If only music was just about creating and performing… Sadly, every creative that has ever decided to cross the Rubicon and to release their own music knows only too well how time consuming it can be to deal with administrative tasks: collaboration agreements, copyright registration, production budgets, etc., it’s a true minefield. But where there is darkness, there is light… and Reveel: a Wallifornia 2021 startup that has developed a platform, by creatives who have suffered, for creatives who would rather not.
This is the story of Adrien. Adrien used to be a Reggae Musician in the Najavibes band, for which he was also acting manager at the time. And since Adrien is a friendly guy, when the band started to become increasingly popular (Montreux Jazz, Polé Polé, etc), he started producing other artists too. Then Adrien decided to start his own label, Bridge Music, that later became Fruits Records, producing artists from the UK, Jamaican, and beyond. This is how he learned the hard way just how hard it can be to deal with the admin stuff, and the massive amount of uncreative work it represents.
But Adrien is smart, Swiss and likes to make things right. Fast-forward to a few years later, and an early career in investment banking in the USA, as well as an MBA from ESADE & Berkeley Haas got him thinking: why the hell couldn’t other people learn and benefit from his own suffering? This is how Adrien decided to approach a friend, who is also a developer, and to launch a customized platform to automatize the administrative tasks musicians have to suffer through. And just like that, Reveel was born.
“At first, we were focused on the issue of collecting due credits for studio sessions, explains Adrien, but quickly, the pandemic happened. We had to broaden our scope and to adapt to remote collabortion.” Quickly, the duo evolved and started to include tips and functionalities to help musicians complete the admin tasks they are asked to achieve.
“What we discover is that building on our own experience, we can save musicians up to 6h30 of administrative work per song, which is that much more time they can spend on what they do best: writing and playing music” says Adrien.
Following the saying that if you teach a man to fish you will feed him for a lifetime, Adrien and his partner developed their platform based on the principle that they both have to educate people on how to deal with paperwork on their own, and to facilitate the process so it becomes accessible to any creator. Hence, the first version of their idea, a 3-in-1 SaaS – Software as a service.
- Royalty Locator: the first piece of the puzzle is free. It is an educative tool that allows creatives to understand what they are entitled to, and offers them a free and personalized diagnosis of what they already collect, what they could, and who to connect with to get it.
- Creator ID: Reveel’s second tool is a digital passport where creatives can store their personal data as well as an history of their connections with other companies.
- My Tracks: the third functionality of Reveel is a collaborative project management tool dedicated to managing administrative tasks from A to Z and focused on releasing music professionally.
The Royalty Locator is free for all, while the Creator ID and My Tracks tools, currently in a free Beta, will be available on a subscription fee model. Recently launched, the Reveel app can already count on a strong community of enthusiastic pioneers, and the startup is growing fast, partly thanks to what they learned during the 2021 Wallifornia MusicTech acceleration program.
“We have a user growth rate of 20% to 30% per week, highlights Adrien, and we’ve only just begun! At first, we were focused on the music industry, but we quickly realized that a lot of creatives face similar issues. Actually, there aren’t that many differences from one sector to another.” And the young CEO is quick to stress the key role played by Wallifornia:
“During the program, we learned the importance of building strong relations and to educate people about administration, something they often know almost nothing about before signing their first contract. Wallifornia led us to the development of our Royalty Locator tool”.
Present in the USA, the UK, France, Canada, and India, Reveel plans to extend it’s services to Brazil, Germany and Belgium where “we had the opportunity to meet several key players during Wallifornia” enthuses Adrien, who sees Wallifornia’s network as one of its most impressive strengths : “It is impressive to see how Wallifornia is connected with the industry. During the program, we managed to connect with a lot of people, including right management companies in Europe, and North America. And that includes coaches and advisors. We had the opportunity to work with Yvan Boudillet, and he really is a super-connector.”
After months of development, the start-up is now ready to raise some funds to guarantee its growth. “We want to be the tool that saves all creatives from the brunt of admin work. We want to develop business infrastructures for creatives”. Music to their ears.
About Reveel
Reveel, the one-stop app for creatives who just want to create
If only music was just about creating and performing… Sadly, every creative that has ever decided to cross the Rubicon and to release their own music knows only too well how time consuming it can be to deal with administrative tasks: collaboration agreements, copyright registration, production budgets, etc., it’s a true minefield. But where there is darkness, there is light… and Reveel: a Wallifornia 2021 startup that has developed a platform, by creatives who have suffered, for creatives who would
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