Bootstrapping Success: GigSalad's Journey
- Eric Doades
- Mar 27
- 27 min read
Mark Steiner, Co-Founder and CEO of GigSalad joins Dmitri from the streets of SXSW to talk about the journey from working at his kitchen table to successful scale-up. We also hear a PR Strategy on what to do with questions you just don’t want to answer. But first, Tristra and Jade dish the latest news headlines.
News Headlines Discussed:
Episode Transcript
Machine Transcribed
Dmitri: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Music Tectonics, where we go beneath the surface of music and tech. I'm your host, Dmitri Vietze. I'm also the founder and CEO of Rock Paper Scissors, the PR and marketing firm that specializes in music innovation. Today I bring you back a recording from the street at South by Southwest with Mark Steiner, the co-founder and CEO of GigSalad
we get a glimpse into what it's been like to completely bootstrap a business from startup to a successful scale up. We'll also have a PR strategy for you from senior. Strategist Jonathan Streetman at Rock Paper Scissors. But first, here's the news with Tristra Newyear Yeager and Jade [00:01:00] Prieboy
Tristra: hey everybody. while Dmitri is away, the kids at RPS are gonna play and me, I guess. I'm a little old to be a kid. Hello, fellow kids. Hello.
Jade: Hello. I I, you are sitting on your chair backwards right now with a backwards
Tristra: That's right. Everything's backwards. and I'm holding, I'm holding my, my skateboard, um, which I can't actually, I, I actually dunno how to skate. but Don't, don't tell the kids. Okay, I'm here with Jade pre boy, who is our new business, magician, and he and I are gonna do a quick roundup of some interesting news that's come across, our scanner lately.
By the way, if you're interested in getting a regular dose of news, you can sign up for the RPS scanner. and yeah, we'll give you some more info on how to do that in the show notes. But first, Jade. What did you say? Hi to the people.
Jade: Hello. Great to be here. Thanks, Tristra.
Tristra: And I love having Jade on these little news roundups because he [00:02:00] has a very different perspective from all of us.
Um, Jade, you think really broadly you have a background in tech in entrepreneurship, in, in coffee, but I don't think we're gonna talk about, really, really good coffee today and in sports and sports tech and all sorts of other realms that RPS, is adjacent to, but increasingly touching on. So I'm really excited to Hear what you have been reading lately. first up I wanted to share with everyone a really interesting, bit of research from Transistor. and that just came out the past week or so about Gen Z and podcasts. So many Gen Z love, love podcasts. But guess what? They're not into the video version. I think it's funny 'cause as a Gen Xer, I'm not particularly into video podcasts.
I can't speak for my generation, but I'm wondering. It must be the millennials, no offense. Millennials. You're a millennial, aren't you,
Jade: Yeah. Yeah.
Tristra: Yeah. I, I, some of my best friends are millennials. but interesting, gen Z, according to this transistor study, strongly prefers Spotify at almost 56% [00:03:00] of those polled, loving that platform and overwhelmingly choose audio only formats.
and
that's 76%. So that challenges young. assumptions that young consumers. Young listeners are only going to want to see it if it has a video. clearly something else really interesting is going on, so just wanted to throw that out there. What have you been reading this week, Jade?
Jade: Yeah.
one article that I thought was really interesting that I was brought to my attention. in the sports world, but it's also there's a cross over here. between like media, technology and kind of just like the evolution of how tech is impacting pretty much, every aspect of our life.
But this article here from the Athletic, Jaden Daniels growth with VR simulation has Commanders embracing mind games. It's a, it's an awesome headline, but essentially while their quarterback, who's a rookie was training in vr.
Before, he stepped on the field they turned up the speed. So he was playing at like 1.5 speed. Holy cow. And now he's doing really well. I [00:04:00] think he has one of the best records. I mean, it's just really interesting to me that, the, just how. That technology has actually caused, some really, interesting real world effects,
Tristra: in the world of training.
Es es especially like you, you had an interesting parallel with music that you brought up with me before we hit record.
Jade: Yeah. absolutely.I think the VR space is super interesting. I mean, if you're, say you wanted to learn piano and you have a Quest app, and you could use Piano Vision and get, an ar piano like right in front of you and start practicing and learning how to play music.
I've always, wanted to make beats in vr. and play instruments that don't exist in the real world. Yeah, of course. Um, that maybe one, you know, something that you'd see outta the Lord of the Rings. I want to strum some type of celestial harp thing. Of course.
Tristra: Yeah. I mean, who doesn't? who doesn't,
And,
it's interesting how, how vr, I mean, and you can do it at 1.5 speed and, you know, be the best celestial strummer on the face of the earth.
Jade: Yeah. I mean I I bet it's pretty nerve [00:05:00] wracking to. play a show in front of a large crowd. So even having the simulation of the audience being
Tristra: there, yeah,
Jade: yeah, being on stage with 40,000 people out there. but there's some benefits to that.
I'm gonna toggle back to what seems to be my favorite subject this week, which is video podcasts And Bloomberg just had a report, with a pretty shocking headline, which is Porn on Spotify is infiltrating the platform's top podcast charts.
Tristra: So. There was recently a big scandal on Instagram of people being served all sorts of, videos that were, disturbing. and now Spotify is facing a little, it sounds like a little bit of a kerfluffle when it comes to content moderation. And this has always been something I've been keeping my eye on probably since.
Oh, for the last like 10 years, just thinking about how is Spotify going to the content moderation, goblins come for every platform. Eventually that's successful. And Spotify of course is no exception. but in this case, now that they're branching and leaning hard into video. A whole new horizon [00:06:00] of, content moderation problems has opened up.
And with the current atmosphere surrounding content moderation, which is, it's kind of, a lot of the tech companies seem to be deciding it, it's better to just be super hands off. And there are some signals coming from the Trump administration, from the new head of the FCC, for example, here in the US that a key piece of legislation that's been protecting, platform folks and publishers, may fall.
On, that section two 30. So this really sets up a very interesting dynamic. Like are we going to have to wrestle with, dealing with inappropriate material being served to us via something like Spotify? because if Spotify starts moderating, Then they could get in trouble with the FCC. who knows?
I mean, I'm not an expert on this. lawyers, people who are experts on this. I would love to hear from you on this topic. But yeah, it is definitely an interesting time. for Spotify,
Jade: it kind of feels cyclical or like there's an expanding and contracting of like regulation on the [00:07:00] internet. I mean, the early days of the internet.
Felt very wild, wild west. Yeah. You'd be playing flash games and it would, it, you know, it was, it was inappropriate. And, you know, and it feels like, do you, do
Tristra: you, need, do you need to talk about your, your early internet trauma,
Jade: No, no. It, it's all good. But, uh, to me, like the, the internet is, it's kind of inherently inappropriate in a lot of ways.
And I'd think that when we have like platforms like Instagram and Facebook and these companies attempting to make it more family friendly, like I, it, the, the real internet slowly comes back around and kind of.
Tristra: Yeah, it's interesting.
Gold again.
Yeah, I was reading something today that was like, it's either, you either have something that's very sanitized, all add Disneyland and there's not even a hint of any other, anything breaking through, or you have basically four chan.
Um, the question is how, how are we gonna balance these two extremes? Um, or are we going to try to balance these two extremes? Is it just simply gonna be user [00:08:00] beware
Jade: I use the internet less. I use the internet for work. But less and less. I mean, I've had a very annoying time trying to stream the fellowship of the ring recently.
There's commercials on HBO, the extended edition is over four hours long and it takes a while to load. I think we pay, 8 99 for HBO or something, I could probably buy that DVD for $5 and I'm going to,
Tristra: yeah, I, I do think that is one of the reasons why analog media or quote unquote physical media has gotten so meaningful to younger,
Entertainment and culture lovers. Is they can control the experience, so much more and they can go back to it whenever they want. So What other news has been on your mind? Jade, you've got VR training, what else have you been thinking about?
Jade: I've been thinking about the intersection of, music and sports a lot.
as someone who. I grew up as a musician and an athlete, kind of splitting time between those two things. There's not a ton of like. Inherent crossover, but like, as you think about it more, there is actually, it's completely crossed over. I played in marching [00:09:00] band and so we'd play at halftime and I played football for a while too.
I, I dunno, I was never doing those both at the
Tristra: time. I was gonna say, so you, you, like, you played the sousaphone, you threw it down, and then you went and ran to sports. The sports, I can't make any sort of great football
Jade: metaphor right now, Music is, is really important to sports.
Um, getting, getting you hyped up for a
Tristra: Mm-hmm.
Jade: Creating an awesome promo video with a really sick beat, playing in the background. That's all stuff that's. That's awesome. I think in terms of like fan engagement and data, there's a lot of similarities here. there's everyone's betting on sports now.
Yeah. Like, we might be betting on music
Tristra: name image likeness has become a A huge issue for many young athletes and just it ha like it has for many artists. Exactly.
Jade: Totally. No, completely. this is, a little bit older news, but I, I have this, sports, this music business worldwide article, sports music licensing company, click and clear.
inks deal with Warner Music. I really think it's cool what Click and Clear is doing. They're, they're making it music licensable to sports teams and coaches in a way that [00:10:00] previously wasn't licensable. I mean, those, those revenues might have just got black box or maybe this. Was kind of like an under the table thing.
So that, that's really interesting to me. And I think we're gonna see more of that kind of more revenue opportunities between sports, music and gaming as, as those worlds kind of merge.
Tristra: Yeah, and I think we've had the CEO and founder of Click Clear on the podcast before Chantel pp. She's quite inspirational, doing an amazing job.
All right, well thanks for talking, of talking through the news with me, Jade. And yeah, we'll have to do it again sometime if you know. When the boss is away,
All right.
Jade: Have you registered for our March seismic activity? Join us online, March 26th at 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern, 5:00 PM uk. Time for permission to pick my brain. Ask me anything. We'll be joined by music tech experts, Vicki Nauman, Hazel Savage, and Cliff Fluey. For an hour of open conversation, bring your questions and get ready to come [00:11:00] on camera.
Head over to music tectonics.com to register now and learn more about our free monthly online event series.
Dmitri: So I'm here at South by Southwest, literally on the street, and I've got, mark Steiner, who's the founder and CEO of Gig Salad with us to do a How to Scale Up episode. Gig Salad is an awesome. Platform that's had some great success and he's, ready and willing to help. some of his story to help other startups get further along.
Hey, mark, how you doing? Hey, Dmitri. it's great to to to be with you again. for anyone who's never heard of Gig Salad, how do you describe it to people? We are an event marketplace, uh, place to book entertainers, performers, speakers, and other event service providers. and this is before [00:12:00] marketplaces became really popular and famous, so like Uber.
And Airbnb, we were before all of them. That's quite the claim, right. But in an event space. So it's very niche and I don't think we'll ever scale to that level. we're in US and Canada only for one. and I think there's fewer people planning events than need a ride from the airport to the hotel kind of thing.
So, uh, but that's, that's really all it is. I was a booking agent before working with performers and, early on in the early two thousands, we came up with this concept to match entertainers, to event planners. So what kind of entertainers can you book through gigs out, just as an example?
pretty much anybody that does what they do on a stage, it was originally performers, it was musicians, which was the space I was working in as a, as a booking agent.
what are some of your top categories? The top the face painters is very high. mariachi is very high, very, very high. We need more mariachi, so if anybody's listening,
So, uh, yeah, Violinists quartets. we're in the both private and corporate [00:13:00] event planning, so wherever you'd see a small jazz combo or classical background ambiance, music, it's every event from, we say, from cradle to grave, from weddings.
And to funerals. Yeah. Wow. and have there been artists, musicians who've made like serious living at gig salad? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Early on, we launched, official launch was oh seven, so there was a recession that was about to begin, you know, in, in and around.
At seven and eight and, we had people telling us, thank God for GigSalad you're putting food on our table, you're helping to help us pay our rent. 'cause we have, it's a range. We have people that are weekend warriors. they have their primary job, their day job, and they,
their dream or their passion is to perform. And so it's a side hustle for many. But then there's a lot of folks who they're full-time in, in their gig. And in some cases [00:14:00] there are those who use gig salad, primarily. So yes, there's people that make their living, on the platform,
Yeah, it just depends. So when you are getting started, I'm sure there were like different moments when you realized, well, you had the question, is this gonna work? this is going to work. this is growing. I'm curious, can you think through from the beginning to now, what were those pivotal inflection points?
How did you know that it was gonna take off? I mean, we have, startups listening to the podcast who are in the idea phase. We have some of them who already have an MVP, there's some who are already launched and they're probably. Sometimes asking themselves like, should I keep going? Or, how big could this really get?
And I'm curious if you can remember specific moments that were those inflection points sort of like, I'm about to throw in the hat but I shouldn't, or Holy cow, this is working. I. Yeah, I, I don't think our, my story is unique, however, it's, it's a good one, and it goes like this. I was a booking agent [00:15:00] in New York City at a small boutique agency, that I worked at for seven years.
And then I decided to go out on my own and start my own little booking agency. And that morphed,
ah, the background sounds. Love it. So I thought I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my own agency. that morphed into including a, speaker's bureau. And, and about a year in, I decided I needed to a website. So I went to my friend who had been, starting to do web design. and he, he designed my first website.
And when we, when that came out, I started getting. hit up by entertainers and performers who were starting to use the web for the first time. this was in the early two thousands, And at the same time, event planners were finding Steiner talent.
So Steiner talent was my booking agency.
Uh, I was getting hit up by clowns, looking for gig and, and literally clowns. And so, I, I had come from a performing background. My, my wife at the time was A concert violinist and she would gig doing [00:16:00] weddings and that sort of thing.
So I was familiar with the space and I wanted to be helpful to my fellow artist. at the same time I had moms calling for clowns and I thought, there's gotta be a way to bring these two parties together. So I went to my friend, Steve, who had designed the website and said, I got this problem.
I'm spending a lot of time being a connector for things that not within my business model. I'm not making any money from it. I need to figure something out. So we decided to create a separate website, and it originally was just going to be a directory, where hopefully these two parties could meet, go on and do business together.
And that was the beginning of it. There was a problem that I was getting. inundated with emails and phone calls, and the solution was, let's create something else. Let them go over there and do their DIY thing. So the origin story literally was your SEO was too good and you needed a way to solve it so you could get back to business.
That's exactly right. Wow. So at that stage, I, wasn't concerned on how good it did or didn't do. Steve and I threw in a. maybe a thousand dollars or two a piece or something just [00:17:00] to pay, a rent a coder back in the day, Try to create something for us.
that was our first hand at it. I think we hired a, a rocket scientist who was moonlighting, dabbling with, web creation. so it takes a rocket scientist to build a marketplace. It really does. when the clowns start calling, call a rocket scientist, right? And I'm not one, I am not a rocket scientist.
This. that was the idea. Let's create a directory and you know, off we went. the part about it that I think people need to know is I was, I had my business to run. Steve had his business to run. He had a, graphic design business, a web design business, and that's what we did mostly during the day.
and then at night. And on weekends we'd work on GigSalad and but there was no pressure per se, that we didn't have a monetary investment, It was a lot of, just a lot of work, a lot of grind. And the pressure was off about what it would or wouldn't do, could or couldn't do
and, and off we went. And, that was again, that was [00:18:00] about 2003. So we're in the beta stage all the way up until 2007.
the, the moment we had a website out there, we started to get. We started to get a little momentum right away. I mean, I had a huge database of performers that I knew in my, in my own life.
and we just started reaching out and saying, Hey, we have this platform. There was another, business out there, that. Had already started doing this that we weren't even aware of
So we discovered them and then we started doing what you do is, you know, you, you compare and say, what are they doing that we think they're doing right? What are they doing that we think we could do better? And we started to make adjustments and build the brand, build the business based on that.
And like I said, we were the underdog and the little train that could from the beginning as we reached out to people, we said, Hey, you know about these other guys, but you might wanna give us a try too. And people did. we got buy-in. I think it was the messaging.
I think it was who Steve and I were, I think it was, How we talked about the company and what [00:19:00] our goals were, and by the people for the people sort of thing. And, we, uh, hired our first developer in oh seven and he got us to a different level at that point.
He became a partner. We gave him some equity, and off we went. Can I ask you, did you have investment or did you, like, were your other businesses doing well? How did you, how did you pull together enough cash to hire a developer? We, we put a few shekels together and said, we can pay you X amount.
Steve said, Hey, would you like to come and freelance for my company? he needed somebody to help him with his clients. So Steve was paying him a little bit and then he'd work some hours for gig salad as well, and kind of shared in a way, it was, it was a shared deal.
And so we said, we, you know, we can afford to pay you this much. He did some work and all of a sudden it, we. Felt like it was running out. We said, if you stick around for a few more months and, and keep working, we'll give you equity. And he, he did it. Uh, he, he took the deal. And, uh, if you were to talk to Locke [00:20:00] today, he'd tell you it was the best, smartest thing he's ever done.
'cause that's the developer's name. Locke. Locke. Yeah. Locke Becher, who is now my sole partner, Locke and I in, in 2022, bought out Steve. And, uh, it's he, it's he and I now. Yeah, it's in, it's interesting to hear a little bit about that part of the story.
Like what's it like to bring on your first technical co-founder and how do you put together the funds be? Because that's not, if you don't get investment, it's not an obvious path necessarily. And then I. Obviously something else happened 'cause you guys bought out the original co-founder as well.
What, what other inflection points were there between the time that Locke started professionalizing the actual technical aspects of the, the marketplace, the website, and what you just jumped to? Yeah. Well, so we're the classic bootstrap and, and as far as money that Steve and I put in, uh, as I said, I, it, it never, I don't think it ever exceeded a total of 10,000 between us.
And and did you ever raise money? We never raised money, and we declined offers by VC's. That started [00:21:00] right away. I mean, we launched oh seven and we took off like a rocket and so much so that at that time when we launched, we were both working out of our homes. So I had two or three people working around my kitchen table.
that were working both on Steiner talent and gig salad at the same time. And Locke was working in a spare room at, Steve's home in Wilmington, North Carolina. But for what Locke created and where the website. Leapt in very short time, we realized, uhoh, we need more people. Thus we need more space.
I have no more room around the kitchen table. So we, Steve and I opted to purchase a building in Springfield, Missouri, as opposed to rent. and started to fill seats and, and off we went. and then once that happened. And we were growing fast and people started comparing us to, you know, we saw us in this space and the other guys in that space, this space.
But it's a very niche space. both of us were getting [00:22:00] reached out to by VCs and for me and my part, and Steve, we just wanted to keep our autonomy. We wanted to stay bootstrap. It was, keeping that independence and, not being told what to do. And we just went that route, So when you bought the office and you started hiring people, was that gig salad money or was that still like your previous agency, his design firm that was investing in these other pieces?
Yeah, good question. It was,because it was in Springfield, it was really a, Hey, I I can fill a seat or two with Steiner talent. Um, we have gig salad it was really the, the almost right away we had enough income to hire. So it was pretty. Self-sufficient right out of the gate.
and keep in mind the people that we needed, it wasn't skilled labor. We didn't even need to hire other developers yet. It was a really, it was more customer, it, customer service people to take calls, people to reply to emails. So I was hiring people straight outta college, or people that, gosh, there was.
Young, young moms. [00:23:00] it was more about, this is the other thing. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur because I wanted to create my space. I wanted to create my culture. So I often hired based on personality, uh, work ethic, just. You know, did you have a good attitude? Do you seem to be happy?
Come let's come work together. help us make this grow and you will grow with us. You know, come with us on the ground level and let's see what we can do. And, a lot of people were interested in that idea and they came along. I think in, in part they, they saw the vision.
It was a kind of fun, it's a fun, it's a sexy industry to be in and around entertainers and events and that sort of thing, as opposed to, I. The less sexy jobs. I don't wanna call anybody out, Um, you know, so it was little, in Springfield, Missouri, uh, it's not the, the entertainment capital of the anywhere.
so if you wanted to get a taste of that industry, we were one of the few [00:24:00] places to do it. And there was a. the Missouri State University had an entertainment management program, so I, I could get people from that, you know, interns from there and young graduates from there. So, yeah.
What, what are some of the things that you've attributed to gig salad success in terms of growth? And I know you're a two-sided marketplace, so you've got the entertainers on one hand and you've got the event planners on the other. what's helped you grow on both sides?
so we started, I'm coming from a booking agency background and I'm still running my booking agency while I'm doing GigSalad the thing that I wanted to distinguish from the get go was,that. We are not an agency.
So as I had performers those performers that were contacting me, they were doing searches trying to find representation. Trying to find extra gigs, uh, wanting to see if they could be listed on my roster, that sort of thing. they were looking for opportunities and so I, I wanted to give them that opportunity and I was basically saying,
I have this place that I'm going to create that will [00:25:00] empower you to do what you do. You don't need, you don't need an agent. Not, not for what you're doing like in your hometown or your county or your, your region. You just need to, you, you need to get. Into searches, like this whole new concept of you need to be on the web and you need to be coming up at the top of those searches.
That's what I'm gonna do for you. I have a platform I, I can prove to you just the way you found me on Steiner Talent. I'm gonna create another website and, and that'll be found. And once it's found. The buyers and the, the, the event planners are gonna have be in direct contact with you. It's up to you to go book it.
You pay me to be listed on the site and you go and broker it and you don't pay me anything on the backend because that would be, to me, at the time it was, I was thinking that's double dipping like a, a talent agency doesn't. Charge talent to be listed on their roster to be, they don't pay to be represented.
They get paid when they get a gig and they'll take their 10%. So I, there was some conflict in there. [00:26:00] And then the other guys, that's the way they did it. They, you had to pay to be listed on the platform and then you had to pay. That whatever bookings happened, you had to, they, they got a little piece of that too.
Mm-hmm. And I,had a problem with that. And so we went from being a paid platform only. You paid to be on GigSalad and then the gigs were free. Two things happened later, we decided to go to a freemium business model. So similar to LinkedIn, you could. Pay the paid level and you got more bells and whistles and on and on, or you can do the free option.
but we simultaneously added a booking platform, so paid members have a choice. They can use that booking platform if they want, but I'm not concerned 'cause you've already paid me some things. So the leads that come, they're yours to have. However, we encourage you to use the booking platform and in which case we should get a piece of that.
But your choice, the free, [00:27:00] the free folks, you need to use that. We need to get some revenue from this. We're bringing you leads. so we were able to scale because we had some in income and then we figured out ways of other revenue streams and it worked out.
So Mark, you're kind of talking about product market fit. We've had a lot of, um, interviews on the podcast for the How to Start series and, Vicki Nauman was here and talked a lot about product market fit.
I integrated a lot of that content into the session that I did yesterday here at South by Southwest as well in our how to startup session. But, is that how you talk about it? Do you call it product market fit? How do you know when you're, you're trying to figure out what the right need is out there among your users and your customers and things?
You know, here's, here's the story about me. I, I didn't go to college. I don't have a business degree. I consider myself. really an artist first and foremost. the one thing I did discover, and it was by way of, a friend who believed in me and gave me the, my first agency job because they thought, Hey, he's [00:28:00] extroverted, he's gregarious enough, of course he can sell.
And it turned out it was true. I was a really great booking agent. I enjoyed it. It, it fed into my A DHD Mind, which I didn't even know I had then. but I was just playing with volume. I would make.
Lots of phone calls and I would build and I would grow. So the point is, I, I personally was scrappy. I'm just a jersey boy that knows how to hustle. Truly. That's all I've got. I didn't even consider myself very smart. I just thought, I know how to hustle and I'm a dreamer and I always believed in myself in that way.
And so we never did a business plan. to this day, I'm not sure I'd known how to do a business plan. You're, you're ruining my whole series by telling these startups out there that they don't need any plan. No, no, it's fine.Steve went to, you know, he went to FIT and.
He, he's a smart guy, but didn't have a huge, he didn't have a business background either. I mean, we were entrepreneurs, so we were running our small businesses, but we, we just figured a [00:29:00] lot out as we went. So it was, in a way, mark seems like what you're saying was, it was always looking for product market fit.
It was like, I didn't call it that, but I'm just like, what works? What works? Does this work? Do they like it? Do they not like it? Are they responding? Are they not responding, et cetera. Yeah. It's, it, it, we GigSalad if we're anything, Our, our culture is such that we are, we are truly, I mean, people always say we're about the people and we care about the people.
It's really, really true. At gig salad, When I was in New York City trying to be an actor, I was in New York City actually trying to be rich and famous. I wasn't trying to hone a craft. I, I was not going to act in class.
I was trying to be discovered and because I wanted to be famous. So the point of this is what I found was I liked being around talented people in any field, anybody that was exceptional and that practiced. Throughout their life and honed a craft and got really good at, I liked being in and around it, them, and when I was, that just that [00:30:00] association, I saw my part in I'm going to create a platform for you to excel.
It really was about that. And, and I saw it as a partnership between us and of course, having been an agent that made sense. And so, um, it, it was. Truly about what can we do to serve you? How can we make you succeed? And if we make you succeed, then we succeed and the whole ship rises with that.
And that's that. I think that answers your question. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Did you ever regret not responding to those VCs or, or taking on investment? Absolutely not. No. It would've been a totally different story. And to this day, here I am, got to a place where we could, we were able to buy out Steve.
and now I have even more equity in the business. And I've always looked ahead. I've never been, of course, there's been times in my life I wanna be rich. I mean, I've said that I, I wanted to be rich and famous, so, uh, but I've never been driven by money. It was never [00:31:00] about a monetary success for me.
It was always about what am I doing to get, do I, am I doing something I love, I feel passionate about, and the money will follow. And that is in fact, what happened. Like, it, it took a little while. It, it wasn't until 2011, so we launched in 2007. 2011 was the point where
I folded Steiner talent into the common interest of gig salad because they were still related. And I, I was, there was enough of bookings there that made sense to not just walk away from it. So we had agents within gig salad doing that particular thing to keep that business going. Steve folded his tetro design, business that year and so we were full-time into gig salad in 2011.
And it wasn't until then we didn't even take a draw until that point. everything we made from the point that we started conceptualizing it until 2011, every penny went back into the company, went to into hiring, went into growth, and [00:32:00] it Then in 2007 we said, okay,
We're making enough that we can now be full-time employees. but it took a couple years until I was making. You know, any significant income, like truly. and then of course a few years later was like, okay, I'm finally starting to reap the benefits from this. But it was very worth it because, if I had been, if I had given up equity, um.
not only would that, I believe it might have scaled quicker and all of that, and who knows what the outcome could have been, but I have a lifestyle position. I just couldn't be happierand I've went through, uh, stages of potential burnout or.
Wanting to sell just 'cause I wanted to go do something else. And now I am. In the past couple years, I am back. I am all back in, I am fully engaged. I am being the best CEOI can be. And, for that reason, I, I have no regrets, to have [00:33:00] not, not sold. You heard it here on Music Tectonics. Mark Steiner, thank you so much for joining me.
Uh, great to hear that you've shared a little bit about an entirely bootstrapped business, going through multiple partnerships, or shifting a little bit on partnerships, and then being perfectly happy with the growth and success of the business. Thanks. Thanks, Dimitri. That is true. Great. Thanks for joining me.
Thanks bro.
Jonathan: Hi, my name is Jonathan Streetman and I'm a senior PR strategist here at Rock Paper Scissors. And what I'd like to talk about today is akin to just ripping off a bandaid in public relations. One of the best pieces of advice I can offer clients and often help with when we're just getting started. Is to practice the questions you know you don't want to answer. means understanding the challenges your company is facing, whether that's industry struggles, internal issues, or even past controversies, and being prepared [00:34:00] to discuss them openly and intelligently. When you rehearse how to address these tough topics, you're able to stay calm and clear even if those questions are raised unexpectedly. The alternative is being flustered and providing flustered responses that involve guessing or dodging, both of which are obvious to anyone paying attention, and definitely not advisable when you're on the record and just wanna get the interview back on track. Here's my favorite piece of advice to help with this. That sounds simple, think is really powerful and keeps you from guessing. When you're finished providing your answer, you are actually allowed to just stop talking. In fact, I strongly advise it, and you go ahead and let the interviewer ask the next question. When you've nailed your talking points and know exactly what you're comfortable sharing, you gain the confidence to say what you need to say then stop. This prevents you from overextending or revealing more than necessary just to fill the silence, which can be tempting, but it can also be pretty damaging [00:35:00] ultimately by practicing tough questions. You'll come across as more composed, confident, and in control of the conversation, is exactly what you want when you've been given the chance to tell your company's story and highlight the cool things you're working on.
Music: Thanks for listening to Music Tectonics. If you like what you hear. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast app. We have new episodes for you every week. Did you know we do free monthly online events that you our lovely podcast listeners can join. Find out more@musictectonics.com. And while you're there, look for the latest about our annual conference and sign up for our newsletter to get updates.
Everything we do explores the seismic shifts that shake up music and technology, the way the Earth's tectonic plates cause quakes, and make mountains connect with music. Tectonics on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. That's my favorite platform. Connect with me, Dmitri Vietze, if you can spell it, we'll be back again next week, if not [00:36:00] sooner.
About Music Tectonics:
Music Tectonics is an annual music innovation conference with free online events, podcast, & newsletter all year. Join us for the next annual conference November 4-6, 2025, in Santa Monica, CA. Music Tectonics in brainchild of music innovation PR firm Rock Paper Scissors, Inc.
Everything we do explores the seismic shifts that shake up music and technology the way the earth's tectonic plates cause quakes and make mountains.
About Dmitri Vietze:
Dmitri launched PR and Marketing Agency Rock Paper Scissors in 1999. His vision was to combine cutting edge technology and deep organic storytelling to help clients crystallize their missions in compelling ways and amplify their stories in innovative ways.
Dmitri stays at the cutting edge of music tech innovation by hosting the weekly Music Tectonics Podcast, monthly Seismic Activity online events, and the annual Music Tectonics Conference in Santa Monica, CA. He freely shares the innovation and business news he tracks in music and adjacent industries via Rock Paper Scanner, a curated weekly newsletter.
He builds community through a warm approach to networking at open mic meetups that he hosts online and in-person. He can also be found speaking on stage at conferences ranging from SXSW to Music Biz on music innovation, new approaches to publicity, and resourcefulness.
Let us know what you think! Tweet @MusicTectonics, find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, or connect with podcast host Dmitri Vietze on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.
