Welcome to the Jazz Shapers podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers, with me Elliot Moss bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Ryan Edwards, Founder and CEO of Audoo, a music technology company tracking the music played in public spaces so artists and songwriters are paid fairly. After a successful career as a drummer in indie rock band, The Lines, scoring a top 10 hit and opening for REM and The Killers amongst others, Ryan’s band was dropped suddenly after coming off stage to 80,000 people. Ryan turned to retail, eventually running stores in his own entrepreneurial ventures, then switching to roles at Visa, Bink and Grapple Mobile but it was in 2018, having heard his band’s song, Domino Effect playing in a department store and wondering whether they would be paid the royalties they were due, that Ryan discovered how little data there was about the distribution of royalties and how unfair the system could be. Audoo was founded in 2019 and backed by music royalty – wait for it, drum roll – Paul McCartney, Björn Ulvaeus from Abba and Elton John, no other than him. Audoo meter plugs into venues like cafes, gyms, shops and bars recognising the songs played and sending data automatically to performance rights organisations. Musicians can get the money they are rightly owed and a more accurate breakdown of their reach as well.
It’s great to have you here uh, thank you for joining. You are a musician first and foremost. Is that how you describe yourself still?
Ryan Edwards
Uh.
Elliot Moss
Or has that gone now Ryan.
Ryan Edwards
I think probably semi-retired musician, maybe a bedroom musician but uh, wish, wish I’d uh, probably kept it up more but as life gets busy and you have children and a family it definitely takes a back seat.
Elliot Moss
But I mean, 80,000 people, the buzz of being a very young – how old were you at the time?
Ryan Edwards
Uh I would have been early 20s.
Elliot Moss
Early 20s.
Ryan Edwards
So yeah.
Elliot Moss
I mean like my, my eldest is 21, he’s in fact a drummer like you but he’s at university studying music.
Ryan Edwards
Great.
Elliot Moss
At um, Southampton University but you went, you went for it?
Ryan Edwards
Yeah and, and ironically that, my plan was to, to go and study jazz drumming at Leeds College of Music, so I’d got in, I’d done my A levels and then we signed a record deal so um, I guess I got probably a different level of experience because I got to be me, we got to tour, we got to play to huge crowds, meet our heroes and all that um, yeah and there’s always that kind of I guess question in my head of, what if, what if I’d have actually gone and made it to, to Leeds College of Music, what would have, what would have happened, would I have gone so far deep down in jazz rather than kind of the indie and rock and roll route that I ended up going so yeah.
Elliot Moss
But also would you have ended up here talking to me now about a business you set up? Who knows?
Ryan Edwards
Exactly. Maybe not and so…
Elliot Moss
Life’s a mystery.
Ryan Edwards
It is.
Elliot Moss
But that, that back into when you were 19, 20, 21 and it’s happening and then suddenly you’re dropped?
Ryan Edwards
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
What does that do to you as a young person?
Ryan Edwards
Uh, I mean pretty soul destroying you know, we, we as you say, yeah we were in uh Europe, I think we were in Austria. Yeah, played that massive gig and it was like, that’s it, it’s done, it’s over uh and I always, I say you know, I think we left on the Thursday evening. I moped around on the Friday and you know, by the Monday I was like, I’ve got to go and get a job now, this is, this is it right. You didn’t go, you didn’t go to uni, you didn’t go and take the, the preferred educational route or um, kind of musical training route that I thought I was going to go and um, yeah and I think it was a, a good reality shock. I think um, I’m from a good working class background so it was like, okay head down, I’ll go and work and figure this out.
Elliot Moss
Amazing your robust response though for a young person?
Ryan Edwards
Uh yeah.
Elliot Moss
Do you look back and go, phew, that was lucky, thank god I didn’t you know, capitulate because a lot of people would have spent not a day or two days moping, they probably would have spent a good few months or even longer or, or we would never have this conversation because they never actually went and did something in this way?
Ryan Edwards
It’s true um, I think a lot of it comes back to parents. I think my um, I don’t think my mum or dad would have let me mope around for too long, they’d have said, come on you’ve got bills to pay, we’re not going to keep you, you know, you need to uh, you need to go and get on with it and I think I’ve always been quite driven, I always knew there was a world out there and I guess I’d had a flavour of that world from the music and being able to uh, you know, to tour and see bits so I think for me it was actually I want to go out, I want to experience more and I want to be part of it again so it was kind of yeah, head down, get on working, go and earn some money and try and grow a career as well. I did meet a girl as well so it was uh…
Elliot Moss
And is the girl, is the girl still with you?
Ryan Edwards
She is, she’s now yeah, 20 years later my wife so um, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Boy done well.
Ryan Edwards
Exactly.
Elliot Moss
Well the band may not have happened but you got a much more important prize. And, and just in, in your own words, Audoo, we know, you know, people have heard of you and heard the story, heard the thing, we heard the music and I wonder if it’s, you know, they are going to capture this for me. Just how do you describe Audoo to people that haven’t got a clue what it is?
Ryan Edwards
Of course. So we, we describe ourselves as a technology innodata business and we’re serving the music industry. So um, everybody will know um, recognition engines, you probably would have used Shazam on a phone or seen smart speakers, so we’re almost the next generation of that but we’re industrialised so we’re a huge scale and we’re in anywhere from pubs and clubs to retail outlets. I mean we’re in just far afield as kind of schools and nurseries as well because of course they play and broadcast music in those environments as well and we’re capturing and we’re logging all the data beyond that music so it can then be used for royalty distributions and insights across the industry as well
Elliot Moss
You know your arrival at that point and we, we’ve started very quickly and sort of 20 year, 2005.
Ryan Edwards
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And we’ve skirted over sort of 15 years almost of working. In that working period you went out and got a job, good working class values and all that. Did you ever have aspirations to really run your own thing or were you quite happy doing what you were doing?
Ryan Edwards
Uh no, honestly I was, I was pretty happy so um, yeah I kind of had that professional career and was growing it you know, year on year, bit by bit and, and yeah there was never a moment of, I want to be a Founder, I want to be a CEO. I think it was um, this idea came you know, it happened, it was, it was that moment in the department store hearing my own music and then actually a few weeks later receiving my statement and going, oh okay, that, I don’t understand the correlation, or there is no correlation and kind of just almost, I call it Google bashing, just you know, sat there probably one Sunday evening going, how’s it work, what’s going on? And what I found was articles and forums and things by lawyers written saying the whole system was really antiquated, you know, it was being done manually, there wasn’t a lot of data in there, there was a lot of inaccuracies in there like, even down to cover versions you know, if it’s somebody out there doing a manual survey they might right down, Yesterday by The Beatles but it could have been a cover so of course Lennon and McCartney need to be paid for the composition but then the recording artist on the other side needs to be paid. So there was a lot of things like that and actually I um, I was in a fintech business which were in the process of taking a large investment and I decided it was my time after a few years there to move on and it was investment from a big bank and I was like, oh could end up wearing a suit here. Not too sure about that.
Elliot Moss
Don’t think you want to do that right.
Ryan Edwards
Um, and I got another job with a huge uh, fitness brand that was really, really growing aggressively and had this idea during the period and actually reached out to the chairman of PRS for music here in the UK because I’d built a prototype at my kitchen table and the intention…
Elliot Moss
And PRS for people that don’t know?
Ryan Edwards
Oh yeah sorry, is the Performing Rights Society uh, and they collect, they collect all these licence fees and they’re the people who actually pay the artist um, and, and the intention of that meeting was genuinely to give him the tech. To say, hey I just built this, I think this would be really useful for you.
Elliot Moss
So you had built something?
Ryan Edwards
Yeah so at this point I’d just almost at my kitchen table just kind of just built a very, very basic prototype just to show that I could recognise, do a small catalogue and report it in a really succinct way.
Elliot Moss
Just out of interest, what did that look like, that thing you built?
Ryan Edwards
So um, there were a couple of sides to it, so I’d built kind of a web portal so you think about going on to any website and where you could see the songs coming in so artist, title, run time um, it had got some meta data tags in there which I kind of got and found on the internet and then the other, uh second bit is what’s known as a raspberry pie in the development world. So a raspberry pie kind of looks like a really um, uh over technical small computer. So it’s about the size of a phone, a little bit thicker and it’s kind of like a blank chipboard that you can write code on to and it’s a way a lot of developers will practice and write their code on to so then you can test and learn with it and then of course then that’s when you go and scale. So when, when I think back and of course I’ve still got it in my, my home office you know, that little raspberry pie device was the life changing moment because of course I went to PRS and said, hey I’m going to give you this, I just think this could be really useful and then you guys, you know, you’re a huge organisation off you go and it was the chairman in that moment who said, Ryan, he said, he said, like you need to build this for us and you need to build it because it’s not just a UK problem, it’s a global problem so actually if you can do it and you can scale a business off this, he said, you’ll be, you’ll be on to a winning streak so.
Elliot Moss
But, but even just, listening to you talk about it and raspberry pie I’m very familiar.
Ryan Edwards
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
I met the Found many, many years ago as well um, the audacity of you trying to put this together and the belief that you could, I mean did you know how big the problem was? I guess that’s my thing because if it’s that big sometimes people just go, that falls in the bucket of just too complicated? But it didn’t for you?
Ryan Edwards
Well I think, I think it was because like every business, I just took very small steps each stage and actually looking back 6 years ago now, definitely didn’t know the size of the problem and didn’t know some of the challenges that we come up against as we, as we try to scale. Particularly music industry lawyers, they’re an interesting bunch. But um, like kind of having to work and sometimes…
Elliot Moss
You’ve got one on your Board.
Ryan Edwards
…fight against them. So yeah exactly, who’s brilliant. He, he’s my common sense lawyer but um, actually just, I think because we saw it as so small, so insular and just went okay, let’s take it to the next level, let’s build and actually I, I’d shown some friend who were also in tech um, I’d been in a business that had raised investment, so went to a couple of the people who’d invested in that and kind of said, look almost, this is what I’ve found, not, I wasn’t even going and pitching saying, hey can I have some money, can I do this, I’m going to build a business. It was very, very organic and every person that I spoke to outside the initial reaction that went, that can’t be right, it’s got to be more advanced than that, it’s got to be cleverer and then you’d say to them, well I’d say to them, just, just go Google bash right, tell me what you come and actually what every single person then would come back and go, oh my life, yeah you were absolutely right. And I was like, of course I was always right but you know, really, really validating and everybody that I was talking to was coming up with the same conclusion and then even going to like people like Cliff who’s on our board you know, brilliant music rights lawyer and, and approaching him, again on LinkedIn and saying, hey I just want to talk to you about this. Further validation saying, yes this has plagued my entire career and it’s, it’s you know, why I’ve wrapped the board around me that we have because we’ve got music managers, we’ve got the ex-chairman of PRS, we’ve got Cliff as a lawyer, people who are running song funds, who all just come in and said, this is a problem we’ve got to help you shape this and kind of grow the business.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for much more from my guest it’s Ryan Edwards, he’ll be back in a couple of minutes. Right now we are going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions which you can find on all the major podcast platforms. In this clip Joe Hancock, Partner in Cyber Risk and Complex Investigations at Mishcon de Reay is joined by Emeric Bernard-Jones, Intelligence Manager in the same team and they are discussing cybercrime and how to be safe online.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you pop ‘Jazz Shapers’ into your favourite podcast platform of choice. My guest today is Ryan Edwards in case you hadn’t noticed, Founder and CEO of Audoo, a music technology company tracking the music played in public spaces so artists and songwriters are paid fairly. The fairly word is really interesting because of course you weren’t, you in your pursuit of this were just going, this isn’t right, there’s music being played and we’re not, people aren’t being recompensed for it.
Ryan Edwards
Yep.
Elliot Moss
It’s just a bit of a kit, so you, you move on and you start building stuff and who’s the first person that sort of buys this? I know you got some funding obviously but what was, who was the very first people that said, alright we’ll install this, we’ll see what happens?
Ryan Edwards
So this is where um, life gets really complex because of the pandemic. So um, I’d taken on the funding, we’d built the first version and were due to launch our first pilot, self-funded pilot in the UK in April 2020. Just as the entire world…
Elliot Moss
Great timing.
Ryan Edwards
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Well done Ryan
Ryan Edwards
So, I know, so I had to go out to those, those investers, shareholders and say, it’s going to take a little bit longer and of course they all came back and went, look (a) nobody launches on time, (b) like, because the world shut down it’s a fairly good excuse. And I was quite happy to go, look but we were ready, we were genuinely ready. Um so we then re-plotted our launch for the November of ’20 which is cue lockdown 2 in the UK um, and…
Elliot Moss
And my 50 birthday which never happened. Well it did happen but we didn’t celebrate, to be clear.
Ryan Edwards
…via Zoom.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, well it was almost that, it was, it was cups of tea outside the house.
Ryan Edwards
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
At a distance.
Ryan Edwards
Well my, my daughter’s 1st birthday was three days after the first lockdown so I think it took her to 3 years old to have a birthday where she could see people other than my wife and I or family via Zoom.
Elliot Moss
It’s all in the rear view mirror though isn’t it? We’re not, we’re not tarred by this.
Ryan Edwards
No.
Elliot Moss
We’re not at all, we are not traumatised any of us, it’s fine.
Ryan Edwards
No. But um…
Elliot Moss
Yeah sorry, carry on.
Ryan Edwards
…we started using it but um, after the second lockdown happened in the November I thought, okay I’ve got to, I’ve got to really show (a) my shareholders that we’ve done something and the team was really driven and we were kind of waiting so um, good old LinkedIn, went back to LinkedIn again and reached out to the Australian Rights Organisation which is known as APRA, which stands for the Australian Performing Rights Association um, introduced what we, who we are, what we were doing and said, look you know, we’d love for you to be the first in the world and they came back and went, absolutely brilliant um which then gave us a whole different challenge because of course it’s a hardware product so if you’re software you just deploy it over the air.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Ryan Edwards
But hardware we were like um, how do we do this so the research moved to, okay who’s going to know the environments that we’re going to go into. We need to know somebody who is going to understand retail, hospitality, fitness and we found a CCTV business that operated in Sydney and connected with them and said, could we use some of your installers to just go out…
Elliot Moss
And they pop it on?
Ryan Edwards
And they plug it in.
Elliot Moss
So is that what it is? It’s a plug-in and basically it’s like a, it’s like a, it’s a speaker in reverse.
Ryan Edwards
Exactly yeah, yeah. It’s a very small device.
Elliot Moss
It can hear what’s going on?
Ryan Edwards
I can show you one, I’ve got one in my bag so I’ll show you or maybe we’ll hold it up but um, yeah and, and just…
Elliot Moss
So high tech.
Ryan Edwards
Exactly so.
Elliot Moss
Exciting.
Ryan Edwards
But we went out and we said, can you just help? Can you do this and of course we paid them and they went out and we shipped them.
Elliot Moss
And why did you choose them out of interest?
Ryan Edwards
Uh so we, we just, we really liked them as a business, how they were like their, their kind of values from just their website seemed to match us. We had a few calls, often in the middle of the night because we were trying to sell to them, so can you help us? Um, and they were just brilliant, they were an absolutely brilliant business.
Elliot Moss
They didn’t think you were mad Ryan?
Ryan Edwards
Oh completely and I think actually…
Elliot Moss
Do you think that’s what appealed?
Ryan Edwards
…looking back, even back to I actually didn’t tell the shareholders before we did this because I was like, okay because if this fails I’ve got to keep it quiet and we’ve got figure out a different way to, to do this but um, I think they saw a bit of madness but maybe a bit of brilliance because the team that we employ are amazing so I think they saw that opportunity um, I think Australians, they’re you know, they’re great to do business with because actually they love innovation, there’s always a British connection to Australia anyway and I think they were just really up for trying and doing something different and showing some progress.
Elliot Moss
And it, you, you get, you install it. How quickly is it capturing what you wanted?
Ryan Edwards
So, so we sent all of our units out um, we said to the CCTV business, could you do us a favour, can you plug them in in the office just to make sure because again we’d never even been able to test this out in the UK.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Ryan Edwards
Um, and we don’t use wifi, we use an E-sim which is a sim card built on to the board because we didn’t want to go into a venue and say, what’s your password, how do we log on – all that. We didn’t want to disturb them, we just wanted to plug it in and leave them alone and of course the shipment arrived, they plugged them in and every single one connected so kudos to our CTO and our tech team for what they did there because that was amazing.
Elliot Moss
And then you’re up and running?
Ryan Edwards
About three days later they went out and it’s, it’s funny because the, the Australian Society of course we’ve got to know really well over the last few years. In, in my world there’s um, there’s a, a German Equatic Centre just on the outskirts of Sydney called The Lane Cove Equatics Centre and that’s the first place that we plugged in and of course when I then was able to go out post kind of lockdowns and having to sit in a hotel room for two weeks, it was one of the first things I said to our local team I said, I’ve got to go there and they’re going, you’re weird, this is really weird and I was going, no I just I need to go, I need to see it, I need to take a photo, I need to take a selfie, I just need, it’s such an important pivotal moment in you know, my life. It means nothing to anybody else you know, and I’ve told the story a million times but actually it, it was, it was, it worked, it still works, that original one is still in there you know, a few years later and its reporting and people are getting paid because of it. So, it, it does show sometimes just pushing and trying and, and taking those steps you know, it, it definitely pays off.
Elliot Moss
And being weird. Uh, Ryan Edwards my weird Business Shaper today, rather successful as well, he’s the Founder and CEO of Audoo and he had the audacity to take this to Australia and it’s all working out rather well.
Ducking and diving, inventively making it up as you go along by the sounds of it in a really, in a, in a fabulous way. Now you seem to be a person who wears his stress very lightly, if you have any stress, you sort of… I mean do you get stressed? You don’t look like you do?
Ryan Edwards
Yeah, I think um, I internalise it quite well um because I think you have to particularly when you’re running a business day-to-day um, and also I’ve wrapped a brilliant team around me who, I think we’ve built those values in, we’ve built that culture within us to actually support each other and when somebody’s having that tough time or the bad then you just go, give them room to breathe and, and support them through it so yeah.
Elliot Moss
You build something, obviously this is 5 years ago, we were talking about the moment in November and now we are almost 5 years forward. It’s going gangbusters. You’re scaling, America is the next frontier.
Ryan Edwards
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Um, how do you retain that sense of what you stand for, that sense of tightness. What does your team look like these days? How do you deal with issues in the team.
Ryan Edwards
So I think there’s um, there’s a few things. I always say my, my first employee, Jess who runs our marketing is still with me um, she, she’s our culture queen so um, you know, she’s the one that is really upbeat, really positive and you know, the second somebody joins the business, it doesn’t matter what department they’re in, she wants to meet them straight away, whether they’re on the opposite side of the world or here. She’s straight on a Zoom, straight into them, getting them to go for a coffee and just really getting to understand them as a person. So we’ve got you know, team members like Jess who have really helped shape our culture and make sure, particularly if I am travelling, I’ve got to go off somewhere, that she can be here kind of, kind of keep the atmosphere and keep the drive going as well.
Elliot Moss
How did you, how would you define the atmosphere? Or the vibe?
Ryan Edwards
Um, I think um, I think super positive, super happy most of the time. I’m sure you know, not every day um, but actually where the team really challenge and really hold each other to account as well so if somebody has fallen behind on something, it’s like actually why have they fallen behind, how can we help them, how can we kind of all roll our sleeves up and get in on it um, as well so yeah.
Elliot Moss
And juxtaposing that with, I mentioned the, the celebrity investors, obviously very famous, big names in the music industry.
Ryan Edwards
Yep.
Elliot Moss
What does that do internally as well? It must be quite exciting that Sir Paul McCartney or Sir Elton John or Björn from Abba…
Ryan Edwards
It’s the same.
Elliot Moss
…I mean that’s, those are about the biggest names in the music industry.
Ryan Edwards
Completely so yeah, I think it’s um, for us you know, we still see ourselves as this little tech, this, this like little project that we’re, we’re doing and we are working on but it’s validation, it’s for them to go out and explain you know, to their families and their friends of, hey look at what we’re doing here you know, I mean I always joke since, since the band and retail, most of my career was kind of digital and data and technology and I still don’t think my parents really knew what I do you know.
Elliot Moss
Do you think they know now?
Ryan Edwards
No, I think they are getting it now but you know like, I always get like, so when I was at Visa I headed up data and we were doing a lot of data insight with kind of airlines and retailers and I remember my dad, he’d been in an M&S store once and he’d seen a Visa logo at the till and he said, oh was that your team son? And I just, yeah it was you know because it was just easier than try and…
Elliot Moss
Yeah there’s a few hundred thousand people that work there.
Ryan Edwards
Exactly yeah.
Elliot Moss
But that was my logo.
Ryan Edwards
Yeah just go with it, just because it was just easier but I think having that and kind of going, you know, oh going back to parents or back to you know, even the tiers families, started a business, okay cool. I’ve raised some investment, okay cool. By the way Björn from Abba just got in touch. What? You know, all of a sudden it’s like, okay what does that mean? Like, you’re not talking to him though right? You’re talking to his team? No, no I’m talking to him directly. He now calls me directly which is kind of weird moments that you have in your life and then for, and then you get this message, Björn has told Elton’s team and then they’ve told another team and you just, you have these moments. I had it really recently um, with the guys from U2 uh, which is just god of a band and they, they were, they played The Sphere in Las Vegas and they said, oh yeah um, David had turned up and they of course, they’re talking about David 24.43 and we were talking about you back stage. There is no way ever in my life right, that that was happening, it’s just… but you do, you have these little moments and I think you know, you get to tell them to the team, you get to share them, your team get to go to some pretty cool events as well you know, we get invited to The BRITS and you say, great it’s your turn to go to The BRITS, to The Ivors, to all these kind of things and they’re in the room with um, I think what we would probably all describe as greatest or just gods that we all adore um, and I think that’s it, they, they you know, there’s, there’s the tech element to it but actually it’s the really sexy music bit and we get to play.
Elliot Moss
If you need someone to make the tea, I am available. Final chat with my guest today Ryan coming up, Ryan Edwards that is in a few minutes. We’ve got some music from The Black Keys for you as well, that’s in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
Ryan Edwards is my Business Shaper just for a few more minutes. You’re very humble Ryan and from get go, we’ve spoken about the influence your mum and dad had, the fact that you know, you had this massive knock from the heights of 80,000 people watching you to zero, you go out to the shops um, you talked so gently about your career before this business. It’s incredible I mean to me um, I, I guess my question is, there’s nothing you can be taught about that, that is just within you. Do you pinch yourself a lot about where you’ve got to in life?
Ryan Edwards
Uh, every second of every day um, because it’s, as you’ve said, this was never the plan right, you know, I, I, I joke, actually I joked to friends of my daughter’s um, you know over the weekend at a 6 year, 7 year old’s birthday party you know that this was just a small idea that really got out of hand. It just kept going um, but I think, I think that’s part of, part of life. I think it’s um, you know, grew up in the Midlands, you know, they wouldn’t let you kind of get above your character, it’s just, it’s just not allowed in, in that kind of space so…
Elliot Moss
And yet you’ve got a dream because if you don’t dream this business which is you know, you are solving a major global problem.
Ryan Edwards
Of course.
Elliot Moss
Um, you’re kind of, no wonder the Elton John’s and the Paul McCartney’s love you because this goes to the heart of intellectual property.
Ryan Edwards
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
This goes to the heart of what’s going to happen in the world as we, as we move into AI and all sorts of things. So you’re very much the white knight but how do you keep your feet on the ground?
Ryan Edwards
Uh, um wife and daughter, they would brutally tell me very, very quickly um, I think the team that we spoke about but I think the, the one that I’ve always tried to do is wrap people round that really inspired us or that could really help us along the journey. So be it some of the people who invested, who were experts of their industry be it they came from finance and they could really help us put together a funding round, or we mentioned Cliff, you know, a rights lawyers who is amazing. Chris Herbert, music manager you know, Chris, Chris created every 90s band that I grew up listening to, pop band you know, it’s like my, my wife now still gets star struck when she sees Chris because like every, every t-shirt, every CD that she begged her parents for, you know, it was pretty much Chris had put it together you know, I think um, and her, her parents would like to ask him for some of that money back but like, it’s all these people who have been Titans of Industry but in the sectors and the parts of the industry that they’d really understood that we can go to and really lean on in different ways. And sometimes, and Chris is the perfect example, if I’ve had a really tough day or just something’s been tough, Chris is the one I just phone and moan at right, and he just listens and it’s really annoying because he never gives an answer but he just listens and he just keeps me talking and by the end of that 30 minute call I’m through it. It’s really, I’m like, how are you that wise, like, it’s too good. It’s, it’s driving me crazy but actually having guys like Chris, having you know Nigel who was the chairman of PRS who is just, just the Titan of that industry, everywhere you go, it doesn’t matter where I go in the world right and you say, hey Nigel’s our chairman, people are like, oh my god we adore Nigel, he is the best right. And then I think one of the other really pivotal moments I was just thinking about was um, you know, I’ve kind of got three employees at the time who were just getting ready to scan and build out some stuff and Abbey Road had um, an incubator called Abbey Road Red and we joined that uh, that programme so Isabelle who was the managing director there at the time, um, she said to me, this is great, she said, because you’re not one of those you know, AI companies, you’re not just something to do with producer rights or something, you’re really solving a business problem in this business and they, they backed us you know, you get to go and have your photo on the Abbey Road steps you know, I did early investment meetings there, I’d say to people, hey do you want to come and meet at the café in Abbey Road which was you know, kind of a…
Elliot Moss
Pretty good kudos.
Ryan Edwards
…a really big, big moment to use but actually you know, Isabelle left Abbey Road, she’s now the COO at Warner on the biggest music groups in the world and she came and joined as an advisor as well and carried on because we built that relationship of just trust there’s somebody that we could go to and I think that’s, that’s what’s always really helped up.
Elliot Moss
You’ve created something special um, I know people will come after you. In, in a word or in a sentence, why have you said no thank you, we still want to retain our independence? What is it about the independence that you want to, to protect Ryan?
Ryan Edwards
Um, I think we’re, we’re still growing like crazy and we’re having fun with it um, you know that doesn’t mean every day is fun, we have really tough days because we do but I think that the team are brilliant, the product is working, the customers that we’re working with are buying more and growing more and, and really working on it and they are seeing the benefit on the other side um and never say never because you know we’d be very hard on certain deals that come across the desk and it’s been hard to day, we’ve had three pretty serious ones that would have been you know, kind of almost generational wealth, not just for me but for team members and other people but everybody keeps saying, look you don’t stop now right, you know, your, your passion is there, your energy is still there you know, keep going and I think you mentioned the, the craziness and I think you know, sometimes maybe I’m able to shut myself off from some of it and go actually come on, head down and keep going just forget everything and all the outside noise.
Elliot Moss
It’s been great talking to you.
Ryan Edwards
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
Um, lovely, a real pleasure actually and a treat, head down, keep going. I’m going to remember that today. Um, just before I let you go, what is your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Ryan Edwards
Uh, so my song choice is uh, Cantaloupe Island, Herbie Hancock uh, I just think it’s a beautiful piece, it’s been covered many, many times. I’ve played you know, growing up kind of funk versions of it, upbeat versions, slow versions um, and yeah just many things and it’s, it’s my, always my go to if somebody says to me, chose a jazz song it wouldn’t be my jazz record, that would be Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, it’s just perfection but uh, this song is just yeah, it’s just awesome.
Elliot Moss
Herbie Hancock with Cantaloupe Island, the song choice of my Business Shaper today Ryan Edwards. He talked about taking small steps, think about each step, don’t worry about all of the steps you need to take. ‘This is what I found’, the fact he happened upon it rather than he was going looking for it. He found the problem. ‘Just a small idea that got out of hand’, in his words. What a lovely way of talking about the serendipity of life. And he’s brought people along with him who can help him, he’s put people on that board, a really smart and humble thing to do. And finally again, back to the humility of, of Ryan, ‘head down, keep going’, that’s his mantra, that’s why it’s working so well. That’s it from Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that addition of Jazz Shapers, you’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search ‘Jazz Shapers’ in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.