Alchemist And The Death Of Mass Market Thinking

After 25 years in the music industry, making beats for some of hip-hop's biggest names, Alchemist was burning out. Maybe even burned out. But then he discovered a formula from - of all places - Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor that changed everything for him.

After all those years of chasing bigger features, bigger budgets, bigger everythings. After being inspired by Jim Jones verses for “crazy money.” After four different versions of the same song that went four ways to nowhere. Trent Reznor breaks through to him on a video.

The moment came as he watched one $20 payment at a time show up via direct payments in PayPal, for an instrumental album (French Blends) that he otherwise couldn’t put out on a label, but he very much could self release on Bandcamp.

Up that point, he had always been a record industry guy. He had only done distribution the old way, because he was succeeding that way, but at the prompting of some friends he tried something new and - it blew his mind. Instead of writing, recording, sending it off and then waiting forever to maybe get paid, this was immediate. One day you’re finished, the next day it’s in the fans’ hands, and the money is in your bank account.

I want my mind blown too. Don’t you?

But before that breakthrough, there was the burnout that made it possible. Alchemist was working on a number of projects, trying to go “bigger.” He started to realize it was an arms race. As you rose, and he was rising, there were fewer and fewer people playing at the highest level for a way smaller chance at hitting way bigger sums of money.

That kind of mass market chasing burned him out. Which turned out to be a gift. Because burnout forced him to look for answers in the most unlikely place, a Trent Reznor video with a business formula in it.

RTB + CWF = Success

I’ll translate these acronyms, don’t worry.

I’ll also flip them from the way Alchemist presented the formula because, it just feels differently that way to me.

And before I tell you, here’s the takeaway: It's not about reaching everyone. It's about being irreplaceable to someone. Connect deeply, then give them something they can't get anywhere else.

CWF is connect with fans. It’s the idea of when you’re holding a record in the record store and - you have that feeling like it was made for you. Maybe you previewed it, maybe somebody told you about it, but either way, you know it speaks to you, and maybe even for you. You and the artist have a felt connection and that is huge.

RTB is reason to buy. It’s the idea of having some logic, or motivation for turning interest into “I want that.” It’s when you’ve decided you are going to walk to the counter and pay. It’s a psychological awareness of opportunity, coupled with a nudge to bring home this piece of art.

The point is, if you, the artist, have a connection with your fans, and you give them a reason to buy, you can’t lose.

And, this is NOT traditional marketing. There’s nothing mass market about this. This is way more personal, and way more direct, because of the CWF component, which is what Alchemist realized.

You can have a small fan base. You can have a higher priced, limited quantity release. You can do a one-off, side-project, weird idea and it can still sell, perfectly fine.

It won’t do mass market numbers, but it won’t need to.

And without the many, many middlemen dragging the profit margin down?

It can have both an artistic reason and a business reason to live.

Alchemist pointed out, in the interview, “Our fan base is small but they love what we do.” He compared it to running a microbrewery versus a mainstream music career. You can be local, have limited releases, and even without distribution - be the most special thing for the people who actually care (which is, kind of the best for artists anyway, right?).

If you have a small audience, and they’re already engaged, you have a connection you can do something with. If you want.

Which, what even is success?

It can be moving a handful of units on an obscure project, or collecting a larger margin on a bigger release. The point is, it’s not fixed. Success is project based, and comes after you’ve solved for who has what connection with you, and what reason have you given them to make a purchase decision.

Marketing is sales at scale. The beauty is, you get to define what scale means success for your work. Listen to people like Alchemist who have made it work in the old world and the new world.

Make great art. Look amongst the followers and separate out the true fans. Figure out what the unique reason to buy for any given project is.

Succeed. It can be done.

Ask yourself: Who are your true fans (not just followers)? And what unique reason are you giving them to buy? Your mass market moment might actually be your breakthrough moment - if you're willing to think smaller.