Transforming the Music Industry with Wendy Starland

I'm Phil Larmon. I'm Ali Debutti. And I'm Douglas Borthwick. And this is Old Men, New Money. Today we have a very special guest, my friend Wendy Starland, who is a singer-songwriter. She's been honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. And she is here to talk to us about things that are blockchain related. And she is also the co-founder of Music Soul, and we're looking forward to hearing all about her new venture. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. So, Wendy, tell us a little bit about your journey and how it is that you are, who you are and how you've gotten to this point in your career.

I started off as a recording artist signed to Universal, and I toured all over the world, running for people like Jack White and Cheryl Crow and the Foo Fighters. I worked with tons of artists in various different genres, whether it be stuff for Tiesto's label and David Guetta or the Wu-Tang Clan, and nothing Snoop Dogg, and wrote with the Black Eyed Peas, and it's on a record with Nora Jones. And so it's really been a very diverse background, Grammy-nominated with Moby for his record. And so after I did that and I released a record called Dancing with the Sea on Universal that... What year is that? When was this? When did you...

This was a while back. So this was in about 2007, something like 2008. And when that happened, everyone took notice because most people who are honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame are later on in life, and I was a 25-year-old running around. And so I got back from Europe after touring and was asked by several different producers, will you be my in-house songwriter so that we could churn out the hits? And I ended up working with one who had written songs for Beyonce, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Will Smith, and we were working on all this material together for these artists.

And I said, "Listen, this is fun, but I want to work with someone who's not famous and make them famous." I think that's much more fun to basically have a startup. And he said, "Okay, go out, find me a girl under the age of 25 who could be the female equivalent to the lead singer, The Strokes, who's edgy and bold and you can't take your eyes off her." And where were you living at the time? In New York City. Okay. And that's exactly what happened. I went out to over 60 shows, between 60 and 80 shows, and I found lots of great artists, who didn't quite fit the bill.

And one day I met this girl who actually, I didn't even realize she was an artist at first because as a songwriter, I have over 2,000 recorded songs, which is just a really large amount. And famous music publishing, I was meeting with them. They were interested in buying up my catalog of songs for a publishing deal. And the girl who was sitting behind the desk, who was working for the CEO or the president, was this girl named Stephanie Germanotta. And she was always very nice. And I ended up seeing her a few weeks later. She was opening up for me at a venue in New York City.

And I said, "Wow." She came up to me during- Did you recognize her as the EA for this? I did. She sat me on the shoulder, said, "Do you recognize me from Erwin Robinson's office?" And famous me. And I said, "Yes, of course." She said, "I listen to you every day. It would be great if you could come to the show early to see me perform." And I said, "I didn't even realize you were a singer." She said, "Yes." And I saw her perform. She just had this ferocious confidence and had the confidence of a lion. And everything around her needed improvement. And I'd been writing this record with a producer for about eight months while I was searching.

And I said, "Listen, me and my partner, my production partner, are looking to develop an artist. We've been working on the writing and the songs already. It would be great if you came on board. I think I could make you into the biggest star in the world." And we did. And we turned Nita Menata into Lady Gaga. I guess you could say a star was born. Yeah. Exactly. Nice one. I see what you did there. Yeah. So that's right. So for those listening that didn't know who that is, who everybody affectionately, I guess now knows as Lady Gaga, and that's who you discovered. Now you put some interesting things there.

Using your book or your catalog of writing, we've talked to a bunch of artists about essentially tokenizing that and selling it to the fans of the music. And we see people normally talking about artists selling their catalog, but I guess the writer also has a catalog as well, where you define catalog as being a stream of cash flows that come from whenever that song is played. Is that right? The songs are split up into various different kinds of royalties. There's the master royalty, the publishing royalty.

In this scenario, I'm talking about whoever wrote the song receives publishing royalties, and that is a big moneymaker in the music business. That's what I was referring to. In terms of tokenizing it, I think that's more of a new thing that's come into play because obviously the blockchain hasn't been around that long. Yeah. It's something that we've been pitching to a number of artists, and because they would sell it obviously to their fans who would buy it and then get a percentage of future income streams. And the toughest part of that, didn't that David Bowie start that with his song, with his album, the collection first?

I think it was the one that started that trend of basically taking your music and actually having the royalties end up being like a bond income stream. Yeah. We've talked to folks here, but the hardest part is getting through their agent because the agent always says, "Look, where's my money upfront before I pass this on to my artist and the artist?" And it says, "Actually, I don't mind getting the backend because it's going to be much more for me." And I guess Ryan Reynolds is going to change that a little bit where he does these entrepreneurial things now where he's all about the backend rather than the front end.

So he finds a company, he says, "I want to be part of this company. I can sell this company and I'll take a percentage of equity in this going forward into the future." And I think he's taken a billion dollars off the table doing that. Some musicians, if we say to them, "Look, your catalog's worth, I don't know, $200 million." We think you could sell it to your fans for $300 million because they want a piece of you and they want to say that they own that music. But instead what they'll do is they'll sell it to the private equity shop for $190 million because it's cash out front.

I'll tell you right now, the music industry, the fundamental structure is so off and there's so many problems monetizing music. That's really what I've been focusing on for the last two and a half years to basically so many people have tried to go to Congress and try to change the laws and all this stuff, but it's absolutely... There's no changing what is. It's only building something new and building a better business model and I believe that me and my business partner, Aris Presidus, have done that, so I'm super excited about that. So, Wendy, can you tell us... There's a story about how you married music with a guitar string. That's right.

When I was a 14-year-old girl living in New York and hopping around from clubs to club with my fake ID, me and my friends decided we were going to go see a Macio Parker show. Many of you may not know who Macio Parker is, but he was James Brown's sax player, so that when James Brown went solo, his entire band stayed intact and Macio, who sounds just like him, went to the front to do the singing and Macio, they're known for having the best rhythm section in music history, truly.

So I got my fake ID, I was like, "I'm going to go meet my friends," and it was a sold-out show, so the bouncers, the little girl, they're not kidding you, so I'm like, "Come on, I'm cute." I tried to flirt my way past the bouncer and got in and it was general admission.

It was a place that had probably 1,000 people packed in like sardines that had no business holding over 500 people in this venue, and I was just weaving my way through the legs of people, just crouching down, getting to front row and front row center, and basically, Macio Parker keeps looking down at me like a piece of meat, and he just pulls me up on stage and first, I was like dancing around, having a good time, "Okay, great, whatever," go back down high-fiving with my friends who were there, and a few songs later, he keeps looking at me, and I'm like, "Oh my God, what is this?" And he pulls me back up again, and to this day, I've never been pulled up on a stage without it being planned before or since, let alone twice in one show, that was just unheard of.

And when I hear music I love, I just start singing along naturally because that's who I am, and I'm a musician, so Tyrone, the trombone player, next to me, he hears me and he taps his microphone in front of my mouth, and so Macio's singing this song, and to prove to him I could sing, I start harmonizing with him on stage.

A thousand people, and they're like, "Oh my God, here's this child, this child is singing and harmonizing." Okay, Macio says to the whole band on stage, he's, "Oh shit, the girl knows how to sing," and he sends them all off the stage, except for the bass player, because he's playing this funky bass, Macio, who has never, to my knowledge, played drums in his life, he's a sax player, goes back on the drums, gives me the mic, and I start scatting on his stage and just making up my own improvised song for the next 20 minutes. Wow. It's just this wild experience, and I was so psyched, and at the end, he's, "Darling, what's your name? Wendy Starland.

I don't know, everyone's going crazy," and then the bass player's, "Everybody, shut up." I was like, "Who tells a screaming crowd to shut up?" And he had, little did I know, he had taken a string off his bass guitar, and he had coiled it up to a tiny little ring, and he got down on one knee as if he were proposing to me, and he took my hand and the microphone, and he said, "Wendy, darling, from this day forward, you are, I don't know what you're doing here.

You're way too young to be here, but you've got a gift from God, and you must devote the rest of your life to using this gift, or else you are going to rob the rest of us of something so special." And he took the bass string, and he put it around my ring finger and said, "From this day forward, you are married to music." Wow. And it was so insane, and the next day it was written up in all the newspapers. They're like, "Little underage child, ghost" and this thing. And from that- Do you remember the date of the show? No, I don't know the date of the show, but I have the string. I have the bass string. Let's look up the wedding announcement.

Wendy, who were some of your musical inspirations? Who did you look up to, and did that change throughout your career? That's a great question. I started off listening to gospel music when I was really young, because my babysitter was a gospel singer. So those were a lot of different kinds of voices. I loved Aretha Franklin, and I loved Shaka Khan, and I loved a lot of these sort of very soulful voices.

But then my uncle, when everybody else was listening to Madonna and whatnot, the people I grew up with first grade, they're listening to Madonna, my uncle was like, "You are not going to be growing up on that." This here is a band, it's called The Police. Here's your first tape. I had a cassette tape of it, of Synchronicity, it was my first record as a kid. And he's, "You are going to grow up on this." And I studied it, and I studied it, and I studied it.

And what a wonderful band to study, because there's such complexity in all of the parts from not only Sting's part, who controls both the upper register with the voice, but the lower register with the bass, and plays with time signatures, and Andy Summers and Stuart Copeland. And luckily, I prayed really hard, and I said, "Please, God, let the police come back together after they broke up, and God listened, and he put them back together." And I got to meet all of them, and have real, long conversations with them. And it's just miraculous what they were able to achieve musically.

And to this day, I'd still say Sting, even in his solo career, has been my greatest influence. The Shape of My Heart is one of my favorite songs. It's just magical. What they do, I wish sometimes there were... You know how in the Olympics, if there's gymnastics or whatever, they're like, "She gets a 9.8." And this one gets a... I wish the technical complexity of something that Sting does, that's a 10. People don't realize, because he makes it sound so effortless. And I so appreciate how the fusion of styles, the fusion of time signatures, and the complexity of the chord arrangements and song structure is just mind boggling.

So he's been a main one. And then vocally, I've also been drawn towards a lot of either complex artists who can really deliver Chaka Khan. Is there a better singer? I don't know, maybe not. But she can, her voice is like a horn. It's literally like a trumpet that can hit any note with ease. And then there are also artists that I like Sade and Stevie Nicks who, to me, are just like seep into my soul completely. So those are a bunch of my influences who I think are just timeless. But also, last one, I forgot, I gotta mention Yutu and Bono. I love how they've created landscape through the music. It's more than just a voice or a song.

It's like together they've created a sound that will stand the test of time forever. So when you look back at your career and what you've done so far, is there any one moment or a specific moment that you look back and you're like, wow, I can't believe this little girl from, you grew up in New York, you said, right? Yeah. This little girl from New York, I can't believe, or maybe you knew this was going to happen all this time, that you look back and you think of this or maybe one big moment that you're like super proud of or something that is almost unbelievable.

There are a couple, certainly just overall seeing how Lady Gaga's career has started off as a thought of how we're going to build something like this and seeing that turn into a worldwide generational influence for people was amazing. But for me personally as a singer, and there was this one moment, obviously being honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, that was a huge one for me because I'd been writing songs since I was seven. And there's this one moment I was on tour in Europe and we were in Poland and we're playing in this magnificent, it's like equivalent of Carnegie Hall in New York City.

So it was this huge place, probably, I don't know, 20,000 people or so. And they were doing a Wendy Starland special on TV on one of the major networks because I was known in Europe, but I wasn't really known that much in the United States. And when you're on tour, at least for me, I'm like barely checking what the next city is going to be. I literally had no idea we were coming up to this and I arrived there and they walked me into my dressing room and there are the pictures of every single artist who had performed on that stage.

So Sting was one of them and all of my heroes were on this wall and there was a grand piano in my dressing room, whatever. And I just remember my face, my bass player came in and he said, "What's wrong? My face was distilled with tears." And I'm like, "This dressing room is bigger, more than my apartment in Europe." I can't even believe that I'm here and that I'm getting to experience this. This is such joy for me. I can't even believe that I'm lucky enough to perform the songs that I wrote, that I love, that I produced.

And now I'm singing them to the world, to a bunch of strangers where all my heroes have played on this stage and the dressing room is bigger than my apartment. Like it was so incredible. Who do you think TikTok and Reels have changed songwriting and music writing since it came out? Because it seems these days, at least with a 12 year old in my house, every song that's popular is one that has a dance on TikTok. That's right. That's exactly right. And it's a great question. I was just in Davos speaking about Music Soul and that was one of the questions that came up when I was speaking.

And you have to realize that social media and you're flipping through and you're seeing these flashing images, it is a soundtrack to those images. Just like if you're scoring a movie, if you're scoring a movie and it's dark and haunting, the music is going to be dark and haunting. If you're doing something that's on the beach and happy and surfing, the music is going to be that. So what's a million flashing images in front of your face on a daily basis going to produce? It's going to produce this poppy music that everyone can dance to and is like the quick hit, the quick sugar fix.

And again, I think when people, one of the things that like I mentioned before with the Michelangelo type of comparison that I made earlier is that when people aren't struggling to survive anymore, they're going to slow down and take the time to listen to. We've already seen that people do have concentration. They listen to these podcasts, the Joe Rogan's podcast, they're like three hours long, four hours long. I say to myself, who has the time to listen to that? But people do, they are craving a sense of connection. They're craving a sense where the genre of music is dictated by the imagery in front of them.

And so of course the Tik Tokers are dancing along to this sugary pop. Why wouldn't they? Now if there's going to be different things on music, so like philanthropy, guess what? Sugary pop may not go with a philanthropic type of image or messaging or different genres of music and types of music will emerge and be appreciated because there's no more struggle to survive. Your resume speaks for itself and you've used all these learnings to develop a platform or resource and an environment that can benefit all within music.

But what advice would you give someone, an aspiring artist, given what you know now and obviously get on and use your platform that you've built. What advice would you give to this artist? Literally the first advice I would give is A, if you're not 110% on board, choose something else, because surviving when you are 110% on board is hard enough. So most people are 110% on board. So let's just check that one off. Then I would say hone your craft. Right now we are living in an age where technology has caught up.

So what I mean by that is it used to cost $1,000 to get into the studio and you needed the record label to be able to afford to pay for that. And so that was a natural curation process. Now anyone with a laptop can create music who has the right obviously software and whatnot. And so what that does is it makes many more record producers out there on their laptops and they know how to control the technology, but they haven't necessarily learned song structure and chord progression and composition in a way that the music will stand the test of time.

So there's much more content, which is great, more people can be creative, but there's much less educated content out there where people actually know what they're doing. And I'm not saying that you need to go to music school by any stretch of the imagination, but there are certain, just like there are laws of construction. If you're building a building, there are laws of construction for building a song as well. And especially if you want a song on the radio and then on top of it, if you want it to stand the test of time, melodies and I'm so nerdy about it. I go down to vowels. Would you think we're going to see more?

Because I don't know a whole lot about music, but I do, in my personal opinion, I felt like over the last, oh, I don't know, 10 years. We started, in my opinion, the quality started changing and these different things started coming up that I'm like, I'm not necessarily a fan of. Do you think we've now hit a point where, because I think now some more quality music is coming out, right? We got past this. We're just going to this mumble rap or some of these different things that I just can't connect to that I feel like words matter again and the lyrics are really hitting, I even think non-curse songs are starting to be a hit.

You're seeing that as, or is that just me as being just a rookie in the environment? I mean, I think that people are longing for it. So yeah, I agree with you. I think that it is more into fashion and as people have experienced now, like the young generation experienced the pandemic, they had their first taste of how tough life can be. Now I lived in Los Angeles surrounded by the fires. People are experiencing that and when they turn to music, they want something substantive that has not only lyrics that are powerful, but melodies that are powerful too. Tell a little bit about Music Soul.

What are you guys, what are you and Ayres doing with this project and how is it going to benefit? The artists, how's it going to benefit the users? Just tell us a little bit more about it. Sure. I've built a music streaming platform that also contains a marketplace, like an Amazon marketplace combined with a music streaming platform and the engagement of social media. It's a one-stop shop that pays artists 70% of both streaming and advertising revenues. So most people aren't aware that per stream they see, "Oh, the artist has a billion streams.

They must be making money hand over fist." No, if they had a billion streams, that means that they made less than $45,000 for a billion streams, which is... Oh, that's bonkers. But that's the current market and that's like the Spotify iTunes of the world. It's 0.004 cents per stream. The less than half a penny per stream. And people don't realize how is someone supposed to survive off their music? And especially if record labels buy up the top 1% of artists, but those top 1%, how many on the label that are even signed get promoted by the label?

Maybe three artists a year who will get the budgets to be able to be put to the top of the Spotify playlist or get all the iHeart Radio spins or the big tours with the sets and everything that is going to amalgamate into something, a monetary win, basically. So I'm going to try my best to create a middle class for the music industry. And what we did was by putting all the brands on our platform. When anyone signs up, AI on our platform matches the appropriate eyeballs from the brands opt-in consumers to that content, to the artist.

And just like Uber versus a taxi cab in New York City, taxi cab, you're looking for your next passenger, Uber, it's teed up for you. This tees up your plays, except for instead of one at a time, it could be a hundred million at a time. And for example, if I uploaded something to Spotify, and even if I owned a hundred percent of it, who's going to find me if the label is not pushing it to the front of the line? And so this takes care of that for you. Wendy, I'm not exactly clear completely on how it does it.

The AI on the platform, as soon as you sign up, there might be a couple of questions that you have to answer, but based on a set of shared criteria from both the brands opt-in consumers and the artists, they're matched together. There's a dating app. It's a dating app for music. Yes, that's exactly right. So you're matching someone's likes, and that's likes that they've declared or likes that you can figure out because they logged in with Google. And so you have a website they've ever gone to. Likes that they've declared.

And so it's really interesting because all of a sudden, not only are they getting all of this traffic, like hundreds of millions of eyeballs, but they have the ecosystem around them to capture and keep that audience. And they're getting 70% of the money from it, the streaming and the advertising. What person besides an artist would be crazy enough to give away 70% of the advertising? Zero. That hasn't been done before. What is the advertising? Is it like after a song plays, you get an advert and then another song plays? Oh, the advertising is combining the brands into this experience.

For the brands, this is a way to get in front of the consumer on a daily basis that they never had previously. So right now, brands are struggling because there are no more commercials on TV. Everything's Netflix and HBO Max, where there are zero commercials, or there are no more magazines. Magazines are basically obsolete. Nobody's reading magazines anymore. Everything is online. So they're trying to find new ways to get in front of the consumer in a way that's going to show ROI. And so- So that's your, I guess, your job is selling to brands that you've got an audience and selling to artists that you've got brands.

We have secured the music license to all the music on the internet. So the artists, they're certainly not a sales pitch because think about less than half a penny versus 70%. Why would you go anywhere else? Plus- The artist has to opt in to doing this, to be on your platform? No. What I'm saying is we already have all the artists. I'm saying we already have secured the license to all the music that's on Spotify will be on Music Soul from day one. Then how do you pair up with the advertisers and the brands?

So is it basically, for example, if I'm listening to Joni Mitchell, and let's say Clorox says that's somebody we identify with, we think that's a good artist for our brand and stuff. When I'm listening to Joni Mitchell, am I going to have a Clorox banner somewhere? Is that how they're- You know, on the bottom part of her page, you might have a Clorox banner, but it's more than just a banner. It will integrate into things. So Clorox might say, "Hi, we want to have a contest on Music Soul where you get a meet and greet.

You get a chance to meet Joni Mitchell in person." So the person who finds the magic on the bottle gets a chance to meet her and then through Music Soul, we would set up the meet and greet through Clorox and it would be live streamed out to the entire platform. Ollie, I just want to know how your mind thinks. You match up Joni Mitchell with Clorox. Yeah. I'll need you back. I'm not sure where I pulled that from, but I did pull that. I've bought that myself. I was hoping you'd let us go buy them. Area where your platform could also help the artist get discovered by audience, right?

Because one of the challenges for early artists is that they don't have the mega social followings. They don't have that awareness, but it sounds like if maybe if they're in a certain genre or they're connecting it with an audience that you think their algorithm would think would enjoy it, this sounds like a home run for young up and coming artists trying to get their music out there. It is, and it gives them that audience so they're completely discoverable. On top of it, we have all kinds of resources for them. So let's say Estee Lauder was being driven to my profile as an artist.

I could then go onto the app and say, connect with them directly. Say I'd love to appear in one of your advertisements or whatnot. The AI in our app, the correct contract will pop up and then AI can redline it for you. You can highlight it and take it out of legalese and explain it in plain English so that you can understand everything and help you to secure that deal, not only make the connection, but then have the tools and resources to follow through with that and actualize it. That replaces the manager or the agent.

Doesn't replace the manager or the agent because obviously we're not going to manage the process once it's going, but it certainly is a great aid to the manager or agent to, first of all, recognize all the contacts that they're making, all the opportunities that are coming from this matching system. On top of it, for the record labels who might be like, "Oh, they're getting 70%. They won't want to sign with us," that's not true. First of all, it's a vetting system for the record label because they spend at least a million dollars on releasing a single every year for each artist. It costs minimum of a million dollars.

Instead of throwing it against the wall and seeing if it sticks or trying to rely on social media numbers, which can be artificially inflated, here is actual data when real eyeballs are being thrown at an artist because of this AI in our system. It's a revolutionary way to do things. One go about licensing all the music on the internet. What does that really mean? How do you do that? It takes great connections and great money. That's what it takes. Luckily, I've been in this business long enough that I had the relationship.

Did you just go to the different owners of the different catalogs like Sony, Warner, Universal, et cetera, or is there one central repository that you go to that's like a giant blob in Dune and it's floating up and down and they determine what the price is? The major labels have one repository, as you put it, and we did a deal with them. I think that's part of the secret sauce, right, is that the years you've been in the industry, the people that you need to work with, and it also sounds like this is a byproduct of all the headaches that you had to encounter over the years because you're delivering efficiencies and paperwork and process.

You're leveraging data to make smarter and faster decisions. You're solving a problem for connecting the advertisers with the right audience and then with the right artist, right, because that can be a challenge. Are there any other efficiencies that you ran into that you have built into this platform to help, whether it be the advertiser or managers or the artist? Definitely and the consumer. All of a sudden, we have ticketing. I don't have to go to Ticketmaster for my tickets, merchandise somewhere else, shopping somewhere else, podcasts somewhere else, video games somewhere else, contests somewhere else.

It's a one-stop shop, so this is a million and a half lines of code. This was not developed in a day. It took years to finally bring it to this point, and it's basically, it's like an Amazon in many ways, so you can go shopping for your lipstick or your hammer or whatever it is, but on top of that, you can listen to music or listen to a podcast or sign up for a contest or have charitable giving. We realize that people are 360 degrees. They're not just one-sided. For example, I was inducted into the Council of Global Change by the United Nations this year, which was an exciting honor.

Thank you, and I got to speak in front of the General Assembly at the UN. What I told them is, we could all say, "Oh, peace. That's great. Peace is great," but without implementation, in my opinion, it means nothing. You can all pat each other on the back and tell each other how, "Oh, you're so peaceful. That's wonderful," but what are you going to do about it in the real world? What are constructive things? With the UN, any of the UN initiatives, if they are uploading their video content or even music to the MusicSoul platform, they can be making 70% of streaming and advertising revenue for that cause, which is real mailbox money for them.

Instead of sitting there with their handout saying, "Oh, donate to me," this is a true solution to raise money, also make connections with artists and celebrities who are passionate about that cause and can speak to it on the platform, and then have resources for people to get involved. We even have playlists around causes so that you can see which artists are...

For example, Lady Gaga has the Born This Way Foundation that she's passionate about mental wellness, and we have a playlist for mental wellness where you can see all of the songs that were written about mental wellness, and then click on the artist and see what charities that you can get involved with or donate to or receive resources from, so it's a pretty bad play. Is it the playlist that's matched up with the advertisers or is it the artist that's matched up with the advertisers? It's the artist and their content, so it's all of the above. Is this open to everyone around the world or is this a US product?

Everyone around the world, it's free to join. There are subscriptions for further functionality on the platform, but it's free to join. You can subscribe for 12 to 17 bucks to subscribe for more functionality, but all the basic functionality I'm talking about is absolutely 100% free. It sounds like you built a super app that's affinity-based around music, but also checks the boxes with a tremendous amount of functionality, whether it be cause-based, experience-based, which is fascinating because I know building a super app takes a long time, a lot of money, so were there any learnings or challenges that you went through that just...

You look back, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I got through this," or, "That was so much harder than I thought it was," through your experience to getting to where you are today. My experience in the music business has been extremely difficult, and although there have been lots of wins and I'm grateful for all of them, it is very challenging to be in a business where, again, if you have a billion streams, you're making less than $45,000. I was born and raised in New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world with my friends who are working on Wall Street and creating companies that were...

And how was I supposed to keep up? How was I supposed to be able to say yes to all of the dinner invitations and go here or this trip or that thing? It was humbling, and so I feel like Music Soul is a combination of saying, "Okay, how do I solve those problems?" And listen, the fact that my business partner, Eris Presidus, has $12 billion in exits from the technologies that he's created and then sold, and it's... I was lucky enough to be contacted by the right guy, and he was lucky enough to find someone who has experienced every level of hardship in the music industry and had to overcome it in order to survive.

And where are you guys in the process right now? Are you live? Are you raising funds? Are you still developing and working on your product? Where are you guys? So we've completely written the app. The app is completed. So all $4.5 million have been put into the tech itself. We are raising another $25 million. We have some really interested investors and are very excited to formalize that and launch within three months of that. Well, if anybody ever heard this costume was interested in it, would they just go to Music Soul to contact you or is this something that's getting put through like an investment bank? You know what?

They can email me at wendystarland.com. Please get in touch. We would love to talk to you. Do you have socials for it? Well, I have socials for me. I'd love for people to follow me. I know that one. Yeah. To check the link below to follow me. I'd love for you to follow me on Instagram. I'm on all of the social media networks at Wendy Starland. And in terms of blockchain, we are incorporating lots of different things. So one more feature of Music Soul, which is fascinating is that we have incorporated that even if you aren't a content creator, we believe you should be making money for the engagement on Music Soul.

And so if I, let's say my mom's not a content creator, really, but she might share, let's say she shares Beyonce's song and then that somebody from her tribe shares it, Jane then shares it with Donna, who shares it with John, who buys a t-shirt. Each person in that chain will receive a payment for that sale. And so the typical payout for that will be $1,600 a month for just sharing somebody else's content and engaging. So this is a real game changer in terms of monetizing media. That's right. That's $1,600 a month to work me through that. How does that work out to like, for just sharing your songs that you like?

This is based on the tests that have been run on it. I can't get into specifics because, but it's, yeah, it's based on the tests that we've run on the technology. So it's like the ultimate attribution where it's the incentivized action these days, because you're competing with everyone's attention all day, every day. That can be a compelling incentive for people to say, Hey, let me just take a second to share this versus just move on. I think that's a fascinating implementation of that. It is. And more than anything, I just feel like giving people jobs. We're not in our twenties. I don't think anyone on this podcast is in their twenties.

And so what, what do you learn in school these days? That's going to be applicable so that you can get a job in the future. It is really difficult all now that AI has come about, like all of the coding, even everything is different about the skills that you'd need to learn to apply in the real world to be able to support yourself and make money. And so I feel like Music Soul does a really good job of finding a vehicle to create millions and millions of jobs for people that they're passionate about, that they can create imaginative creative content. I always say Michelangelo, he, he had a patron when he was making the Sistine Chapel.

He wasn't sitting there wondering whether or not he was going to be able to put food on his table. He was confident and could be relaxed. And that's where the creative juices start flowing and your imagination starts running wild that you can become and create something magnificent. And I feel like it will change the structure of music right now. What's being signed at the major labels is music that sounded like the last hit so that they don't lose their jobs as A&R guys or music executives. And so the artists are trying to suck up to them so that they have a chance to survive.

All of a sudden, all of this fear-based panic of trying to survive is going to disappear. And for the brands, I have a big sister who's in advertising. She's everything has been digitized now and put into an experience. We're not getting the big bucks like we used to because commercials are basically obsolete. And so here's a way for people to really have activations, have events, have just a daily interaction with a brand that can really identify with the artist and vice versa. There's a bright future ahead for jobs, for the job market.

I remember when we were first talking about, I was pretty impressed with some of the clients, some of the brands that you were telling me you've already got engaged. Can you give the listeners an idea of some of the brands you've already engaged and that have come on board and have shown the interest in music so? Lots of huge brands that have shown major interest in music. I don't know how wise it would be for me to start mentioning things before we were... It's a Fortune 100 brands. But if an investor signs an NDA, then that would be part of the pitch process. We're going to show an investor all the secret sauce.

We're going to show an investor all of the financials, the brands, everything. Suffice it to say, they'll be very impressed by the names that I saw on that list that you'd already been able to secure. Thank you. Yeah. So with the brands we've been talking to, it reaches about a billion eyeballs. Not a small number. Through their opt-in consumers. It is. If you're only getting paid 0.044. That's why she built it. Great. Well, that's wonderful. I think you're solving a major problem in the space. Obviously, I came from iHeartMedia, a super app where you can keep the customer engaged is very compelling for advertisers.

And then you're solving a major problem for the brands and the artists. Kudos to what you've built. All of Wendy's contact information will be below. Make sure you follow her and reach out to her if you're interested in potentially discussing an investment. Until then, I think this has been a wonderful interview. Thank you so much, Wendy, for being on the show. Thanks for having me. I so appreciate it. And I feel so lucky to be here talking to such smart men. Thank you. Thank you for not calling us old men. It's an absolute pleasure. And with that, I'm Phil Larmon. I'm Ali Demit. I'm Douglas Portwick.

And you've been listening to Old Men New Money.