The Year That Was...
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to what turned out to be a bit of a ‘Tribune Special’. In this edition we take time to look back at our first year online. All the highs and lows in one quick overview. After all, this is our Anniversary Week and because we remember very well that a number of early cynics doubted we’d ever manage to reach our first Birthday, this issue is also a bit of a middle finger to them.
Warning: If you can’t take a bit of Dutch humor, please do not read any further…
August 2006: Shortly before noon on August 15, the SellaBand Team gathered at the headquarters of site-developers TTY in Amsterdam and witnessed on a screen how www.sellaband.com went live. Pim's mum registered under the name Willy Music and put in the first 10 Parts, to symbolically become our first ever Believer, but was almost beaten by Gianluca Carbone from Italy, who goes on history as our first ever ‘unrelated’ Believer.
We started with less than 10 bands who had all signed up in the days leading up to August 15. By the end of the first week we had around 100 bands and had sold 1500 Parts, so we sensed we were on to something...
Highlight: Writing a little history on August 15, when the site went live.
Don’t mention: A blogger reviewing SellaBand, who compared us to a Nigerian Pyramid scheme.
September 2006: Not very long after the initial excitement, the upward spiral suddenly went down again, like a dangerous rollercoaster. Sure, enough bands signed up but most seemed to see us a just another MySpace; an outlet for their music, nothing more and nothing less. We introduced the SellaBand Tribune and ‘exposed’ ourselves, so distrustful folk could see with their own eyes that there were real people behind this website. Towards the end of the month, after we made it possible for Believers to leave comments on Artist pages, we felt we came back to life again, with new activity, new Believers and a fresh wave of much needed publicity.
Highlight: A major feature in the Financial Times and a picture insert of Nemesea on the front page.
Don’t mention: One Sunday in September, when only 500 people visited SellaBand.
October 2006: The month in which we initiated our first ever competition. It was short, simple and friendly: those 10 bands that would be on Page 1 on our Artist search at precisely 6 PM CET on Sunday, October 15, would be invited to have one of their songs on a promo-CD called ‘SellaBand Presents… Part1.’ It was a pretty good but fair fight and we all felt sorry when New Zealand’s Kane Sole lost out in the last minute and landed on Page 2. 
Highlight: Believer’s profiles went live on October 26 and we could suddenly see who you were and how you communicated.
Don’t mention: The fierce ‘Parts War’ between Plastic W and John B. causing quite a shock to our system.
November 2006: The first Thursday of that Autumn month, Nemesea were sky rocketing towards $50,000 in budget. We could almost feel how people wanted this to happen. With almost 400 Parts to go we said to ourselves: nah, it’s not gonna happen today. So, some of us went home for dinner and missed out on the magic moment. Story of our lives… The final 400 Parts were sold in less than 20 minutes and Denmark’s Bimsenkleider put in the last $1,000 or so to make sure his name would appear in eternal blue on Nemesea’s page.
Highlight: Defending ourselves at a big UK conference amidst hundreds of music industry professionals. And getting out alive…
Don’t mention: A (since then long gone) Believer who demanded that Cubworld should go to the gym before he would invest more…
December 2006: After the peak of November, things went a bit quiet again. Well, it was the holiday season after all. At least we had the X-mas Jukebox up and running, so people could comfort themselves with some very good and some not so very good interpretations of X-mas traditional. We announced plans for our New Year’s Party and were pleasantly surprised by the dozens of ticket-requests we got from all around the world.
Highlight: Clémence signing up to SellaBand and the surprise we all felt when it became apparent that she was not signed to a big record label.
Don’t mention: Our payment system being out of operation for 24 hours straight in the midst of the holiday season...
January 2007: The start of the new year couldn’t have been better. Our first ever concert in the small room at Paradiso was a big success. All performing artists did themselves proud and the totally unique atmosphere resulted in some big newspaper articles in the Dutch press. The man who had organized most of the event, Dagmar, missed out on the party, as this was also the day that his wife decided to give birth to their daughter Cato. Meanwhile, site-traffic and Believer increase more than tripled in the aftermath of the gig and our young recruit Pim became somewhat of a local celebrity when he appeared on several TV shows. 
Highlight: A personal favorite of all of us at SellaBand HQ, we were absolutely delighted when, on January 12, Cubworld became the second artist to raise $50,000 on SellaBand.
Don’t mention: One of Holland’s female celebrities even flirted openly with Pim on national TV and the resulting rumors even made headlines in a national gossip publication.
February 2007: A pretty healthy month for SellaBand and if we remember correctly, this was the first time we openly spoke about the imminent arrival of the SellaBand Forum… Our MD JohanV traveled to New York to consult studios and producers with Cubworld, and experienced something that looked a lot like a SellaBand East Coast Summit; Lily, Maitreya and Wetwerks all stopped by to shake hands, raise a glass and exchange good stories.
Highlight: SellaBand is six months old. To commemorate, we initiate the next promo CD, tied in with a competition called SellaBand Presents… Part 2.
Don't mention: Pim's immortal words to a UK press officer: "I come from oil."
March 2007: The month we’ll always remember as ‘competition crazy’. For the 10 bands to be included on our second promo CD, ‘SellaBand Presents… Part 2’, we challenged all artists to compete. In a special Chart section all budgets were set back at $0,00 so all artists would have an equal opportunity to get a song on that album. Result of the competition: our most successful month to date, loads of traffic, new Believers signing up, a record breaking sum of investment (in the final hour of the competition alone, of $25,000 was invested!) and the first unfriendly accusations amongst artists and criticism aimed at SellaBand. Was it worth it? You decide…
Highlight: no less than 2 artists reach the 50K in the same month: Second Person from London and Clémence from Paris.
Don’t mention: The sudden hostility shown towards ‘innocent’ newcomers Radio Orange.
April: Another month, another competition. What were we thinking, one might ask. This time we were looking for new Believers (the Achilles Heel of our concept so far, to be honest) and challenged bands to bring in as many new friends as they possibly could. The threshold for potential fraud was dangerously low, people criticized and when some of the artists came up with dozens of new Believers at the same time, we knew we were in for a treat. But, we policed it as good as we possibly could and the tireless effort that winner Maitreya put in was worth the victory alone. 
Highlight: 2,500 new Believers in four weeks, our best result so far…
Don’t mention: The many headaches caused by the designs of the Forum.
READ ON IN COLUMN 2..
...The Year That Was continued..
May 2007: Spring was in the air for sure and while we were busy preparing for London Calling, heated debates were still raging about whether ‘fair play’ had prevailed during the competition. But, most excitement came from Lovely Lily, who had been working very hard to rise to the top of the search engine en made her way to $50,000. She made it on a Monday in May. The one thing we’ll never forget, is that there was a Part buying frenzy going on, but because Lily was still at work, she asked her Believers to stop buying more Parts until she came home. They did. Man, they even allowed her time to let her dog BamBam out, but shortly after, it was all over and Lily became a SellaBand Recording Artist.
Highlight: When we announced that Mr. Brian Tailor of Vegas Dragons would be flown in to co-host London Calling, SellaBand became a happy place again.
Don’t mention: Maitreya in front of a Tribunal of suspicious Believers after winning the London Calling competition.
June 2007: Again, a very busy month. Our second ever live showcase, two more artists reaching 50K (Maitreya and Mandyleigh, both from Down Under) and the long awaited arrival of the SellaBand Forum. It was almost business as usual. Well, almost… We took part in an event called ‘Concert At Sea’, and while all performing SellaBand artists made the most of it, we were deeply disappointed with the outcome of the festival. Of the 55,000 festival goers, only a handful made the effort to come to the SellaBand Stage. Probably the most bitter pill we’ve had to swallow so far. This event came only days after the launch of the first SellaBand albums. Both Cubworld and Nemesea released their albums on the same day and they and their Believers were officially in business together…
Highlight: London Calling. Countless cool memories will stay with us forever and the community spirit was very much still intact!
huh, was that london calling?
Don’t mention: the drink tab at the Oak Room for the after party of London Calling.
July 2007: A bit of a slow month, with the exception of the meteoric rise of a Polish girl named Julia Marcell. Her first $20,000 raised in her first month on SellaBand, not even Clémence or Nemesea managed to do that. Nemesea, by the way, still hold the record. They made the fastest journey to $50,000: 83 days. The big question is: Will Miss Marcell become the new record holder? 
Highlight: Hot on the heels of London Calling, the UK media embraced SellaBand. Similar to what happened in NL in January, traffic in the UK has tripled and the British are now the second biggest contingency on SellaBand.
Don’t mention: Headphone leaving SellaBand to sign an independent label deal.
Weekly Update
Chart Analysis
A very interesting Weekly Chart this week. The big news is: Miss Julia Marcell is no longer at #1. On the brink of being halfway in budget, this is where her SellaBand reign comes to a (temporary?) halt. SolidTube are this week’s #1. We’ve said it before, it took them a few months to get moving on SellaBand but at the moment it seems nothing can stop this Austrian ensemble to get to the top of the search engine. Equally interesting is the sudden rise to #2 of Mr Jon Robert. Last week he announced (very exciting) details of his impending SellaBand CD and Believers have responded with a financial thumbs up. Bulletproof Messenger are bouncing back nicely as they are the Biggest Gainer (12 – 6) and SellaBand ladies Tiffany Gow (re-entry at #9) and Lucia Iman (re-entry at #12) confirm their motto still is: 50K or bust. Austria continues to do well with Confused5 in the Top 10 (#8) and a re-entry for Kontrust at #12.
We welcome newcomers Rebecca Haack (Sweden, #14) and Alien Orphans (Australia, #18) and give a Special Mention of the Week to our big friends Vegas Dragons, who are at #3 this week but are also getting interestingly close to what some Believers call the Final Countdown…
That’s a first…
This is the 45th edition of the SellaBand Tribune, your weekly newsletter in which we bring you all SellaBand related news from the horse’s mouth, as well as nice little features highlighting our artists. However, you will notice there is no Q + A in this Tribune. For the first time an artist has missed the deadline. In fact, the man/woman/band in question has not replied to our e-mail at all. Let’s hope the mail got lost in cyberspace and we will get a response from him/her/them after our reminder, or we will be forced to go public with his/her/their name in due time…
$1,000,000 Believer
Some will say: well, it had to be him. And they are right, because it ís him: Mr. Walter Braunsteiner is the man who bought the 100,000th Part on SellaBand. And he also bought Part 100,001, 100,002, 100,003, etc, but that’s not the point. He is the million dollar Believer and we promised that lucky winner a spectacular prize. Well here it is: a trip to New York, to watch Maitreya and Lily at work while recording their album. In co-operation with Red Bull Netherlands, Walter and a SellaBand representative will travel to New York and gets to hang out with two of our recording artists.
Amiestreet continued…
Some people have expressed their worry about the announced partnership with Amiestreet. Their fear was that the deal would a bit of a one way eh… street. Amiestreet have already hyped SellaBand in their monthly news letter in July and will regularly feature SellaBand artists on their home page and in news features. Check out what they had to say about Cubworld here.
Here are two young companies who try to find a way to make some changes in the music industry. We are exchanging ideas and information and have expressed mutual sympathy. In less than 2 weeks, the downloads of SellaBand Recording Artists have grossed over $250,00. Money which we will be sharing with the three artists and their Believers of course, but equally important, this confirms that we are onto something. One look at Amiestreet’s charts tells us that there seems to be a genuine demand for SellaBand Music. We think that is great news.
SellaBand poster boys and girl 
SellaBration Update:
Rodino to pull a big stunt!
Only 48 hours to go and the soundcheck at Amsterdam’s Paradiso will be almost done. 50 Hours from now and SellaBration ’07 will be in full swing… Time for the latest updates and announcements…
Before the storm…
Like we said in last week’s Tribune, we hope to start the proceedings on August 16 with a bit of a stunt. Heineken are launching a new premium incentive called the ‘speakerkratje’ this week. To promote this gadget it will be on display at the big bus stop on the Leidseplein in the heart of Amsterdam.
This square happens to be in between the American Hotel (where we’ve set up our HQ for SellaBration ’07) and the Paradiso venue. Heineken have invited Francis Rodino to perform a nice little live set in front of the bus stop. His marching orders were: sing loud and cause a little chaos on a Thursday afternoon. And that’s exactly what Francis ‘loud is my middle name’ Rodino and his guitar player will be doing. Expect him to be there around 6:15PM and it would be great if as many Believers as possible would be there to cheer for him. How long exactly his set will last is difficult to say at this point, because the authorities have yet to give us permission for this stunt, but we will pull it off regardless…
Signing Sessions
At the merchandise booth in Paradiso, we will sell Nemesea, Cubworld and Second Person CDs. All three bands will be available for a meet&greet and signing session after the last band has cleared the stage. The signing session will start around twelve at the small room, upstairs at Paradiso. So, ‘meeting at midnight’ could be a nice title for this little event where you can get all your personal copies of the albums autographed. By the way, the Paradiso will stay open until the early morning, and party people who are in the mood for some serious dancing can stay in the big room where a DJ will try to get you moving.
Coffee with the Team
On Friday morning, August 17, at 11:00AM, the SellaBand Team will have try to fight their hangovers with some strong coffee. We’ll be at Paradiso once again, but this time we'll be in the basement. The management of this venue are kind enough to let us have a little reception there and meet you all for a cup of coffee. So, in case you are still in Amsterdam on Friday morning, want to say hello to us and perhaps share your thoughts on SellaBand and discuss a few issues with us, feel free to come back to Paradiso and meet us there.
FabChannel
As with our New Year’s Party, SellaBration ’07 will be recorded and aired live by FabChannel. The webcast starts at 7:30PM CET and won’t end before the very last artist has left the stage. As an appetizer for SellaBration ’07, FabChannel have made a compilation of the New Year’s Party. SellaBration ’07 will be filmed with at least 10 cameras, this is one free webcast event that is not to be missed!
Around the world in 365 days
How was it for us?
In last week’s Tribune we asked a number of early Believers how they look back on our first year, this time we turn to our ‘own’ management for their comments and feedback. How do Pim, Dagmar & Johan, the three guys who gave up their previous jobs to chase their dream called SellaBand feel about their first year being in business with Artists & Believers?
Dagmar Heijmans, Music Director:
Highlight of Year 1: Not one but three highlights, so far, this year: the first moment I had the finished albums of Nemesea, Cubworld and Second Person in my hands and played them in my car stereo very very very loud on my way home, all smiling and proud!
Biggest disappointment in Year 1: My mistake with the tracklisting of the SellaBand Presents Part 2 CD: Tifanny Gow with the song Tiffany Gow, should have been Tiffany Gow with 'No Fear'. Oops, sorry Tif.
Most important lesson learned: Well don't ever check tracklistings yourself and especially not while very busy.
Personal Favorite SellaBand Song of Year 1: Trail’s 'City' is a longtime favorite but my new favorite is 'Mr. Frazier' of Irish band The Arangements, check them out!
Ambition for Year 2: Twelve months ago we didn't know if it would work. Well we've proven that. People are willing to pay $10 (or more) to be part of an artists success. And we've proven that with the budget artists can work with great producers and studios and create fantastic albums. Now the proof is there we're ready to conquer the world.
Pim Betist, Creative Director
Highlight of Year 1: There are so many. Nemesea hitting 50K, our new year’s party in Paradiso, my mom buying the very first part on SellaBand. But I guess the moment that touched me most was at London Calling when Maitreya was performing with Cub. Cubs lyrics came out of his toes and Maitreya was spitting like there was no tomorrow. There were people jumping to the rhythm next to me. As I felt the beat I felt so proud. My dream was coming true. Right in front of my eyes.
Biggest disappointment in Year 1: The slow progress of Hip Hop formation IGT on SellaBand. I don’t get it. Perhaps I’m nuts but when I saw the amount of friends they have on MySpace I thought they would make the target in no time. Not even 10% of this group of “friends” decided to help these guys enter the studio. They might not be active bloggers but they showed a lot of effort doing collabs with other SellaBand artists. Maybe when we grow bigger we will attract more Hip Hop lovers so we can enjoy more of that Ahhh Ahhh IGTEEEE baby!
Most important lesson learned: Producing is an art. Before my SellaBand journey I never appreciated and understood the art of producing, but when I heard and saw the creative process behind the production of first three albums I understand how important production is. I have come to learn that our network of producers is one of the core competences that will leave copycats far behind us.
Personal Favorite SellaBand Song of Year 1: SellaBand by IGT
Ambition for Year 2: We always say that Johan lives 5 years ago, Dagmar lives now and I live somewhere in 2015, but my ambition for year 2 is to see you become the record company. My ambition is to give you all the tools you need to do exactly what record executives used to do. Scout talent, follow the recording process and promote the heck out of the artist when the album is done so more people can enjoy what you heard first. The tools we will be providing you with will help you build a bridge between the off and the on line world. This way your profile pages will be filled with amazing content which will help you attract more and more music lovers. Vive la revolution!
Johan Vosmeijer, Managing Director
Highlight of Year 1: There are many contenders, like: Nemesea hitting 50k, the New Year’s Party, London Calling (and the spontaneous dinner on the night before!), driving Cubworld and Maitreya around NYC looking for studios and producers, hearing Cub’s finished album for the first time. But, the absolute highlight was having a few beers in my back garden with Brian Tailor, talking about life, music and nothing in particular; SellaBand came to life in the purest form on that warm Summer night in June.
Biggest disappointment in Year 1: Wetwerks and Slim Void not making it to 50K yet. I always thought I was the best talent scout in the world and it's a bit tough for my ego to accept that 'the public at large' has yet to discover the true potential of these two class acts.
Most important lesson learned: That I’ve lived in an ivory tower called record company for too long. SellaBand deals with real people and real life, I sometimes still find it hard to adjust to that, but hey I’m only 43, I can still learn…
Personal favorite SellaBand Song of Year 1: A toss up between Cubworld’s Lights Fade, Rodino’s Burn and SlimVoid’s Broken Arrow. But, when really pushed to make a choice, I'd probably go for Wetwerks' 'Further Than My Eyes'.
Ambition for Year 2: To turn SellaBand into a household name, known as a quality website where aspiring artists get the opportunity to take their career to the next level and Believers not only have the chance to kickstart a career, but get a decent return on investment as well. Oh, and to make a seriously mean, killer record with Vegas Dragons. I'm 100% sure the Dragon will deliver!