4th Quarter

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And we back. What's going on, Ty?

What's happening?

Hell, it's another week, man. Welcome everybody that's coming in joining us. If you ain't here with us right now, go up and hit that little button in the corner to share the link to your followers on Twitter or Instagram. Let them know we in here for another episode of Fuck U Money.

This is.

Yo, I'm here with Ty.

What's happening? Man?

It's been a couple weeks. I've been what, it's been like two weeks since I last talked?

Yeah, yeah, definitely been two weeks.

Give me an update. Tell me where you at right now. Tell me what you've been doing.

I'm in San Diego right now to tomorrow. I mean, I've been traveling, man. It's harsh on the body, but, you know, it's fourth quarter. You know what I mean?

What does fourth quarter mean to you?

Fourth quarter determines how you gonna start the year for me. You know what I'm saying?

Now, when does fourth quarter officially start for you? Is it a particular month? Is it a particular season? Like when do you know that you're in fourth quarter?

October 1st. Man, I align my quarters with the, the great United States of America, goddamn financial systems and, and, and corporate, corporate systems and things of that nature, you know, and I utilize that because, you know, that's the flow of the system that we just so happen to live in and, you know, utilize that the best of my abilities to set up both personally and professionally aspects of things.

Now, have you always operated in that system as far as your business goes or were there a particular year where you started pretty much operating around a seasonal period?

No it was always quarters just because I'm an old ex athlete nigga. So the fourth quarter was always an important quarter in sports. You can win the game, lose the game, make it to the playoffs, miss the playoffs, because at the end of the game, that's when the fatigue kicked in. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. This is when you dig in.

Yeah. Your financial fatigue kick in, your personal fatigue kick in. You start you getting a little bit too lax, making errors that you probably shouldn't be making on financial balancing, financial spending, you know, tasks that you're supposed to be knocking out to set yourself up for the next quarter, you know, because I kind of. I live my life in quarters. So, you know, for me especially, this fourth quarter is very important because that's when I plan out my entire year, at least all the goals that I have for 2023 or whatever that next year is. So for me, the fourth quarter is very, very crucial to fuck you, money, because that's when you can sit down and really visualize, you know what I'm saying, Like, where you see yourself at when the fourth quarter comes back around a year later.

Absolutely. Do you remember where you were this time last year and what kind of point of view or what was the perspective for your 2022.

This time last year?

First quarter?

Last year, I think we was getting ready to go to. I think we was in New York or getting ready to go to the Bahamas or something to finish this album. And then, you know, sports seasons was in, so a lot of, you know, checking out games, a lot of sports gambling, you know what I'm saying? So a lot of that stuff going on. I got a extremely busy fourth quarter this year, so I'm trying to, like, stay healthy, get sleep, not. Not eat the wrong thing so that I can kind of make it to, you know, to the top of December when I start shutting everything down.

Now you shut down throughout the entire December?

Oh, yeah, man. Like, that's the balance of the fourth quarter as well. That's why my October, November is so important, because I throttle all the way down in December because that's really the only month that we really have to take off. Take off, you know.

Now are you back operating that January 1st or whatever that first.

That first official Monday is, you know what I mean? Of the year.

But yeah, now this is where it's like the muscles, like the muscle season. You're going to push yourself, you're going to really, really dig in because, you know, you have that. That grace period coming.

Oh, yeah. 1,000%. I mean, even these shows, you know what I'm saying?

We.

Towards the end of the contract, it's harder and harder to get. To get through these shows because, you know, schedule is getting busier. And sometimes I. I remember that these shows is coming up, sometimes I don't. And so no matter where I'm at in the world, I gotta, like, readjust if I didn't see it on my calendar the way I should have, you know what I'm saying? So everything get tight towards the end of the quarter, you know, money get tight, attention span gets shorter, you know, start being fatigued, you know. You know, everybody trying to close the year out.

What would you say is very crucial for you just to not get overwhelmed in this period?

I can't get sick, man. That's the thing. The biggest thing is, like, health for me. Like, long as I'm, like, not sick or feeling like I'm about to get sick, then I'm way. It's way easier to maneuver around and not get overwhelmed. You know what I mean? Cause it pulls a lot out of you when you're trying to recover while still moving around and get what you need to get done. And sick can be anything. I'm not even talking about COVID I'm talking about, like, food poisoning or some shit like that that. You know what I'm saying?

And the weather's changing. You're. You're entering a new season, like, in the world. So traveling affects your body differently. I feel like depending on where you are, what time zone it is, like, it. It piles up. It starts to really weigh on you very much. Like armor.

1,000%. 1,000%. So, you know, when we start talking about the fourth quarter, we start talking about you money. You know, once again, the. The methodology around all of it is how do we plan our year out? You know? You know, the fourth quarter is just as important as the first quarter. You know, it's important for you to know that because the first quarter is the momentum you roll it into. The momentum from executing your goals on the. In the fourth quarter, from the fourth quarter, you roll into the first quarter of the next year. You know, it's a lot of information. It's a lot of learning that can take place. And it's some downtime when all the vacation stuff kick in and people start taking off. Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's and, you know, understanding how to, like, spend time with family but still don't lose focus of, like, whatever your goal is that you're trying to achieve whatever you're trying to study, if you're trying to get back into school, if you're trying to, you know, start a new business, if you're trying to invest funds, if you're trying to, you know, buy a house, like all of that shit is important when you're trying to make sure that these goals that you're pushing towards is relevant to how you end the year. Because it also affects your self esteem, you know what I'm saying? If you hit on all cylinders and you end the year off of closing a new deal or developing a new business partner, or acquiring a new line of credit, or cleaning up your credit so that you can keep working on that, or being able to get into a new place or getting a new job, or, you know, having a baby or, you know, getting married, whatever, all of these different things is like embedded contractual obligations to some sort. You know what I'm saying? And so being hyper aware and hypersensitive about how important the fourth quarter is to your life and how you close your year out is always going to be a very important thing to think about and pertaining to building up to develop an environment and a community that you can always lean on when things don't serve you, you know, and that's really what we want to make. Sure that's loud, you know, for this call when it comes to fuck your money in the fourth quarter.

Yeah, absolutely. Can you think back on the fourth quarter where you feel like you really nailed it, that you were hitting all your goals, that you were able to keep your focus and that the result of that fourth quarter led to a great first quarter for you?

I mean, my last, probably my last three years of fourth quarter has been pretty impactful, even during COVID because during COVID I was determined to finish and graduate. So I utilize a lot of that downtime to not only travel to scout players because big agencies couldn't go because of all of the protocols with COVID And that gave me an edge as a small agency. But then on top of that, studying for my masters and really narrowing in and trying to make sure that I land on that master's because I had a very big goal that when the, when the world opened back up and I wanted to be progress, I wanted to be ahead, I wanted to be better than I was when the world shut down. Not just skill set wise, but certificates, degrees or whatever I could get to further qualify myself in the market to make my, you know, presence more valuable when I'm going into different conversations. So acquired a master's during 2021. You know, the end of 2020 was very, very important because I think I was doing like two classes that quarter while still maintaining and traveling and, you know, couldn't really do much traveling abroad because of COVID and you know, the COVID card and a lot of the different things. So just doing a lot of traveling in the States, you know.

Now how different was it preparing and getting your master's compared to when you were working a job, doing that four quarter period.

You know, self accountability, you know what I'm saying? When you working a job, they got it set up, you know, they're gonna tell you what time to be there, you gotta get there, you gotta clock in, you know what I'm saying? You gotta know what your goals are, what your assignments are. They got a leader that you need to report to when you're dealing in school and you're doing it online. You know, you got a lot of autonomy and you got a lot of that you got to really dial in on and you got to be responsible and you got to be accountable for yourself, you know. So that was the biggest difference between working a job and pursuing an education advancement, educational advancement.

It required the same amount of discipline, but the accountability fell differently. So now that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, 1,000%.

So what are some things in the marketplace or in business period that you feel like come around during the fourth quarter that people should be paying attention to.

Any budgets that a company has, they're trying to hurry up and spend their marketing funds or sponsorship funds and because the year ending, so they're trying to hurry up and spend that. So any sponsorship dollars you probably can acquire, you know, if you start early, you know, early late second quarter, early third quarter, you know that those companies, some of them are going to be running out of money, but some of them are going to be trying to figure out how to get rid of the money before the year start over because they can't take that money financially. To them into the new year, the budgets restart and they don't really get that money back, you know. So good, so good, so good.

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That's why you wreck so Definitely a good time to be thinking about sponsorships and how you can go attach yourself with brands that you know, have that extra. The extra economics 1000%. Is there anyone you're looking at right now that you feel like would be good to team up and sponsor with Word for one of your projects?

I mean, we in talks with, we got a wellness event in Miami November 30th. So we bouncing ideas with Metamask and pitching for a few other sponsors to see if they interested in being a sponsor title sponsor for our wellness event for Mirror Wellness club in Miami November 30th. Outside of that, we're just speaking to sponsors about next summer, about events and everything we're doing next summer to get ahead of it.

Why do you think summer is different than the winter time as far as planning events? You just feel like people are just more outside during the summer and at winter time it's a little bit more insular.

Yeah, I think that that's just one of those natural chain of events that happen with the summertime. People are just going to be more outside, more likely to spend money, you know, they feel better, you know, it being cold outside. People don't always like that and enjoy that the same way they may like the summertime, you know, and brands know that, you know, and it's, it's right in the middle of the year as well.

So with that said, would you say it's a good period in the fourth quarter to present if you're an artist, new music or something that people can enjoy from inside the house without thinking about coming to see you live?

Yeah, like the fourth quarter probably once you get past towards like the end of November. I don't really encourage new artists to drop music because they roll into like the holiday wave. And so it's a very tough time to drop music if you want the platforms to really support you. Now if you just saying, fuck it, I want to get it in front of my fans because my fans fuck with me and they know what time it is, this is my release schedule and they know I'm releasing. Cool. But if you trying to really elevate your release, get some more marketability, marketing books around it, I'm always like, yo, don't drop that. You know, at the end of November you kind of like dropping it in the middle of like everybody shutting down, people trying to help them get, get off and go vacation, all that type of, you'll be better off cranking up, dropping it early February and catching everybody back in the office, you know, the Inbox is probably a little bit more manageable and you know, engaging and ready to support some new artists.

I think platform awareness is so important. You have to kind of keep your eye on how companies are moving and the way you can take advantage of when they're active and when you should be pulling back when they're not so active. Especially if you don't have like a super strong core of fans that are just ready for whatever you're ready to drop or whenever you're ready to present.

Yeah man, I mean it's very important to follow. You know, sometimes systems are just clear. Now once again, if you got a strong fan base and you, you know, you already did a lot of the groundwork, then the fans are going to show up for you regardless. But it's important to kind of follow the systems to try to know if you're trying to get the maximum exposure out of your art. If you care that much.

I mean, I would hope you would care, but I feel you. I feel you. Did you by any chance see that notice about how up to a hundred thousand songs are being uploaded to like Spotify and DSPS every day? Yeah, man, it's crazy, right? So I mean even with looking at something like that, such a large number of music being pumped out every day, what makes it like, what advantages should people be looking for to stand out?

Especially like, yeah, I mean tough man, you know, find a really creative marketing tactics for a new artist is important. Even if your team got the connectivity and the connections in the market, still, you know, still a very, very uphill battle for developing acts. If you don't have like a very solid plan around what world that you want to build and understand that you're building from one fan to 10 fans, 10 fan to 20 fans. Because when there's that many songs dropping on a on a daily basis, it's really going to be down to like what the do they care to listen to your shit? What are you doing that's unique enough market that that make your number a hundred thousand appealing enough to go to number 10,000.

I agree completely.

I was just talking to a homie, he has sent me a new artist that he's building or whatever. Said he looking for a team for it. And I told myself, man, that's cool man, some really great videos man. But I'm not, I'm not in the business to try to find and develop new artists at this point. I make more money betting on sports, you know what I'm saying? Then goddamn trying to get in and and, like, convince people. You're not only convincing people that this is something they should listen to. You got to convince the artists that you know what the. You're talking about over and over and over and over and over again. Because everybody has, like, this ideology of who they are, what they are, what they want to be, which is cool, right? Because I think that's important. But I was just telling them. I was like, yeah, man, you know, I ain't really into that, you know. You know, a new artist right now is so it's costly, especially when you're trying to build an independent. You know what I'm saying? If it was just some. Where I'm like, well, it. We're just gonna take it aside to a major label, then it's just. You just start in so much debt, you know, for that new business, and you gotta fight through a lot of uphill battles and red tape in that system to even get, you know, getting on and get noticed. So I'm just like, man, I got this book for you, though.

It's a good book.

I got this book for you, and I got, you know, I got some information that if you can't understand, but like, me actually doing the work. Yeah, I'm straight on that. Do you feel like that's a respond to them 100,000 songs coming out daily?

How many songs do you think it was around the time you found, like, Wintertime in Brent and they were still active on SoundCloud? Do you feel like it was maybe like 20,000 songs, 30,000 songs? There's no way it was 100,000 in 2015.

Oh, I'm gonna tell you, when that spike happened, it was May 2020. May 2020 is when this spike happened, because nobody could do nothing else but put out music. So they went from one week, it was like, weekly. Like, there was, you know, 20,000 songs, you know, a week. If I can remember the Spotify data correctly, it was like 20,000 songs a week. And that went to, like, 45, 50, like, overnight once people realized that, oh, the only way I'm gonna be able to make money is, like, releasing music. And so it was like a big, big, big fucking drop of music. And. And it hasn't went down since.

Nah, that search has only increased.

Yeah. As it went down since.

And I guess that's. I mean, that's an uphill battle for everybody. You know, everyone's in that same pool of 100,000. I think that's one of the biggest difference between watching, like, an NBA player. Right. Not everyone's going to touch the court in the NBA, only the best of the best getting drafted. But in music, it's just like anyone with a song has a chance to get uploaded and you're all in the same arena, you're all fighting for the same listeners. That's a lot of people, that's a lot of music.

Whole lot of music. So ain't got to take account for this flosin of TikTok.

I still can't comprehend how big TikTok has changed things in music, just entertainment, period. Saying, don't tell it.

Yeah man, like, because it uploads, you.

Know, and it's fast, it's fast, it's faster. I remember when vine was a thing. I remember vine was a thing. And I thought vine was fast. But I feel like tick tock, the amount of content that's being churned out on a daily basis is almost two times the amount of content I saw when vine was high. So yeah, if you think about 100,000 songs being uploaded to the DSPS, how many TikToks are being uploaded at the same time? You know, it's 1,000. I'm just reading something about like the content creator kind of era that why we're in the era of the creator and how everyone's pretty much trying to invent some type of song or some type of dance or something to get attention to kind of continue building their brand. And this is really maybe the first time in history where it has been such a large desire for people to create things from just their cell phones.

1000%.

So I just feel like all of that just creates a cluster. So it's like a huge cluster of just trying to get attention right now. So, you know, but I still. To go back to the book, I remember when PK was telling me that Spotify or getting on a DSP was like getting on first base, how second base was getting fans from, you know, hearing your music to your store just so they can shop with you. Are you thinking about this period of time? Do you think about giveaways? Do you think about holiday releases? Do you think about things that might be attached to some of those? Like some of the gift giving that the fourth quarter has created for people?

No, not really. You know what I'm saying? The man, we just in a busy time, bro. You know what I'm saying? And when I remember T. Pain saying something a long time ago when he was making music, he was like, man, I would listen to the radio and I started doing everything. That was what Everybody else was doing, I went left. And I think that's what I've been always focusing on. So when there's a lot of people doing the same thing, I just automatically figure out a way to go left in that way. You know what I'm saying?

I see that.

Cause I like my chances.

Then, you know, you're gonna gamble on the thing that everyone's not doing. Yeah.

So if everybody dropping 100 songs, 100,000 songs, if that's the thing, then I'm gonna slow down my releases and drop them more calculated and more intentional because it's a bunch of. It's a bunch of music out. So the more time that I got to talk about it to people, to like, you know, move all the different things and engage with people, I feel like it's going to just cut through in a different way. That means I got more time to save up money to try to, like, make one big splash that can create a. That can create momentum for the next thing.

Like a ripple effect 1000%. That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. And I do commend the. The foresight of seeing what everyone's doing and having the knack go the opposite direction, because I don't think that's always the easiest thing to do, Especially when it seems like everyone's talking about this thing. I remember reading about how when Steve Jobs got back to Apple and they were building the imac, they wanted to have a floppy disk holder because all the computers at the time had floppy disk. And Steve was like, no, that's dying. That. That's not going to be a thing that people are going to be using in the next couple years. And they pretty much said that when they removed the floppy disk that the imac was going to be a failure. It was not a failure. Floppy disk died within the next five years. No computer had.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you gotta. You gotta have that projection. You gotta have that thought process. You gotta have time to slow down and think, you know?

Yeah, that's something that I feel like I read that seemed to be kindred to the way that you think that being focused is saying no. That the more focused that you are on your. On your. On whatever you're focused on, that you have to get even double about cutting out noise or believing that when you say no, that you're saying no so that you can continue your focus on what you're focused on and not have your attention diverted 1000%.

Very important to do. Very important to know, like your Focus. And, like, everything is not meant for you to do to get to the next step, because it all boils down to tensionality and. And delayed gratification, you know, especially when.

It comes to trends. Trends are trends because the gratification isn't delayed. It's like this. It's the hot thing. It's that immediacy that attracts people to what's trendy versus, you know, the. The long road to something new or something original or something that is more you, you know, versus more them. That T Pain story is crazy to me because T Pain was the radio. You know, he was the guy that everybody was following at one point in time. But to your point, it's like he started paying attention to what they were doing. That changed him, and I don't think.

He ever really recovered 1,000%. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. You can't, can't, can't lose yourself in it now. I know that. Obviously, with the seasons changing, how do you keep morale up with your teams? How do you kind of keep everybody in the fourth quarter mindset that you're in.

Support, man, support, you know, new information. Showing gratitude myself, so that it can kind of spread and rub off on others, you know, that's the. The essence of it for me. You know what I mean?

I feel it. I feel it. Is there. Is there any teams you're looking at right now that you're like, they're having a pretty good fourth quarter or that you. You appreciate what they've been doing getting into this season?

Nah, I've been kind of zeroed in on my own shit. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, the growth and the process that it takes to break through when you got so much stuff going on in the market, you can't really spend too much time even looking at what other people got going on, unless it's somebody that's aligning the same way you're aligning or whatever. I mean.

Yeah, nah, I got you. I remember I had hit you up when all the conversation around the baby was going on. You were like, I don't know what you talking about. And it didn't really surprise me because I know, you know what I'm saying, how you be ripping and running, but you had an interesting perspective on how you felt about Dababy and what was going on with his. Just like, his position in the marketplace.

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, it ain't. I'm not the demo for it. You see what I'm saying? I'm not the demo for it. So it ain't really like, driving for me. You know what I mean?

We were also just talking about how he sort of turned his back on the fan base or what the demo was where, you know, he was someone that wasn't, like, a villain. He made this pivot into being, like, this villainous character and how that affected the way people were, like, receptive of him.

Yeah, like, he don't make villain music. Like, his music was successful because people love the energy, love the smile, love the concept of, like, fun. But once the person that is doing the fun music, that really ain't standing out that much, it ain't really growing. Now they see you as a villain. Nobody really liked the villain because they feel like, you know, it feel like, you know, you're taking advantage of the fun. Like, so when a person. Success is built around people liking your smile, liking your charm, liking the music, because it's, like, real fun and bouncy, and then you turn to, like, a villain in their eyes. It's a very, very fast decline. You know what I mean? It ain't got nothing to do with the baby. That's just. That's just like, the market, you know what I'm saying?

Right. And again, I wanted to bring that up just because we were talking about how hard it is for a new artist to break in. But even artists that have a little bit of a foot in the game, you're not necessarily secure in your position if you're not able to keep people engaged with why they're there in the first place.

1000%. Appreciate everybody for tuning in for this episode of Fuck youk Money. Hope everybody tune in next week.