Creative Competitors, John Pisciotta

Hi everyone here. We're here with creative competitors. I've got John Pichotta with me. John is a good friend and a fantastic entrepreneur. Thank you, John, for being on this.

Yeah, you bet. Happy to.

When I moved here about three years ago, you were one of the first guys that I met and we met at O. Charlie's.

That's right.

And I specifically remember how driven you were and committed to your idea. You just had an idea at the time and unlike a lot of entrepreneurs that I've met before, you actually executed.

Yeah.

Right. So tell us about your business today and sort of where you're at.

Sure. Well, let me back up from oh, Charlie's for a minute. I mean, just kind of at an architectural level. So to talk about Music Sync, first we got to kind of talk about Loud Lab. So Loud Lab is our holding company and it's an innovation hub that has birthed Music Sync and has birthed a company called Multiply Live as well, which we can talk about later. So it's an innovation hub that fixes problems, builds technology, solutions and teams. We execute. We're an execution company. I kind of say there's three words. We innovate, execute and multiply and build value for the rights holders.

Yeah. No, I agree with my partner now with Thompson Burton. We're trying to do the same thing because wall's being flattened. So we're trying to find a way to deliver services on a more personal level. What specific problem then are you targeting and solving through your business?

Yeah, so through Music Sync. Music Sync is a sync rights organization that accelerates the licensing process for premium content and top tier music supervisors. So in the old world, the process that came out of the 1940s Tin Pan Alley era had 40 steps to clear one piece of music. And let me first say a sync license has to be executed every time a piece of music is is attached to moving pictures. So that's every film trailer, every movie, every advertisement, everything on Hulu, Netflix. Anytime you see something and hear music.

There has to be, you need to pay the creator of that music licensing fee.

Right. So that process is 40 steps in six weeks to clear one song. It's a complete, fractured, inefficient process. So what we've done through Music Sync is having done licenses for the past 14, 15 years. There really wasn't a solution that we were excited about. There were what's called music libraries that tend to devalue your copyrights and not really a serious solution for kind of premium content or even mid tier publishers. So what we did is we assembled a wish list of things we wanted to be able to do on the publisher side. And then in working with our supervisors, assembled the inverse suite of tools that our supervisors were asking for, so fixing their pain points as well. So that became our version one platform and that's what we're currently using today.

Right, and so you are. You've already survived a few years at least, and you've successfully raised funds. Is that accurate?

Music Sync is founder funded right now. Multiply Live has raised a round of capital just to be accurate. Got it. But yeah, I mean, there's an interesting thing. I think a lot of entrepreneurs think that you have to raise capital or else you stop. And I think that's a flaw in the ointment. What we're about is about building better entrepreneurs. And the current venture capital model tends to be very venture focused. Their funnel is like, let's fill the funnel with entrepreneurs and startup companies. And we think that that needs to really be flipped to where when you build better entrepreneurs, better companies come out of those. You build more valuable companies. So, I mean, we were founder funded and you know, we've seen companies that have raised a little bit of money and then stopped. Right. Because they don't know what to do. And it's like, look, we, we put deals together and execute and we're just building value and adding customers and doing transactions. We'll raise money when we need to. So we're not in a.

You're not beholden to anybody.

We're not. I think, I think the mistake is it's so cheap to start a company now. The technology, the talent available. Don't ask for permission, don't ask for somebody's blessing. I mean, it's like that's a great entrepreneur, gets it done and builds and puts a team together. And speaking of putting a team together.

One thing that I've seen you do from a distance and I've admired you for doing this, and the point of the show is called creative competitors.

Right?

Creative competitors. Find a way to get it done. You've attracted really amazing people to your business. In the early stages, you attracted really top advisors. I noticed that. And to this point, you've attracted a lot of really impressive strategic partners. So what is it in your makeup, do you think leads to these people coming to you if you were advising an entrepreneur today?

Yeah, well, I mean, two parts to that, I think one part is there are companies that are either pleasure company or pain companies. They're fun for a minute and then you just get rid of them. But when you're fixing a pain point that's really valuable to users, that's much more interesting. So we, first off, we, we're not interested in a widget that's entertaining to download for a week and then you delete it.

You've got a big problem that you're solving.

Fix big problems. You're going to spend the same amount of time building a small company that you will. A company that fixes a big problem, you might as well go big. So that's first what we greenlight, that's important. Fixing structural big problems. And then at the end of the day, I mean, it's like we're a big believer in assembling a bench of advisors that really add wisdom to what we're doing. So whether that's going to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, we do that every day. So it's a big part of it. But the operational internal team, I think we're at seven people now. People want to be part of something that is an adventure. And you're fixing a big problem if you're just kind of doing something small, that's not really a challenge and of interest to people. But when what we're doing is we're creating a sync rights organization, kind of similar to ASCAP and BMI as a performance rights organization.

I don't think you haven't said the word I once.

Really.

Right.

You haven't.

You keep saying we and our team and us.

Sure.

Do you think that's instrumental in kind of creating a culture where people sort of gel in their synergies?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if it were just a solo lone ranger, you're dead in the water. I mean, it's just really, really hard to fix big problems as a one or two person team. So it is vital to how we assemble our teams and our companies to put together a team that can execute at a high level. Respect each other, have fun in the process. And.

What is it about you? I'm sorry to cut you off. What is it about you that holds it together? Because a good leader casts a vision that gets people swept up in the fight, in the big problem.

Sure. It's a great question, Kevin. I mean, I let our team lead. It's like we just brought on a new executive vice president out of New York who ran a music company called Maestro. And he is excellent at what he does. And I want him to lead. I want him to dig in and do what he does, do what he was made to do. I Wasn't made to do that. He was. So as we're putting teams together, it's.

You got to give him the support that he needs to get his job done.

Sure, yeah, absolutely. But I mean it's. There's a guy named Itzhakadis who has written a bunch of books and if you haven't read him, there's like Tom Peters and then there's Itzakadesis everybody knows about.

We're gonna spell that for you at home, by the way.

Not Tom Peters.

Jim Collins.

No, no, the older guy. I'm blanking on his name. But anyway, he's excellent. So if he has this thing called the PI methodology where it's P, A, E, I. And he talks about early stage teams and how you have to have the P is the producer, A is administrator, E is the entrepreneur and I is the integrator, I believe. And without any one of those pieces, it stops.

Let's summarize those pieces. So the producer. What's the producer's function?

The producer is the.

What are you, by the way?

It's a good question. I think I'm the E. And the baby producer shows up and executes whether it's biz dev or product. A is the administrator, the glue that is doing the accounting. The operational stuff.

Make sure the checks don't bounce.

Exactly, yeah.

Super important function.

E is the entrepreneur, visionary role in the equation and I is the integrator. So that's something we use and it's been super helpful because you know, we've seen companies where it's, you know, you can operate at a certain altitude with the wrong team, but when you're operating at a high altitude, you have to be. Those propeller wings need to be propelling and I'm just a big fan of Itzak Adesa.

So how does your company go from the stage that it's at now to. To critical mass? Like what? So you're, you're growing roots.

Yeah.

You're growing the team and at some point.

Yeah.

You're going to scale this thing.

Yeah.

What's the next step?

What we're doing and we've got a whole kind of graphic outline of this. But, but our go to market strategy involves there's three, three pieces to the equation. One is take the beachhead, the second is take the women and children. No beachhead, take the state and then nation building. So phase one includes conquering. Conquering. It's the content strategy. Phase two is the supervisor advertiser's piece of the equation. And phase three has A handful of different parts to it, but it's basically a satellite in key cities.

Do you have deadlines for these goals or how do you.

We kind of think in 90 day sprints, and we think, okay, we think we can do this in 90 days and we try to do what's called stretch goals. If you're absolutely.

The bhags.

The bhags, exactly. Big hairy ovation goals burn harnish from the gazelles. So, yeah, we think in 90 day increments and, you know, everybody has kind of their top five things that they're doing. And, you know, we get about 80 to 90% of those done, which is really good. I mean, it's like we're putting points on the board and executing.

So if you're sitting at a table and you're a seasoned entrepreneur, you've had failures, I'm assuming. Oh, we all have. You're talking to a young entrepreneur. What advice do you give him as far as when should he pivot his company? And if you're to talk to an entrepreneur, how do you tell him to attract a good team?

What is it about person? I think failure. I think he has to a couple things. I think he has to fail first because that's the only way he's going to learn. So he needs to start that company. That's, you know, going to.

It's janky.

It's busted. Exactly. You learn so much from those companies. When you build a service company that can't scale or is built on a certain headcount and you realize that that's not scalable, you'll never build that company again because you spent two or three years doing that. That's why it was dependent on you and I. You know, it's not a scalable technology that thousands of people can use. So I would say failure is a really good thing. And secondly, I would, I would just put together your board of directors, your personal board of directors, a dozen, half dozen people who you can go to every 90 days say, hey, this is what I'm doing. And then you follow back the next 90 days and say, let me show you what I've done. And that process is just worth more than anything else I could suggest because you're getting input from people who are seven or eight years ahead of you and, and the entrepreneurs want to help. It's like they want.

They want to take it along for the ride.

They want to build into the next entrepreneur. That's just part of the DNA. So, yeah, I think both those things, failure is good. And a board of directors bench, personal board of directors, who you can go to and just say, look, I'm thinking about this. Shoot some holes in it.

Let's end on personal development. So if you're talking to a young entrepreneur and even yourself included, how important is that in the equation? Because there's a saying that you hire character and train skill. So these people need to become something special to attract the right talent to build remarkable companies. So how do you get that check in the box?

That's a good question. I mean, I think all of our team members are learners, so it's like, that's part of the culture that we're creating. Everybody shares information and it's part of like this kind of unspoken band of brothers. Things like, hey, have you seen this? And it may be something on leadership or personal development or productivity or communication that is just kind of strengthens the whole team. So that's how we, you know, it shows up in our companies.

How do you lead from that perspective? Because if you're not committed to it, your team's not going to do it. So what habits do you have that lead to more growth and development?

Yeah, well, I think.

And this is where you need to.

Say, I. Yeah, no, that's a huge question. And I wish I had a, you know, a silver bullet here, but I mean, for us, I mean, a. We try not to avoid disagreements. One of the steps in dysfunctions of a team was avoidance of conflict.

Which is the book that you've read?

Yeah, Patrick Lencioni. It's probably one of the top 20 leadership books, business books.

How many books a month do you.

Read, by the way? You know, I absorb information from a lot of different sources. Books are one of them. So, you know, seven or eight books.

A month, that's fantastic. So just you're very modest, by the way. That's a lot. So you make it a personal habit, or at least it's an ingrained habit to consume good information from good sources.

Yeah, I capture information from a lot of different places. And, you know, it's people, it's books, blogs. I mean, your blog is really good because you're getting people together to talk about interesting things, and that's super valuable. Stanford has a killer podcast, video podcast, and it's, you know, if you want information, you go get it. You get wisdom and don't sell it. And that's, you know, what we do.

So my final question is, how do you stay hungry to consume so much and to keep growing and to keep pushing?

There's just so many opportunities out there. I really believe that people were made to do great things, and it's an adventure, and adventures are fun. So I don't. I don't. Hungry. I don't know. I don't know what hungry is, but. But this is a pleasure and an honor to do this kind of stuff. You know, entrepreneurs are heroes. You know, I really believe that. And that's. That's a. It's a fun thing. That's great.

Well, definitely, we, in today's culture, we need more heroes. We need to celebrate victories.

Yeah.

And instead, we focus on the failures and the disasters out there.

Yeah.

And Seth Gun wrote about this, where he said that it's only been a brief moment in history when people actually work for somebody else. For the most part, people, they had a trade, they had a skill and a specialty, and that was their passion. John, you're bringing it back.

Guys like you are bringing it back. It is a joy. It's hard work, but it's a joy.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, Kevin, I appreciate it. Good stuff.

You can come back anytime you want to.

We'll do it. Sam.