Singer-songwriter and biotech founder Aloe Blacc outlines his five-year goals for his biotech company in a conversation with Harry Stebbings on 20VC.
Opinion
Aloe Blacc: The music album was invented to boost label profit margins
“When enterprising business empresarios and the music industry recognized that you could fit 12 songs on the same piece of vinyl and the manufacturing costs are the same, they thought, well, we can sell it for 12 times more because the buyer is getting 12 times…”
Disclosure
Aloe Blacc lets label executives remix songs if his original stays public
“When the song is finished, however, that's when I detach myself from it, and I tell the business people, okay, what do you need to do to make this work? You're like, well, we need to Frankenstein it. Like, go ahead, just make sure that I have my original versi…”
Disclosure
Aloe Blacc is building a biotech startup and pursuing FDA approval
“So I'm in the business. I'm in the middle of like developing a company, hiring on executives from pharma or biotech and finding advisors and developing a FDA pathway. All of this is brand new to me, but I think it's a worthy endeavor.”
Disclosure
Aloe Blacc brought music management in-house and ended lawyer retainers
“I shed myself of all of, as much of the infrastructure as possible, like, you know, brought management in-house rather than having a manager, so I can, so I'm in charge, I get to control the time. You know, shed myself of retainers for, you know, lawyers and o…”
Insight
Aloe Blacc: Mastering song structure enables focus on poetry
“When you get it down and you understand the format, you can spend so much more time on the beauty of the poetry.”
Insight
Aloe Blacc: Songwriting with professionals takes four hours maximum
“And you, when you're working with a professional, it happens in four hours. When you're not, you've got to come back the second day or the third day to finish things up.”