Water & Music

Patreon's SVP Product Wyatt Jenkins joins this episode to dive into the opportunities and challenges around growing membership models in the music industry. We unpack the financial and ideological roadblocks to making music a top-two category on Patreon, why it's so difficult to bake both discovery and membership mechanisms into the same product and how Patreon might compete with music distribution platforms and other music-oriented software services in the long run, with respect to providing alternative sources of capital to independent artists. At the end, we discuss whether paywalled podcast apps and the Jonas Brothers' vinyl "club" are overrated or underrated.

NOTE: This episode was recorded in late June 2019, around a month before Patreon announced their $60 million Series D round, so we don't mention that funding here — but there's still lots to dig into around their future roadmap.

Show Notes

INTRO/OUTRO MUSIC:
PYLOT — "Clova"
Spotify | SoundCloud | Apple Music
Music provided by Monstercat:
https://youtube.com/monstercat
https://youtube.com/monstercatinstinct

FEATURED GUEST:
Wyatt Jenkins, SVP Product at Patreon
Patreon raised a $60 million Series D funding round in July 2019, around one month after this interview was originally recorded.
Part of our discussion revolves around Wyatt's blog post in February 2019 about why Patreon is not a discovery platform.

FULL ANNOTATED AND HYPERLINKED TRANSCRIPT:
https://medium.com/@cheriehu42/why-music-isnt-a-top-two-category-on-patreon-yet-c734a71d8959

Thanks to Marcus Hahm for his help with mixing!
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What is Water & Music?

The fine print of big ideas in music and technology, hosted by Cherie Hu and featuring a curated selection of leaders, innovators, artists and thinkers from across the music business. This is an ad-free audio companion to the eponymous email newsletter.