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Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast. My guest today is musician, creator, and entrepreneur Andrew Southworth.

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He's been playing music for around 20 years and started making music-focused YouTube videos 16 years ago.

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He's always kept at it in some way, but he went to college for mechanical engineering and spent seven years working in that field before quitting his job last year to go full-time on music, his YouTube account, and his various businesses focused on helping people market their own music.

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Uh, but I learned about him through his newsletter, Music Marketing Monday. Um, Andrew, is there anything else to add about who you are and what you do? Wow, you really did your research. That was amazing.

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[laughs] That's, that's what you gotta do. But, um, yeah, no, that's, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Um, I'm sure I'll, I'll dive into more of it as we discuss, but wow, I'm, I'm a little shocked.

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Yeah, obvi- there's, there's a lot of information, uh- [laughs]... about you out there.

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You know, a wise word to, to anybody out there, either don't put too much information, uh, about yourself out there, or put a lot in case I'm ever interviewing you and then I can, I can read it all. Yeah.

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[laughs] Uh- Next thing you know, you're gonna start naming all my dogs, and you're gonna be like- Yeah... "Your wife's name is this." Oh, well, no, I didn't get that deep. I didn't get...

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I'm not, I'm no Tom Cruise Mission Impossible. Um, okay, so you do a lot of stuff, and it's a lit- honestly, as I was researching you, it was a little overwhelming.

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I had, like, so many tabs open, and I feel like I could have opened, like, four times that many tabs. But, um, as far as I can tell, like, the top level things, YouTube is your main publishing channel.

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That's where you have the most access to an audie- your largest audience. Uh, and then- Yeah... Genera Studios is your, is, like, kind of the business umbrella that holds everything you do. Um, and I believe- Yeah...

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is, is itself, like, a specific business.

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But then within that, uh, things that roll up into it are this blog, Music Growth Machine, uh, a newsletter, Music Marketing Monday, a podcast, Modern Music Marketing, a digital marketing agency called 4Bit Media, a music distribution service called Melodist, and a website and funnel-building product called Music Funnels.

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Um, and there's probably a few I've missed. Yes. And then there's also Andrew Southworth, the brand, with all your associated channels, the YouTube, you know, Twitter, your Spotify.

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Um, and then a few of those businesses I mentioned also have, like, social media ch- channels and accounts of their own. So just trying to paint the picture of, like, you do so much.

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Um, so is there anything I'm missing from that list, and are any of those projects retired, or, or is that everything you're doing actively now? Yeah. Uh, all the ones you mentioned are active.

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Um, some of the social media channels associated with them are, are pretty dormant. Yeah. But, like, all the individual, like, products and companies and services are active of that. Um, I don't know if there's any...

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I, I, I do, I technically have a second podcast for my newsletter- Yes...

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but a lot of weeks, I've just not had the time to do it, so I just, like, s- basically skip it and do it when I have the time, which is, which comes and goes. It's been a couple months, I noticed.

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It's been a couple months, um, just because, like, I, some weeks I struggle to even get my newsletter out on time. Um, so I was like, I, first thing to snip is the, is the second podcast.

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I don't need a second podcast- Yeah... as much of anything. But, um, yeah, that's, that's in a nutshell- That's-... all those different products I would, I don't know if I'd call it a nutshell then.

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[laughs] That's, that's more than a nutshell. [laughs] Uh, which, which, I mean, a, a question there, is there a reason these things aren't more consolidated or, like- Yeah...

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given, like, I mean, you know, maybe, like, why the newsletter and the blog and, like, I don't know, something, another thing, the podcasts, don't all have the same name? Yeah.

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Why is it, why do you have so many th- why do you have so many things going on? That's been a, that's been a constant struggle. The reason is, um, I built all this stuff over time, right? Mm-hmm.

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And I never had this, this kind of, like, grand vision of all the things that would come to be.

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And in a perfect world, like, I'd, I'd probably have, um, like, let's say, the Genera Studios site and my Music Growth Machine blog would be blog.generastudios.com, and then the, the newsletter would be, like, um, musicmarketingmonday.generastudios, or whatever, right?

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Yeah. It'd all be under one brand. It'll be this one cohesive thing. There wouldn't be three blogs, it'd be one. But it's like,

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man, the, the amount of work to do that without, like, actually hurting traffic is, uh- And while keeping the content output going. Yeah. So right now it's a nightmare. Yeah.

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I'd like to prune the garden, but it's just a matter of time and money also now. Do you have, um... I know when we were emailing, you CC'd your admin.

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Do you have any other people working with you on, on all this, or is it, like, kind of just you and an admin in, in the t- in this jungle? [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

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Um, so up until, I, I think, uh, Katie started helping me maybe, like, eight to 10 months ago. Um, and before the year 2023, it was me, like, everything.

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Um, depending on how you count people, there's, there's probably 10 to 12 people total, depending on how you count them. Uh, some of them are freelancers, and then we also have a couple part-time people.

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But we do have several full-time people also on the ad agency side, either doing, like, customer support role or being ad campaign people, where they, they run campaigns for clients.

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Um, there's also a few other freelancers. So I have a freelance video editor for YouTube. Mm-hmm. He also cuts my shorts for social media.

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And then whenever I want a podcast summarized, we have another guy that's a freelancer that does it. And I, I'm probably forgetting someone, but- Okay. Yeah. So it's, it's not, it's not just you though.

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You've got, you've got, like, a- It's not just me... distributed team- Yeah... kind of across all these things.

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And it, it used to be, and it was, um, I was kinda hesitant to hire anyone, and so I'd say, like, anyone that's watching this, I would assume a lot of the people that watch or read this are creators, [laughs]

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looking to learn about being a creator. Um, hire, like, don't be afraid to start hiring people, like, i- if you have the money to justify it.

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'Cause honestly, hiring, uh, my assistant, Katie, or my admin, Katie, we, we've never actually picked a, a name for her role, but-But whatever she, she wants to be. Yeah, she, she's like the rock of like my business now.

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Um- You know, it's, it's funny you, you say this, 'cause I've- Yeah... I've interviewed another, you know, YouTube music guy named Andrew. I interviewed Andrew Huang, if you're familiar with him. Uh- Oh, yeah. Yeah.

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I freaking love that guy. Yeah. He, he rules. [laughs] Um, it was a great... It was, it was a fun interview. Um, that was when, when...

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I, I think actually I, I took it from his book, but one of his big pieces of advice was, it was like, he was like, "Oh, I wish that even before I had like upgraded all my gear and got my Euro rack, et cetera, that I had hired somebody to help me out.

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I wish I had hired people earlier instead of spending that money on gear, and it would've made my life so much better." Yeah. Same.

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Like, uh, just there, there's so much stuff that you feel like no one in the world can do as good as you, and then you, you know...

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And I thought that for a long time, and then, you know, I, I hired Katie to help me out with some things, and everything I gave her, she either did just as good as I would do it or better. A lot of cases better.

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So, um, you know, obviously you have to interview people and- Yeah. That's hard... figure out rates, and that's scary, and now someone's relying on you for income and... But, um, so worth it. Mm-hmm.

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Like, biggest life... I, I was so stressed out and a, a lot of the music I released around that period, like if you read the lyrics, you... They're like, they're all like, "Oh, I feel like I'm drowning.

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I'm claustro- like, it's like I'm suffocating." [laughs] Yeah. You know, and, um, 'cause that's how I felt. Like, I was...

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Not only was I still doing everything myself on the, as a creator, but I still was working in engineering. Like, I didn't quit that until August 2023. Yeah.

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Well, um, I guess w- w- we started talking a little bit about the revenue percentage breakdowns and such. I'd love to get into that now.

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So I think the ways that you make money, I believe it's, um, your music itself, courses, consulting, uh, your ad agency, YouTube creator payouts, and software products. Is there anything else or is that the list?

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Um, I don't know. Did you say affiliate stuff in there? Ah. No, I did not. So affiliate, but yeah. And then, yeah, there's like ad revenue. Um, but yeah. [laughs] Okay.

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Um, so I guess next question then is, is percentage breakdown. You said that the a- uh, the ad agency is sort of the bread and butter. Um- Yeah... and then everything... Yeah, how, how does it break down?

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It's, it's kinda like a f- I'd say it's a three-way tie, de- depending on the month, right? Mm-hmm. 'Cause like sometimes we'll have a month in the a- uh, the ad agency where we'll make twice as much, just randomly.

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Uh, and same for the courses with the consulting. So it kind of fluctuates month by month. But, um, I'd say the ad agency, and the courses, and the consulting are roughly like a three-way tie. Okay.

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Um, and then the remainder, so I would say, you know, not perfect science, but I'd say if out of 100%, each of those, the ad agency, courses, and consulting are probably roughly 20 to 25% of income. Big chunks.

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Big chunks. And then the remaining, um, 40 to 25% is, you know, affiliate revenue, ad revenue, music revenue, software services, stuff like that. It fluctuates a lot depending on the month, of course.

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Um, but also like if, uh, what was I gonna say? Uh, sponsorships, for example- Mm... which is one, one thing I forgot to mention.

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Um, some, a lot of months we won't do any, 'cause I'm kinda picky about what I, who I let sponsor like a YouTube video or, or anything.

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Um, but then we'll get another deal for, you know, we might do a couple, and we might make like three grand or something one month. So it kind of depends.

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Some months the sponsorships are a little bit bigger chunk, and some, a lot of times they're zero. So [laughs] Yeah. Um, I, I do wanna go back though. I wanna talk about your YouTube history.

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So, uh, I'm not like a, a big YouTube guy. I need to become more of a YouTube guy. We publish this podcast to YouTube, but it's kinda still on the back burner for now. Um,

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so your history with the channel, you have on there right now I think 717 videos. I imagine you've had more in the past. Uh, the oldest one dates back 16 years, but probably like 17 years- [laughs]...

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'cause of the way the YouTube dating works. Um, and so I know you started playing guitar when you were 12, and then you started posting to YouTube 16, 17 years ago. So you were...

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It was probably about three, four, three, four, probably four years after you started playing music, you start posting to YouTube about it, and it's like- Yeah...

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little bits of like you like figuring out a chord or, you know, like doing these co- you start doing these covers a little later. It evolves. Mm. Um, anyways, first question here, why were you posting to YouTube?

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What had drawn you to post to YouTube? What did that do for you? Yeah. It, it was very much... I mean, everyone now kinda looks at YouTube as this place you go to become a creator- Mm-hmm...

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or become an influencer, and make money or whatever. But back then- But this is like 2008, and you're like 16 or something like that... this is 2008, I'm 16. I'm a stupid teenager, right?

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[laughs] And I, I just think You- It's just like YouTube wasn't this thing you could even make, make a business out of. It was brand new.

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It was this silly platform you upload fun videos on, and I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. Uh, 'cause this, this was when like eBaum's World- Yeah... and, and like claymation stuff was out, right?

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Like, it, it was very much a different landscape than today and- People were still on MySpace. It...

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People were still on MySpace, and it was just this fun platform that you, you, like, shared a thing with the world, and I don't know, something about that, like, I don't know, just something was like so captivating about that to me.

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And I, I'd always been kind of interested in the idea of having like a website too. Mm-hmm. It's a similar thing, people f- finding your stuff and consuming it. Um, and so YouTube just felt good.

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And I also, it's at, you know, when I was 16, I was just doing stupid videos for fun pretty much. But at some point I, I realized, like I feel like, like

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back then if you went up to a stranger and said, "Have you seen this thing on YouTube?" Most people would say, "What's YouTube?" Right? Uh, they'd be like, "Oh, I saw Google Video"- Yeah...

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'cause Google Video was big, but the, "What's YouTube?"

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And I thought that YouTube was gonna be this huge thing that everyone ended up knowing.And I was like, I wanna like make videos on this, 'cause I feel like it's just, it's just too cool.

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Like, this is, this is amazing that anyone can upload anything and anyone can watch it in the world. Um, and so I...

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At some point I started trying to make videos because I felt like it was a good long-term bet to establish a presence on, on YouTube. But it all started off just like, this is a fun thing, right? [laughs] Yeah. Um,

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and I guess I ga- I guess I was right. Yeah. I do wanna talk about, like you, you kept posting videos over the years. Um- Yeah...

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and your second most popular, most viewed video ever is from about five years after you started, so 11 years ago. It's Music Theory Lesson: Modes 101. Um, I think it has- Is that my second most popular video now?

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Your second most popular. Not my first anymore? We'll get into the fir- we'll get into the first most popular one in a little bit, but- Oh, wow... it's your second most popular one. I think it has 399,000 views.

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Um, did that go viral at the time or more recently? It was... I mean, I don't know if it's ever gone viral, but like for me- Well, 400,000 views... yeah, it was, it kind of was. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It...

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Like, for f- for, for like a channel my size- Yeah... that's, that's pretty much viral. Um, and that was, not at the time, but not now, it was like somewhere in the middle, like a...

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maybe like a, a year or two after I posted that video- Mm-hmm... it... I noticed it was just crushing it in views and getting a ton of search traffic. But- What was that like? It was, it was kind of surreal.

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Ex- it was also kind of weird because I wasn't really making videos like that, like other music theory videos.

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I think I tried to replicate that video by doing like essentially a follow-up to it, um, and then none of it ever took off.

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But- 'Cause you were doing, at the time, it was mostly like Marilyn Manson covers, Tool covers, g- guides on how to- Yeah... scream, sing, that kind of thing, right? Yeah, yeah. And so, um, it, it was super cool, right?

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'Cause this... I believe that was all in this first kind of like five-year period where I'm doing like...

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I'm kind of going back and forth between guitar instructions and music theory and vocal- and screaming lessons, and, um, I just... I remember just being so excited when all that was happening.

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Like, I, I, I think that was happening when I was working at Starbucks- Yeah... when I was in college. 'Cause it was 2013 or so that that ha- that, that first post happened. Yeah. Yeah.

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I would, I would've been, I would've been in college, uh, undergrad and working at Starbucks then. And, um, you know, I was, I was living with my mom then still, too, and I would...

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I remember coming home, and like, sh- I... my mom wouldn't be coming home from work until like a certain hour, and so I'd be like, "Okay, let's record some screaming lessons," right?

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[laughs] You know, 'cause I'm just in, up, upstairs in my office just like, "Ah," like screaming my head off, right? And, uh, don't really wanna do that when there's other people home. Yeah.

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Uh, but yeah, it was surreal just, just growing on- online. Like, it's, it's kind of like... It... You know, again, now you kind of understand it 'cause you... everyone knows about all these algorithms. Yeah.

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But back then it's like, how are people finding this? Like, how does this work? 'Cause that was actually pre-YouTube, like full YouTube algorithm. That was still when it was more like- Yeah...

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search based and like recommendations ba- based on view count and stuff. So... And that's obviously something- Yeah... somebody would search on YouTube, like, "How do I learn music theory?" And your video pops up. Yeah.

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I, I wasn't even put... uploading custom thumbnails at that point. Mm-hmm. Like, the thumbnail was just whatever YouTube picked in the middle of the video back then. Yeah.

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Um, my titles would be so literal, like Music Theory 101, uh, Modes Breakdown. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, I would never make a... You could never do a title like that anymore.

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Like, every title is gonna be like, you know, The Secret Music Theory Hack That Helps You Write Better Music, Modes 101, right? Yeah.

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It would be something ridiculous like that, and the thumbnail would be this super contrast-y bright color. I'd be in the corner just like, you know, doing like a shocked face- Yeah... and there'd be this modes thing.

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You know, it's- Well, wait. So, so speaking of one of these videos, your, your most viewed video, um, is from the end of 2022, and it's Spotify Wrapped is Really Cool This Year. Oh, yeah. Uh, and it's...

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Like, you're breaking... It's... I think it has 405,000 views right now, so just a few thousand more than the other one. Um, and what... Like, what's interesting about this isn't necessarily that this specifically...

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What I wanna talk about isn't, isn't just that this is your most viewed video, it's that you tried it again one year later. Exact same concept, exact same title, uh, but for- Yeah... Spotify Wrapped 2023.

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Um, and that one got, you know, only 15,000 views. Um, so my question- Yeah...

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there is like, I don't know, if you have any like, you know, tinfoil hat theories on why the one did so much better than the other, but then also like- Yeah...

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how repetition plays into your work on YouTube, and like testing things that worked before, and do they, do they- Right... often work or do they not? Um, but yeah, that was a lot.

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First, do you have any, you know- [laughs]... theories about why that one didn't work but the first one did? Yeah. That, that first one got a lot of views, and I remember thinking at the time like, "What is happening?"

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Like, why is this video doing so good? Um, but then after then a couple days, like a couple weeks, you know, it's still doing good, I'm like, this is great like view-wise, but it's not...

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I don't see any increase in like sales or courses or consultations or ad agency stuff, maybe- Subscribers maybe even? Subscribers there was a good amount of growth. Yeah.

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Um, but also the comments were like way more brutal. Like, that was the first video...

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That was one of the first videos I had that like- Which is what happens when you get, like get that viral reach outside of your audience- Yeah... who knows you. It, it felt like YouTube...

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Like, may- maybe it was the way that I recorded this video, but it felt like YouTube's interpretation of the video was that it wasn't for music artists. It was for people who use Spotify as a consumer. Yes.

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And so they pushed it out to all these people who like Spotify but they're not music artists. So they're kind of this more like general public kind of thing who have the expectation of like MrBeast level quality.

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So I get so many comments that were like, you know, "Your audio sucks. Your video sucks." I'm just like, like, what the hell, man? Like, I've never had anyone complain about my audio or video in years. Yeah.

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Really almost never, and like in the same week on the same video I have like 10 people complaining about my audio and video. Um, so I was like, the co- these comments are like really brutal.

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Also, a lot of people like just disagreeing more than like... I'm fine with disagreeing with people, but this was just way more.

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Like, so it was more drama-It wasn't making me any more money, but it was giving me more subscribers. But I was like, I feel like these subscribers, they're not, they're not really- Not gonna stick around or, yeah...

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yeah, 'cause if they're not music artists, like my channel isn't really valuable to them, you know? Um, so

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I remember at the time I was thinking, "Should I try to make more videos in mind like this and broaden my horizons a bit?" Uh, and I decided not to, 'cause I was like, I... This isn't, like...

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It's not gonna help me, my bottom line, it's not gonna help me like reach the people I actually want to talk to. You don't need to serve the music consumer, you serve the music- the musician. Yeah. Yeah.

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And, um, so I basically purposefully made my next video as like deep into the music artist perspective as possible, just so that like, any of those people would be weeded out. Mm-hmm. Right.

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Like, if you're, if you're not here for that, like, just unsubscribe. Like, I don't want you if you're, if you're not the right person for my channel, you know?

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I don't want the, that data like messing up YouTube's interpretation of what my channel is.

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So when I made the video the next year, um, I very much was like, let's just try to do what I did before, but maybe make it more clear from the get-go that we're talking about things from an artist's perspective and like, wh- who is my channel for, actually?

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Yeah. Um, and maybe that's why I didn't do as well, but also, like I didn't have... It, it didn't feel like it was the wrong audience anymore. So, you know, I just- Yeah.

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Well, so it actually was like ultimately a lesson in like consolidating your audience and, and who your audience is. Yeah.

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Um, real quick, I would like to talk about the newsletter because this is ostensibly a newsletter, uh, newsletter- [laughs]... and podcast. Um- Yeah... so you were describing a little bit why you started it earlier.

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Basically, like you're always looking for, you know, new things to do. You saw Beehiiv, you're like, "This looks cool. It will make my life easier, so I'm gonna start it."

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Um, so I'm curious if there's, if anything beyond that, what does it, like, what does it do for you that any other project you work on doesn't do for you?

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Like, what, wh- whether, uh, whether that's on a functional level or like a personal creative level, what does the newsletter do for you- Yeah... that's unique among your projects?

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Well, one, one, the original kinda selling point of Beehiiv specifically was that I could have a newsletter and blog. Yeah. 'Cause newsletters, if you do them right, they take a good amount of time, each one.

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It's like you do- Mine certainly does. Yeah. Like you, you wanna make...

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When I think of a newsletter compared to like an email marketing blast, like an email marketing blast is usually short, straight to the point, gives some people an offer. Mm-hmm.

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When I think of a newsletter, it's like each newsletter should be as valuable as a blog post. It should have some chunk of information that people can walk away with.

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So because of that, it takes time, and if it just exists in that moment where it gets sent to those people and you never get any value out of it for the rest of your life, unless you re-email it later,

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um, that's kind of a waste. Yeah. I, I think I was literally looking for, you know, online platform to publish newsletter, also to blog. Yeah. And then eventually I came across Beehiiv, and I was like, "Oh,

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this is like surprisingly cheap." Mm-hmm. You know? 'Cause I, I was like, at the time I had I think 7,000 people on my list. Oh, wow. And, um, for that it was like,

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I don't know, 87 bucks a month, uh, paid annually or something for up to 100,000 subscribers. I think the pricing's changed a bit- Yeah... over time. Yeah, pricing's changed, yeah.

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But there's a new model- Still pretty cheap, though... that got rolled out. It's still way cheaper than my... I, I technically still have Drip. Mm-hmm.

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I also pay for Drip, which I really should just cancel at some point. You gotta, you gotta prune your garden, man.

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[laughs] Yeah, 'cause I'm paying $220 a month for Drip right now, and I really never send emails through it anymore. I just use Beehiiv for all my emails. Yeah. So I, I gotta prune the garden. Um- Yeah.

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Um, well, anyways, speaking of- But-... how lush and overgrown the garden is, uh, how about [laughs] how about the stats? What, uh, how many subscribers, what open rate, what click rate? The active subscribers, 10,438.

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Open rate is 51%, which is actually down by 10% this month. I don't know why. Hmm. [laughs] But click rate is, uh, 3%. So yeah. Nice. 10,400, 51% open rate, 3% click rate, which I feel like is- Pretty good... super good.

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That is good. Yeah. Um- Like a 50% open rate I'm, I'm pretty proud of, 'cause I don't think I had that with all my emails on Drip. Yeah.

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Um, with this newsletter, like I think the consistency of it, the fact that it's every week, and that it's, it's so focused on like the value of each post and not being this like marketing newsletter thing. Yeah.

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No, I was looking- It, it's like really-...

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I was clicking through some of them and it's like, it's like each one offers like a, a brief lesson or like, uh, an update on like a situation and like Spotify bot scams or whatever it might be that week, and then there's like- Yeah...

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some new videos you've posted, et cetera. Um, in the dream world, how do you make this a sustainable, happy business that you can then do for the rest of your life? What does that look like? Are you already there? Yeah.

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Um, I mean, over the past year I've hired a bunch of people, and that has been like the best thing because I was working quite literally 80 hours a week- [laughs]...

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for multiple years in a row, whether it was like the engineering job and the my online businesses, and then eventually I quit, but then it was just like online businesses, me working crazy hours, and then because I didn't wanna hire people to do things.

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Um, so now it's like if you were to look at like this month compared to maybe a, a random month a year ago, I'm probably make profiting less. Mm-hmm.

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I'm almost definitely profiting less, but I'm also not working 80 hours a week, which I'm super glad about because, um,

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I, I was just getting so burnt out after doing so many years of it, and I was like, "There's no way this is sustainable." And so I like, you know, I was like, "I make plenty of money.

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I don't need to work 80 hours a week. I can hire that out and still have like a great more than enough income- Mm-hmm... to have everything that I want and be happy." Um, so it's still a little crazy.

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Like, some weeks get overwhelming and, and things you go wrong, and then I'm working crazy hours. But for the most part, it's a lot more stable now.

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Like I, I feel like the things I'm doing now I could do forever, and I'm happy doing them.

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Um, but that being said, you know, I'm always looking for how can I, how can I grow and scale things and so- YeahWe, we do have some, you know, secret projects we're working on that I'm, that I'm hiring people to help do and all that stuff, so-

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No, that's a good answer. Um- You know.

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But the-- What I'm, what I'm doing now I, I do feel like I could do forever, but I probably just over time, as the business grows, just like keep finding ways that I can buy my time back by hiring someone. Yeah.

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And there's actually a really good book about that. I think it's literally called like Buy Back Your Time. But, um, super good read. The guy talks about how

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he got so addicted to hiring people to do stuff that they have like a home assistant, like a person- [laughs]... who works at their home 40 hours a week who, like, brings him like a smoothie every day at 4:00.

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I'm like, "Okay, that's crazy." That's a little much. But that's a little extra. I don't think I'm that fancy. Um, but, uh, you know, it's that kind of thing. Over time you can buy back your time. Yeah.

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And your time is the only thing you can't replace. That's the point. Yeah. Um, two more very brief questions. Uh, one, if that's kind of your dream and, and all that, uh, what keeps you up at night?

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What's your biggest worry or weakness across your whole operation? Ooh. Ooh. I'd say the biggest worry is, like, any of these platforms- Mm... going away. You know, like,

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there's not too much at risk now, but, like, I feel, I feel for the people who have built their business on TikTok- Yeah. Yeah... that live in the US at least, uh, that their whole thing might be taken away soon.

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So I'm sure they're panicking just trying to pull people over to other platforms and grow newsletters and, and all that jazz just so they retain their audience. Um,

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but since I have like a pretty big list- And you're pretty well diversified... and I've-- I'm pretty-- Like, I have a pretty big following on all these platforms.

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Like, I feel pretty safe, but there, there is always like I'm, I'm always kind of worried like, well, what if,

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you know, what if AI content creation becomes so mainstream in five years that, uh, the market's, like, YouTube's flooded with just crap or just, just, just AI-generated fluff? Yeah. And it's like, well, I don't know,

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right? I have no idea what's gonna happen, but I'll, I'll figure it out. People stand out. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like real people stand out.

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And, um, so th- you know, every time I-- every so often I'll go through like little paranoia phases, and as I said, I'm very, like, conservative financially. Like, before I quit my job, I saved up two years of income.

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Yeah. But I, I'm, I'm even more conservative with, like, that diversification. I don't even trust to put all my money in one bank.

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[laughs] I have five savings accounts, and I even- evenly distribute my savings across them 'cause I'm like, you know, r- like last week I heard about some YouTuber bank that, like, some middleware provider, like, went bankrupt and, like, the bank didn't go bankrupt, the middleware provider did, so no one can take out their money,

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and since the bank didn't go bankrupt, it's not FDIC insured, so p- these people could lose all their money. Oh, got it. So that's like, see that and I'm like, "Oh, I'm glad I have five savings accounts," right?

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'Cause n- all five aren't gonna go under. And then I do the same thing for my content. I'm like, "Well, I feel like YouTube's going great right now. How can I have my blog do even better?"

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And okay, the blog's doing well. How can I make the Instagram do better? Just 'cause like I'm always paranoid, like, who knows when one thing's gonna disappear- Yeah...

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and this whole creator thing, it's kinda known to not be like a long-term... Like, people come and go, right? So, um, I'm always just trying to diversify so that if the worst thing should happen,

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it, it won't be that bad. I was gonna ask you what your advice is to other creators, but I feel like you kind of just answered that question. Yeah. [laughs] Uh, diversify. Diversify as much.

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Like, don't have one income source. Don't have one social media platform. Don't have one of anything, ideally. Like, if you rely on this...

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And honestly, like, e-even if you work in a day job and you have a career, like, there's all these layoffs that happen. Yeah. So honestly, even if you have a, a s- a job that you think is stable, uh, start a side hustle.

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Like, just have something else that, that you have 'cause,

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um, you know, it just, it just sucks being reliant on, on one thing, and if that one thing goes away, it's like your whole world kind of falls down till you figure out what to do next.

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But if, if you're so diversified that like I could have like two of the core pillars of my business get pulled out from under me, and I'd still be fine. It's 'cause you've got like six pillars.

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[laughs] That's 'cause I've got like six pillars and I've saved up two years of- Yeah... mortgage payments and, um, uh, that's just kinda how I am. I, I don't like the feeling that... And some people do this.

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You know, they quit their job with no savings, and they wanna do music full-time, and they have no plan, and that's a whole thing people do, you know?

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Like, you, you- you're never going to perform better than when your life depends on it. True. Right? But, uh, that's just not for me. [laughs] I can't handle that level of stress. Maybe when I was 22, but not at 32.

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Yeah. Perfect. Uh, I guess we'll leave it there. Uh, where should, where should people go to find you? Yeah.

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Uh, just if you look up Andrew Southworth online or, you know, andrewsouthworth.com, you can get the-- you can find all my links to my various products and my YouTube channel and stuff on there.

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Um, but also just Andrew Southworth on YouTube, musicmarketingmonday.com for the, for the newsletter if you wanna see how I've built out my beehive stack, so to speak. Um, yeah. Thanks so much for having me on, man.

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Yeah. Cool. Uh, well, this has been the Creator Spotlight podcast. Our guest today has once again been Andrew Southworth, the creator of Genera Studios and the Music Marketing Monday newsletter.

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I have been your host, Francis Zear. And if you've made it this far, it would mean a lot if you rated us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. I'll see you next week. [outro jingle]