Assertion Not checkable as stated
Artists report Bandcamp revenue is orders of magnitude above streaming services
“We hear all the time, mostly through Twitter, that, you know, the money that artists make through Bandcamp is orders of magnitude bigger than what they're making from streaming services that it's how they're, you know, paying rent and getting equipment and buy…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Early Bandcamp sales converted from 'torrent' and 'free MP3' search queries
“And we found again, 2008, 2009. So we, what we were competing with, right, as you said, was like LimeWire. Right. Hook share and stuff like that. So we looked at those search terms and it was the name of an album plus the word torrent or the name of an artist …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Live music consolidation will lead to pricier tickets and less diversity
“The tickets will get more expensive. I think there'll be less diversity in music as a result, but you know, the laws are changing, right?”
Disclosure
Bandcamp deliberately avoids pursuing hypergrowth, scale, IPOs, or acquisitions
“No, they don't. No, I mean, we're really just, I focused on our mission of serving artists. That's what inspires me. That's what I, you know, what I get excited about doing And I would say the company has grown and succeeded more as a side effect of focusing o…”
Insight
Paid transactions create more meaningful online community participation than free likes
“You don't, you know, click a like button or a heart to add something to a collection. You have, you transact, right, to create a collection, and that gives the collection so much more meaning, right, because you actually spent a limited resource, right, your m…”
Assertion Not yet assessed · timeframe Apr 2021
The first Bandcamp Friday generated 15 times normal Friday sales
“It was it was about 15 times our normal Friday sales, which for the systems team, for support, for developers, it was a really big effort to keep the site running and have it keep up with all of that.”
Assertion Supported
Fans paid artists $50 million across the first 11 Bandcamp Fridays
“We have another one tomorrow, but we've had 11 since then, and just on those days, fans have paid artists fifty million dollars.”
Assertion Supported
Bandcamp pays artists 93 percent on Fridays and 82 percent normally
“You know, on, on Bandcamp Friday, 93% of what a fan spends gets to the artist. On the other days of the year, right, it's 82% on average.”
Insight
Companies fail when their apparent mission misaligns with their monetization
“I think that at the core, the problem that I've seen in previous companies that I've worked at is when there's that misalignment in, you know, what you're apparently here to do versus how you actually make money.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bandcamp's business is split evenly between physical and digital sales
“About half the business is physical records, so vinyl, cassettes, CDs, a lot of t-shirts as well, and then half the business is digital music, so people buying Digital albums and digital tracks directly from the artist.”
Assertion Supported
Bandcamp hosts almost 10,000 independent record labels
“So we were, at this point, we have almost 10,000 independent labels on the site. So Sub Pop, Merge, ATO Ninja Tune, Relapse just Loads and loads of independent labels.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Community features drive over 30 percent of total Bandcamp sales
“So, you know, that's become just an incredibly important part of the business. It drives something like 30 plus percent of the sales.”
Disclosure
Bandcamp's new live streaming service has enabled about 100,000 artists
“We've rolled it out now to it's in, About a 100,000 artists have been enabled with this, and it allows you to stream to anybody.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Bandcamp signups and total music sales doubled in 2020
“I mean, it was everything more or less doubled in, in 2020. You know, artist signups, fan signups, sales through the site, digital, physical music.”
