This week, we continue our series of profiling Nashville based startups in partnership with
TNB – How do you explain ItyDity to someone who is unaware?
Emily– It’s sort of like match.com for artists and producers – or if you’re familiar with 99designs.com, we say we’re the 99designs of music. In short, it’s the only platform where artists get to test out multiple producers, and receive specs to hear their song in different ways. Then, based on the quality and creativity of those specs, they can confidently hire the best producer for the job.
TNB– How does it work from the artist’s perspective?
Emily – Here are the steps:
1. Record your song into your phone or home device and upload it to ItyDity.
2. Fill out your Production Personality™ Assessment to build your authentic vision for your sound. Sit back as our global directory of producers pitch for their chance to produce your song.
3. Producers will send you written requests citing why they think they’d be the best fit and you pick 5 producers to move forward with. (Everything is FREE up to this point)
4. Each producer creates different sketches of your song so that you can hear your song in different ways and test out what each producer could do with it, before choosing your ONE favorite.
5. You and your final producer work together to complete your song to absolute perfection. You receive a fully produced, radio-ready song with best possible production, tailored to your brand and style and retain 100% copyright ownership.
TNB – How does it work from the producer’s perspective?
Emily – The best part about our model is that we allow the truly talented producers to rise to the top and land clients based on their skills and abilities (as showcased through their specs) whereas we’ve heard from producers that on other platforms it’s very difficult for them to get work because they’re trapped beneath the producers at the top or buried beneath the noise of amateurs producers.
TNB – What are some success stories?
Emily – We have 100% success rate, meaning every artist who’s produced their song through our platform has loved the result and in many cases has gone on to form long term working partnerships with their final producer, off the site. For example, Maya Bennett, a Denver based artist went on to produce two albums with her Michigan based producer. Another artist Frank Morgan and his artist daughter Jacqui Morgan tested out producers globally, but ended up finding a producer just down the road from them who they liked best and they now collaborate regularly.
TNB – How do you hope the service will continue to gain traction in the marketplace?
Emily – Unfortunately it’s so commonplace to hear artists tell us about how often they’ve lost thousands of dollars working with a producer, and not liked the final result. We’ve also heard worse stories about inappropriate behavior within these unmonitored, unregulated, often intimate settings (as has come more to light within #metoo – and as experienced by myself, when I was working with producers in my early 20’s). So what we provide with this spec work model (that also includes loads of artist development and data driven marketing support) is artist protection and empowerment. Our biggest hurdle will be continuing to find ways to communicate this value to the market. Right now we’re tackling that by funneling our resources into how-it-works videos and graphics paired with branded digital and educational content, plus ridiculously valuable FREE artist development tools. We want to set ourselves apart with care, honesty and transparency… because artists just haven’t gotten a lot of that in the past.
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About the founder
Emily Satterleeis is the CEO and Co-Founder of ItyDity.com. A singer-songwriter herself, Emily created ItyDity to empower artists in the production process and to help other songwriters avoid the common pitfalls and hardships that she experienced early on in her career. ItyDity uses proprietary technology and data driven AI to help artists discover their authentic sound, work with talented producers, and identify potential industry opportunities for marketing their music. Named by 303 Magazine as one of the “Top Badass Women In The Music Industry”, previous to ItyDity, Emily spent ten years organizing OC Songwriters, Orange County’s largest songwriter and production network as well as attending Orange Coast College studying music business, recording and production. In 2015, Emily helped launch SLC artist collective in Los Angeles, a full service production agency that aimed to help artists develop their sound and produce their music. Now with ItyDity, Emily is determined to provide a similar fostered support system to DIY artists… at scale.
