Startling Startups: Hookist – Social Songwriting Collaboration
What’s the best first line of a song about coming home? The answer may well be up to you, even if the singer is world famous.
Hook(ist) will hook you in.
As you’re about to find out. Songs take on a life of their own with Hook(ist), a glorious new use of the Web to create art with great musical artists. In keeping with choice applications like Zipcar, Hook(ist) is one of those rare intersections of the online world and the real one that really works.
Officially Hook(ist)’s creators dub their creation “a social songwriting event” – it’s an addictive platform that allows established artists to collaborate with fans and musicians to write an original song together, one line at a time. From there, visitors to Hook(ist) have a chance to get in the game in a whole new way with an artist they admire: They can submit their best lyric, inspire an artist they love (or are just discovering), and see how their creative chops measure up against an equally ambitious community.
Just a couple of months old, this startup, founded by NYC denizens Meredith Collins and Terry Derkach is off to a fast launch. Brad Roberts of Crash Test Dummies has been in on two games, while Gary Lucas (Gods & Monsters, Captain Beefheart) has one under his belt — you can hear the results of their collaborations with the Hookist community right here.
Currently in progress is a competition with The Bros. Landreth, with Ellen Reid (Crash Test Dummies) starting 10/7, and Antigone Rising due up after that.
And the metrics are healthy. In the few weeks since launch, the Hook(ist) audience very quickly became extremely engaged: than one month in, their users submitted almost 1500 carefully crafted lyrics, almost 3000 comments, and thousands of votes.
What’s making Hook(ist) hook on? And just how much work goes into getting something like this going? Keep reading, as Meredith Collins provides the insights.
Business Name: Hook(ist)
Website: http://www.Hookist.com
Location: East Village, Manhattan.
Launch Date: July 7th, 2014!
Vocation Inspiration
So, Hookist is a social songwriting collaboration where you get to write an original song, line by line, over a couple of weeks with a really respected artist.
How it came about is a long and winding story, but two things happened that kicked it all off. An acquaintance asked us to advise on a project where we found ourselves focused on the intersection of social games, social media and the power of a loyal fan base.
I’ve been in the entertainment industry my whole life as an actor, producer and camera person on feature films, and my partner, Terry Derkach, is a music producer and musician, so this was interesting to us.
Around the same time, a music artist I really love and, more importantly, really respect, tweeted a photo of a salad. A salad. This person is the epitome of rock royalty. A decade or so ago, artists wouldn’t even let their songs be used in commercials because it would hurt their image and be considered selling out, and now the music industry is so tough that the creme de la creme have to tweet photos of their lunch to stay in the public consciousness?
Granted, it may have been done tongue in cheek, but it just didn’t seem right to me. That’s when the lightbulb went on and we started to recognize the very real need for an authentic and meaningful way for artists to engage with fans. God knows fans want the access – look at all the credit card companies selling exclusive engagement opportunities – and the success of Kickstarter shows it as well.
So Hook(ist) is social media 2.0 – or is it 3.0? Whatever the next generation of social media is – where we can take advantage of this amazing technology that brings people together from around the world and do something as a community that actually has some substance, that’s also fun and creative and honors the artists’ craft – that’s what we’re trying to do.
We’re the ones who needed to create Hook(ist) because I couldn’t sleep for two months once we came up with the idea – which, like all good start up ideas, happened in the corner bar.
Revenue Streams
The official spiel is: Hook(ist) is a social songwriting collaboration that creates an authentic and meaningful way for well-known and respected artists to engage with fans, while monetizing their fan bases and creating a vibrant new marketplace to sell music, tix and merch.
At the same time, Hook(ist) gives fans, music lovers and aspiring artists the unique opportunity to write an original song with music’s most respected artists and gain insight into their particular creative processes.
Access to the entire community and all the collaborations is free. You can watch the artists’ daily-ish videos, build a profile page to promote your own work, check out our industry insider/ thought leader blog, and vote and comment on the lyrics being submitted in each collaboration all gratis.
To submit one-line lyric ideas that work with the established theme of the song, you use credits. You get a bunch for free when you sign up and then you can earn credits by answering trivia questions or you can purchase them. Eventually, you’ll be able to watch an ad to earn packages of credits.
Credits cost 49 cents, so they aren’t going to break the bank, but they create just enough friction to encourage people to really CRAFT something, rather than writing the crazy stuff you see on FB and Twitter.
We are lucky enough to have an audience that is highly engaged, so we’ll also be offering organic sponsorships to brands ranging from prizes to jingle contests and other cool ideas. We’ve just barely launched, so there are a ton of features and opportunities that have yet to be rolled out!
Getting Started
We launched with the incomparable bass-baritone, 3x Grammy nominee, Brad Roberts of Crash Test Dummies and it was fantastic!
Before we had even been notified that the site was up, people had already submitted lyrics and built profile pages. And it’s been pretty great ever since. Brad actually ended up writing two awesome songs with fans that you can listen to on our site.
(l-r) Hook(ist) founders Terry Derkach and Meredith Collins, with Gary Lucas.
Next was the incredible guitarist and Grammy-nominated songwriter, Gary Lucas, of Gods and Monsters and Captain Beefheart, who wrote a song with fans.
He co-wrote the landmark album, Grace, with iconic singer-songwriter, Jeff Buckley, and, in honor of the 20th anniversary, he let fans write the lyrics to a song he wrote with Jeff in mind. So, we’ve been having some really cool experiences.
Key Personnel: It’s just me and Terry right now!
Unique Offering: As far as I know, we’re the only social songwriting platform writing lyrics as a community.
We’re definitely the only place where you get such an intimate look into the creative processes of really respected artists and get to see a song evolve before your eyes — and even influence it. There are a couple music collaboration sites out there that are interesting. There’s one in particular that I’d love to partner with, but I’ll keep that a secret for now…
Expansion Action: In just these few weeks since launch, our audience very quickly became extremely engaged. In less than one month, our users submitted almost 1500 carefully crafted (and often beautiful) lyrics, almost 3000 comments, and thousands of votes.
We’ve discovered that it’s a very personal experience for people and the community has really bonded – it’s pretty fantastic. I’m really just learning the Google analytics lingo, but supposedly our numbers are “exceptional”.
Case In Point: We had a couple days in between Brad’s song and Gary’s song, and the community wanted to keep writing. We got bombarded with emails asking us to create a new game where they could write a song on their own.
It was so cool and awesome validation. We built it and they wrote an amazing song! Who says people aren’t looking for a creative outlet!
Glowing Testimonials: While we were building Hook(ist), we kept wondering if anybody else was going to find it as cool as we hoped it was going to be, so feedback has been the most awesome part.
We’ve actually gotten lots of emails and notes telling us how meaningful the experience has been – turns out everybody really does want to be a rockstar and they think being able to say “I wrote a line in a Crash Test Dummies song” is pretty darn cool.
People have even written to let us know about upcoming absences. One great guy wrote to us, promising to be back, explaining that he was taking his wife to the hospital to have a baby and would need a few days! And he literally posted a picture of his daughter later that day!
Why Being a Sonic Entrepreneur Rules: It’s so hard to be an artist. It’s hard to get exposure and it’s hard to keep things rolling even after you’re established. Terry and I both know the struggle.
So the goal is to help up and coming artists showcase their work and get kudos from music’s best, and to help the artists we all love and respect stay in the spotlight even while the business of music is in a perpetual state of disruption.
And we want to give people who just love music a really cool experience. We will be really psyched when we’ve achieved all that.
Why Some Days You Want to Pack It In and Get Your Real Estate License: Technology is so AMAZING…. until one tiny little thing gets out of whack and you want to throw your computer out the window.
The Ultimate Business Partner: Thomas Edison. He was a dreamer, he was brilliant and he failed a million times but never gave up.
Sage Advice: You gotta LOVE what you’re building and believe in it completely. People will try so hard to convince you it won’t work or to do things differently (often based on very little information). Take it in, evaluate it, but in the end, your strength lies in being true to yourself.
Anything else? Come write some great hooks with us!
— Meredith Collins, Co-Founder, Hook(ist)
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