One thing I have learned during the pandemic that I’m not a guy wearing many hats. I’m a serial entrepreneur in the music industry.
Being an entrepreneur is maybe a harder thing during the pandemic, you really want to get things done, and done now. Of course, the restrictions have been bad, but as an entrepreneur you just get around it and make it work anyway. During the pandemic, I have worked hard with the whole team to make Cashbox radio sound better. Still, the station became a priority focus and since it was online it was a perfect project that has developed and grown. I also the European Consultant for an online music offering with a special one hour presentation called “Heal the Earth” in celebration of Earth Day 2021. Check out the Heal the Earth video here:
On top of that, I have been planning the new Showcase Festival, Future Echoes, but of course, that project is still pending different restrictions due to Covid-19. I haven’t sat on my fat arse doing nothing. Entrepreneurs are people that are active thinkers. Obstacles are there to overtake. What has made me angry is though have many fake entrepreneurs that have come about during the pandemic. What is a fake entrepreneur? That is a person that mainly just does a lot of talking about doing things. The start-up world is full of these people. People that are mainly doing online conferences and interviews with entrepreneurs and then call themselves entrepreneurs. In reality, they are mainly just annoying people with no valid function.
During the pandemic, these people had a great time blaming the pandemic as the reason that they couldn’t get anything done. Some even set this function into the system. What they do is to get an idea and then just go around and ask for funding money for this idea to make it happen. The problem is that it will never happen. If the idea is good enough you should be working on a small scale to test it out and during a period of time scale it up when money comes in. So they just gather money to get more money and the idea is never developed.
Right now I have seen a huge increase of these fake people in the culture sector. Too many of them have jumped on to do things online. To create online presentations, it does not require a lot of effort. However, in order to create great product you need a hell of an effort and some have really done it well. No, here we are talking about just getting on Zoom then sitting and discussing how you get things done.
Why? You just get out there and get things done, those are the only people that are real entrepreneurs, the rest are just talkers and we really don’t need them. The latest in Sweden is also that one of these people has now started a school where they will discuss how they should do something!
Why am I so angry with all these fake entrepreneurs? If you are an artist, these are the people that steal the money that you could have feasibly been given to artists to support recording songs, making online shows, pr etc to do whatever most musicians usually do.
If you are a real entrepreneur and trying to make things happen even if there is a pandemic going on. It is a big shame that charlatans like this are taking money are doing nothing.
Editor’s Note: Peter Åstedt has been working in the music industry for over 30 years. He has started record labels, distribution systems, and publishing companies. Peter also runs several major showcase festivals and is an advisor for INES and co-founder of MusicHelp/Discover Sensation. He has worked with the Top Ten most streamed songs and had music on both the Olympics and Super Bowl. Peter has currently taken up the seat of Station Manager of Cashbox Radio, working with MD, PD and station owner, Sandy Graham. As well he recently worked as the European Consultant for Heal the Earth – An Earth Day Celebration. His latest venture is a new Showcase Festival in Sweden, Future Echoes scheduled for September 16-18, 2021.