Tune Your World = Music + Microfinance is the next idea I am offering advice as part of ideablob.com Week at the Entrepreneurial Mind. This one caught my attention as it addresses an issue that I hear about every day here in Nashville -- the radical changes happening in the music industry.
Here is their idea:
Every artist has the same problem of obtaining capital for their next recording. Tune Your World provides the solution of applying the principles of micro-financing to the music industry. Our groundbreaking approach is the creation of peer-to-peer micro-financing of new music projects - enabling fans to deliver start-up capital to aspiring musicians from developing countries around the world. Tune Your World operates on a people-to-people model. Musicians obtain funding for new recordings directly from their fans without giving up ownership or control. Our mission is to revitalize the music industry in places where the music industry has never worked very well. www.tuneyourworld.com
My advice:
I like this idea. It addresses a real need for struggling musicians in the digital age -- seed funding for recording.The biggest challenge is going to be getting the musicians to repay their micro-investors. One of the things that makes the micro finance program Kiva.org so compelling is the high rate of repayment of the micro loans -- I believe it is about 97%. If you cannot achieve that kind of repayment, you are not likely to have repeat "investors." Without people coming back time and time again to reinvest in artists your Tune Your World will not be as likely to become a sustainable program. You need to help the musicians develop business models that will enable them to repay their micro investments.
