What My Failed Band Taught Me About Business

Without realising it, when I was 18 I started my first business at university.

At the time all I wanted to do was play guitar in a band with some friends. We ended up with a lost recording contract, a few less friends and a destroyed dream. But that’s the end of the story, let’s start at the beginning.

When you are in your first year at university, away from rules, parents and who you used to be, you can become whoever you want and do just about anything. I chose the path of rock. Albeit, soft-rock but rock nevertheless. I got into a band with some guys who happened to be in the same student residence as I was placed in.

We spent a few months jamming, having fun, writing songs and thinking about what the name of our band might be if we were to actually start a band officially. It’s interesting how quickly things can escalate because a few months after we first played together in one of our rooms we had booked our first gig. I use the word “gig” quite loosely. Think of any dead end bar in any dead end B-grade movie you’ve ever seen and you’re quite close to the venue of our first gig.

But it was insanely fun and a woman actually threw a bra at me. I kid you not (I did not get laid that night).

That was it for me. This was what I had come to university for. I was going to be in a band.

From that moment on we practiced and gigged and practiced and gigged. The practices became more serious and the gigs became bigger and bigger. Our largest audience was a few thousand people just before the headlining slot at a music festival. Not too shabby for a bunch of kids in a University town.

I learned a few pertinent things during my three years trying to make that band work. Things that I could only have seen with years of perspective.

Here are a the most important of those lessons:

Practice, Practice, Practice

When you think you’ve practiced enough, you’ve only just started.

We set up practice sessions three times a week and would occasionally delay the session or cancel altogether. Sometimes the practices would get in the way of our drinking. Sometimes we were busy with classwork (what were we thinking). And sometimes we just didn’t feel like practicing.

That doesn’t qualify as dream-reaching levels of determination and practice. That’s hobby-level practice.

If you want to take your business out of the hobby stage you probably need to work harder to make that happen. Yes, sure, some people say you can work smart and not hard. But there is absolutely no replacement for hours and hours spent practicing your trade.

In business terms that might mean studying your Google Analytics reports, understanding SEO better, planning your marketing, refining your product, defining your business strategy, working with your team or any number of other things.

For the band it simply meant we needed to practice more.

Pick A Target Audience

If you play it, they will not come, they will not listen and they will not buy. Not if you play one kind of music and pitch it to people who listen to another kind.

Choosing the right target audience is important. More important than that is playing the kind of music you like to listen to and play every single day. Once you’ve defined your sound, you can start to take the music to the ears of an audience who likes that music.

My band did not do this. We had 5 different musicians who listened to many different kinds of music and because we didn’t play together enough (practice) we didn’t define our sound and refine our approach to music.

Because we didn’t have a clearly defined sound, we didn’t have a clearly defined audience. That meant that we’d play any gig in any town to any audience. That was a mistake.

We pitched up at grungy gigs in the city center and played to an absolutely empty club. Literally an empty club with the exception of the sound guy. We “toured” and played to empty rooms in new cities. It was soul destroying.

The point here is to know yourself, know you business, be confident in the product you are selling and then find the audience that loves and needs that exact product.

More often than not, if your sales are bad you are talking to the wrong people.

Align Your Visions

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

We weren’t cooking but we had too many cooks. We all wanted to be the song writer, we all wanted to be the lead singer, we all thought we could drum better, strum better or sing better than the other guy. This is natural when you’re in a band with four other 20 year olds and you’re all trying to stamp your egotistical authority on the band and the world.

At no point did we all sit down and understand what the other wanted out of the band. Did we all want to be famous and rich? Did we want to have fun while it lasted but break up the band after our final year at university? We didn’t know.

When this sort of conversation doesn’t happen you’re left with a lot of disappointment. Someone thinks that the band is the most important thing in the world while someone else believes that their girlfriend, weed, parties, studies or anything else are more important and the band is just a fun side thing.

Replace band mates with business cofounders and you’ll understand where I’m heading here. If you start up a project without understanding the context for everyone involved, someone’s going to be left out and end up very unhappy.

Align your visions or get out while you’re all still friends.

Build With The Best

It’s tough to find the best people who you gel with emotionally, mentally and have immense creative chemistry. It’s tough for a reason. If it was easy everyone would be in a famous rock band.

If you aren’t building your future with the best people then you’re not building the best future.

This particular piece of experience is an important one. If you have sub-par band mates then the songs don’t sound perfect and the beat is slightly off or the strumming is kind of OK but not really the best. I was definitely a culprit in the band. I was an OK guitar player but my other band mates were much more advanced musically than I was. Instead of working harder to get better, I added value in other ways, with words and melodies. I should have done both and we all would have been better off.

If you are building your business with cofounders or staff who you feel might not be as committed as you then you should get rid of them. I know it’s easy to say this and incredibly hard to do, but one painful conversation will spare you from months (if not years) of pain down the line.

Unmotivated, lazy and incompetent people will destroy your vision and energy. Cut them loose.

Soft Rock and Riffs Wont Always Get You Laid

Sometimes playing in a decent band with solid musicians, good songs on a stage in front of thousands of people just wont get you laid.

There are hundreds of thousands of bands that failed for every band that made it big.

There are hundreds of thousands of companies that destroyed lives and failed for every “unicorn” business out there.

Sometimes it’s just not going to work out and the best thing is that it all ends. Recognise this, call it and move on.

You’ll thank me in ten years.