Will Artists Make Money on Big Music Platforms?

In the last few years, several large music listening platforms have emerged as leaders – giving iTunes a serious run for its money. BandPage, SoundCloud, Pandora, and Spotify have achieved record growth in listeners, but what about the artists? Do these platforms compensate artists any better than iTunes does? Join a frank discussion and debate between representatives from the largest music platforms, moderated by a veteran music-tech investor.

Presenters

MODERATOR

Hany Nada

Managing Partner

GGV Capital

Hany Nada is a founding partner of GGV Capital and has worked as a long-term partner with more than 150 companies over the past decade. He is a trusted resource to CEOs on global market development, customer introductions, and M&A/IPO guidance across US and Asian markets. Hany was named to the 2012 Venture Capital 100 . Hany made his first investment in China in 2001, and has led the firm’s successful investments in athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), Endeca (acquired by Oracle) Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU),Kintana (acquired by Mercury Interactive), Turbine (acquired by Time Warner) and Xfire (acquired by Viacom). Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors for PlayHaven, Vocera Communications(NYSE: VCRA), BandPage, Glu Mobile, and Wild Tangent. Earlier in his career, Hany spent 10 years on Wall Street as a research analyst at Piper Jaffray focusing on Internet software and infrastructure. He holds a B.S. in economics and a B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota.

Mike Herring

CFO

Pandora

Mike Herring is the CFO of Pandora, the leading internet radio service, where he is responsible for overall financial management of the company, its financial reporting and transparency in accordance with SEC and industry guidelines. Operationally, Mike is responsible for balancing the overall monetization strategy at Pandora, including
online, mobile and automotive, through advertising on its free service
as well as co-promotions, digital download sales and paid subscriptions with the complex cost structure of music licensing.

Mike has held leadership positions with companies both private and public. Over the past 20 years, has helped develop business models, define markets and drive rapid growth. After a series of start-ups in
the 90s, Mike was the CFO of Ancestry.com as it developed one of the first successful and profitable content subscription services at
scale, using the power of the internet to create a new market by balancing massive data access, content licensing and consumer demand. He then joined Omniture as CFO as it invented and defined the marketing optimization and data analysis market for SaaS software, a pioneer in both SaaS software financial models and using leverage to build a highly profitable business under significant data and cost constraints. In 2009, Omniture was acquired by Adobe Systems, and before joining Pandora, Mike spent three years working at Adobe, leading global operations as the company pivoted from traditional channel CD distribution to cloud subscriptions and direct to enterprise cloud applications.

Mike is a certified public accountant and holds a BA degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of California at
Los Angeles.

J Sider

CEO & Founder

BandPage

J Sider worked his way up in the music business from mopping venue floors to booking some of the biggest gigs. J Sider is a veteran in the business of managing bands and venues around the country. This experience opened his eyes to the practical needs of the music community in the digital era, and the lack of a solution. Out of this realization, J Sider created BandPage to provide
a powerful platform to help musicians create new revenue streams and drive higher fan engagement.

J Sider was named to both Inc. Magazine’s and Billboard’s 30 Under 30 as well as twice to Forbes 30 under 30.

“After years in the industry, I thought, ‘There’s got to be an easier way for musicians to promote themselves and make more money online.’ We’ve built BandPage to manage a musician’s entire online presence from one central platform.” - J Sider
Follow J on Twitter: @JSider and @BandPage

Alex White

CEO

Next Big Sound

Alex White co-founded Next Big Sound in 2008, while in his last semester at Northwestern University. The analytics service measures daily music consumption and purchase decisions around the globe. From Facebook fans to sales, Next Big Sound combines artist activity with context to help the modern music industry make decisions.

White and his co-founders have been featured in Billboard (10 best music companies) New York Times, CNN, Forbes (30 under 30), Techcrunch, BusinessWeek (25 under 25) and more.

Next Big Sound works with thousands of customers, from individual artists to major labels, and licenses two charts to Billboard magazine. In 2012 the start-up announced a $6.5 million dollar series A financing from IA Ventures, Foundry Group, SofttechVC and other notable angel investors.