Last updated 2nd June 2022 by @Elijah Ajuwon and @Okori

early.fans is the first decentralised label alternative for independent artists.

We are facilitating the improvement of artist-fan relationships in music. Powered by web3, early.fans allows fans to support and invest in musicians in exchange for ownership, community and exclusivity.

Problem: Independent musicians struggle to grow, connect with and leverage their communities.

Web3, and more specifically, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are demonstrating the future of the creator economy. In the context of music artists, web3 enables equitable compensation and greater potential for collaborations and remixes with their communities.

But many artists are not aware of the utility of web3, in particular, value-exchange as a result of fandom. Current methods are just not as meaningful or seamless.

3 Key Pain Points

1. Funding Projects

   “The costs associated with the release of a studio album can be a big hurdle to independent artists. Studio time, mixing and mastering, video shoots and marketing costs can easily cost independent artists anywhere between $6,000 to $30,000” (src). Engaging in a basic tour can cost artists between $17,000 and $50,000 (src).

2. Artist-Fan Relationship

   “Most musicians do not own their artist-fan relationship. The current nature of the music industry means that this relationship is cold. Web3 offers more than just a money-making opportunity: community, ownership and identity” (src).

3. Unfair Royalty Payments

   The average streaming royalty payout for musicians currently sits at around 16%. Artists are not able to fully capture the value they create for their fans. Instead, it is funnelled to streaming platforms, labels, distributors and other parties. This means that unfortunately many artists are not able to make a living of their music.

We understand that most musicians just know how to make music, and don’t really understand how to raise capital, negotiate their price & worth, distribute memorabilia, and find the right talent to get them further. Labels and other institutions capitalise on this by roping artists into asymmetric deals.

Opportunity**:** Create tools to improve the artist-fan relationship in music.

Let’s change the way artists and fans interact with each other. Tokens, whether non-fungible, social or soulbound create an opportunity for highly consumable content to break open the creator economy. Although it’s still early, these tokens are becoming the foundation on which creation, distribution, engagement and other social layers of the music industry is being analysed.