A new Austin startup hopes to bring an artist-centric model to streaming by connecting musicians with sponsors and giving them better access to their data.
“I’ve consistently seen how artists are underpaid, unprotected, and overlooked, even as they build the very culture that others profit from,” Lauren Bruno said in an Instagram post to announce the launch of Prosper XO in early May.
Streaming music platforms like Spotify pay less than a penny per stream.
“ To even make minimum wage, you have to have 800,000 streams a month,” Bruno said.
She said she hopes to provide an answer to the problems artists face from streaming through her new platform.
A desire to help
Soon after Bruno moved to Austin in 2009, a friend died in a house fire. Bruno hosted shows in her backyard to raise money for the funeral and $3 Shows were born. Her idea for concerts to benefit Austin nonprofits continued, and she’s raised money for the SIMS Foundation, which provides mental health services to musicians, among other groups.
Bruno went on to start another band called Les Rav, and later made money by getting her music placed into films and video games. But she ultimately wasn’t able to make a living with her music alone.
”I did reach a point where it was not sustainable,” she said.
Understanding how hard it is to make money as a musician – especially in the age of streaming – inspired Bruno to found Prosper XO.
“Hearing that statistic that 61% of musicians in America are living below the poverty line,” Bruno said, “I knew enough where it was just like, ‘I can't not do anything.’”
Building the future
Prosper XO is in the early stages of development and the company hasn’t built any tools yet, but there are a few areas Bruno would like to focus on.
One is getting money into the hands of musicians through sponsorship. When she was organizing $3 Shows, she found many companies wanted to help.
“ I mean, we all know how supportive and loving the local business here in Austin is of supporting artists,” she said.
Bruno said she thinks Prosper XO can build a tool that connects businesses with local artists. She also hopes it will give musicians more access to data about their listeners.
“Spotify owns 95% of that data,” Bruno said. “And what they use that data for … is to incur more revenue through sponsorship and ad placement.”
She also imagines Prosper XO would provide a place for artists to get legal help.
Bruno has been building Prosper XO in stages. The final step would be to build an alternative to Spotify — and she’s willing to work with Spotify to build it.
People who want to learn more or get involved with Prosper XO can take a survey or attend one of the company’s monthly meetups at Capital Factory.
”First and foremost, what I feel is most important is education and listening,” Bruno said. “We need to go toward solutions because we could talk about this all day long, but if we're not going toward solution … where are we gonna be left at?”
This interview is included in Episode 3 of Season 6 of Pause/Play. Listen to the full episode in the player above. You can find Pause/Play wherever you get your podcasts.
