Video by un:hurd music via YouTube
Max Busin is the founder of GoToBeat, the live music company on track for half a million tickets this year across 16 European countries. His pitch to artists is simple: tour with us and earn around 40% more than you would with a traditional promoter.
In this episode he breaks down how that number works, why most artists quietly lose money on tour, and why owning your audience matters more than raw scale, a lesson he learned the hard way after building a media business to the 45th biggest website in the world and watching it vanish when one platform changed its algorithm. Alex and Max also get into AI as a tool rather than a threat, why one metric beats chasing followers, and the case for putting the work out instead of overthinking it.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold open
00:30 Welcome and the founder life
02:00 A career built on building things
04:15 The media company that hit No. 45 in the world
05:55 How one algorithm change wiped it out
08:05 Renting vs owning your audience
09:20 Why success takes an "unbalanced" life
12:10 Starting GoToBeat and the subscription model that failed
17:15 Predicting demand and filling empty rooms
18:40 1,000 shows with 20 people
19:40 Why most venues run at 40% capacity
23:05 What artists should actually focus on
26:30 AI made everyone an A&R, so taste is the moat
30:45 How artists earn 40% more on tour
33:35 Scaling, competition and why relationships win
37:55 Stop overthinking, just put it out
40:10 Pick one metric and commit
47:20 "Nobody really knows what they’re doing"
48:10 What he’d do differently
51:10 The closing question: London, Europe, and the US
53:05 Why speed is a small company’s biggest advantage
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ABOUT f:nd your frequency
The podcast about building an audience from zero. Artists. Founders. Investors. One shared obsession. Hosted by Alex Brees, founder of un:hurd music. New episodes every Monday.
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