musicians Who..." on this page above, there's a chance you're one of the elite in this world that The Mountain was made for - and we look forward to being your music fans.
Also, we want you to know that The Mountain is updated quickly as the industry landscape changes; this is another strong reason for why we publish it on our website here, so follow us @theMICmountain on your social media platform of choice to keep you in the loop for these updates.
You’re about to read The Mountain for free here on our website, on 6 separative & consecutive pages, one per each of the 6 steps.
You'll see we talk about this a lot. The entire Mountain begins with this in Step 1, because most people don’t even think of pausing to ask what success means to them. Instead, they follow an undefined goal of “making it” which is too vague to ever satisfy. Hence, endless dissatisfaction and unnecessarily decreased quality of life follow their efforts, no matter what they do. This is the norm, until you learn otherwise.
Success is different for everyone in general, but if you're pursuing a music career because you truly love the Art of music, that means one part of your personal Definition of Success will include what we refer to as "The Doing of the Thing" (see Step 4: Climb). Credits for this phrase go to to comedian Amy Poehler for sharing the concept in her book, "Yes Please"; comedians and other entertainers may not be musicians, but there are many common threads in our experiences. So in a music career, "The Doing of the Thing" is the functions of a music career: playing music, writing music, recording music, sharing music, performing music, etc. This is what people dream of doing daily when they dream of a music career, right?
And here's the lucky part: at this point in history, "The Doing of the Thing" in a music career is possible for pretty much everybody thanks to technology, and anyone who pursues this is incredibly successful in our books - because most people don't go after their dreams at all. The gatekeepers that used to rule the land are still out there - but they don't rule the entire kingdom anymore. Thanks for beginning to carve that path, indie musical predecessors across history (we salute you, punk rock!). Now, anyone who dreams of playing, writing, recording, sharing, performing music, etc, can do it, with a worldwide reach, without a label or anyone else.
This is big. Big time stuff.
Yet, a lot of musicians haven't grasped this profound truth because they're distracted by the illusions and tricks rampant in our industry due to low levels of self-awareness, abused mental health, and the general drug of ego that all humans suffer to some extent, which the entertainment industry exacerbates extremely through outdated belief cultures. We at MIC are human too, so we relate to this struggle - but we work together to live in this world, but not of it. And we offer The Mountain to bring others with us together into this cool, bright, transformed future.
On another urgent note, concerning why perspective is what will make or break your music career: We urge you to remember that every disadvantage has its advantage, so there are pros and cons to every place on the music career timeline. Wherever you are right now in your career has strengths - no exceptions. Once you understand this reality, you should feel an excitement that can consistently and endlessly fuel you with energy, which is important because a climb needs such fuel. (It's pretty impossible to pursue a truly great dream if your mental and emotional tanks are emptied out, right?) By accepting and then working with this reality, you'll uncover something most people don't ever find out: satisfaction every step of the way fuels the next step.
If you want more than the written Mountain, here are some of The Other Services we offer. All services are available to anyone around the world, after meeting the minimum requirement of reading The Mountain. Our international intern team helps us expand our research to situations all across the globe - so if we don't have an answer yet, we know how to help you find one! Reach out if you're interested in any of these:
√ MIC Consulting Sessions are available for either musicians or managers who request some personal attention. Our MIC Strategy Experts will meet with you on a one-off/as-needed or package of regularly-scheduled virtual calls (Zoom, FaceTime, or Phone call) to create Strategy Masterplans & Process Manuals for your unique Mountain scenarios. This is especially helpful for Step 2: The Backpack, Step 3: The Map and Step 5: Data Climb, where a good deal of research and expert insight are needed.
√ MIC Consulting Workshops are similar to the Sessions, but for a larger group of people. This is especially helpful for independent labels, collectives, and general groups of musician or manager friends who want to split the cost.
√ MIC Network Hookups set up by our Experts help connect you with experts and creatives within or outside MIC that we’ve vetted for collaborations on whatever you need during your Mountain climb: websites, logos, cover arts, biographies, contracts, accounting systems, brand analyses, and more. This is especially helpful for setting up the Business Plan and Brand Plan in Step 2: The Backpack.
It’s arguably weird that we’re sharing The Mountain for free, we get it, but we’re a double bottom-line company: we’re concerned with not only normal company profit/loss but, also and equally, our level of positive social impact. Sharing The Mountain as our baseline product at no cost is how we can best hit our second bottom-line.
We’ve spent many years thinking about MIC's own Definition of Success, especially this part: help as many musicians as possible. By taking away a price tag for simply reading The Mountain (which very often is all that musicians need), we know we’re helping many, many musicians around the world that can't afford professional Consulting, especially at the tricky beginning stages of their careers when budgets need to be spent in Step 4 & 5 -- yet, at the same time, if anyone wants personal attention, we have Consulting ready to offer, too. Therefore offering The Mountain at no cost hits our Definition of Success, just as we suggest musicians do in their careers. We care about putting our money where our mouth is in this way.
In return for getting it for free, what we ask of you is to share The Mountain with your musician friends, and share your stories with us so we can add it to our observational research. Head over to our Contact page and update us on you! (Also, we want to be your music fans, too - ah crap, you caught us, this is all a selfish ploy for us to get more truly great music to listen to.)
By sharing this extensive, efficient, effective music career knowledge together, we’re infiltrating an industry that needs a lot more good energy. The more people that start approaching the music industry in such a holistic way, the healthier the landscape becomes for all of us. Many others out there have pushed and are currently pushing for this transformation, too, so The Mountain is our contribution to music industry history. We're right here with you.
We understand how important this question is. Nowhere in The Mountain will you find advice on how to create Art, or what Art "is". You'll find no "how to write a hit" tutorials, or "what makes great 'art'?" editorials. We skip this part. That kind of stuff is out there on the internet for you to find if you want it. Instead, we assume that you had a firm and evolving grip on your music before you even arrived here; it’s not our place. Instead, The Mountain is for you to create the career and lifestyle you crave to support that Art.
Striking a balance between the Art, the Business, and the Personal is vital for creating a successful music career, and our many years of work resulted in a method we truly believe in to help musicians simplify and optimize the Business and Personal components. We hope your Art flourishes as a result of using The Mountain like we do, too:
Steps 1-3 are The Preparation Steps that set up the foundational base of your career that ensure you won’t fall into failure traps like scrambling or distractions, and then Steps 4-6 are The Climbing Steps up The Mountain when you “do the thing” of a music career, where your Art truly thrives.
(All that said, if you do need help creating the Art, whether it's writing songs or creating visuals or anything in between, we can offer trustworthy connections to some of our MIC Network Hookups.)
Yes: what about the musicians who do appreciate "The Doing of the Thing", but they also want to "compete" and get more listeners, book the big shows, etc? Well done, you're interested in Step 5: Data Climb, which is The Mountain's answer to an issue you may not have learned yet: at this point in history, labels only sign acts that have already done all the business setup and pursued marketing strategies to claim a fanbase. (Sure there’s an exception here and there for some indie labels, but those are either incredibly rare or risky because not every indie label is made equal - not all of them can deliver on your career expectations simply because they call themselves a "label".)
The music industry isn't all that old in the first place, and this current era completely transformed the record-label-talent-hunt that used to be the norm: now virtually every musician starts indie (remember: meaning independent, not the genre), whether they sign to a label later or not. Yes, even if you want to sign with a label, you have to start indie first, then pitch your product to them, much like an entrepreneur pitching their business plan to investors (record labels are truly financial institutions at the end of the day).
Although there are some examples out there of nepotism and big money creating music careers without all the hard work The Mountain is going to take you through, those examples are rare outliers and/or unsustainable & tend to die out quickly, like a "flash in the pan". The high majority of the hundreds of thousands of musicians in the world start on their own, with realistic average-person budgets of time, energy & money to spend creating their dream. All of this means that those who get a firm grip on “how” to run a music career, win. The Mountain will help you get that grip.
The Mountain uses the United States of America for its primary example because that's where our baseline research takes place. However, our vision is to help musicians around the world, so our international intern team helps us to continually expand our research to include many different situations that vary by country such as Publishing's Royalty Collection companies, legal entity options (other than LLC's), Distributor and DSP preferences among different populations, and marketing expectations & opportunities (Step 5's Phase 3 - Expansion), and more. We include as much reference as possible to these geographic differences within the written 6 Steps, and our Consulting Sessions offer personalized attention and extra research to dive into your unique situation and find solutions for your location.
This will be one part of your Definition of Success, because all human beings need money to live, and it's what distinguishes a music career versus a hobby. It makes sense you want to understand this early on. Your answer lies in understanding 3 things: (1) your options for Revenue-Generation (see Step 4), (2) the difference between Passive & Active Income, and (3) the fact that money spent is a part of the equation, so keeping costs low is important. Since (1) is explained in Step 4, let's address the others:
Passive Income (money that comes flowing in consistently without extra effort) is different from Active Income (money you earn from a specific activity you had to work towards).
First, let's look at Passive Income in action: Once you release and fully publish your music, royalties will be generated that you'll collect in a Passive Income manner; however, you must fully publish your music (as you’ll also see in Step 4.) Then, the more marketing you pursue (Social Media, PR, Playlisting, Lifestyle Branding, etc) to get your music listened to, the more royalties that will be generated. Furthermore, the more strategic your marketing, the more efficiently this can all ramp up, as you’ll see in Step 5.
Next, Active Income: You’ll also pursue Active Income streams from Touring, Merch Sales, Sync Licensing, and some other exclusive, later-earned forms of Lifestyle Branding (like licensing.) The word "active" in Active Income implies you’ll need to invest time and energy into each of these income streams, so a lot of The Mountain is created to free up time and energy for you to be able to do so. Life is an either/or, and your assets of time/energy/money can only be spent on one thing /or/ another.
But, most importantly, money coming in the door doesn’t mean you get to keep money in your pocket if you let costs get out of control. In case you didn’t know: revenue (money generated) becomes profit (money you get to keep) only after costs (anything you spend money on). Therefore The Mountain’s goal is to keep your costs low; we understand that musicians starting out usually have realistically low budgets (unless you’re super lucky, cheers to you if you are). Anything The Mountain insists you spend money on is actually definitely what we determine to be a true need, not optional like a lot of other decisions you’ll get to make for yourself. Skip our recommendations at your own future risk of not being able to nail a rare opportunity, or collect the most possible income from your efforts.
Hard to say because everyone and every location is different, but here’s a good gist:
We recommend that you skim-read The Mountain the entire way through one time to get a gist for the overall picture first. It's meaty! Surf through it! Get its aromatic taste on your palate first - don't get bogged down trying to super-understand everything on your first read through.
Then, we recommend you go back and take each of the 6 Steps one at a time, reading it thoroughly for comprehension. Give yourself at least 1-4 weeks to gnaw on and complete each of The Preparation Steps (1-3). Then, The Climb Steps (4-6) will begin chapters of your career that will last months or years - it’ll be up to you how long you want to lead your career. (Our Consulting Sessions are available to lead your through the process with this type of timeline, should you read The Mountain then decide you'd like extra service from us.)
If you want to have a sustainable, long-term music career, this amount of time should totally make sense to you - you’re about to build a business, of course it will take a little while. Government agencies, banks, royalty collection agencies and other businesses you’ll need for some services are often the reasons this timeline takes months, because you have to wait on them to process applications and registrations. All of those parties aside though, we highly recommend you don’t rush your process anyway, because greatness is built, not binged, and the journey is part of the fun.
If you mean The Mountain, it's $0, like we explained in some of our earlier questions.
If you mean Other Services here at MIC, we offer differently priced packages for our Consulting Sessions, Workshops, Network Hookups, and more.
If you mean setting up a music career, this also is different for everyone and every location, but it costs a baseline of around $200-500 depending on your international location to set up your infrastructure properly through The Mountain's process (The Preparation Steps [1-3]). Then, you'll need to pay any monthly/yearly subscription costs for your music career related services (like cloud storage, distributor services, etc.) and you may need some extra liquid cash in your business bank account to avoid fees (unlike personal bank accounts). The Mountain's method creates long-term, sustainable music careers instead of hobbies, while balancing the realism of reasonably lower indie budgets, so our suggestions are the bare minimum for what you need to start this business with no fluff.
(Do yourself a favor though, and remember a lesson passed down from generations of entrepreneurs: the moment that you start a business, tons of other businesses are going to assume you have a lot of funds, and they're going to try to convince you to spend those funds on their products and services - so hold onto your wallet with an eye of discernment and avoid such traps. For example, when musicians establish their protective legal entities [usually LLCs], they'll get snail-mail and email pressuring them into small business loans or credit score reports; we rarely suggest most of these for musicians, they're more so for other types of businesses. Use our Consulting sessions, or interact with @theMICmountain on social media if you need help navigating through what you think are more traps.)
How do I begin?
Go on and read Step 1 now to begin your Mountain climb. We’re glad you’re here.
Enjoy your Climb.
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