About a decade ago I hired an attorney (let's call him "J") to help me with a large (millions of dollars) breach-of-contract case. J claimed to have years of courtroom experience (which was verified by various poker players at the casino I frequented). He was listed online as a St Louis attorney and was very persuasive about his ability to represent and recover what was owed to me. I signed an engagement letter printed on his letterhead which listed a St Louis address as his office. J introduced me to his assistant, "R", who was going to help with minutiae like filings, etc.
Years later (after he botched the case) I discovered that, on the precise date that I signed the engagement letter, he had no valid attorney license to practice at all. Shortly after our getting together he renewed his Illinois license...but not his Missouri license (where he had never practiced law). J's letterhead was a sham -- it was his brother's property where he occasionally slept. His general reputation at the casino was built on stories told by himself. It was actually his "assistant" R (an old college roommate) who had been brought onto the case as a legal MO attorney through what I learned was a pro hac vice arrangement. R works at a prestigious-enough MO law firm which, under different circumstances, I may have even hired but that is irrelevant because he and I were forbidden from contacting each other -- all communication was required to go to J.
There are details here which I'm glossing over (e.g. what R and his law firm knew and when they knew it, an undisclosed financial arrangement between R and J, etc) but what I really want to know is: is this situation, as presented, legal? As a layman, the fraud and deception involved here are obvious, but R's law firm is quite powerful (J is basically bankrupt). I am currently pursuing legal recourse and wanted to reach out for advice.
Thanks so much in advance

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.
Today's interview is with Aaron Green of Easy Song Licensing, a brand that sells music licensing clearance.
Some stats:

• Product: Music licensing clearance.
• Revenue/mo: $210,000
• Started: May 2005
• Location: Minneapolis
• Founders: 2
• Employees: 6

Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hello! This is Aaron Green, Vice President and co-founder of EasySongLicensing.com. We are a 3rd party music licensing agent, specializing in music clearance for any type of permission, for any type of use; kind of like your one-stop music nerd Swiss Army Knife!
Our work involves helping indie artists, record labels, online aggregators (such as CD Baby), filmmakers, studios, video production companies, entertainment lawyers and corporate clients with all their music licensing needs by brokering music clearance deals with music publishers and record labels. These types of permissions include:

• Mechanical song licensing (re-recorded cover versions of copyrighted material for audio-only releases)
  
• Video synchronization (commercial/advertisements/branding/TV/film/DVD/Video-On-Demand/internet streaming/public display, etc.; any video or visual use of copyrighted material)
  
• Master rights (use of an original master sound recording)
  
• Theatrical rights (live stage/musicals/dramas)
  
• and Print licensing (digital and physical print publications, sheet music arrangements)
  

We are a bootstrapped company who started in 2005 around the dining table of my house in Robbinsdale, MN, and now we have a user base of over 60,000 clients and growing! In 2018, we grossed $2.5M, and are happy to report a 30% increase so far in 2019.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

I grew up with my business partner, Mark Meikle, in Plymouth, Minnesota (Mark is the President of ESL). We attended the Robbinsdale Spanish Language Immersion Elementary School in Golden Valley, MN, starting in the fall of 1987. This was the first public school in Minnesota to incorporate the Spanish language within the curriculum at the same time as English (learning to read/write/speak/math/science in a bilingual fashion K-5).
There, we were fortunate to meet 10 of our life-long best friends, whom we are still close with today. With the exception of college, Mark and I were classmates from kindergarten all the way through our graduation from Armstrong High School. Mark is one of my childhood best friends, who was always one of the smartest in our grade, as well as the fastest-running kid. Me, being a little overweight growing up, would use my early sales skills and motivation tactics to coach Mark around the running track and various sports in elementary school, so we’ve always been a team since the beginning of our friendship.
After high school, Mark first went to BYU for his freshman year, then transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and I attended the University of Minnesota Duluth in northern MN. There, I met the love of my life, Stephanie, at the ripe age of 20, and graduated from UMD in 2004 with a double major in Business Management and Spanish.
Mark has always been an entrepreneur since birth, as well as a self-taught computer programmer since middle school. He and his brother started a successful window washing company when he was quite young, then sold it, all while still in college. In high school, he created his own video game, similar to Doom (the 1993 game for MS-DOS), where he replicated to perfection mind-bending details of our entire high school on CD-ROM, then sold them out of his briefcase in between classes.
I, on the other hand, have always been a salesman. If it was negotiating allowances, sleepovers, chores around the house, schmoozing with teachers (to always remain in their good graces), trading baseball cards or starting up multiple fantasy football or basketball leagues with my friends, since I was young, all I wanted to do was sell.
In 2004, after my graduation from UMD, I was hired as a “Sales Associate” with the Cintas Corporation (selling work uniform contracts and business/restaurant facility services). Mark was just finishing up his degree from the U of M, and he called me into his small room in an apartment near campus. He told me about his business start-up plan of Legacy Productions, where he wanted to record school and church music groups (choirs, bands, orchestras, praise bands, etc.) and sell CDs as fundraisers.
I, only 6 months into my first “real” job, immediately knew this would change my life (for better or worse), and as a cocky 22 year old, I just knew in that instant that I could help lift this off the ground and build a strong business. This was surprising to say the least in the eyes of my wife, telling her I was going to quit this corporate sales job to start this new business (which, in retrospect, I deeply regret the fact that I did not consult her first), and above all, our new “corporate headquarters” would be in our home in Robbinsdale, MN. This would be my first big “sales test” in which my wife cautiously accepted because she saw how passionate I was to launch, and above all, has always believed in me.
We started out with blank sales spreadsheets and virtually no church or school connections, but I had learned the art of cold-calling at Cintas, and my ambition far outweighed my talent, so I began to set face-to-face meetings with church and school music directors in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro and surrounding suburban area. Getting meetings by promising no up front investment to the prospects, while promising full service album production proved to be much easier than I had anticipated, but backing it up with real results (and little-to-no experience doing so) was obviously the hard part.
Luckily, we hired a very talented producesound engineer named Chris Ashwood, who is a dynamic person and character all on his own, came to the table with a lot of experience and know-how to produce beautiful recordings from start to finish. He has could put on a show with his Jack Black/Chris Farley personality, and naturally many clients wanted to keep working with him.
He definitely helped complete our one-stop mobile recording production shop where we recorded on-location, handled the post editing/mixing/mastering, CD graphic design, marketing/promotion (with providing individual sales incentives for each choir and band member) and CD duplication. This is how we learned about copyright law, licensing procedures and began establishing relationships with music publishers before we officially started Easy Song Licensing.
We quickly established a local brand name within this niche market, in which we expanded into greater Minnesota and Wisconsin shortly thereafter. After 3 more years trying to perfect this service, we discovered that we needed to expand even further, so we began finding other recording producers in Chicago and greater Illinois to see if the school and church markets would respond in the same manner as MN and WI (luckily it did).
Within 5 years of launching Legacy, we ventured out to the east coast by following this same template within Boston, DC and Connecticut. The recession did not help us, but the problem with this business model was the fact that our profit margins were already way too thin to give us a healthy ROI since it was very expensive to produce 1 album from start to finish after paying the producers, graphic designer, publishers and CD manufacturers, and the fact that CDs were becoming less and less in demand within these markets. At the same time, music directors began to invest more into their own in-house recording technology, making it tougher to grow. Enter Easy Song Licensing.

Take us through the process of building the business and your services.

Around 2008, Mark sensed that the school and church mobile recording business would not make us billionaires, so he became quite sophisticated with mechanical song licensing laws, and had built a website to organize and maintain our licensing registration, ongoing reporting, royalty disbursement and publishing contacts. Like writing a hit song, he envisioned a new business to help the average indie artist bridge the gap between themselves and large music publishers, so we invested in the domain name “EasySongLicensing.com”.
At this time, we were knee-deep in Legacy recordings, in which I specialized in handling the sales and marketing department, and Mark did all the bookkeeping, licensing and website maintenance. We worked extremely hard and kept trying to expand further and further, just earning enough for us to keep the same salary for virtually 10 years, leaving us even more hungry, and unsatisfied with our career and business goals. Something needed to change. We needed to diversify and take the music industry knowledge we had acquired, and turn it into something special, not just status quo.
Meanwhile, in the independent song licensing world, at this time, there were basically 2 competitors; the Harry Fox Agency and Limelight. HFA is the original US licensing agency since the 1920’s connecting most major and mid-level publishers and copyright holders with the public for audio-only album releases and singles. Limelight was their main competitor at the time, and we were not even a blip off the radar. ESL was not a full-time business to start (2008), in which Mark handled this in his small pockets of time and I was still trying to expand our Legacy recording business. Then, all of a sudden, in December of 2014, our entire lives changed significantly when Limelight announced it was shutting down and leaving our industry.

Describe the process of launching the business.

Up until 2014, Limelight served as the mechanical song licensing partner of the online store, label and aggregator, CD Baby; the original online music store specializing in the sale of CDs and digital distribution from independent musicians to consumers without any major record label representation.
Since 1998, CD Baby has cemented itself as the largest distributor for indie artists where they have partnered with some of the largest digital download and streaming platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and Google Play, just to name a few (they boast almost 1 million indie artists/bands under their umbrella).
In December of 2014 when Limelight made this sunsetting announcement, CD Baby (along with the CD and DVD manufacturers Disc Makers and Oasis) were scrambling to find a new mechanical licensing partner, and by an act of God, our phone rang.
We were thrilled beyond belief (to say the least), and we discovered how friendly this new partner was and how parallel their internal company culture was to ours. There was an instant rapport and both sides quickly saw a mutual goal of helping the same type of clientele and the same belief system and execution regarding our customer service. Shortly thereafter, CD Baby’s management took a chance on a young company and began recommending ESL to their customers in the winter of 2015.
This changed our business instantly, where we experienced a sharp consumer uptick within 3-6 months. In 2014, our user base was hovering around 10,000. By the summer of 2015 this grew close to 40,000. This posed an interesting problem regarding our time spent on our existing Legacy recording service vs. hiring more employees to keep up with this new demand for ESL. For the next year, we had to hire more employees and I spent less and less time filling our floundering pipeline for Legacy. Eventually, by mid 2016, we officially closed Legacy, which was bittersweet at the time. It was an exciting time in our lives after clawing and scrapping for a decade, in which the stars aligned and we aimed to take full advantage of this new phenomenon.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

By the summer of 2015, things were moving fast and we wanted to capitalize on this new void within the indie mechanical licensing industry, so we made significant investments in our online marketing efforts, such as Google Adwords and strengthening our social media presence.
We focused on strengthening all of our existing publisher relationships, while publicly listing each and every copyright holder on our website to serve as a good net to attract organic searches and find new online window-shoppers (today we have over 6,000 publishers listed).
Having CD Baby in our corner opened many new doors. Prospects built an instant trust with our team, knowing we had a big brand name backing us. Online traffic was skyrocketing, and more and more indie labels, online stores and businesses flowed over to us since we boasted a reputation of having the best customer service in our industry.
We listed a 1-800 phone number at the top of our website, which was unheard of within our industry. We made it a point that ESL would be the new Ellis Island with the fastest customer service and the most efficient licensing system. Still to this date, we promise a 1-2 business day turntime for all standard mechanical song licenses, as well as offering free copyright holder searches (even for users who decide not to officially proceed with a license). This friendly way of servicing artists was refreshing, in which our display of “music business karma” was coming back to us in spades.
We also set up a schedule where our employees would actually phone each individual who had signed up, but did not pay for the license. This scored many lifetime clients and even more new partnerships arose (this was only done once per client, and there are obviously some people who do not like to get cold-called, especially from a website, so we had to be sensitive about this). Our motto quickly became “there is no such thing as a dumb licensing or copyright question”; it is a complex jungle and we strive to be the most accessible tour guides in the industry.
In 2016, we launched our Custom Licensing Service division, specializing in assisting clients who need help with any type license (not just mechanical) where special permission is needed on behalf of the rights holder (such as synchronization, master use, print licensing, theatrical rights and international copyright registration within the US). This brought our company to a whole new level where we grew even closer to each existing publisher, and formed new relationships as well. No type of permission was off-limits to resolve. We could now handle it all, and word was spreading quickly within all pockets of the market.
In the same year, we also launched a new product called the “Seal of Authenticity”. This is an image that is displayed on our customers’ physical album artwork, digital cover or artist website that directly links their proof of licensing document when clicked or scanned with a smartphone (using QR code technology). It indicates that music licensing had been obtained, verified, and can be viewed publicly online at IDBLM.org (“International Database of Licensed Music). At the same time, by purchasing this seal at checkout, this entitles the client to fee-free reorders in the event they need to purchase additional units for an existing project where they exceed the initial quantity (they still need to pay royalties to each copyright holder, but our company does not charge any future administrative fees to do so). We made it very clear since the launch that this is not mandatory by any law, but offers clear transparency to the public, serving as a license plate for their album or single release. Our customers took an instant liking to this new add-on product, and the value we delivered did not go unnoticed.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

We have been very pleased with this growth, but are constantly on our heels in a competitive way to try to break new records in all categories on a monthly and yearly basis. We are still exploring new services and investments to tighten our grip in this niche.
In comparison to 2018, this year we have grown our business by close to 30% in which we have had the “good problem” of hiring additional personnel. We have invested in API technology (Application Programming Interface) which enables our company to link with other businesses to handle their customers’ licensing needs automatically. This serves as an attractive tool to present to new partners who focus mainly on music distribution and creation vs. licensing.
By the fall of 2019, our goal is to launch our new original composition service by helping indie artists register their own original songs within the US, as well as linking them to our existing partners for world-wide royalty tracking and international registration (both publishing and master sound recordings).

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

The old entrepreneurial saying comes to mind; “you need to reinvent yourself every 4-5 years to maintain success”, which we can personally attest to.
Staying rigid and stubborn regarding your original business plan and execution can only lead to dead-ends if you do not experience any hint of the growth you were anticipating. Just like the most successful artists and bands since the birth of pop music, what the kids were listening to in 2017 is not the same as what’s hot now in 2019.
The same goes for launching your own business and trying to sustain it; we made the same mistake of constantly solving the wrong problem perfectly over and over again for practically 10 years. When we needed to pivot and diversify vs. beating the same drum, it only brought on more headaches and less compensation.
I usually like the old poker adage “if you can’t smell the fish at the poker table, you’re the fish”.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Quickbooks.com is a staple here for all our accounting needs. Our merchant partners are PayPal.com and Authorize.net, whom we’ve been happy with. LiquidWeb.com helps us with lots of technical support and website maintenance, giving us great customer service.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

For the music industry, our first bible was the famous “All You Need To Know About the Music Business” by Donald Passman (there are multiple revised and updated editions).
For any entrepreneur, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson.
The latest podcast I’ve really enjoyed is Barbara Corcoran’s “Business Unusual” (from the hit TV show “Shark Tank”). She is very down to earth, and is a master articulator on any business topic, giving amazing advice for the early start-up, to the high-grossing industry leader.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

For future entrepreneurs, you need to be as open-minded as possible. You first need to master the art of the sticky sponge, by finding strong mentors early-on, not being afraid to ask any question and bowing down to others’ expertise and knowledge.
We were very lucky to have had strong local business owners in our corner giving us advice. When ESL started to grow, we sought out new legal council and picked their brains on a variety of topics. Each new partner served as a new platform of information and knowledge, so we were constantly growing our sponge, and continue to do so until this day.
Having a brilliant business partner also helps of course. Mark excels at so many things I do not. He has the discipline and the natural intelligence to build and maintain websites, tackle accounting/bookkeeping (teaching and delegating our employees to wear these hats as well), evaluating new partner prospects and crunching numbers to deliver pristine statistical forecasts. I, on the other hand, have a passion for the art of the sale and gaining trust/rapport with any new contact.
Since the beginning, I’ve said the same statement, “he’s the brains, and I’m the mouth”. If you are the thunder, you have to find your lightening. Those who posses both traits are a rare commodity, and it takes a team to truly experience the company’s overall potential.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We just concluded our latest hiring, which we are very pleased with, however, we may open this up once again in the near future due to the current rate of growth, in which a specialized salesforce will most likely be the ingredients to this new recipe.

Where can we go to learn more?

• EasySongLicensing.com
  
• https://www.facebook.com/easysonglicensing/
  

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Hey guys,
I’m originally from America and I moved to Europe 3 years ago. I’ve traveled quite a bit in the last 3 years (about 10X per year than I did in America). You can see a map of all the places I’ve been here.  
Disclaimer that link is to a map that is made by the company I currently work at.  
There were quite a few times I’ve run into delayed flights (really common in the winter time) which always suck. However, since living here I’ve collected quite a bit of cash from the airlines when my delays were eligible. Here’s how…  
Another Disclaimer The following is information on how you can get compensation when you have a delayed flight. However, I work at a company that helps you get that money. I won’t be posting the link in this post so I don’t spam anyone. But if you want I can share it. However, keep in mind 85% of people do not know of their rights when dealing with airlines and most people do not know what to do when it comes to travel rights and compensation.
Other random facts about myself, I've started 5 companies. 4 which have failed. One that generated 6M annually and then failed. I also played poker for a living.

There are travel laws to help us, notably EC 261/2004

• What is EC 261/2004?

It’s an important bit of legislation from 2004 that favors the passenger and holds airlines financially responsible when traveling by plane takes a turn for the worst. I want to share more details about this to ease the burden of some journeys (not all travel is stress-free) and cash in on the money airlines are paying out.

• Why it pays to know about the EC 261

People don’t understand it’s free money, as in up to $700 per flight, for these flight situations which I’ll explain more in depth below:

• canceled flights
• delayed flights
• boarding denials
• missed connections

Know your rights when you travel

Because so many people don’t know their rights when it comes to traveling by plane, here’s a breakdown of what you need to know, the rules, and how much money you could be missing out on if you don’t hold the airlines to the laws that advocate for passengers.

The “all-you-need-to-know” guide about travel rights and travel compensation

Below is in-depth guide of everything I’ve learned while working at a travel compensation company. I wish I would have known all this earlier, and I won’t post where I work because I don’t want to spam this sub, but if you’re interested in knowing more about the next step that comes after knowing this useful info, let me know and I can share a link to the company.
1. First off … Essential Savvy Traveler Tips:
- Always keep your boarding pass or travel document with your booking reference number or flight reservation number.
- Ask WHY a flight has been disrupted. The more info you have, the stronger case you can make against the disruption if you need to make one. Some airlines will need coaxing, but it’s your legal right to know what’s going on with the flight.
- Keep all your receipts when you travel just in case you need to file for reimbursement. For example, if the airlines lose your bag and you need to buy essential toiletries, you could be reimbursed, but they’ll need a receipt.
- In the US you can ask for food, water, or bathroom breaks if you’re already on the plane and the flight has been delayed. Note: If you’ve been on the plane for over 4 hours, the airlines have to let you off the plane (unless it’s a safety, security, or air traffic control issue).
-Avoid signing any documents that waive your rights so check the fine print on any $15 food or drink vouchers the airlines ask you to sign for. You could be giving up your chance to make a claim worth almost $700.
-Make a note of the actual arrival time at your destination Make notes about as many details as you can regarding the delay and departure/arrival times from each airport.
Reasons for these tips = if you end up seeking compensation for a travel disruption, you’ll need the basics AND the specifics. The more documentation, the better. Besides, when does anyone get faulted for having too much proof?

As a passenger, you actually have legal rights!

Know the finer points of the law. What does the law say and how does it benefit you?
First of all, you need to know that there are differences between US and European passenger rights. The EU law has broader coverage than the US one, but it also depends on where your flight departs from, where it travels to, the distance involved, and a few other factors.

EU Passenger Rights

Scope: European passengers are covered under EC 261 which stipulates that the airlines have to compensate passengers when flights are delayed, canceled, or passengers are denied boarding.
Issue: Delayed Flights

1. Financial benefit (considers length of delay & distance of flight):

• Less than 3 hour delay = No money, poo!

3-4 hours	more than 4 hours	never arrived	distance
250 euros	250 euros	250 euros	all flights 1,500 km or less
400 euros	400 euros	400 euros	internal EU flights over 1,500 km
400 euros	400 euros	400 euros	non-internal EU flights between 1,500km and 3,500km
300 euros	600 euros	600 euros	non-internal EU flights over 3,500 km

Time limit to file a claim: roughly 3 years (with some exceptions for countries that allow longer). Just file a claim, 3 years is forever!

Issue: Canceled Flights

• Note: if the airlines cancel your flight but don’t let you know 14 days ahead of that time, you have a good chance that they need to compensate you for that.

Financial benefit:

• This depends on if there’s a rerouted flight offered, the amount of extra time that rerouted flight will take versus your original flight, and if you decide take the alternative flight.

If there’s an alternative or rerouted flight available and you take it:

• Any compensation you might be eligible to receive depends on the collective amount of time you’re delayed in arriving at your final, planned destination on that rerouted flight (compared to when flight you actually booked was supposed to arrive). So some compensation amounts may be cut by 50% depending on the overall delayed time (potential halved amount is bolded below):

less than 2 hours	2-3 hours	3-4 hours	more than 4 hours	flight never arrived	distance
125 euros	250 euros	250 euros	250 euros	250 euros	1,500 km or less
200 euros	200 euros	400 euros	400 euros	400 euros	inside the EU but over 1,500 km
200 euros	200 euros	400 euros	400 euros	400 euros	non-internal EU flights 1,500 km - 3,000 km
300 euros	300 euros	300 euros	600 euros	600 euros	non-internal EU flights over 3,500 km

If you do NOT take a rerouting or an alternative flight:

• You can get the compensation above (determined by the arrival time of the alternative flight that was offered to you that you then decided to decline) + a refund of your ticket and a return flight to your original departure airport (if you want to return to your point of origin).

*Time limit to file a claim: *

• This depends on the country the airline comes from. Sometimes, a certain country will accept a claim filed within a year, other countries accept a claim a few years later. I wouldn’t wait that long. I’d file a claim as soon as possible so you don’t run the risk of “out of sight, out of mind.”

Issue: Denied Boarding

• Only involuntary denied boardings qualify. This means, if you voluntarily decide to NOT to board your flight, if you voluntarily give up your seat, if you don’t show up on time to board your flight, if you don’t have the proper documentation to board your flight, or if you’re a health or safety hazard, that stuff doesn’t count and does not qualify you for any type of compensation because all of those scenarios are on you rather a fault caused by the airline.

Financial benefit for denied boarding according to EU laws:
1,500 km or less = 250 euros inside of the EU but over 1,500 km = 400 euros non-internal EU flights 1,500 - 3,500 km = 400 euros non-internal flights EU flights 3,500+ km = 600 euros
By the way, your compensation is due right away once you are denied boarding. Yep, right at the airport. That’s in addition to you being entitled to rerouting on a different flight to your destination. Or, you can just take a refund and go home!
Time limit to file a claim for denied boarding: This depends on the country the airline comes from. Sometimes, a certain country will accept a claim filed within a year, but then other countries accept a claim a few years later. I wouldn’t wait that long. I’d file a claim as soon as possible.

Issue: Luggage Problems on EU Flights

Damaged Luggage

If your luggage is damaged, here’s what you’re going to want to do:

1. Hold on to your documentation (ticket, booking reference, and definitely your luggage tags or receipts).
2. Go to the specific airline’s customer service desk and report the issue while at the airport. If you don’t, you have up to 7 days to report it, but it’s best to take care of it at the airport. Some airlines may try to get out of the ordeal otherwise.
3. Fill out a damage claim form (some airlines have physical paper forms while others will tell you to fill out one online).
4. Show the respective airline the damage and take photos so that you have a record of it.
5. File a claim for the damaged items in your bag (if there is damage). Remember, the airlines do not typically reimburse for electronics, fragile items, or jewelry.

Financial Benefit (EU Flights):

• Luggage issues covered under US laws and the Montreal Convention typically compensate travelers, but this doesn’t exist with EC 261. Mostly compensation amounts are determined by the airlines, but they’ll always try and low-ball the traveler.

Time limit to file a claim: Technically 7 days under the Montreal Convention, but with US law it’s basically up to the airlines’ Ts and Cs. Best just to do it at the airport if you can.

Delayed Luggage

If your luggage is delayed, here’s what you need to do:

1. Keep all of your flight documentation (ticket or booking reference and luggage receipts) 2.Report the delayed luggage to the respective airline while you’re at the airport (go to the airline’s customer service desk or call their customer service number while at the airport).
2. Fill out a PIR (Property Irregularity Report) and get a reference number from the airline you flew on. If you’re not given a carbon copy of forms you filled out, take pictures of the paperwork just in case.
3. Keep your receipts for essentials you have to buy (underwear, toiletries, or the bare minimum you really can’t do without).
4. When your luggage finally shows up, file a claim with the airline for expenses you incurred.

Time limit to file a claim: You have 21 days from the time your bag shows up to file a claim for toiletries and necessities you bought. You will have to provide receipts.

Lost Luggage

Ugh! If an airline loses your bag, here’s what you need to do:

1. Keep the PIR Reference Number: Since the order of operations is - luggage is first delayed, then lost, you will have already filled out a PIR (Property Irregularity Report). Keep that PIR reference number handy because your bags are deemed “lost” 21 days after the original date they were supposed to arrive.
2. Hang on to Receipts for the Essentials: Keep your receipts for things you had to buy. The airlines will probably reimburse you for essentials such as small toiletries. The airlines will, however, demand receipts. No receipts = no potential reimbursement.
3. Make a list of items you had in your bag: Make an itemized list of everything that you packed in your bag. List the EUR or USD value amount of each item too. If you took any pictures of your packed items, definitely include those when you file your claim.
4. File a claim with the respective airline for the lost bag(s). Remember, include as much documentation as you can provide (booking reference, luggage receipts, PIR, receipts for toiletries you had to re-purchase, a list of your bag’s contents, etc). If I were you, I’d make a copy of all of these pieces of documentation just in case.

US Passenger Rights

Scope: Basically, any flight departing from or flying to a US airport is covered by US regulations (in terms of tarmac delays). HOWEVER, EU regulation EC 261 covers flights traveling to and from Europe if the departure airport is within the EU or the airlines lands in the EU and has a headquarters within the EU.
Financial Benefit:

• The reality for US rights = delays and cancellations aren’t as well covered or compensated as they are under EU laws. But if you’re flying from the US to Europe and your flying with an EU carrier, then you’ll be covered by the EU laws and compensation rates detailed above.
  
• STILL … the US does have some rights and compensation for overbooked flights and lost luggage is quite high.
  
• Denied Boarding: If your flight has been overbooked DO NOT give up your seat (or give up hope) because you could get anywhere up to $675 for domestic delays of less than 2 hours (but more than 1) and $1350 for international flights longer than 4 hours
  
• Lost Luggage: lost, damaged or delayed checked luggage under US law any amount up to $3,500
  
• Missed Connections: This is where any one of the laws gets quite sticky. Missed connections and compensation for that depend quite a bit on the airline, connection routes, alternative routes, and some other factors. In fact, it’s actually easier for me to check claim eligibility based on your flight number rather than detail out all the airlines’ conditions. If you want, contact me about your situation and I’ll check it out.
  

The time limit to file a claim for your US Passenger Rights varies depending on which state the airline comes from. For example in Colorado it’s three years but in Illinois it’s ten. On average it’s about four, but just hit me up and I can show you exactly where to find this info.

International Rights (under the Montreal Convention)

Scope: The Montreal Convention is pretty comprehensive when it comes to international flights. For the countries that honor it (there are more than 120 by the way), the Montreal Convention applies to delayed flights, flight cancellations, and boarding denials. The Montreal Convention calculates what travelers might be entitled to in terms of “damages”, to include monetary loses and psychological damages. Now, this will be interpreted differently by the countries that honor the Montreal convention.
Financial Benefit:
Disrupted Flights: The Montreal Convention has its own system for assessing and calculating compensation amounts.

• Basically, they use currency calculations that determine “Special Drawing Rights” (SDR) set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). To give you an idea 1 USD = 0.69 at the time of writing and if the airline is liable for damages, you could be reimbursed up to 4,694 SDR which is over $3,235.48 USD. Note: this “exchange rate” varies and the compensation amounts outlined in the Montreal Convention are reviewed (and potentially altered) every 5 years.
  
• Lost Luggage: again, 1,131 SDR, so that’s €1,447.93 or $1,525.11
  
• Missed Connections: This is where any one of the laws gets quite sticky. MIssed connections and compensation for that depend quite a bit on the airline, connection routes, alternative routes, and some other factors. In fact, it’s actually easier for me to check claim eligibility based on your flight number rather than detail out all the airlines’ conditions. If you want, contact me about your situation and I’ll check it out.
  

*Time limit to file a claim: You’ve got 7 days for damage, 21 days after you get your luggage back if it’s been delayed and 2 years to file a court action if they’ve just plain lost your stuff (as long as you’ve previously claimed for the delayed luggage). *

What absolutely does NOT qualify?

Anything dubbed as “extraordinary circumstances” means that the airlines don’t owe you sh*t. Things like:

1. strikes
2. weather-related issues
3. medical emergencies
4. air traffic control issues
5. political unrest / terrorism

Essentially, the disruption needs to be the airline’s fault. Know that there are thousands of flight situations per year that do qualify.
BUT … if an airline says they’re having “technical difficulties” or cites “operational circumstances,” get more info because a lot of the time, these types of situations will qualify you for compensation. I can’t stress enough, the more info you have, the more equipped you’ll be to file a claim and get money back.

The airlines know they owe you money

So many people do not file claims because they don’t know they can.

How much money are we talking about here?

Fun facts:

• Roughly $6 billion goes unclaimed every year
• The average compensation claim pans out to about 600 euros per flight too (which is almost 750 US dollars because the dollar is tanking these days, ugh). Unfortunately, even though airlines are liable, not all of them pay up, but a lot of them do.

Grand Takeaways

By law, for delayed flights, canceled flights, denied boarding, and luggage issues, the airlines most likely OWE YOU money and have to pay up.

• keep as much documentation as humanly possible
• read the fine print (including the airlines’ Terms and Conditions of Carriage)
• file any compensation related claims as soon as possible

Let me know if you have questions.

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.
Today's interview is with Aaron Green of Easy Song Licensing, a brand that sells music licensing clearance.
Some stats:

• Product: Music licensing clearance.
• Revenue/mo: $210,000
• Started: May 2005
• Location: Minneapolis
• Founders: 2
• Employees: 6

Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hello! This is Aaron Green, Vice President and co-founder of EasySongLicensing.com. We are a 3rd party music licensing agent, specializing in music clearance for any type of permission, for any type of use; kind of like your one-stop music nerd Swiss Army Knife!
Our work involves helping indie artists, record labels, online aggregators (such as CD Baby), filmmakers, studios, video production companies, entertainment lawyers and corporate clients with all their music licensing needs by brokering music clearance deals with music publishers and record labels. These types of permissions include:

• Mechanical song licensing (re-recorded cover versions of copyrighted material for audio-only releases)
  
• Video synchronization (commercial/advertisements/branding/TV/film/DVD/Video-On-Demand/internet streaming/public display, etc.; any video or visual use of copyrighted material)
  
• Master rights (use of an original master sound recording)
  
• Theatrical rights (live stage/musicals/dramas)
  
• and Print licensing (digital and physical print publications, sheet music arrangements)
  

We are a bootstrapped company who started in 2005 around the dining table of my house in Robbinsdale, MN, and now we have a user base of over 60,000 clients and growing! In 2018, we grossed $2.5M, and are happy to report a 30% increase so far in 2019.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

I grew up with my business partner, Mark Meikle, in Plymouth, Minnesota (Mark is the President of ESL). We attended the Robbinsdale Spanish Language Immersion Elementary School in Golden Valley, MN, starting in the fall of 1987. This was the first public school in Minnesota to incorporate the Spanish language within the curriculum at the same time as English (learning to read/write/speak/math/science in a bilingual fashion K-5).
There, we were fortunate to meet 10 of our life-long best friends, whom we are still close with today. With the exception of college, Mark and I were classmates from kindergarten all the way through our graduation from Armstrong High School. Mark is one of my childhood best friends, who was always one of the smartest in our grade, as well as the fastest-running kid. Me, being a little overweight growing up, would use my early sales skills and motivation tactics to coach Mark around the running track and various sports in elementary school, so we’ve always been a team since the beginning of our friendship.
After high school, Mark first went to BYU for his freshman year, then transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and I attended the University of Minnesota Duluth in northern MN. There, I met the love of my life, Stephanie, at the ripe age of 20, and graduated from UMD in 2004 with a double major in Business Management and Spanish.
Mark has always been an entrepreneur since birth, as well as a self-taught computer programmer since middle school. He and his brother started a successful window washing company when he was quite young, then sold it, all while still in college. In high school, he created his own video game, similar to Doom (the 1993 game for MS-DOS), where he replicated to perfection mind-bending details of our entire high school on CD-ROM, then sold them out of his briefcase in between classes.
I, on the other hand, have always been a salesman. If it was negotiating allowances, sleepovers, chores around the house, schmoozing with teachers (to always remain in their good graces), trading baseball cards or starting up multiple fantasy football or basketball leagues with my friends, since I was young, all I wanted to do was sell.
In 2004, after my graduation from UMD, I was hired as a “Sales Associate” with the Cintas Corporation (selling work uniform contracts and business/restaurant facility services). Mark was just finishing up his degree from the U of M, and he called me into his small room in an apartment near campus. He told me about his business start-up plan of Legacy Productions, where he wanted to record school and church music groups (choirs, bands, orchestras, praise bands, etc.) and sell CDs as fundraisers.
I, only 6 months into my first “real” job, immediately knew this would change my life (for better or worse), and as a cocky 22 year old, I just knew in that instant that I could help lift this off the ground and build a strong business. This was surprising to say the least in the eyes of my wife, telling her I was going to quit this corporate sales job to start this new business (which, in retrospect, I deeply regret the fact that I did not consult her first), and above all, our new “corporate headquarters” would be in our home in Robbinsdale, MN. This would be my first big “sales test” in which my wife cautiously accepted because she saw how passionate I was to launch, and above all, has always believed in me.
We started out with blank sales spreadsheets and virtually no church or school connections, but I had learned the art of cold-calling at Cintas, and my ambition far outweighed my talent, so I began to set face-to-face meetings with church and school music directors in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro and surrounding suburban area. Getting meetings by promising no up front investment to the prospects, while promising full service album production proved to be much easier than I had anticipated, but backing it up with real results (and little-to-no experience doing so) was obviously the hard part.
Luckily, we hired a very talented producesound engineer named Chris Ashwood, who is a dynamic person and character all on his own, came to the table with a lot of experience and know-how to produce beautiful recordings from start to finish. He has could put on a show with his Jack Black/Chris Farley personality, and naturally many clients wanted to keep working with him.
He definitely helped complete our one-stop mobile recording production shop where we recorded on-location, handled the post editing/mixing/mastering, CD graphic design, marketing/promotion (with providing individual sales incentives for each choir and band member) and CD duplication. This is how we learned about copyright law, licensing procedures and began establishing relationships with music publishers before we officially started Easy Song Licensing.
We quickly established a local brand name within this niche market, in which we expanded into greater Minnesota and Wisconsin shortly thereafter. After 3 more years trying to perfect this service, we discovered that we needed to expand even further, so we began finding other recording producers in Chicago and greater Illinois to see if the school and church markets would respond in the same manner as MN and WI (luckily it did).
Within 5 years of launching Legacy, we ventured out to the east coast by following this same template within Boston, DC and Connecticut. The recession did not help us, but the problem with this business model was the fact that our profit margins were already way too thin to give us a healthy ROI since it was very expensive to produce 1 album from start to finish after paying the producers, graphic designer, publishers and CD manufacturers, and the fact that CDs were becoming less and less in demand within these markets. At the same time, music directors began to invest more into their own in-house recording technology, making it tougher to grow. Enter Easy Song Licensing.

Take us through the process of building the business and your services.

Around 2008, Mark sensed that the school and church mobile recording business would not make us billionaires, so he became quite sophisticated with mechanical song licensing laws, and had built a website to organize and maintain our licensing registration, ongoing reporting, royalty disbursement and publishing contacts. Like writing a hit song, he envisioned a new business to help the average indie artist bridge the gap between themselves and large music publishers, so we invested in the domain name “EasySongLicensing.com”.
At this time, we were knee-deep in Legacy recordings, in which I specialized in handling the sales and marketing department, and Mark did all the bookkeeping, licensing and website maintenance. We worked extremely hard and kept trying to expand further and further, just earning enough for us to keep the same salary for virtually 10 years, leaving us even more hungry, and unsatisfied with our career and business goals. Something needed to change. We needed to diversify and take the music industry knowledge we had acquired, and turn it into something special, not just status quo.
Meanwhile, in the independent song licensing world, at this time, there were basically 2 competitors; the Harry Fox Agency and Limelight. HFA is the original US licensing agency since the 1920’s connecting most major and mid-level publishers and copyright holders with the public for audio-only album releases and singles. Limelight was their main competitor at the time, and we were not even a blip off the radar. ESL was not a full-time business to start (2008), in which Mark handled this in his small pockets of time and I was still trying to expand our Legacy recording business. Then, all of a sudden, in December of 2014, our entire lives changed significantly when Limelight announced it was shutting down and leaving our industry.

Describe the process of launching the business.

Up until 2014, Limelight served as the mechanical song licensing partner of the online store, label and aggregator, CD Baby; the original online music store specializing in the sale of CDs and digital distribution from independent musicians to consumers without any major record label representation.
Since 1998, CD Baby has cemented itself as the largest distributor for indie artists where they have partnered with some of the largest digital download and streaming platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and Google Play, just to name a few (they boast almost 1 million indie artists/bands under their umbrella).
In December of 2014 when Limelight made this sunsetting announcement, CD Baby (along with the CD and DVD manufacturers Disc Makers and Oasis) were scrambling to find a new mechanical licensing partner, and by an act of God, our phone rang.
We were thrilled beyond belief (to say the least), and we discovered how friendly this new partner was and how parallel their internal company culture was to ours. There was an instant rapport and both sides quickly saw a mutual goal of helping the same type of clientele and the same belief system and execution regarding our customer service. Shortly thereafter, CD Baby’s management took a chance on a young company and began recommending ESL to their customers in the winter of 2015.
This changed our business instantly, where we experienced a sharp consumer uptick within 3-6 months. In 2014, our user base was hovering around 10,000. By the summer of 2015 this grew close to 40,000. This posed an interesting problem regarding our time spent on our existing Legacy recording service vs. hiring more employees to keep up with this new demand for ESL. For the next year, we had to hire more employees and I spent less and less time filling our floundering pipeline for Legacy. Eventually, by mid 2016, we officially closed Legacy, which was bittersweet at the time. It was an exciting time in our lives after clawing and scrapping for a decade, in which the stars aligned and we aimed to take full advantage of this new phenomenon.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

By the summer of 2015, things were moving fast and we wanted to capitalize on this new void within the indie mechanical licensing industry, so we made significant investments in our online marketing efforts, such as Google Adwords and strengthening our social media presence.
We focused on strengthening all of our existing publisher relationships, while publicly listing each and every copyright holder on our website to serve as a good net to attract organic searches and find new online window-shoppers (today we have over 6,000 publishers listed).
Having CD Baby in our corner opened many new doors. Prospects built an instant trust with our team, knowing we had a big brand name backing us. Online traffic was skyrocketing, and more and more indie labels, online stores and businesses flowed over to us since we boasted a reputation of having the best customer service in our industry.
We listed a 1-800 phone number at the top of our website, which was unheard of within our industry. We made it a point that ESL would be the new Ellis Island with the fastest customer service and the most efficient licensing system. Still to this date, we promise a 1-2 business day turntime for all standard mechanical song licenses, as well as offering free copyright holder searches (even for users who decide not to officially proceed with a license). This friendly way of servicing artists was refreshing, in which our display of “music business karma” was coming back to us in spades.
We also set up a schedule where our employees would actually phone each individual who had signed up, but did not pay for the license. This scored many lifetime clients and even more new partnerships arose (this was only done once per client, and there are obviously some people who do not like to get cold-called, especially from a website, so we had to be sensitive about this). Our motto quickly became “there is no such thing as a dumb licensing or copyright question”; it is a complex jungle and we strive to be the most accessible tour guides in the industry.
In 2016, we launched our Custom Licensing Service division, specializing in assisting clients who need help with any type license (not just mechanical) where special permission is needed on behalf of the rights holder (such as synchronization, master use, print licensing, theatrical rights and international copyright registration within the US). This brought our company to a whole new level where we grew even closer to each existing publisher, and formed new relationships as well. No type of permission was off-limits to resolve. We could now handle it all, and word was spreading quickly within all pockets of the market.
In the same year, we also launched a new product called the “Seal of Authenticity”. This is an image that is displayed on our customers’ physical album artwork, digital cover or artist website that directly links their proof of licensing document when clicked or scanned with a smartphone (using QR code technology). It indicates that music licensing had been obtained, verified, and can be viewed publicly online at IDBLM.org (“International Database of Licensed Music). At the same time, by purchasing this seal at checkout, this entitles the client to fee-free reorders in the event they need to purchase additional units for an existing project where they exceed the initial quantity (they still need to pay royalties to each copyright holder, but our company does not charge any future administrative fees to do so). We made it very clear since the launch that this is not mandatory by any law, but offers clear transparency to the public, serving as a license plate for their album or single release. Our customers took an instant liking to this new add-on product, and the value we delivered did not go unnoticed.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

We have been very pleased with this growth, but are constantly on our heels in a competitive way to try to break new records in all categories on a monthly and yearly basis. We are still exploring new services and investments to tighten our grip in this niche.
In comparison to 2018, this year we have grown our business by close to 30% in which we have had the “good problem” of hiring additional personnel. We have invested in API technology (Application Programming Interface) which enables our company to link with other businesses to handle their customers’ licensing needs automatically. This serves as an attractive tool to present to new partners who focus mainly on music distribution and creation vs. licensing.
By the fall of 2019, our goal is to launch our new original composition service by helping indie artists register their own original songs within the US, as well as linking them to our existing partners for world-wide royalty tracking and international registration (both publishing and master sound recordings).

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

The old entrepreneurial saying comes to mind; “you need to reinvent yourself every 4-5 years to maintain success”, which we can personally attest to.
Staying rigid and stubborn regarding your original business plan and execution can only lead to dead-ends if you do not experience any hint of the growth you were anticipating. Just like the most successful artists and bands since the birth of pop music, what the kids were listening to in 2017 is not the same as what’s hot now in 2019.
The same goes for launching your own business and trying to sustain it; we made the same mistake of constantly solving the wrong problem perfectly over and over again for practically 10 years. When we needed to pivot and diversify vs. beating the same drum, it only brought on more headaches and less compensation.
I usually like the old poker adage “if you can’t smell the fish at the poker table, you’re the fish”.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Quickbooks.com is a staple here for all our accounting needs. Our merchant partners are PayPal.com and Authorize.net, whom we’ve been happy with. LiquidWeb.com helps us with lots of technical support and website maintenance, giving us great customer service.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

For the music industry, our first bible was the famous “All You Need To Know About the Music Business” by Donald Passman (there are multiple revised and updated editions).
For any entrepreneur, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson.
The latest podcast I’ve really enjoyed is Barbara Corcoran’s “Business Unusual” (from the hit TV show “Shark Tank”). She is very down to earth, and is a master articulator on any business topic, giving amazing advice for the early start-up, to the high-grossing industry leader.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

For future entrepreneurs, you need to be as open-minded as possible. You first need to master the art of the sticky sponge, by finding strong mentors early-on, not being afraid to ask any question and bowing down to others’ expertise and knowledge.
We were very lucky to have had strong local business owners in our corner giving us advice. When ESL started to grow, we sought out new legal council and picked their brains on a variety of topics. Each new partner served as a new platform of information and knowledge, so we were constantly growing our sponge, and continue to do so until this day.
Having a brilliant business partner also helps of course. Mark excels at so many things I do not. He has the discipline and the natural intelligence to build and maintain websites, tackle accounting/bookkeeping (teaching and delegating our employees to wear these hats as well), evaluating new partner prospects and crunching numbers to deliver pristine statistical forecasts. I, on the other hand, have a passion for the art of the sale and gaining trust/rapport with any new contact.
Since the beginning, I’ve said the same statement, “he’s the brains, and I’m the mouth”. If you are the thunder, you have to find your lightening. Those who posses both traits are a rare commodity, and it takes a team to truly experience the company’s overall potential.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We just concluded our latest hiring, which we are very pleased with, however, we may open this up once again in the near future due to the current rate of growth, in which a specialized salesforce will most likely be the ingredients to this new recipe.

Where can we go to learn more?

• EasySongLicensing.com
  
• https://www.facebook.com/easysonglicensing/
  

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.
Today's interview is with Aaron Green of Easy Song Licensing, a brand that sells music licensing clearance.
Some stats:

• Product: Music licensing clearance.
• Revenue/mo: $210,000
• Started: May 2005
• Location: Minneapolis
• Founders: 2
• Employees: 6

Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hello! This is Aaron Green, Vice President and co-founder of EasySongLicensing.com. We are a 3rd party music licensing agent, specializing in music clearance for any type of permission, for any type of use; kind of like your one-stop music nerd Swiss Army Knife!
Our work involves helping indie artists, record labels, online aggregators (such as CD Baby), filmmakers, studios, video production companies, entertainment lawyers and corporate clients with all their music licensing needs by brokering music clearance deals with music publishers and record labels. These types of permissions include:

• Mechanical song licensing (re-recorded cover versions of copyrighted material for audio-only releases)
  
• Video synchronization (commercial/advertisements/branding/TV/film/DVD/Video-On-Demand/internet streaming/public display, etc.; any video or visual use of copyrighted material)
  
• Master rights (use of an original master sound recording)
  
• Theatrical rights (live stage/musicals/dramas)
  
• and Print licensing (digital and physical print publications, sheet music arrangements)
  

We are a bootstrapped company who started in 2005 around the dining table of my house in Robbinsdale, MN, and now we have a user base of over 60,000 clients and growing! In 2018, we grossed $2.5M, and are happy to report a 30% increase so far in 2019.
image

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

I grew up with my business partner, Mark Meikle, in Plymouth, Minnesota (Mark is the President of ESL). We attended the Robbinsdale Spanish Language Immersion Elementary School in Golden Valley, MN, starting in the fall of 1987. This was the first public school in Minnesota to incorporate the Spanish language within the curriculum at the same time as English (learning to read/write/speak/math/science in a bilingual fashion K-5).
There, we were fortunate to meet 10 of our life-long best friends, whom we are still close with today. With the exception of college, Mark and I were classmates from kindergarten all the way through our graduation from Armstrong High School. Mark is one of my childhood best friends, who was always one of the smartest in our grade, as well as the fastest-running kid. Me, being a little overweight growing up, would use my early sales skills and motivation tactics to coach Mark around the running track and various sports in elementary school, so we’ve always been a team since the beginning of our friendship.
image
After high school, Mark first went to BYU for his freshman year, then transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and I attended the University of Minnesota Duluth in northern MN. There, I met the love of my life, Stephanie, at the ripe age of 20, and graduated from UMD in 2004 with a double major in Business Management and Spanish.
Mark has always been an entrepreneur since birth, as well as a self-taught computer programmer since middle school. He and his brother started a successful window washing company when he was quite young, then sold it, all while still in college. In high school, he created his own video game, similar to Doom (the 1993 game for MS-DOS), where he replicated to perfection mind-bending details of our entire high school on CD-ROM, then sold them out of his briefcase in between classes.
I, on the other hand, have always been a salesman. If it was negotiating allowances, sleepovers, chores around the house, schmoozing with teachers (to always remain in their good graces), trading baseball cards or starting up multiple fantasy football or basketball leagues with my friends, since I was young, all I wanted to do was sell.
In 2004, after my graduation from UMD, I was hired as a “Sales Associate” with the Cintas Corporation (selling work uniform contracts and business/restaurant facility services). Mark was just finishing up his degree from the U of M, and he called me into his small room in an apartment near campus. He told me about his business start-up plan of Legacy Productions, where he wanted to record school and church music groups (choirs, bands, orchestras, praise bands, etc.) and sell CDs as fundraisers.
I, only 6 months into my first “real” job, immediately knew this would change my life (for better or worse), and as a cocky 22 year old, I just knew in that instant that I could help lift this off the ground and build a strong business. This was surprising to say the least in the eyes of my wife, telling her I was going to quit this corporate sales job to start this new business (which, in retrospect, I deeply regret the fact that I did not consult her first), and above all, our new “corporate headquarters” would be in our home in Robbinsdale, MN. This would be my first big “sales test” in which my wife cautiously accepted because she saw how passionate I was to launch, and above all, has always believed in me.
We started out with blank sales spreadsheets and virtually no church or school connections, but I had learned the art of cold-calling at Cintas, and my ambition far outweighed my talent, so I began to set face-to-face meetings with church and school music directors in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro and surrounding suburban area. Getting meetings by promising no up front investment to the prospects, while promising full service album production proved to be much easier than I had anticipated, but backing it up with real results (and little-to-no experience doing so) was obviously the hard part.
Luckily, we hired a very talented producesound engineer named Chris Ashwood, who is a dynamic person and character all on his own, came to the table with a lot of experience and know-how to produce beautiful recordings from start to finish. He would always put on a show with his Jack Black/Chris Farley personality, and naturally many clients wanted to keep working with him.
He definitely helped complete our one-stop mobile recording production shop where we recorded on-location, handled the post editing/mixing/mastering, CD graphic design, marketing/promotion (with providing individual sales incentives for each choir and band member) and CD duplication. This is how we learned about copyright law, licensing procedures and began establishing relationships with music publishers before we officially started Easy Song Licensing.
We quickly established a local brand name within this niche market, in which we expanded into greater Minnesota and Wisconsin shortly thereafter. After 3 more years trying to perfect this service, we discovered that we needed to expand even further, so we began finding other recording producers in Chicago and greater Illinois to see if the school and church markets would respond in the same manner as MN and WI (luckily it did).
Within 5 years of launching Legacy, we ventured out to the east coast by following this same template within Boston, DC and Connecticut. The recession did not help us, but the problem with this business model was the fact that our profit margins were already way too thin to give us a healthy ROI since it was very expensive to produce 1 album from start to finish after paying the producers, graphic designer, publishers and CD manufacturers, and the fact that CDs were becoming less and less in demand within these markets. At the same time, music directors began to invest more into their own in-house recording technology, making it tougher to grow. Enter Easy Song Licensing.

Take us through the process of building the business and your services.

Around 2008, Mark sensed that the school and church mobile recording business would not make us billionaires, so he became quite sophisticated with mechanical song licensing laws, and had built a website to organize and maintain our licensing registration, ongoing reporting, royalty disbursement and publishing contacts. Like writing a hit song, he envisioned a new business to help the average indie artist bridge the gap between themselves and large music publishers, so we invested in the domain name “EasySongLicensing.com”.
At this time, we were knee-deep in Legacy recordings, in which I specialized in handling the sales and marketing department, and Mark did all the bookkeeping, licensing and website maintenance. We worked extremely hard and kept trying to expand further and further, just earning enough for us to keep the same salary for virtually 10 years, leaving us even more hungry, and unsatisfied with our career and business goals. Something needed to change. We needed to diversify and take the music industry knowledge we had acquired, and turn it into something special, not just status quo.
Meanwhile, in the independent song licensing world, at this time, there were basically 2 competitors; the Harry Fox Agency and Limelight. HFA is the original US licensing agency since the 1920’s connecting most major and mid-level publishers and copyright holders with the public for audio-only album releases and singles. Limelight was their main competitor at the time, and we were not even a blip off the radar. ESL was not a full-time business to start (2008), in which Mark handled this in his small pockets of time and I was still trying to expand our Legacy recording business. Then, all of a sudden, in December of 2014, our entire lives changed significantly when Limelight announced it was shutting down and leaving our industry.

Describe the process of launching the business.

Up until 2014, Limelight served as the mechanical song licensing partner of the online store, label and aggregator, CD Baby; the original online music store specializing in the sale of CDs and digital distribution from independent musicians to consumers without any major record label representation.
Since 1998, CD Baby has cemented itself as the largest distributor for indie artists where they have partnered with some of the largest digital download and streaming platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and Google Play, just to name a few (they boast almost 1 million indie artists/bands under their umbrella).
In December of 2014 when Limelight made this sunsetting announcement, CD Baby (along with the CD and DVD manufacturers Disc Makers and Oasis) were scrambling to find a new mechanical licensing partner, and by an act of God, our phone rang.
We were thrilled beyond belief (to say the least), and we discovered how friendly this new partner was and how parallel their internal company culture was to ours. There was an instant rapport and both sides quickly saw a mutual goal of helping the same type of clientele and the same belief system and execution regarding our customer service. Shortly thereafter, CD Baby’s management took a chance on a young company and began recommending ESL to their customers in the winter of 2015.
This changed our business instantly, where we experienced a sharp consumer uptick within 3-6 months. In 2014, our user base was hovering around 10,000. By the summer of 2015 this grew close to 40,000. This posed an interesting problem regarding our time spent on our existing Legacy recording service vs. hiring more employees to keep up with this new demand for ESL. For the next year, we had to hire more employees and I spent less and less time filling our floundering pipeline for Legacy. Eventually, by mid 2016, we officially closed Legacy, which was bittersweet at the time. It was an exciting time in our lives after clawing and scrapping for a decade, in which the stars aligned and we aimed to take full advantage of this new phenomenon.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

By the summer of 2015, things were moving fast and we wanted to capitalize on this new void within the indie mechanical licensing industry, so we made significant investments in our online marketing efforts, such as Google Adwords and strengthening our social media presence.
We focused on strengthening all of our existing publisher relationships, while publicly listing each and every copyright holder on our website to serve as a good net to attract organic searches and find new online window-shoppers (today we have over 6,000 publishers listed).
Having CD Baby in our corner opened many new doors. Prospects built an instant trust with our team, knowing we had a big brand name backing us. Online traffic was skyrocketing, and more and more indie labels, online stores and businesses flowed over to us since we boasted a reputation of having the best customer service in our industry.
We listed a 1-800 phone number at the top of our website, which was unheard of within our industry. We made it a point that ESL would be the new Ellis Island with the fastest customer service and the most efficient licensing system. Still to this date, we promise a 1-2 business day turntime for all standard mechanical song licenses, as well as offering free copyright holder searches (even for users who decide not to officially proceed with a license). This friendly way of servicing artists was refreshing, in which our display of “music business karma” was coming back to us in spades.
We also set up a schedule where our employees would actually phone each individual who had signed up, but did not pay for the license. This scored many lifetime clients and even more new partnerships arose (this was only done once per client, and there are obviously some people who do not like to get cold-called, especially from a website, so we had to be sensitive about this). Our motto quickly became “there is no such thing as a dumb licensing or copyright question”; it is a complex jungle and we strive to be the most accessible tour guides in the industry.
In 2016, we launched our Custom Licensing Service division, specializing in assisting clients who need help with any type license (not just mechanical) where special permission is needed on behalf of the rights holder (such as synchronization, master use, print licensing, theatrical rights and international copyright registration within the US). This brought our company to a whole new level where we grew even closer to each existing publisher, and formed new relationships as well. No type of permission was off-limits to resolve. We could now handle it all, and word was spreading quickly within all pockets of the market.
In the same year, we also launched a new product called the “Seal of Authenticity”. This is an image that is displayed on our customers’ physical album artwork, digital cover or artist website that directly links their proof of licensing document when clicked or scanned with a smartphone (using QR code technology). It indicates that music licensing had been obtained, verified, and can be viewed publicly online at IDBLM.org (“International Database of Licensed Music). At the same time, by purchasing this seal at checkout, this entitles the client to fee-free reorders in the event they need to purchase additional units for an existing project where they exceed the initial quantity (they still need to pay royalties to each copyright holder, but our company does not charge any future administrative fees to do so). We made it very clear since the launch that this is not mandatory by any law, but offers clear transparency to the public, serving as a license plate for their album or single release. Our customers took an instant liking to this new add-on product, and the value we delivered did not go unnoticed.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

We have been very pleased with this growth, but are constantly on our heels in a competitive way to try to break new records in all categories on a monthly and yearly basis. We are still exploring new services and investments to tighten our grip in this niche.
In comparison to 2018, this year we have grown our business by close to 30% in which we have had the “good problem” of hiring additional personnel. We have invested in API technology (Application Programming Interface) which enables our company to link with other businesses to handle their customers’ licensing needs automatically. This serves as an attractive tool to present to new partners who focus mainly on music distribution and creation vs. licensing.
By the fall of 2019, our goal is to launch our new original composition service by helping indie artists register their own original songs within the US, as well as linking them to our existing partners for world-wide royalty tracking and international registration (both publishing and master sound recordings).

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

The old entrepreneurial saying comes to mind; “you need to reinvent yourself every 4-5 years to maintain success”, which we can personally attest to.
Staying rigid and stubborn regarding your original business plan and execution can only lead to dead-ends if you do not experience any hint of the growth you were anticipating. Just like the most successful artists and bands since the birth of pop music, what the kids were listening to in 2017 is not the same as what’s hot now in 2019.
The same goes for launching your own business and trying to sustain it; we made the same mistake of constantly solving the wrong problem perfectly over and over again for practically 10 years. When we needed to pivot and diversify vs. beating the same drum, it only brought on more headaches and less compensation.
I usually like the old poker adage “if you can’t smell the fish at the poker table, you’re the fish”.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Quickbooks.com is a staple here for all our accounting needs. Our merchant partners are PayPal.com and Authorize.net, whom we’ve been happy with. LiquidWeb.com helps us with lots of technical support and website maintenance, giving us great customer service.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

For the music industry, our first bible was the famous “All You Need To Know About the Music Business” by Donald Passman (there are multiple revised and updated editions).
For any entrepreneur, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson.
The latest podcast I’ve really enjoyed is Barbara Corcoran’s “Business Unusual” (from the hit TV show “Shark Tank”). She is very down to earth, and is a master articulator on any business topic, giving amazing advice for the early start-up, to the high-grossing industry leader.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

For future entrepreneurs, you need to be as open-minded as possible. You first need to master the art of the sticky sponge, by finding strong mentors early-on, not being afraid to ask any question and bowing down to others’ expertise and knowledge.
We were very lucky to have had strong local business owners in our corner giving us advice. When ESL started to grow, we sought out new legal council and picked their brains on a variety of topics. Each new partner served as a new platform of information and knowledge, so we were constantly growing our sponge, and continue to do so until this day.
Having a brilliant business partner also helps of course. Mark excels at so many things I do not. He has the discipline and the natural intelligence to build and maintain websites, tackle accounting/bookkeeping (teaching and delegating our employees to wear these hats as well), evaluating new partner prospects and crunching numbers to deliver pristine statistical forecasts. I, on the other hand, have a passion for the art of the sale and gaining trust/rapport with any new contact.
Since the beginning, I’ve said the same statement, “he’s the brains, and I’m the mouth”. If you are the thunder, you have to find your lightening. Those who posses both traits are a rare commodity, and it takes a team to truly experience the company’s overall potential.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We just concluded our latest hiring, which we are very pleased with, however, we may open this up once again in the near future due to the current rate of growth, in which a specialized salesforce will most likely be the ingredients to this new recipe.

Where can we go to learn more?

• EasySongLicensing.com
  
• https://www.facebook.com/easysonglicensing/
  

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.
For more interviews, check out starter_story - I post new stories there daily.
Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.
Today's interview is with Aaron Green of Easy Song Licensing, a brand that sells music licensing clearance.
Some stats:

• Product: Music licensing clearance.
• Revenue/mo: $210,000
• Started: May 2005
• Location: Minneapolis
• Founders: 2
• Employees: 6

Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hello! This is Aaron Green, Vice President and co-founder of EasySongLicensing.com. We are a 3rd party music licensing agent, specializing in music clearance for any type of permission, for any type of use; kind of like your one-stop music nerd Swiss Army Knife!
Our work involves helping indie artists, record labels, online aggregators (such as CD Baby), filmmakers, studios, video production companies, entertainment lawyers and corporate clients with all their music licensing needs by brokering music clearance deals with music publishers and record labels. These types of permissions include:

• Mechanical song licensing (re-recorded cover versions of copyrighted material for audio-only releases)
  
• Video synchronization (commercial/advertisements/branding/TV/film/DVD/Video-On-Demand/internet streaming/public display, etc.; any video or visual use of copyrighted material)
  
• Master rights (use of an original master sound recording)
  
• Theatrical rights (live stage/musicals/dramas)
  
• and Print licensing (digital and physical print publications, sheet music arrangements)
  

We are a bootstrapped company who started in 2005 around the dining table of my house in Robbinsdale, MN, and now we have a user base of over 60,000 clients and growing! In 2018, we grossed $2.5M, and are happy to report a 30% increase so far in 2019.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

I grew up with my business partner, Mark Meikle, in Plymouth, Minnesota (Mark is the President of ESL). We attended the Robbinsdale Spanish Language Immersion Elementary School in Golden Valley, MN, starting in the fall of 1987. This was the first public school in Minnesota to incorporate the Spanish language within the curriculum at the same time as English (learning to read/write/speak/math/science in a bilingual fashion K-5).
There, we were fortunate to meet 10 of our life-long best friends, whom we are still close with today. With the exception of college, Mark and I were classmates from kindergarten all the way through our graduation from Armstrong High School. Mark is one of my childhood best friends, who was always one of the smartest in our grade, as well as the fastest-running kid. Me, being a little overweight growing up, would use my early sales skills and motivation tactics to coach Mark around the running track and various sports in elementary school, so we’ve always been a team since the beginning of our friendship.
After high school, Mark first went to BYU for his freshman year, then transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and I attended the University of Minnesota Duluth in northern MN. There, I met the love of my life, Stephanie, at the ripe age of 20, and graduated from UMD in 2004 with a double major in Business Management and Spanish.
Mark has always been an entrepreneur since birth, as well as a self-taught computer programmer since middle school. He and his brother started a successful window washing company when he was quite young, then sold it, all while still in college. In high school, he created his own video game, similar to Doom (the 1993 game for MS-DOS), where he replicated to perfection mind-bending details of our entire high school on CD-ROM, then sold them out of his briefcase in between classes.
I, on the other hand, have always been a salesman. If it was negotiating allowances, sleepovers, chores around the house, schmoozing with teachers (to always remain in their good graces), trading baseball cards or starting up multiple fantasy football or basketball leagues with my friends, since I was young, all I wanted to do was sell.
In 2004, after my graduation from UMD, I was hired as a “Sales Associate” with the Cintas Corporation (selling work uniform contracts and business/restaurant facility services). Mark was just finishing up his degree from the U of M, and he called me into his small room in an apartment near campus. He told me about his business start-up plan of Legacy Productions, where he wanted to record school and church music groups (choirs, bands, orchestras, praise bands, etc.) and sell CDs as fundraisers.
I, only 6 months into my first “real” job, immediately knew this would change my life (for better or worse), and as a cocky 22 year old, I just knew in that instant that I could help lift this off the ground and build a strong business. This was surprising to say the least in the eyes of my wife, telling her I was going to quit this corporate sales job to start this new business (which, in retrospect, I deeply regret the fact that I did not consult her first), and above all, our new “corporate headquarters” would be in our home in Robbinsdale, MN. This would be my first big “sales test” in which my wife cautiously accepted because she saw how passionate I was to launch, and above all, has always believed in me.
We started out with blank sales spreadsheets and virtually no church or school connections, but I had learned the art of cold-calling at Cintas, and my ambition far outweighed my talent, so I began to set face-to-face meetings with church and school music directors in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro and surrounding suburban area. Getting meetings by promising no up front investment to the prospects, while promising full service album production proved to be much easier than I had anticipated, but backing it up with real results (and little-to-no experience doing so) was obviously the hard part.
Luckily, we hired a very talented producesound engineer named Chris Ashwood, who is a dynamic person and character all on his own, came to the table with a lot of experience and know-how to produce beautiful recordings from start to finish. He has could put on a show with his Jack Black/Chris Farley personality, and naturally many clients wanted to keep working with him.
He definitely helped complete our one-stop mobile recording production shop where we recorded on-location, handled the post editing/mixing/mastering, CD graphic design, marketing/promotion (with providing individual sales incentives for each choir and band member) and CD duplication. This is how we learned about copyright law, licensing procedures and began establishing relationships with music publishers before we officially started Easy Song Licensing.
We quickly established a local brand name within this niche market, in which we expanded into greater Minnesota and Wisconsin shortly thereafter. After 3 more years trying to perfect this service, we discovered that we needed to expand even further, so we began finding other recording producers in Chicago and greater Illinois to see if the school and church markets would respond in the same manner as MN and WI (luckily it did).
Within 5 years of launching Legacy, we ventured out to the east coast by following this same template within Boston, DC and Connecticut. The recession did not help us, but the problem with this business model was the fact that our profit margins were already way too thin to give us a healthy ROI since it was very expensive to produce 1 album from start to finish after paying the producers, graphic designer, publishers and CD manufacturers, and the fact that CDs were becoming less and less in demand within these markets. At the same time, music directors began to invest more into their own in-house recording technology, making it tougher to grow. Enter Easy Song Licensing.

Take us through the process of building the business and your services.

Around 2008, Mark sensed that the school and church mobile recording business would not make us billionaires, so he became quite sophisticated with mechanical song licensing laws, and had built a website to organize and maintain our licensing registration, ongoing reporting, royalty disbursement and publishing contacts. Like writing a hit song, he envisioned a new business to help the average indie artist bridge the gap between themselves and large music publishers, so we invested in the domain name “EasySongLicensing.com”.
At this time, we were knee-deep in Legacy recordings, in which I specialized in handling the sales and marketing department, and Mark did all the bookkeeping, licensing and website maintenance. We worked extremely hard and kept trying to expand further and further, just earning enough for us to keep the same salary for virtually 10 years, leaving us even more hungry, and unsatisfied with our career and business goals. Something needed to change. We needed to diversify and take the music industry knowledge we had acquired, and turn it into something special, not just status quo.
Meanwhile, in the independent song licensing world, at this time, there were basically 2 competitors; the Harry Fox Agency and Limelight. HFA is the original US licensing agency since the 1920’s connecting most major and mid-level publishers and copyright holders with the public for audio-only album releases and singles. Limelight was their main competitor at the time, and we were not even a blip off the radar. ESL was not a full-time business to start (2008), in which Mark handled this in his small pockets of time and I was still trying to expand our Legacy recording business. Then, all of a sudden, in December of 2014, our entire lives changed significantly when Limelight announced it was shutting down and leaving our industry.

Describe the process of launching the business.

Up until 2014, Limelight served as the mechanical song licensing partner of the online store, label and aggregator, CD Baby; the original online music store specializing in the sale of CDs and digital distribution from independent musicians to consumers without any major record label representation.
Since 1998, CD Baby has cemented itself as the largest distributor for indie artists where they have partnered with some of the largest digital download and streaming platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and Google Play, just to name a few (they boast almost 1 million indie artists/bands under their umbrella).
In December of 2014 when Limelight made this sunsetting announcement, CD Baby (along with the CD and DVD manufacturers Disc Makers and Oasis) were scrambling to find a new mechanical licensing partner, and by an act of God, our phone rang.
We were thrilled beyond belief (to say the least), and we discovered how friendly this new partner was and how parallel their internal company culture was to ours. There was an instant rapport and both sides quickly saw a mutual goal of helping the same type of clientele and the same belief system and execution regarding our customer service. Shortly thereafter, CD Baby’s management took a chance on a young company and began recommending ESL to their customers in the winter of 2015.
This changed our business instantly, where we experienced a sharp consumer uptick within 3-6 months. In 2014, our user base was hovering around 10,000. By the summer of 2015 this grew close to 40,000. This posed an interesting problem regarding our time spent on our existing Legacy recording service vs. hiring more employees to keep up with this new demand for ESL. For the next year, we had to hire more employees and I spent less and less time filling our floundering pipeline for Legacy. Eventually, by mid 2016, we officially closed Legacy, which was bittersweet at the time. It was an exciting time in our lives after clawing and scrapping for a decade, in which the stars aligned and we aimed to take full advantage of this new phenomenon.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

By the summer of 2015, things were moving fast and we wanted to capitalize on this new void within the indie mechanical licensing industry, so we made significant investments in our online marketing efforts, such as Google Adwords and strengthening our social media presence.
We focused on strengthening all of our existing publisher relationships, while publicly listing each and every copyright holder on our website to serve as a good net to attract organic searches and find new online window-shoppers (today we have over 6,000 publishers listed).
Having CD Baby in our corner opened many new doors. Prospects built an instant trust with our team, knowing we had a big brand name backing us. Online traffic was skyrocketing, and more and more indie labels, online stores and businesses flowed over to us since we boasted a reputation of having the best customer service in our industry.
We listed a 1-800 phone number at the top of our website, which was unheard of within our industry. We made it a point that ESL would be the new Ellis Island with the fastest customer service and the most efficient licensing system. Still to this date, we promise a 1-2 business day turntime for all standard mechanical song licenses, as well as offering free copyright holder searches (even for users who decide not to officially proceed with a license). This friendly way of servicing artists was refreshing, in which our display of “music business karma” was coming back to us in spades.
We also set up a schedule where our employees would actually phone each individual who had signed up, but did not pay for the license. This scored many lifetime clients and even more new partnerships arose (this was only done once per client, and there are obviously some people who do not like to get cold-called, especially from a website, so we had to be sensitive about this). Our motto quickly became “there is no such thing as a dumb licensing or copyright question”; it is a complex jungle and we strive to be the most accessible tour guides in the industry.
In 2016, we launched our Custom Licensing Service division, specializing in assisting clients who need help with any type license (not just mechanical) where special permission is needed on behalf of the rights holder (such as synchronization, master use, print licensing, theatrical rights and international copyright registration within the US). This brought our company to a whole new level where we grew even closer to each existing publisher, and formed new relationships as well. No type of permission was off-limits to resolve. We could now handle it all, and word was spreading quickly within all pockets of the market.
In the same year, we also launched a new product called the “Seal of Authenticity”. This is an image that is displayed on our customers’ physical album artwork, digital cover or artist website that directly links their proof of licensing document when clicked or scanned with a smartphone (using QR code technology). It indicates that music licensing had been obtained, verified, and can be viewed publicly online at IDBLM.org (“International Database of Licensed Music). At the same time, by purchasing this seal at checkout, this entitles the client to fee-free reorders in the event they need to purchase additional units for an existing project where they exceed the initial quantity (they still need to pay royalties to each copyright holder, but our company does not charge any future administrative fees to do so). We made it very clear since the launch that this is not mandatory by any law, but offers clear transparency to the public, serving as a license plate for their album or single release. Our customers took an instant liking to this new add-on product, and the value we delivered did not go unnoticed.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

We have been very pleased with this growth, but are constantly on our heels in a competitive way to try to break new records in all categories on a monthly and yearly basis. We are still exploring new services and investments to tighten our grip in this niche.
In comparison to 2018, this year we have grown our business by close to 30% in which we have had the “good problem” of hiring additional personnel. We have invested in API technology (Application Programming Interface) which enables our company to link with other businesses to handle their customers’ licensing needs automatically. This serves as an attractive tool to present to new partners who focus mainly on music distribution and creation vs. licensing.
By the fall of 2019, our goal is to launch our new original composition service by helping indie artists register their own original songs within the US, as well as linking them to our existing partners for world-wide royalty tracking and international registration (both publishing and master sound recordings).

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

The old entrepreneurial saying comes to mind; “you need to reinvent yourself every 4-5 years to maintain success”, which we can personally attest to.
Staying rigid and stubborn regarding your original business plan and execution can only lead to dead-ends if you do not experience any hint of the growth you were anticipating. Just like the most successful artists and bands since the birth of pop music, what the kids were listening to in 2017 is not the same as what’s hot now in 2019.
The same goes for launching your own business and trying to sustain it; we made the same mistake of constantly solving the wrong problem perfectly over and over again for practically 10 years. When we needed to pivot and diversify vs. beating the same drum, it only brought on more headaches and less compensation.
I usually like the old poker adage “if you can’t smell the fish at the poker table, you’re the fish”.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Quickbooks.com is a staple here for all our accounting needs. Our merchant partners are PayPal.com and Authorize.net, whom we’ve been happy with. LiquidWeb.com helps us with lots of technical support and website maintenance, giving us great customer service.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

For the music industry, our first bible was the famous “All You Need To Know About the Music Business” by Donald Passman (there are multiple revised and updated editions).
For any entrepreneur, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson.
The latest podcast I’ve really enjoyed is Barbara Corcoran’s “Business Unusual” (from the hit TV show “Shark Tank”). She is very down to earth, and is a master articulator on any business topic, giving amazing advice for the early start-up, to the high-grossing industry leader.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

For future entrepreneurs, you need to be as open-minded as possible. You first need to master the art of the sticky sponge, by finding strong mentors early-on, not being afraid to ask any question and bowing down to others’ expertise and knowledge.
We were very lucky to have had strong local business owners in our corner giving us advice. When ESL started to grow, we sought out new legal council and picked their brains on a variety of topics. Each new partner served as a new platform of information and knowledge, so we were constantly growing our sponge, and continue to do so until this day.
Having a brilliant business partner also helps of course. Mark excels at so many things I do not. He has the discipline and the natural intelligence to build and maintain websites, tackle accounting/bookkeeping (teaching and delegating our employees to wear these hats as well), evaluating new partner prospects and crunching numbers to deliver pristine statistical forecasts. I, on the other hand, have a passion for the art of the sale and gaining trust/rapport with any new contact.
Since the beginning, I’ve said the same statement, “he’s the brains, and I’m the mouth”. If you are the thunder, you have to find your lightening. Those who posses both traits are a rare commodity, and it takes a team to truly experience the company’s overall potential.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We just concluded our latest hiring, which we are very pleased with, however, we may open this up once again in the near future due to the current rate of growth, in which a specialized salesforce will most likely be the ingredients to this new recipe.

Where can we go to learn more?

• EasySongLicensing.com
  
• https://www.facebook.com/easysonglicensing/
  

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.
For more interviews, check out starter_story - I post new stories there daily.
Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

Residents of the Garden State will soon be able to take part in the vibrant world of online betting. A whole host of European and American gaming operators have teamed up to present casino fans in New Jersey with a wide range of new gambling options, which will be presented through a wide sweeping newspaper, television, billboard and radio advertising campaign. As soon as the ban on online gambling in New Jersey is lifted, residents will be able to take their pick from a large number of different gambling websites, many of which have been operating in various different countries around the world for several years already. The timing of the launch is ideal for operators, as New Jersey experiences freezing night-time conditions during the winter months, making many of the island’s residents unwilling to venture outside in search of entertainment options. Gamers will not be able to play their favourite casino games on their computers from the comfort of their own homes. The five day soft launch has already proven to be a success, and several prominent gambling sites are ready for the official launch this week. However, the ban on on line gambling has not been entirely lifted in New Jersey and sites who wish to offer their services to residents on the island are restricted to presenting casinos games as well as poker, while sports betting is still excluded. Regulators in states in the USA such as California, New York and Illinois will be keeping a watchful eye on the state of play in the following weeks. These states are constantly looking for new taxation revenue sources, and if things go well many of the states in the USA that have banned on line gambling may wish to rethink their gambling laws. New Jersey residents will soon be able to take their pick from a total of 17 different online gambling sites, while many more are sure to jump on the bandwagon soon. All of these sites are regulated in Atlantic City in the USA, and so far a total of 12 casinos have been granted licences to offer their services in New Jersey in partnership with prominent European operators. Each of the casinos has the option of operating five different websites, which means that it will not be long before people who live on New Jersey are presented with a wide range of new gambling options. Caesar’s Bally’s Park Place casino is launching five websites in collaboration with 888 Holdings, which is licensed in the United Kingdom. In addition, the prominent Borgata casino is launching three websites in partnership with the European operator Bwin.party, while Trump Plaza has been working with the popular United Kingdom operator Betfair to put together a vibrant new betting website. It has been seven long years since the US Congress restriction on on line gambling prevented European operators from being part of North America’s gambling market. However, with new laws in place in looks as though many of the top operators…
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The final event at the 2014 WSOP Asia-Pacific series concluded, just a couple of days after a winner was crowned in the highrollers tournament. The main event attracted a total of 329 players, with each of them paying $10,000 to participate, so the prize pool exceeded AU$3 million. The interest for this tournament was tremendous and attracted players from all over the world, including American Scott Davies. With the legislation in the United States still denying players the chance to compete over the Internet. Davies spent most of the time in Canada. There are many professionals who cross the border when they want to play poker online, while waiting for more states to pass favorable bills. There is no shortage of interested poker rooms when it comes to expanding to the United States and among those planning such an expansion is Bet365. For the time being, only New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware allow state residents to play poker over the Internet, but Texas, California and Illinois legislators are also contemplating such laws. Meanwhile poker players have to look elsewhere for entertainment and winning opportunities, with the 2014 WSOP Asia-Pacific Main Event being a shining example. Given the fact that the buy-in was a staggering AU$10,000, only poker professionals could afford to travel all the way to Melbourne to participate. The vast majority of players were locals, but even so just one Australian made the final table and he was also the first to be sent to the rail. Once Ang Italiano was eliminated in the sixth place and claimed $118,000, three Americans, one Englishman and one player from Taiwan were left in the race. The two Americans were sent home shortly after and by this time Scott Davies was clearly in command and had an advantage over his peers when three handed play began. No deal was reached and despite his best efforts, Henry Wang from Taiwan was eliminated in third, leaving Jack Salter and Scott Davies to play for the ultimate trophy. The heads up didn't last too long and the Englishman committed his stack with the slightly weaker hand, which didn't improve. He still took home more than half a million, while the spoils went to the winner who won$850k and the coveted Golden bracelet. This is how the final standings looked like at the end of the 2014 WSOP Asia-Pacific Main Event: 1 Scott Davies USA $850,1362 Jack Salter England $516,9603 Henry Wang Taiwan $343,8054 Kyle Montgomery USA $231,2875 Frank Kassela USA $164,0896 Ang Italiano Australia $118,769
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11:44:22 PM [robin] Welcome to robin. Please type /help or /commands for more information. 11:44:22 PM Voting will end in approximately 15 minutes 11:44:22 PM [robin] connecting 11:44:24 PM [robin] connected! 11:44:25 PM Thoeau voted to GROW 11:44:25 PM vimliar2020 voted to GROW 11:44:25 PM droolingpotato voted to GROW 11:44:27 PM Showbizelephant voted to GROW 11:44:29 PM MuumiJumala hello new friends 11:44:30 PM Showbizelephant sup fam 11:44:31 PM hwangerbanger that growth was small 11:44:32 PM sousuke voted to GROW 11:44:32 PM MuumiJumala voted to GROW 11:44:33 PM gimmiegimmienow hi friends 11:44:35 PM Showbizelephant any jews in the chat? 11:44:40 PM genocidallyneutral perfect size 11:44:40 PM vimliar2020 jew here 11:44:41 PM genocidally_neutral voted to STAY 11:44:41 PM sousuke yeah didnt feel like we got bigger 11:44:42 PM Showbizelephant hey 11:44:47 PM hwangerbanger size doesn't matter 11:44:48 PM Thoeau not a jew, but I look like one. 11:44:52 PM hwangerbanger :'( 11:44:58 PM Showbizelephant are you ready for Shabbos? 11:45:04 PM gimmiegimmienow my last group was super cool. one mod and a couple of friendly trees. how cool are you new dudes? 11:45:05 PM vimliar2020 born a jew, but its not an important thing to me 11:45:11 PM gimmiegimmienow hope everyone is pc in here like me and my last crew? 11:45:16 PM genocidally_neutral any godless heathens here? 11:45:18 PM hwangerbanger we're arguing but keeping it cool 11:45:21 PM qwerx3 voted to GROW 11:45:25 PM Thoeau most people our age are godless heathens 11:45:28 PM genocidally_neutral were conversing 11:45:28 PM Showbizelephant we will probably be more cp than pc is you know what i mean 11:45:29 PM sousuke arguing is more fun 11:45:29 PM vimliar2020 i guess i'd be a godless heathen 11:45:33 PM genocidally_neutral whats our age? 11:45:36 PM hwangerbanger cp 11:45:37 PM vimliar2020 32 11:45:37 PM Thoeau less than 30 11:45:38 PM sousuke 25 11:45:40 PM hwangerbanger 21 11:45:42 PM MuumiJumala 23 11:45:46 PM Thoeau 20 11:45:49 PM droolingpotato 25 11:45:51 PM Showbizelephant 69 11:45:53 PM genocidally_neutral 25 11:45:57 PM hwangerbanger any girls in here i can creep on? 11:45:59 PM Showbizelephant me 11:46:00 PM gimmiegimmienow you guys seem cool, i will vote grow . 11:46:00 PM vimliar2020 i might have believed 68 11:46:01 PM gimmiegimmienow voted to GROW 11:46:01 PM genocidally_neutral also 69, nice one elephant 11:46:02 PM Showbizelephant im a grill 11:46:03 PM vimliar2020 but 69 i don't believe 11:46:05 PM genocidally_neutral i am girl 11:46:06 PM hwangerbanger jk no girls allowed 11:46:09 PM genocidally_neutral want a pic? 11:46:14 PM sousuke oh god 11:46:24 PM hwangerbanger i want a pic of your left armpit plz 11:46:24 PM sousuke im getting flashbacks to aim chatrooms 11:46:27 PM genocidally_neutral http://i.imgur.com/mxOB3iz.jpg 11:46:30 PM gimmiegimmienow aye so... 11:46:30 PM genocidally_neutral 7th grade 11:46:31 PM Thoeau Showbizelephant is the one taking us from a chatroom to twitch chat 11:46:35 PM gimmiegimmienow if we make it to another group... 11:46:36 PM Showbizelephant lel 11:46:36 PM genocidally_neutral they called me chompers 11:46:39 PM Showbizelephant top kek fam 11:46:39 PM gimmiegimmienow lets all pretend we are... 11:46:43 PM hwangerbanger hold my beer i'm going to that link 11:46:47 PM MuumiJumala this chata room is nowhere as friendly as the last one i had :/ 11:46:49 PM Showbizelephant kappa 11:46:50 PM hwangerbanger it's sfw guys 11:46:50 PM gimmiegimmienow trump supporters 11:46:55 PM genocidally_neutral i dont know what twitch chat is 11:46:58 PM very sfw 11:46:58 PM hwangerbanger nah 11:47:03 PM emit voted to GROW 11:47:05 PM Showbizelephant twitch chat is literally like 40 showbizelephants all jerking each other off 11:47:07 PM sousuke friendly isnt fun 11:47:10 PM friendly is boring 11:47:10 PM gimmiegimmienow okay lets vote on what we all pretend we agree on to mind fuck the next group 11:47:14 PM Thoeau Trump honestly has no chance in a general election. 11:47:16 PM hwangerbanger being trumpsupporters and being trolls isn't distinguishable 11:47:20 PM gimmiegimmienow okay fine... 11:47:22 PM genocidallyneutral shhhh no politics 11:47:23 PM gimmiegimmienow hillary supporters 11:47:27 PM Showbizelephant lets all pretend to be catholic 12 year olds 11:47:31 PM vimliar2020 yeah something other than politics 11:47:37 PM genocidally_neutral whats your favourite chip flavour? 11:47:37 PM hwangerbanger every 3rd-5th merge politics is mentioned 11:47:40 PM gimmiegimmienow fine pick a topic we got like 10 minutes until the next wave 11:47:45 PM hwangerbanger it's the law of reddit robin 11:47:47 PM sousuke honestly i dont see trump supporters and bernie supporters as being all that different 11:47:51 PM gimmiegimmienow we all agree we are one thing....vote on 11:47:52 PM Thoeau does anyone know what the new pokemon augmented reality game is going to be like? 11:47:57 PM genocidally_neutral im eatin aged cheddar and onion right now 11:48:01 PM so dope 11:48:04 PM hwangerbanger lol sousuke 11:48:11 PM sousuke everyones delusional 11:48:13 PM hwangerbanger extremists of any group are similar 11:48:18 PM Showbizelephant do you guys want to see a magic trick 11:48:23 PM genocidally_neutral yes 11:48:25 PM MuumiJumala they're making augmented reality pokemon game?! 11:48:26 PM hwangerbanger look at the rational people 11:48:26 PM vimliar2020 why not 11:48:33 PM hwangerbanger in each party 11:48:41 PM Showbizelephant think of a two digit number between 1 and 50 that has two different odd digits 11:48:43 PM dont post it 11:48:45 PM sousuke but nobody likes rational people 11:48:46 PM Showbizelephant ill wait 11:48:46 PM Thoeau yep. look it up. pokemon 20th anniversary is hopefully not all hype 11:48:48 PM hwangerbanger aka any group other than trump/cruz 11:48:49 PM sousuke theyre not newsworthy 11:48:50 PM emit technocracy > democfracy 11:48:57 PM hwangerbanger bc rational is boring 11:48:57 PM gimmiegimmienow NEXT GROUP MERGE WE ALL AGREE WE ARE : 11:49:00 PM Showbizelephant got a rumber? 11:49:02 PM number? 11:49:04 PM sousuke so who, kasich? 11:49:05 PM genocidally_neutral too much math 11:49:07 PM sousuke lol 11:49:09 PM gimmiegimmienow NEXT GROUP MERGE WE ALL AGREE WE ARE : 11:49:18 PM hwangerbanger ksaich's ok, but i sure don't agree with him 11:49:20 PM genocidally_neutral lets jsut stay here 11:49:28 PM but lets not talk america 11:49:30 PM MuumiJumala you really wanna create a sub with this crew? 11:49:31 PM Thoeau kasich just hasn't had enough airtime to say any crazy shit 11:49:35 PM sousuke i kinda miss the candidates from a decade ago 11:49:37 PM hwangerbanger true 11:49:43 PM to thoeau 11:49:45 PM gimmiegimmienow NEXT GROUP MERGE WE ALL AGREE WE ARE : FOREIGNERS 11:49:47 PM sousuke id take al gore or mccain over any of these clowns 11:49:48 PM MuumiJumala i wanna grow so we maybe get some sensible people 11:49:52 PM Thoeau every candidate has some crazy shit to say 11:49:55 PM vimliar2020 foreigners with respect to what baseline nationality? 11:50:00 PM hwangerbanger yup 11:50:00 PM gimmiegimmienow NEXT GROUP MERGE WE ALL AGREE WE ARE : FOREIGNERS - SPEAK IN BROKEN ENGLISH OR JUST A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE 11:50:07 PM genocidally_neutral uhh why? 11:50:13 PM Showbizelephant can we please get Richard Theranis for the next president 11:50:14 PM gimmiegimmienow to mind fuck the next group duh 11:50:17 PM Showbizelephant hes the best choice 11:50:19 PM gimmiegimmienow do you not like mind fucking? 11:50:19 PM Thoeau you realize foreign speakers are usually best as written english 11:50:20 PM Showbizelephant he just wont run 11:50:23 PM hwangerbanger i'm for bernie but some of his supporters are fucking crazy. 11:50:25 PM Thoeau and never write in broken english 11:50:29 PM gimmiegimmienow stfu who cares 11:50:32 PM Thoeau just with bad grammar 11:50:40 PM MuumiJumala i'm not native english speaker 11:50:43 PM gimmiegimmienow good 11:50:45 PM hwangerbanger let's talk about politics in the next group, but politics in indonesia 11:50:51 PM Thoeau hahaha that's pretty good 11:50:54 PM vimliar2020 opening wiki 11:50:54 PM Thoeau indonesian politics it is 11:50:57 PM gimmiegimmienow that sounds good but i have no idea about indonesia to fake it 11:51:05 PM tell me a politician to spam 11:51:05 PM genocidally_neutral lets just try to make friends and be nice 11:51:06 PM hwangerbanger oh god, ppl are listening to me, it's almost the end 11:51:12 PM Thoeau just bring up how to run a very muslim country 11:51:17 PM hwangerbanger haha shut up genocially neutral 11:51:18 PM Showbizelephant I don't know about you guys but I'm voting for the brown guy 11:51:20 PM sousuke you dont make good friends by being nice 11:51:20 PM genocidally_neutral i think you guys could all use a friend 11:51:21 PM hwangerbanger oh wait that name though 11:51:21 PM Thoeau indonesian is the largest muslim country 11:51:29 PM vimliar2020 there's this reformation thing that happened 11:51:32 PM genocidally_neutral you shut up hwanger 11:51:33 PM sousuke you make good friends by pissing each other off and learning each others limits 11:51:35 PM Thoeau so just talk about how to deal with that 11:51:39 PM genocidally_neutral im gonna fight someone 11:51:40 PM gimmiegimmienow NEXT GROUP MERGE WE ALL AGREE WE : SPEAK IN BROKEN ENGLISH 11:51:41 PM hwangerbanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Indonesia 11:51:52 PM sousuke being friendly only gets you acquaintances 11:51:52 PM gimmiegimmienow NEXT GROUP MERGE WE ALL AGREE WE : SPEAK IN BROKEN ENGLISH OR POLITICS OF INDONESIA 11:51:53 PM vimliar2020 Joko Widodo 11:51:54 PM genocidally_neutral shhhh gimmie 11:51:56 PM vimliar2020 do we like this person 11:51:58 PM or dislike this person 11:52:03 PM hwangerbanger being friendly gets me bjs 11:52:07 PM Thoeau now if only professors would assign the wikipedia page instead of a stupid 500 page book that says the same shit 11:52:13 PM genocidally_neutral tight 11:52:25 PM sousuke noones saying you need to read the book 11:52:32 PM i never did any of my college reading 11:52:35 PM Thoeau But mah A 11:52:36 PM sousuke did just fine in classes 11:52:38 PM hwangerbanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_presidential_election,_2014 11:52:45 PM sousuke lol 11:53:00 PM gimmiegimmienow hello tis nort american chat rom? i speake little inglish sry but i try my best. how every 1 doing? 11:53:08 PM qwerx3 well, i think he's pretty pragmatic or something like that 11:53:09 PM sousuke are you indonesian? 11:53:12 PM gimmiegimmienow yes 11:53:14 PM hwangerbanger It's a shame that Prabowo Subianto lost the election in 2014 11:53:14 PM vimliar2020 is anyone here? 11:53:17 PM indonesian? 11:53:21 PM hwangerbanger He had some great immigration policies 11:53:30 PM Ya i could get used to this 11:53:30 PM genocidally_neutral voted to ABANDON 11:53:36 PM hwangerbanger oh hi vimliar 11:53:40 PM OG robins 11:53:43 PM vimliar2020 yeah 11:53:47 PM hwangerbanger where you been 11:53:50 PM vimliar2020 i've been here 11:53:53 PM i was on mobile before 11:53:56 PM sousuke so does voting anything other than what the majority of people vote do anything? 11:53:59 PM vimliar2020 it was hard to type and i dropped my phone and closed reddit 11:54:06 PM hwangerbanger allo gimmie jajajaja 11:54:10 PM vimliar2020 but now i'm on desktop and everything is resolved 11:54:16 PM so i can waste time more efficiently 11:54:17 PM MuumiJumala sousuke if you vote abandon you get kicked out of the group 11:54:31 PM genocidally_neutral you opt out of the group** 11:54:32 PM MuumiJumala https://www.reddit.com/joinrobin/comments/4cw5ppressing_the_button_moves_you_into_a_chatroom_you/ 11:54:36 PM genocidallyneutral im kickin myself out betches 11:54:38 PM sousuke oh i see 11:54:48 PM gimmiegimmienow we need a timer for this 11:55:18 PM MuumiJumala about 5 mins 'til next merge 11:55:18 PM gimmiegimmienow how long until we merge with boom room? 11:55:23 PM sousuke so if i just close my browser 11:55:29 PM and reopen, i just end up int he same room? 11:55:33 PM MuumiJumala not sure 11:55:35 PM qwerx3 yeah 11:55:37 PM vimliar2020 if i had to guess, i'd say yes 11:55:43 PM and probably the next room too, but 11:55:46 PM MuumiJumala i'll try for lulz 11:55:46 PM qwerx3 i mean, you could leave, but why would you? :P 11:55:46 PM vimliar2020 unless you also vote in the next room 11:55:54 PM you'll default-vote to abandon 11:55:58 PM MuumiJumala yup i'm back 11:55:58 PM [robin] 1 users abandoned 11:56:21 PM Showbizelephant voted to ABANDON 11:56:22 PM vimliar2020 so what timezone is everyone in 11:56:27 PM its 2:56 here 11:56:27 PM MuumiJumala +3 11:56:33 PM so 9:56 11:56:34 PM vimliar2020 AM 11:56:45 PM Showbizelephant voted to GROW 11:56:46 PM qwerx3 11:56 PM 11:56:53 PM sousuke 2am here 11:57:05 PM MuumiJumala so you're all from 'murica? 11:57:08 PM vimliar2020 NYC 11:57:27 PM Showbizelephant dude im in nyc 11:57:28 PM crazy 11:57:42 PM hwangerbanger illinois 11:57:46 PM sousuke oh damn me too 11:57:58 PM im north burbs of chicago 11:58:03 PM MuumiJumala there are more people in NYC than in my whole country << 11:58:18 PM hwangerbanger what country 11:58:21 PM MuumiJumala finland 11:58:24 PM hwangerbanger cool i'm in peoria sousuke 11:58:27 PM ooo finland 11:58:38 PM people looove finland 11:58:48 PM bc they're not assholes like us americans 11:58:52 PM MuumiJumala :D 11:58:56 PM hwangerbanger actually 90% of europe is like that 11:58:57 PM sousuke ah so your out in the sticks eh ;) 11:59:04 PM [robin] polls are closing soon, please vote 11:59:06 PM hwangerbanger hey we got great corn 11:59:11 PM i love me corn 11:59:14 PM cornhub 11:59:31 PM sousuke well i guess you dont ahve to deal with the wind at least 11:59:45 PM hwangerbanger ya we stay indoors a lot to be all sad and peorian 11:59:50 PM Showbizelephant so whats your favorite place to eat at in nyc gusy 11:59:55 PM *guys 12:00:07 AM sousuke ippudo 12:00:10 AM its the shiet 12:00:13 AM vimliar2020 love ippudo 12:00:17 AM Showbizelephant never been honestly 12:00:19 AM i dont get out much 12:00:26 AM i usually get shit delivered 12:00:34 AM vimliar2020 yeah i just had ottos tacos for dinner 12:00:36 AM Showbizelephant everything is so expensive at the good places 12:00:47 AM ottos is ok 12:00:51 AM im not much of a taco guy 12:00:52 AM vimliar2020 moreles is better i think 12:00:58 AM sousuke yeah im a seamless kind of guy 12:00:58 AM vimliar2020 japanese is the best 12:01:05 AM food i mean 12:01:15 AM sousuke well the good parts 12:01:25 AM theres a lot of wholesome japanese food that im not as fond of 12:01:34 AM Showbizelephant i usually sit in my apartment all day you know? 12:01:36 AM vimliar2020 probly true 12:02:01 AM MuumiJumala oh i know 12:02:02 AM sousuke hey one way to save money 12:02:05 AM Showbizelephant i do online poker full time now so I have to be inside a lot to play to make enough money to keep the appartment

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Date: 2013-04-25
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Questions	Answers
Do you drive around in a gold lambo that runs on diamonds?	Hahahaha!
With that joke aside, what is high school like for you? I imagine you must be a pretty popular fellow.	Well, high school is average. I'm just of average popularity, I guess. I'm guessing that you assumed I was popular due to me being "rich". Well, compared to the other students here, I'm one of the poor ones, hahaha. Saudis are really rich, dude.
I'd like to point out that only a fraction of Saudis are rich, just like the US. The majority of Saudis live in near poverty, but the fact that the upper echelon of multi-multi-millionaires are THAT rich offset the world's image of the population.	Interesting to know.
	I wouldn't know anything about this topic. I'm only ever exposed to the upper echelon that you've mentioned.
Being "rich" in school made me universally hated. They decided I was rich because mum's car was nice. Cue the choruses of "rich bitch" every time I got dropped off. Kids are mean.	Damn, that sucks :L.
Yeah, but my family's financial success meant that I was lucky in other ways. Kids are mean, but most don't have a developed sense of empathy yet. I understand why they teased me, and I can forgive it.	Whoa, that really sucks...I wouldn't even know what that's like, I'm really sorry.
Is it surrounded by a wall or other means to keep you in and others out? What kind of security is there?	We have a wall/fence thing. It's kinda hard to describe, but it's very hard to climb over. We also have gates that you have to drive through to get into, and if your car isn't marked with an Aramco sticker, you have to show your ID to get in. I don't know anything about military bases, hahaha.
How do you know or perceive that life at the compound is different than life outside the compound?	For one thing, people are richer outside, or if not richer, then they are just more extravagant. Another is that we have many more utilities than them, such as sports avenues, theaters, pools, etc.
What does the compound look like - is it lavish or plain? Can you post a picture?	Think typical American suburban environment. That's pretty much it. Here's an aerial view.
Is it easy for you to leave if you choose? Why would/wouldn't/can't you?	Getting out is super easy. Getting in is the challenge, hahaha. You NEED your ID, or else they won't let you in. For visitors, it's a process of getting them signed in by someone who lives inside. But we are allowed to leave whenever we want to.
What are your plans/ambitions for yourself beyond high school (or for the others who are answering, if you have given it much thought)?	Get a bachelor's in Computer Science and design video games for a living :)
American suburb indeed. When I read "compound" I imagined something more rigid and less inviting. Thanks again, and good luck with your future!	Thank you for your questions :)
Lol it literally looks like you'd live in my suburb, totally different than what I was imagining.	Yeah, I find it pretty awesome how they've completely recreated an American suburb :)
Do you have any more pictures. Looks so interesting!	Here's a street view.
What does Saudi Aarmco do?	Saudi Aramco is an oil company. It is state sponsored and makes A LOT of money for the country.
What makes an "employee compound" different from any other rich-kid accomidations? Is it fenced off? Self-sustaining? Patrolled by sexy kill-bots?	Well, a number of things makes it different. Firstly, our houses are smaller. Nobody is expected to (or allowed to, even) to live here for the rest of their life, so they don't bother making the houses super amazing. The kids who go to my school and live outside the compounds, i.e. the Saudi kids, usually live in huge mansions. Our houses look like the average, American suburban house. Our compound is indeed fenced off with a lot of security. It's pretty hard to get in without an ID (which I would know having forgotten my ID inside before leaving, hahaha). No sexy kill-bots, though, sadly.
Given the level of affluence you're surrounded by, what do you see as being the best/worst uses of money that your peers and/or their parents have engaged in?	Hm...I'd have to think about that.
	I guess the worst is a family friend getting a new iPhone for getting a C on a test. Yeah...
	Can't think of a best right now, hahaha.
Interesting. Thanks for the response!	You're welcome, thanks for the questions!
Makes a lot of money for the ruling elite maybe... saying it makes a lot of money for the country seems like a stretch.	I meant that it makes a lot of money for the actual government.
I guess the worst is a family friend getting a new iPhone for getting a C on a test. I teach adult ESL and about 50% of my students are upper class Saudi. It is sad to say but many of the Saudi men show some of the worst work/study ethic I have ever seen. I hope that my experience is abnormal but I have to ask: is this common?	It's not very common, though. I don't think so.
What's a single iPhone to your wealth? That's gotta be like... nothing at all!	They're just like any other phones. I was pretty surprised to learn that in other places, people make a distinction between smartphones and phones. Here, it's just "phones" (smartphones) and "bad phones" (phones).
I heard gas is super cheap there. How much is it per gallon?	It is mindblowingly cheap.
	It's about .45 riyals per liter. That's the equivalent of about 45 cents per gallon.
How many Saudi girls have you banged?	Hahahahaha!
	I don't hang out with any Saudi girls.
Haha I lived in Dhahran for 15 years (in high school now). I know probably less than 15 Saudi teenagers :P.	Awesome! PM me who you are, maybe I know you!
	Are you still here or have you left us?
What nationality are most of the people you hang out with? Are there any Americans at the compound? If so, a very small percentage or significant amount?	Hm...
	There are definitely lots of Americans here. I hang out with people of a few different nationalities...mostly either South Asian, Arab, or Asian, though. Most of the American people my age left for boarding school instead of staying here for high school.
I was about to PM you! No, I'm grade 12 in Winnipeg.	I see, then you're in my brother's grade. I still probably know you, hahaha.
Can you have alcohol in the compound?	No, we can not.
	Some people smuggle it in and/or make it themselves, but I have no experience with that.
How do Saudi laws apply inside the compound? Do women have to go out with a male relative / dress a certain way, etc?	Yes, most Saudi laws do still apply, such as laws on pork or alcohol.
	However, women are allowed to drive inside the compound and don't have to dress in any specific way, as long as they aren't nude or dressed in overly revealing clothes. They don't have to be accompanied by male relatives inside the camp.
Hold on they put a dress code now in camps ? When i used to live there the beaches used to have sun bathers.	Well, I wouldn't call it a dress code...I just don't think that they'd allow nudity. On the beaches in Ras Tanura, you'd be allowed to wear a bikini, I guess.
	They probably wouldn't allow bikinis for just walking around the camp, though, even if they don't have any rules against it, technically. You'd probably just be stopped and told to go change.
There's a law against pork? I mean, I know it's not halal, but I didn't know it was illegal. Is the law pig-specific, or does it cover all non-halal food?	I'm not completely sure, but I'm fairly certain that all foods must be halal here, and that the law isn't pig-specific.
Yeah i used to be in ras tanura, after '94 a huge amount of the westerners left never went back to being the same, i remember growing up and having easter hunts and all sorts of cool stuff but it just turned more and more conservative after that.	I see...
	When did you leave?
What do you for entertainment?	Well, we have a private theater here, libraries, restaurants, bowling alleys, several other sports avenues, etc.
	As for me, I tend to just use the internet a whole bunch and go out with friends on weekends. Also practice guitar and sketching a bit.
	It's pretty boring here, though, not gonna lie. Wouldn't trade it for living in the states though, there are a bunch of perks too!
Do you ever go into the cities?	Yeah, we go into the cities a bunch to go to the malls and buy stuff that isn't available in campus (which is pretty much everything except groceries).
What are some of the perks?	I've outlined some of the perks in this question, as well as a few others, hope those answer your question.
Why wouldn't you trade it for living in the states (Note: I'm not saying YEA MURICA or America is better or any of that stuff, I'm just curious)	I just like the unique perspective that it's (sort of) given me. It's not like everyone that I will meet in college will be able to say that they were raised in Saudi Arabia of all places!
EDIT: It appears that you are American and I misinterpreted your statement. My bad.	Plus, Aramco has a ton of perks that I've discussed in other answers.
Rashid mall i presume ? Khobar does have amazing food places.	Yes, that's one of them! Dhahran Mall is another :)
Depends. If you go to University of Texas at Austin there will be chingas of people who lived in Saudi. Mostly the children of oil company workers.	Yeah, I know what you mean, but I still like it.
Do you guys do stuff like motorbiking? The compound I was on (air force ex-pats), everyone just fucked around on motorbikes because it was only a 5 min ride to some decent spots. Also, their incomes allowed for expensive hobbies.	There are a bunch of bikers in the compound. I am not one of them, though.
Is this the compound that sends Little League teams to Williamsport basically every year?	A friend of mine was on that team a few years back, hahaha.
How many times have you pulled the "DO YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS!!!??" card?	LOL!
	Never, I'm not Malfoy :)
What do people you talk to think about the Iraq & Afghan wars? How are they taught in school?	People here are mostly of an American liberal standpoint when it comes to this matter, that view being "take the troops out".
	Schools don't usually cover the Iraq/Afghan wars until high school, and by that point, most people already have their own opinions on it.
What's the coolest, most expensive thing you've seen? Are the super rich kids pretty generous?	Just the mansions that the people live in are pretty awesome.
	The rich kids can be pretty generous. I was once 5 riyals short for a taxi ride and I asked a friend for some money and he just tossed me a 50 because he didn't have change, hahaha. (conversion rate: 1 USD to 3.752 SA Riyals for reference)
Generous in your world, nothing to them though ... Sorry, had to rain on your parade! (I used to know super rich kids too.)	Yeah, hahahaha. I can't even imagine that though! I've heard stories about some smashing their iPhones whenever the new ones come out. You know, as opposed to selling it or giving it as a present to somebody?
Are the magazines in Saudi Arabia censored? Do they censor photographs?	Yeah, most of them are. They usually just do it with a sharpie over the undesirable images, though.
What kind of things get censored? Anything aside from nudity?	Well, in TV, references to alcohol or sex usually get censored.
IS your internet censored?	Yes, it is.
	Porn, drug/alcohol, violence, etc. are all blocked.
Are /insertporn/nsfw/gw/trees blocked?	The SFW porn network is not blocked.
	trees, /gonewild, and /nsfw/ are all blocked.
Is there a lot of law enforcement roaming the streets?	Yes, there is. Those who are dependents of employees (read: wives or children of employees) have a curfew of 10 PM. It's no big deal if you get caught outside later than that, though.
	I don't mind all the security, though. It makes me feel safer.
Spouses have a curfew?	I might be mistaken on that part, but the kids definitely have curfews.
So you get rich Saudis and super rich Saudis; how many are poor? Do any work menial jobs, homeless, hungry. What % are super rich, rich, and poor?	I don't know what the percentages are. I could get it from googling, but then it wouldn't be coming from my experience as an Aramcon!
	I'm actually just too lazy to find out.
	Seriously though, the menial laborers on the compound and at my school work for contractors who hire mostly Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Philipinos, and a few other nationalities. There are a few homeless that I've seen while out of the compound, but for the most part, people seem to be as well off as in the states. I have zero statistics to back this up, and they could possibly be much worse or much better off than Americans.
	Sorry for being unable to answer your question.
The cia world factbook notes that 80% of the labor force are foreign nationals.	Yeah, I wouldn't doubt that.
What is your family's net worth?	What is your family's net worth?
Have you ever had a situation where the amount of security for the facility was justified?	Have you ever had a situation where the amount of security for the facility was justified?
Do you intend to work for SA once you're out of school, why or why not?	Do you intend to work for SA once you're out of school, why or why not?
Besides, living here is nice and all, but I don't want to stay here for the rest of my life! Have you decided where you want to go? Or will you just go wherever the best job offer is?	I'm an American citizen, so I'll definitely go to university there, but I want to live somewhere new to me, like Europe or Australia. I've never been to either of those places (although I hope to visit Europe soon).
I'm an American citizen.	Hahahaha, look at my reply to that question again :P.
Oh! I guess I'm just surprised because I saw in another comment that you were related to the Saudi king. Were you born in the US? Is the rest of your family also American and just relocated for the job?	I'd explain it here, but that would ruin the surprise!
What sports are high school kids into? Is there a skatepark there?	Soccer and basketball are big ones. To a lesser degree, tennis and cricket also. I've heard there's also an American football association here? Not too sure, though.
	There is actually a skatepark, but I don't think it's been used so much since the 90s/early 2000s.
I'm a Saudi living with an average income family. I'm pretty sure in Jeddah we say the same thing about the people who live in compounds and probably even richer than most us average Saudi's. Though, I'm currently in the US studying because I got a Sponsorship from SABIC( you probably heard of it).	I haven't experienced anything like getting away with speeding tickets or other offenses, hahaha. But then again, everyone here speeds, don't they? ;)
For my question, Does the government treat you like royals? people believe that you can get away with a lot of things like speeding tickets.	I have a feeling that, yes, we would be treated a bit better, though.
I considered moving to Saudi Arabia to teach English because they pay the most of any country, but how the fuck do you go without girls/booze/gambling (I play online poker) for a year? Seriously what would I do for fun there?	You could always go to Bahrain! There, you get at least 2 of those three (you might not get gambling, not too sure, though). That's what some of the teachers here do, just go to Bahrain on the weekends and get drunk, hahahaha.
	Other than that, not much, I guess. But you'll have plenty of travel opportunities if you do come here, I'm assuming!
Is it true what the other responses have said - that there is a way to get to girls and booze? Don't you get into a shitton of trouble if they catch you doing that?	Yes, it is possible.
	If it's just you and your girlfriend/boyfriend/hookup at a house in the compound, it wouldn't be that big of a deal.
	Booze would probably get you deported or something, though. Your family could stay but you'd be forced to go to boarding school or something.
Do you try to befriend the richest kids, because it might help you later in life (ex. networking to get a great job later on, owning a castle, getting offered a first class ticket to the moon)?	Your username...blasphemy!
	Hahaha, anyways, nah, I just befriend those that aren't douchebags. Some of the rich kids happen to not be douchebags, so I befriend them, but not as networking, I understand that I won't get anything from them in later life, because I'll probably never see them after graduation :)
Isn't every kid at our high-school rich?	Yeah, but there's a spectrum.
	There's the SUPER rich ones (that I won't name on a public forum) and then there's just the average rich, which would be us.
The stories we hear in the US make is sound like Saudi Arabia is a very fundamentaly conservative culture. Capitol punishment for a number of things you would only see hard time for here in the US.	The new king is a bit more liberal. Women were recently granted permission to ride bikes and practice law!
With the wealth do you see a lot of people struggle with what would appear to be a temptation to go nuts with extravagance? Are the weathiest proctected from these punishments? Power and money corrupt the hell out of us here, just wondering if the amount of money makes it worse there.	People here are definitely extravagant, but they can afford it. I don't know about how protected the wealthy are from the government. I haven't seen any situation where any rich friend of mine has needed protection.
This might sound weird but is it hard dating when your rich? Like are dates expected to be really extravagant since you're rich?	Not too sure how to answer this, hahaha.
	Pretty much everyone here is rich, so it's not that weird...I guess. It's just like dating anywhere else, I would assume.
When you say rich... how rich? i.e., what's your family's gross yearly income in $USD?	I don't want to disclose that.
Ever see the movie "The Kingdom"... If so does that scenario cross your mind/concern you? Is its depiction of American compounds in Saudi Arabia accurate?	I haven't seen that movie, but I have heard of it! I'll try to watch it soon.
"They have swimming pools, baseball fields, soccer fields, bowling alleys, you name it (even a golf course). And they have green trees."	Well, it's not like, as another question asked, we drive golden lambos that run on diamonds.
What are these odd facilities that I have never heard of before? That stuff is everywhere.	Life here is pretty average.
Are you old enough to drive?	Yeah, I am, but I don't do it often, I don't really like cars much.
If not what do your parents drive?	My parents own a Camry and a Previa. They never really cared much for upgrading, hahaha.
, what is the coolest car you've seen?	Pretty sure we have a Ferrari on the compound. I don't know shit about cars, though, so yeah.
I've always wanted to visit Saudi Arabia since I heard about Medain Saleh.. it's now the only country in all of Asia that I haven't visited. I love most Middle Eastern countries and was just in Yemen a month ago. But getting a Saudi visa (even a transit visa) is next to impossible I hear. Do you drive around the girls schools and toss your phone number over the wall?	Our school is co-ed, but I see the humor in your question :)
What's the food situation like? Are there any fast food joints on the compound you live at? Or a supermarket or something?	There's a few Aramco fast food places, just known as the snack bars.
	There are also two commissaries and a mini-mart. Other than that, we go out for food.
TIL not just military brats know the term "commissary".	Yeah, I was kinda shocked to learn that not everyone calls their grocery stores "commissaries". That was how I grew up.
Where abouts in Saudia? I grew up in Jeddah and attended NCS, all I remember is old men making their own beer and the most beautiful beaches in the world. And my family wasn't rich at all.	Dhahran, which is right next to Al-Khobar. These cities are on the east coast.
Crazy! I used to live in Dhahran too! Just 3 years, 1992 to 1995, I was 10 when my family left but I still have fond memories! Living in Calgary, Canada now. I miss the heat. If you cruise by 456 Hofuf Street, that's my old address. :) Do kids still drive golf carts everywhere?	Damn, that's crazy! Hofuf is where I spent a lot of my childhood because that's where my best friend lived! I came here in 98, though, so I wouldn't have ever crossed paths with you :P.
	I've only seen the golf kids use their golf carts, not just anyone.
I used to live in Al-Khobar. Do you remember lotus 3? Does Dhahran British Grammar School still exist?	I don't know what lotus 3 is...but yes, DBGS is still existent, hahaha. Our school is on the same campus as them.
Its was one of the compounds before they merged, Are they still separated by the fence down the middle? Where you there for 9/11? Is the beach still there?	Ah, I see. I don't remember it.
	There are no fences dividing any sections of the compound that I'm aware of.
	I was here in Saudi for 9/11, but too young to have any idea about what was going on at the time. There are several beaches here.
Do you know any openly lgbt individuals? I was just wondering how they got treated in a country like Saudi...and is it different from how they get treated in the compound?	Yes, I do, actually. They were treated pretty well in the compound. People wouldn't generally say anything to them. However, they definitely didn't proclaim this fact about themselves outside the compound.
Did you happen to go to school in the state of Georgia at one point? I went to school with a bunch of guys who had parents working for Aramco and eventually came to Georgia to go to school..	No, I've been here in Saudi since I was 2, hahaha.
Are you on instagram and have you seen the popular profile "itslavishbitch"? I believe he is of the "upper echelon" you and others are speaking of, but he lives in SF.	I am on Instagram, but I have not seen that account, hahaha. I have seen a large amount of rich Saudis posting on instagram, though, so I get what you mean!
Maybe you don't know because you're a high school student, but how big is the supposed "black market" for alcohol on the compound? I've heard a lot of expats make money by either smuggling liquor in or making booze in their homes.	As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I have no experience with that stuff, I wouldn't know.
Also, what do you do for fun?	For fun, I just hang out with friends and use the internet a whole bunch. We usually just chill at a house and watch movies, talk, eat out, go to the malls, etc.
All the "aramco kids" i knew in boarding school had serious drug problems, which started when they lived in compounds as teenagers. how common is it to use drugs in the compound?	Hm...well, you see, most of the kids that go to boarding school are those that are susceptible to such things, you know what I mean? Like, the "cool" kids. It probably stems from their boredom on campus.
	However, I wouldn't say that drug usage is very common.
As a kid who went to boarding school, I have to say that it's a common misconception that we're all delinquent's or have "issues." I had friends who did drugs or stole but they did it just as much as your average high school student.	That's what I thought, about them doing it just as much as an average high school student.
	Are you Aramcon or did you just meet Aramcons in boarding school?
I used to get Aramco World magazine as a kid. It had some of the coolest photography of any magazine. One month it just stopped coming.	My family only ever gets the Aramco newsletter, so I wouldn't know, sorry!
Anyways, do they still make that magazine there and have you seen it?	But I'm curious, did you go to the Aramco schools? If so, which year did you "graduate" from the middle school? My friends and I found a bunch of super old yearbooks last night and were looking through them, hahaha.
What type of history do you learn in school?	We learn the same types of history that you guys do, ancient world, modern world, US history...
Are there drug problems where you live?	There would be as many drug problems as in the states, I'd assume.
How much cash do you blow on an average week?	I get 75 riyals a week for lunch, which is about $20. That doesn't sound like much, but money goes further here than in the states.
Can Christians go to church on the compound? Is there a reverend/priest on site...or even in the country?	Yes, there's a "church" in here. It's actually just the middle school gymnasium, but that's where people go every Friday (because the weekends here aren't Sat, Sun, they are Thurs, Fri, so going on Sunday wouldn't be efficient).
Have you ever been? I'm interested if there is actually real freedom of worship or just an appearance of it.	No, I'm Muslim.
	My friends go though, and it's pretty much a church, not just a mask of a church.
As a fellow highschooler from the states its pretty cool reading your responses...but anyway, do you fluently speak Arabic? Is English the dominant language in your compound?	English is the dominant language here in the compound. I have a rudimentary knowledge of Arabic, nothing that would help me survive in an Arab country, though.
So outside of your compound, are the locals bi-lingual or majority English speaking or Arabic speaking? Also, we should hang out sometime. Problem being I live in the middle of Illinois.	They are bilingual for the most part, and those that aren't speak Arabic.
	We should definitely hang out! I'll just get my gold plated private jet to fly over to Illinois.
	I don't have a gold plated jet. It's only diamond studded.

Last updated: 2013-05-05 19:12 UTC
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