Pomplamoose is a Weird "Band" 

nice work Jack and Nat. Good deep dive into all the things no one talks about!

Hey Jack! I recently spoke to Darren from HSCC, and I'm really hoping you can help me with a copyright question (he's also interested in your take on this). What's the situation with Pomplamoose mashups and YT licensing/copyright? i.e. what does YT think it is when you upload it? Love the content, btw.

Is Scary Pockets set up the same way?

Instead, we've hired amazing, talented teammates to help us with our specific work streams -- making weekly videos and music...10:22 I would have here a small slice for programmers, you who are CEO would understand

yes, you are weird. but in a good way.

It’s a trait / skill that if we could all have, the world would be a much better place.

@@mikischu it's intimately related to instruction, education and intelligence. So that's something we, adult, can change ;) I'm trying every day :) As the song said, the man in the mirror, I'm starting with him ;)

@@tmbarral664 with education and LOVE ! if i may add ;)

100% This is a perfect example of what strong teams look like.

That kind of "disagreement" is a sign of mature adults.

My son is autistic, and really wants to work on "mind recorder plus". Please consider this an early application for position of apprentice!

Agree - though more like 5 years hence 😉

Whataaaat?

he is already worth 2b dollars in Patreon alone :P and a pretty hefty salary as well I'm sure. he can finance any of his projects into oblivion with no issue :P

Only 10 years to go

62 DITTO, my thoughts completely. Love, love,love Pomplamoose..

keep it up Ketih! cheers from France

I agree:) their music is therapy creating good vibes and happy thoughts. Depression sucks and their music definately helps :)

Hope you're doing ok, Keith.

Music = Therapy… Yes1 Best Wishes!

How'd it surprise you then? Video killed the radio star decades prior. :p

A by product of living the dream id say. 👍🏻

It’s called wearing a hat

That's what happens when you live. Your life doing what you love instead of what everybody else wanted you to do. Ageing is all about stress. If we're doing what we love, we grow into our beauty. Truth.

What are you implying?

With 95k subs you should be proud, and the best parts are that you retain full creative control and you don't have to pay anyone.

@@ollonelycat I completely agree! I couldn't have done it without Pomplamoose or Marty Schwartz as inspiration and guides, plus the subscribers are all so supportive and creative! We've found a nice little corner of the internet over here! I'll never forget my first phone call with Jack when he helped me decide what lights to buy, which I still use to this day! Then I got to see them play live in Philly, my mind got BLOWN away by all of it. The show was amazing, th band was TIGHT, Lauren O'connell was there too, she sounded great and was soooooo nice! Everyone, was so nice and the interview I did with Jack is still my favorite I've ever done, because I learned so much from him in that little moment. It has been so much fun to watch what Jack and Nataly and team have built over the years. It's really amazing and inspirational to the everyone who sees it and is in the music business. Thank you!!!

@@GaragebandandBeyond Sounds like good times. I've been creating music and videos by myself since 1995, and never had the luxury of anyone reaching out to help me. I offer people money all the time to help but it seems that most of them are too important to respond. Maybe I'm just a really bad musician, or a really bad guy, or both. I gotta check out your channel.

Except he is backed by his wealth with Patroen. Most Musians don't have.

@@leehoward454Ok, but I’m talking about how “i” feel in this comment. Pomplamoose did a lot of things right, and yes, there was good timing, and luck, but there was also lots of hard work, talent and a constant flux of new ideas. I like how they keep pushing and changing, and trying new things. They’re not afraid to change things up when things aren’t working for them. They did that (successfully) well before Patreon ever existed. And yes, they have money now, good for them! But they worked hard for it, (Jack Conte didn’t even take a salary from Patreon for the first three years.) I choose to continue to be inspired by them as a band, and to feel supported by the community they created. 😊

I think they use Soundrop (soundrop.com)

This is an excellent question. It's kept me from putting my better covers up.

Not sure about now, BUT they use to purchase a mechanical license for each song cover they did.

I noted there was no mention of "royalties" in their expenses. I hope they do share part of the wealth with the other artists that created these incredible songs. I do like the band a lot, admire their work and would definitely expect them to do the right thing.

@@jfnahas They specially mentioned one of their expenses was ASCAP (American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers) A non-profit group that collects and distributes royalties.

yes, huge respect

It’s worth noting that it’s Patreon he,s talking about, not the worth of Pamplamoose.

I think they meant it as a... Like an arrow pointing to 1million

GAH! I swear, I'm not flexing!! It's just that sometimes people call me out if i don't make that disclaimer -- especially if I'm talking about anything money related. A couple of years ago there was even a Gawker article (when they still existed), ragging on me for not including the fact that I was CEO of Patreon in a Medium article I wrote. anyway..... that's where it's coming from

@@JackConteExtras You've been all around this shit for years, and you still talk, write and act like a guy who just started company or a band and is infinitely excited about it. Thanks for all the great things.

@@JackConteExtras I'm genuinely curious about how you find time for all the projects you do on top of being a CEO. Are you constantly busy? Do you have enough people helping that it's manageable? Does it just seem like a lot to people on the outside since we're seeing the fruit of your labor all at once when in reality it's all small bits here and there? A combination of all these things? I've just noticed that CEOs and highly successful people always seem like they're busy 24/7 but are they actually? And if you are busy all the time, where do you get that sort of energy? Sorry for the wall of text, it truly just baffles me that you could be involved in so many things seemingly all at once.

@@TotallyAHumanNotADog hey Robert! The short answer is all of the above. Yes, it is a ton of work, and it takes a lot of hours. I’m in meetings about 50 hours per week, and then I work on top that - probably another 10-20 hours if you count up all the time I put into everything (mostly Patreon!). The big lesson for me, which I learned at Patreon, is the power of teams. And in particular - I learned the power of great leaders. If you look at each of the things I’m involved in, each of them has a great leader running it. Pomplamoose has Nataly leading the entire operation. Scary Pockets has Ryan. This RU-vid channel has Joe Smith (my producer). Patreon has a full management team (VPs who run operations, finance, marketing, product, engineering, etc). With Patreon, I’ve tried to bring in people who are smarter, more experienced, and more operationally capable than I am every step of the way as we’ve grown. Not only is this important since I’m a first time CEO and founder, but it’s important because it’s meant that I can continue to spend more time on my strengths as the company scales, rather than trying to do everything by myself. Teams are like superheroes. Great teams, with great leaders (like Nataly, Ryan, Joe, and Patreon’s management team) are able to accomplish 1000x what one individual is capable of. Take this video as an example. I *did not edit this video.* It would have taken me a month to make this video by myself, and it wouldn’t have been nearly as good. But Joe, my producer, organized this whole thing - the interviews, the graphics, the scheduling, the thumbnail - and John Picklap edited it. What was my role? I wanted to show the world the inside of Pomplamoose, so I came up with the framework of “people, process, money,” and wrote out a one page-ish vision for the video and few slides to explain the money segment & financials. It took a couple hours. But with awesome, creative teammates like Joe and John, it becomes a full blown 12 minute mini doc. That’s the power of teams. Anyway - all that to say, I have come to deeply appreciate the leverage of teams. And yes, while it is definitely a ton of work for me, personally, it is only possible because of all the brilliant people who are leading each of the endeavors.

@@JackConteExtras Wow you really gave all this information for free...respect. Really insightful to be able to learn your way of thinking and execution

No expert, but I think the platforms sort out that end of things along with the performing rights organizations (BMI, ASCAP).

@@robertlucey825 Yeah I believe it's included in the streaming revenue, meaning that instead of getting all potential money, a part of it goes to the original artists. But I could be wrong

You cannot fly under the radar on a public platform ! The platform is the radar...

@@TartempionLampion how macluen-ish

Anton! Amazing, thank you for jumping in and offering your expertise. You're right on! I have been seeing those questions as well, so I'm chime in, too, with a bit more info about how licensing works for cover songs. 1) Anyone can put a cover on RU-vid. However, in order to be DMCA compliant, RU-vid MUST remove the cover if they are instructed to do so by the rights holder. In other words, when Pomplamoose posts a cover of say, Single Ladies, then Sony Music technically has the ability to file a take down request with RU-vid, who then must comply with that takedown request if they want to remain a legal, compliant service. So the question is, why doesn't Sony take down the cover? Why has Sony allowed Pomplamoose to keep our version of Single Ladies online? The answer is that RU-vid has built a system for rights holders to "claim" videos as their intellectual property. The effect of "claiming" a video is that the rights holder can then run ads over that video and collect the associated ad revenue. This is a bit of a strange system, but it allows bands like Pomplamoose to post covers, and it incentivizes rights holders to NOT file take down requests, because they can make "free money" instead. The result is that rights holders often don't end up filing take down notices, because they're making ad revenue over videos that they don't have to make. 2) Streaming and song sales. Anton is CORRECT! We use Soundrop to post our songs to streaming services like Deezer, Spotify, and Apple Music. Soundrop connects us to hundreds of such services, so our music can be streamed globally. And even better, they take care of royalty payments for covers. So we essentially upload a cover to Soundrop, we tell them what song we're covering, Soundrop finds the rights holders, and then they automatically withhold a portion of our earnings to pay the appropriate rights holders their "statutory mechanical royalty rate" of about 9 cents per download. For streamed songs, there's a slightly different formula, since there are no downloads, but it works the same way. Essentially Soundrop takes care of licensing for us. We upload songs to their service, they upload them to all the streaming and download services, they pay rights holders the right amount, and they pay us. It's a great service.

our net income by month isn't smooth for a few reasons: 1) COVID has introduced some variability into our creative production process. As we're trying new processes (like recording remotely) with different cost profiles, we're spending different amounts of money each month. 2) We have special projects that pop up -- like a French album, or our original album that just dropped last month. We'll front load some expenses into those projects, like to create a batch of music videos, for example, for those endeavors, and it creates spikes of new costs. Sometimes we'll spend considerably more on one particular music video concept because we're excited about a particular song. 3) We batch production so we don't have to take as many trips to LA. Sometimes, we'll do 2-3 days in a row, and then not go back to LA for a couple months -- especially during COVID. That will create spikes of cost that appear high in one particular month. 4) On the income side, sometimes we'll get a big chunk in at once from a piece of merchandise -- like a vinyl album -- that will bring in a lot of revenue all at once, making net income look great that month. Or sometimes, we'll get a licensing gig, and it will pay $10k - $20k, and it makes that month's net income look particularly good. Overall, though, our basic strategy is to 1) maintain a decent cash cushion so that we don't have to worry about cash flow issues -- that allows us to have lumpy net income over the year without stressing our pants off, and 2) invest almost all of our net income BACK into the band, because we love making music and want to keep making it better, keep investing in our team, keep growing, and keep investing in our creative work.

@@JackConteExtras - thank you for the detail and transparency...you ROCK !!!

Pockets, Inc. is a profitable company, yes. from a financial perspective, we have a similar approach to Pomplamoose, in that we basically re-invest all of our net income back into our work so we can grow and make better music and videos. Pockets, Inc., though, is slightly different from Pomplamoose in that our strategy isn't just developing ONE channel -- it's developing MULTIPLE channels, or "bands." So far, Pockets, Inc. has developed three such "bands:" 1) Scary Pockets, 2) Stories, and 3) Scary Goldings. Once Scary Pockets started growing and getting to a good place where we had significant net income, we started spinning up new projects. Our strategy is to use the net income generated by Scary Pockets as "startup funds" for those other projects. Right now, those startup projects, in and of themselves, are not yet generating a lot of revenue, and they're mostly being funded by Scary Pockets, which is the project that is most successful so far. One thing I'll note is that I do not take a salary from Pomplamoose, or from Pockets, Inc, mostly because I'm making a salary from Patreon. Ryan takes a salary from Pockets, and Nataly takes a salary for Pomplamoose, because it's both of their full time jobs. But because I'm not making any money from those projects, it means that we have some extra cash to re-invest back into our music, which is really great. If I were to take a salary, we would have to reduce our spending in order to continue to run them profitably. ANYWAY.... sorry to ramble!! i just thought it was a good question.

Thank you Jack for the detailed information about your many projects. I have admired your work for several years and am glad that you have become so successful. Your kindness, generosity, and enthusiasm show up in all you do. I hope my son, who is 8 and has a few years of piano under his belt, follows in your footsteps. You, your wife, and your friend ryan are living the dream. To get to do something you love with people you love is as good as it gets.

@@JackConteExtras That is very cool, keep doing what you do, you are an incredibly inspiring guy!