What is an unfair advantage?

An unfair advantage is something unique about you as a label owner that does a few things… 

• It utilizes something unique about your personality, interests, or past experiences that in turn provides your record label with an identity or a purpose

• It gives you a unique path to success that is really only available to you and your unique situation

• It helps separate you from other record labels in a really personal and special way

• It helps you leverage something you may have thought was a disadvantage

• It is similar to a niche; but it’s actually the step that comes before establishing a niche.

Why does it matter?

One of the best ways to start a business and the most likely way to succeed is to scratch your own itch.

This is the idea that starting any business (or in our case a record label) can’t just be launched because you want to. Saying “I want to start a record label” is like saying “I want to buy medicine.”

Instead, starting a record label should be solving a problem that – not only do you think exists – it should be to solve a problem that you currently have.

How do you identify your own unfair advantage?

You can’t use your unfair advantage until you can name it.

The first step to identifying your own unfair advantage is to focus on the cross section of what you’re passionate about, what problem you have, and what position you’re in. 

What if you don’t have an unfair advantage?

It’s not that you don’t have an unfair advantage, it’s more likely that you haven’t recognized it yet!

Or perhaps you’re thinking too hard, often the unfair advantage is sitting right there, it just takes someone else to name it. 

I’m here to argue that all of us have our own unfair advantage. 

For me and my record label, my unfair advantage in the very beginning, back in the early 2000s was that I was one of the early home studio nerds who had equipment and abilities to record music digitally and get it up online.

This meant my record label could release something every month because the producing recording mixing mastering process – all things that were super costly and time consuming via the traditional route – were done in house (literally in my house).

This was my unfair advantage, I didn’t recognize at the time.

What are some examples of unfair advantages?

Let’s talk about some unfair advantages from right here in our record label community!

• A record store owner who wants to create a record label division using the same brand name as his retail store. In this example, his example is his experience with customers, distributors, as well as sales and marketing of physical media. Most importantly, he already has dozens of vinyl-loving customers walking into his shop each day!

• We have record label members in our community who work at Shopify and/or at Bandcamp, or who work at a big indie label and moonlight with their own indie label.

• We recently interviewed a record label called, Heart Dance Records where we talked with founder Sherry who started as a new age flutist… as she started figuring out the genre and the demand and need for the genre… similar artists started flocking to her for help.

• There is also folks in our community who have retired from their corporate jobs and wish to use their corporate earnings to do something they are passionate about, something that is meaningful. 

• Many record label owners are also full time employees in jobs that they love, with no plans of quitting, who use their full-time income to fund their label… 

• There are recording studio owners that use their personal studio to provide their artists with accessible and affordable recording and production opportunities.

• I spoke with someone recently who had a massively successful youtube channel in a completely different space outside of music and arts. And we talked about how they can leverage that audience and platform in an authentic way to build a record label… an incredible story I’m keen to followup on.

• Oftentimes an unfair advantage is geo-based, to be the only label in your city or state or country, or by challenging the cultural stereotypes that the rest of the world has of their country.  

• Sometimes your unfair advantage is you leveraging a disadvantage. For example, I was speaking with someone who personally deals with mental health issues, and has worked exclusively with other artists with mental health disorders. In a way, this was their unfair advantage. This person's own struggles with mental health ends up being something that puts them in a position to help artists in the same situation, and gives them an opportunity to be a voice in this space.  

How to utilize your unfair advantage?

You see how all encompassing this concept can be?  We’re not talking strictly about an unfair advantage of being rich, or having a roommate who works at Spotify, or owning a pressing plant. This concept can be really personal and nuanced the deeper we go. 

The opportunity here is that an unfair advantage gives you purpose, focuses you on what you're most passionate about, and helps you double down on what you do best. It's like you creating a sport that is entirely catered to your strengths.  It’s like if there was a sport that involved sitting around drinking coffee and listening to music. I’d be the Tom Brady of that sport.   

Okay, today, your call to action is simple, and if you’ve listened all the way until the end of this episode, you probably have already been thinking about it.  

Start to identify or massage this idea of an unfair advantage. It may come quickly, you may already have known it, it may take a few days to reveal itself. 

If you know it and you can name it, and if you’ve embraced it: Your other call to action is to share it with us