How can I successfully pitch an app idea for the entertainment industry to investors?

I've launched several music startups and pitched to more than a hundred "investors."

I live in a city where entertainment tech is virtually unheard of. If you do too, I bet you already already know that it's difficult to raise investment from tech funds and incubators when the entertainment industry is misunderstood, or worse, understood as "less viable" than other industries like healthcare, for example. That's a battle you can't change over night. It takes a whole city infrastructure and culture shift to change that.

Of course, it will always remain interesting to me how a $16.5B music industry can be disregarded as a "niche" industry. There's clearly money there, but in terms of portfolio management, "niche" is a reality you're up against if you're seeking those types of investors.

Successfully raising funding for a music/entertainment tech concept often requires a completely different type of "investor" and a completely different type of vibe of relationship. If you're launching a music tech concept, spend more time building real friendships with those who have the resources to support you, as opposed to trying to "pitch" into pools of money. Share your passions with the millionaires next door who love music or entertainment. Find those who have already made profit within music or entertainment, or find those ex-touring musicians who now have discretionary income. These types of investors are the people you want on your team anyway. They're more like supporters. They're hiding behind the scenes in small cities. Sometimes they're masked as CEOs who already donate into the arts. Sometimes they're quietly living in the suburbs as successful composers for global clients. Either way, they're often genuine, heart level people who have saved their money in smart ways, know how to recognize bullshit, care less about profit, and invest in things that light them up. Wear your passion on your sleeve, dig, and you will find them.

I'll close with this -- I have two buddies who just raised $1.5M seed for their music tech concept. I also know several music tech companies around the world who are constantly grinding. Usually, the head of these companies has a background in music and a community within the music industry. They have built music tech that solved a major problem they personally experienced as artists, and they leveraged their community by sharing the story of their beta process to their friends as they tried and tested profit. They made sure every one of their potential supporters saw their hard work before they ever made an ask. Just a different vibe and process, for sure.

If you need help with your beta, launch, or want to develop new friends in the music industry, let's setup a call.

On top of starting to test, you should also focus. Rather than trying to solve all five problems you've highlighted, talk to your prospective customers and figure out which one of those problems is causing them the most pain. Then focus on that and solve that problem really, really well. Superficial validation "sounds like a good idea" is no validation at all.

After you work out your business model, I'd be happy to help with branding such a project. I agree it's badly needed. The landscape is particularly challenging for musicians.

Your idea has too many masters to please. It's for the industry, but it's also for the artist. It presumably enables the artist to accomplish something with their fans/customers. So, it's for them, too. Pick one problem and solve it.

Don't bother trying to solve a problem for the big 3. They have only one goal when it comes to investing in tech companies: extract as large an up-front licensing fee as possible before the company runs out of cash. Consequently, they're looking for companies with a fresh seed or series A or B round whose business model absolutely relies on licensing their IP.

They are not interested in placing a bet on anything else. I know because I wasted a lot of time pitching to them (Sony, UMG, WMG).

You'll do much better focusing on solving a problem for the artist that doesn't make them replicate what they're already doing. In other words, you don't want to be YET ANOTHER middle man. Yet another platform for them to have to play on. They won't join unless you have massive, paying fanbase, which you don't ... or you can SHOW that your platform more accurately, intelligently, or otherwise successfully connects the artist with the specific people they want or need to reach.

That's a tall order, and like any platform play, it suffers from the chicken and egg question. How do you get a valuable group of users (fans), without the artists on board? And how do you get the artists on board without the fans? Simply setting up tools, favorable monetization structures and architectures won't be enough to attract either side.

But you asked about successfully pitching the idea. Short of building test version that can validate your assumptions, you could devise an architecture and set of rules (algorithms) that in some way makes artists more successful. If it comes across as plausible, you might be able to successfully pitch that. For example, you could say your system is more efficient, pulling together artist data and media from Bandzoogle, Reverbnation, Sonicbids, iTunes, Tidal, CDBaby, etc., and compiling it with their own social media accounts, event calendars, merch sales, etc., to produce a single dashboard that ... what? That's the key. In what way does it make the artists' lives better? Remember, they have almost zero incentive to try something new, untested, without an audience, even with "good" terms. Why? Because the amount of work required to set up on the new system isn't worth the risk. Unless you make it obvious that it is.

If you are able to create such an app idea, or place (even "on paper"), investors will want to know why you, personally, and your team are the best people to actually make it happen. If you can hit that note, too, then they'll want to know why you won't be made irrelevant if company X decides to simply add features you propose to their already vibrant businesses. Lastly, if you can convincingly and compellingly answer those questions, they'll want to know how much it costs, how long it will take, and how they will make their money back.

First, though - pick just one master to serve, and make it all about them. Doesn't matter if it's artists, fans, industry promotions folks—as long as it's clear your idea will make their jobs better (easier, cheaper, faster, more profitable). Ancillary opportunities can be glommed onto that core product later, if you succeed, but without focus, you risk appearing as a bad investment.