Matthew Tilly Featured in MMF US Webinar

MMF US Webinar - "Building Sustainable Artist Careers: Diversifying Revenue, Fan Relationships & Superfan Communities"

Matthew Tilley, beatBread's Head of Artist & Industry Development, joined Celena Fields and Litza Roumeliotis for a conversation aroud how today's artists are building sustainable careers by diversifying revenue streams, engaging their audiences, and cultivating communities of superfans. Matthew, Celena, and Litza shared strategies, business models, and practical approaches that independent artists and their teams are using to grow their careers while maintaining creative and business control.

Speakers: 

Sharon Tapper (Executive Director, Music Managers Forum US) 

Selena Fields (Head of Artist Relations, Even) 

Litza Roumeliotis (Director of Artist & Partner Strategy, Even) 

Matthew Tilley (Head of Artist & Industry Development, beatBread)

Watch the full webinar here:

Sharon Tapper: Hello, welcome everybody. My name is Sharon Tapper. I'm the Executive Director of the Music Managers Forum US. We're so glad you've joined us today, whether this is your first time or you've been with us before — welcome, you're all welcome to be here.

If you're not already familiar with us, here's a quick background on who we are. The Music Managers Forum was founded in 1993 and is the leading trade association for artist managers and self-managed artists in the US. We're a registered 501(c)(6) not-for-profit organization, and our work is powered by the support of our members and the generosity of our sponsors — one of which is beatBread, and we're really appreciative of them for putting this webinar together. If you're not yet a member, we'd love you to join us — just head over to our website, mmfus.com, and click the application form.

The core of what we do is rooted in three pillars: education, networking, and advocacy. Through webinars like today, we provide ongoing professional development to support managers and artists navigating the ever-evolving music industry. Advocacy, to ensure that artists, managers, and self-managed artists have a collective voice to shape a fairer, more transparent industry. And we also foster connection and community, both virtually and in person, like today's webinars, community meetups, and our all-day in-person summits.

We currently support a nationwide network across nine regional chapters: LA, New York, Nashville, Miami, Chicago, Austin, Boston, Atlanta, and most recently Philadelphia. These chapters host local events, foster peer-to-peer networking, and provide community-driven support and professional development for artist managers and self-managed artists in their respective markets. We're also proud to be a member of the IMF, a group of 60 MMFs around the world — Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Australia — all connecting managers and music industry opportunities around the world. We're grateful to be part of that as well.

If you want to stay in the loop with what we're doing going forward, sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter at mmfus.com, or follow us on social media at MMFUS.

So, thank you for your patience — let's get down to why we're all here. Today's webinar explores how artists are building sustainable, long-term careers by diversifying revenue streams, strengthening fan relationships, and creating communities of superfans. As the music industry continues to evolve, independent artists and their teams are finding new ways to grow their business while maintaining creative and financial independence. Our speakers will share practical strategies, innovative business models, and real-world insights into building stronger artist businesses in today's rapidly changing landscape.

Before we start, we want to offer special thanks to Matthew Tilley for bringing this webinar idea to MMF US and for helping assemble such an outstanding panel of speakers for you all to experience today. So, special thank you to Matthew at beatBread and to Even for partnering with us and sharing their expertise with the MMF community.

I'm delighted to welcome our featured speakers. We've got Selena Fields, who is Head of Artist Relations at Even, with nearly a decade of experience spanning artist management, streaming, labels, distribution, and brand partnerships. She leads artist acquisition and strategic partnerships at Even. Her previous leadership roles at Love Renaissance, Human Re Sources (part of Sony), Orchard, and Apple Music have given her extensive experience developing marketing and streaming strategies for artists at every stage of their careers.

Joining Selena is Litza Roumeliotis, Director of Artist and Partner Strategy at Even, with more than a decade of experience across radio, touring, major labels, and artist strategy. Litza has worked closely with artists including TLC while leading fan engagement, release strategy, and industry partnerships. Today she helps build stronger, more meaningful relationships between artists and their audiences through innovative artist-first business models.

And last but not least, we've got Matthew Tilley, who's Head of Artist Industry Development at beatBread. Matthew brings more than 25 years of experience developing innovative marketing and artist development campaigns for some of the world's best-known artists. At beatBread, he helps artists access flexible funding solutions that empower them to grow sustainable careers while maintaining greater creative and business control of their careers.

Selena, Liza, and Matthew — thank you for joining us today, and I'll hand the floor over to you.

Litza Roumeliotis (Even): Hey guys, thank you so much for that, Sharon. We're so excited to be here and teach you a little bit more about Even and how you can go direct-to-fan and really own your audience. My name is Litza, Director of Artist and Partner Strategy, accompanied by Selena, and our very close friend Matthew, who we love at beatBread.

I'll quickly jump in and give an overview of what Even is and how artists are using it. I'll then share my screen and show you some example campaigns using two different models we currently use at Even, and then I'll hand it to Selena, who'll go through the tools and analytics that artists and managers get access to on our platform.

The way we like to position Even is as the infrastructure that allows you to sell direct-to-fan — for artists at all different levels, whether you're a developing artist or a well-known independent artist like Chance the Rapper or J. Cole, both of whom have used the platform. You can use Even as your direct-to-fan strategy before you release to DSPs. We like to think of Even as almost a movie theater premiere for your music and content before you upload it to DSPs and other platforms — giving fans early access to experiences and music, and really making them feel special.

Fans often get access to these experiences behind a paywall. We're known for our pay-what-you-want model, where you set the minimum price, but fans can pay above what's being asked just because they're excited to support their favorite artists. About 30 to 40% of fans pay above what's being asked. In return, the artist gets data on who their fans are — first name, last name, emails, phone numbers, and how much they paid. With Even, you get access to all your first-party fan data; we hand that over and don't use it to market to your audience ourselves.

A couple of other standout features: we report data to Luminate, so if charting is a priority, you can set up a campaign via Backstage (which Selena will cover shortly) and make sure it's charting-eligible — there are various rules with Luminate, and we help make sure your campaign abides by them so your sales on Even count toward first-week sales. We're an app compatible with Android and iOS, and we're a global company — we have site translations, accept over 140 different currencies and payment methods, and are accessible globally, expanding payment methods and languages based on partner needs.

Even is really a tool to go direct-to-fan, own your fan data, and get paid as frequently as daily — using that early access and early monetization to sharpen and strengthen your DSP releases.

I'll share my screen and walk through what some campaigns on Even look like. We currently support two models. The first is our Marketplace release — a campaign that can go live in a matter of minutes, set up directly through your Even portal as an artist or manager.

With Even, music is often the first pillar — artists offering early access to upcoming music or launching album pre-orders. All-American Rejects, for example, offered early access to their album on the Marketplace, revealing some of the tracklist but keeping the rest hidden until purchase. What really strengthens a campaign is additional access points — All-American Rejects offered things like BTS photos, exclusive video content, and an exclusive fan chat room that lives directly in Even. We have proprietary software and work closely with Audible Magic to ensure exclusive content and music stays protected on the platform; we can help issue takedowns and track leaks, though we haven't had a leak to date. J. Cole has about 20 hours of unreleased content that lives directly on his Even campaign, which speaks to how aggressive we can be about takedowns.

Another example — an artist named Lorie [as captioned] had a new album with early access behind the paywall, plus extensive additional offerings: a FaceTime call, limited merch, VIP meet-and-greets, BTS videos. As a fan, you click "get access," choose a price point (which shows what you unlock at that tier), and go through the flow — no account creation required, just a phone number or email and two-factor authentication, which is how we capture that fan data. There's also a gifting option, letting fans purchase an experience for a friend, turning fans into marketers.

That's Even Marketplace. Our next model is Even Studio — a more white-label experience living on its own unique domain. An example is a campaign we did for Jesse Reyez: instead of going to even.biz, fans go to a unique domain she selected, called "A Little Vengeance" (the name of her album). One important note: Even is not a discovery platform, so artists need to actively drive fans there — the conversation starts on socials, with a link in bio. This is a white-label experience — minimal Even branding, just "powered by Even" at the bottom — on-theme for the artist. Fans get access to her album plus eight exclusive bonus tracks not available anywhere else.

Even Studio is meant to encourage fans to not just purchase, but stay and engage — for example, through a community chat feature, accessed via phone number or email plus two-factor authentication. We also launched a tour site for Jesse, embedding tour presale and tickets — a point of CRM data capture even before she's fully announced her tour dates.

Both models are a space to create a direct-to-fan campaign where fans purchase exclusive content and music and stay engaged through features like community chat. I'll hand it to Selena to walk through the analytics and data you get access to, which you can use to market your DSP campaigns further down the line.

Selena Fields (Even): Thanks, Liza. What I'll share now is Even Backstage — essentially your hub for setting up release campaigns, tracking fan data, and connecting directly with fans.

This is a sample release I created a couple years ago — I set up a campaign with about 12 tracks, set a minimum price of $2.22 and a suggested price of $11.11. As an artist, you set your own price points; we never dictate what it needs to be, though we have guides to help you decide, and you can use fan data from previous releases to inform pricing. On the back end, there are revenue splits — you can share a percentage with your team — and you can tier out the release, so fans see exactly what they get access to at each tier.

We also prepare marketing assets for each release that you can share directly with fans — whether it's a pre-order, gifting options, or thank-you messages — and you can share results. With this particular release, I made almost $800 from 39 fans (I'm not actually an artist, just worked on this with friends — it's never too early to get started).

The release analytics show everything: with this release I made almost $750 from 40 fans, average checkout price of $18.54. My suggested price was $11.11, but it looks like quite a few fans paid more than the minimum — across the platform, about 30 to 40% of users pay more than the minimum, and we've seen fans purchase albums for up to $20,000. We also show your streaming equivalent — to make this revenue via streaming I would have needed about 211,000 streams, versus making close to $3 off of 242 streams here. You can see your top-spending fans, their payment method, how much they spent, their currency, your top cities (helpful for touring), and where people are finding your release from (Instagram, direct links, Google, etc.).

We also have Fan Connect, our back-end CRM tool — free to use. This lets you take your fan data and set up campaigns, like a new merch drop — you can see how many people received it, click-through rate, and so on. You can send SMS or email, customize the message, import or export your fan contacts (e.g., to another CRM), segment your audience, schedule sends, and customize your outbound phone number.

There's also Even Links — for example, a QR code at the side of a show to collect fan data you can message later — and fan insights showing where fans are from (useful for pricing tickets in different markets), how many fans are returning, and where your growth opportunities are. You can message top spenders directly to say thank you.

That's Even in a nutshell. We also have a membership feature — a space to collect monthly payments from fans, similar to Patreon. I know we're close on time, so I'll stop there, but happy to answer questions or have Litza jump in on anything I missed.

Litza: I think you nailed it — that's Even in a nutshell, your go-to direct-to-fan platform. We encourage you to check it out and utilize those tools and analytics.

Sharon Tapper: Thank you so much — that was really wonderful to learn. We have a couple of questions, and I have some as well.

Q (Claire Wellin): How is Even different from Bandcamp, and what does it offer that Bandcamp doesn't?

Selena: We always encourage our artists and teams to use both Even and Bandcamp — it's not Even or streaming, it's Even and streaming. Think of Even as the infrastructure layer of your overall marketing — built for artists at scale, providing first-party fan data, email and SMS marketing, and Luminate-approved sales (the charting component), the CRM component, early behavior insights, plus the full support of our artist relations team and customer service. At a high level, the mechanics operate similarly to Bandcamp, but Even adds more of a community and fan layer — artists upload photos, videos, stems, drum kits, zines, all accessible through their Even library and app. We're operating in the e-commerce/marketplace space too, but adding that fan layer plus business-side support. We recommend using both — whatever works well for you.

Q (Eric): Has there ever been a case where an artist changed the suggested payment once a project went live, because they wanted to add another tier of services?

Litza: Absolutely — best practice is to communicate the change to your audience (e.g., "that was an early-bird price"). You have the freedom to expand your tiers over time — start with one offering, then in a couple weeks add more — just make sure you're communicating so fans aren't confused about why prices are changing.

Q (Misca): Does this have an API?

Selena: Not an external-facing API right now — that lends itself more to the Even Studio model, where we build Even on top of your own website. We do have integrations available, though, if you want to connect pixels for tracking, or bring contacts over to another CRM/community tool.

Q: Are you making deals with labels and distributors to scale up, or is everything direct-to-artist only?

Selena: We started with artists, and now have partnerships with a handful of majors as well as independent labels and distributors — but it's still accessible to independent artists across the board. We work with everyone from developing artists to J. Cole and Jesse Reyez, in partnership with their labels.

Q: Could this be used to sell VIP passes for a tour?

Selena: Absolutely — we've seen a lot of artists use the platform for in-person events. One example: a Canadian rapper set up a $250 price point for up to 10 fans to become "VIP for life," getting automatic VIP upgrades at every show he tours for. We've also seen artists get creative — one early example offered a $2,000 tier where he'd fly to your house and perform his album in your living room, and did it a couple times.

Q: How do we get access to Even Studio to run campaigns?

Selena: Even Studio is currently a bit more reserved for priority/top-tier artists — it's a conversation to identify if it makes sense, since it requires more bandwidth from the Even team. There's no specific threshold I can share, but we can figure it out together. The plan is eventually to make Even Studio available to every artist. If it's not the right fit yet, Marketplace mirrors a lot of the same capabilities as Studio.

Q (Tika): Does Even support live listening parties or stream release premieres for singles? What tools or best practices do you recommend to make a release feel communal and event-based for fans?

Selena: We often see artists offer live streams or release parties to celebrate a release with their day-one fans. On Marketplace, that's often a Zoom or webinar link — fans purchase the tier, you get their phone number/email, and on release day you send a unique link to join a call. On Even Studio, we have live-stream capabilities built directly into the site — for example, we recently did one with B2K, where fans went to a specific page at a specific time to watch the stream directly on their Even Studio site.

Sharon: Where should people go with questions or to get started?

Selena: For any inquiries, or to get started with Even, email artistrelations@even.biz.

Sharon: Thank you so much — Selena and Litza, thank you, feel free to stay on. We're now going to move to Matthew and beatBread.

Matthew Tilley (beatBread): Hello, Sharon. We were just commiserating about England being knocked out of the World Cup yesterday — so between that and having a bit of a cold, I'm not at my best today, but I'll power through and hopefully impart some wisdom and be as engaging as the wonderful ladies from Even — that was a great presentation.

I'm going to start with a quick video, then a presentation, then a demonstration, and hopefully time for questions. I'll go fast — off we go.

[Video plays — beatBread promotional video, paraphrased: beatBread offers music funding for artists and labels with more choice — funding for masters or publishing from $1,000 to over $10 million; choice of deal terms, whether to fund existing music, new releases, or both; how much monthly income to keep; deal length; and whether to keep full catalog ownership or explore an outright sale. Funding is available regardless of current distributor. Independent labels can use it for marketing, operations, exiting bad deals, or signing more artists. Unlike labels, distributors, or other music finance companies, beatBread is described as an open platform, matching qualifying artists and labels with offers from multiple distributors and finance companies via a deal-comparison tool that models fees, income, and time to recoup under different scenarios — closing with the tagline "beatBread: more choices, better funding."]

So, a bit of background on beatBread. What is it? I like to start with what we're not — we're not a label, not a distributor, not an artist services company. We provide musicians and their partners with funding — that's what we do. It's all based on data science and business process, with a lot of automation behind the advances. Our mission is to empower independent artists and independent labels by expanding access to working capital to power the next phase of their career or business.

Quick origin story: our founder, Peter Sinclair, was at Harvard Law, then McKinsey, then various startups — never in music. He joined Universal Music in 2015, his first job in music, and had the idea after seeing how many artists and managers had their own teams and services and didn't really need the label — except to get the advance, the check that would power the next phase of their career. He thought there must be a better way to get artists that check without taking control of their rights and careers. He met his co-founder, a data scientist who'd built AI models in insurance and energy markets, and together they bought a large dataset from Luminate and built an algorithm to predict future streaming for individual songs.

We were founded in 2020 — a team with deep experience in music, finance, data science, AI, and machine learning, creating new funding opportunities for artists, labels, and distributors. All advances are algorithmically driven — there's no A&R, nobody's listening to the music or judging artists on appearance; it's all data. We've done about 2,000 advances so far, and comparing our predicted monthly income against actual income across our portfolio, the two numbers have never been more than 3% apart — some deals perform better, some worse, but in aggregate it's tight enough to keep the business running.

For artists and songwriters, advances generally range from $1,000 up to $5 million; for labels, $20,000 up to $10 million. Individual artists need about $100 in monthly income to qualify — roughly 10,000 monthly Spotify listeners. Labels need around $2,000 in monthly income. In all cases, we need six months of detailed distribution reports to start an analysis.

What artists get with beatBread: choose an advance against streaming revenue, publishing revenue, or both; keep 100% ownership of the music (our deals are a purchase of revenue for a period of time, not ownership or a license); no interest — we take a share of income, so if the income does well, we both do well and the deal recoups faster, and if streaming underperforms, we do worse too, meaning the amount owed can never go up (unlike a loan, where missed payments make the balance grow). There are over 200 different advance options; you choose your own distributor and marketing partners (we work with 40–50 different distributors); you choose which tracks to include (a few songs, a couple albums, or the whole catalog); you can choose to keep a share of your monthly income (at a somewhat lower advance amount); and you choose deal length — one, two, three, five, sometimes eight, and sometimes even 20-year deals. The 20-year deal is meant to mimic what you'd get from an outright catalog sale, without actually selling it — Matthew noted he's a big advocate for artists retaining ownership and control, since you only get to sell your catalog once. You can also choose whether to include future releases (e.g., funding against your next five or ten songs) or not.

On process: funding can take as little as about 10 days, sometimes three or four weeks — not a long, drawn-out process. There's also the beatBread Funding Network — for artists willing to change distributors, several partner distributors will bid on a deal, often paying more than beatBread would directly, though it can take a bit longer to close; larger advances generally take longer to recoup.

On the product itself: go to beatbread.com, choose "artist," enter the artist's name, create an account, and estimate last month's streaming income. This generates advance estimates — you can choose sound recording, songwriting, or both; catalog-only or plus five/ten new songs; whether to keep a percentage of income each month; deal length; and whether to change distributors. These are estimates, shown as ranges. If interested, you click "get funding now" and upload distribution reports (downloaded directly from your distributor) — that review process takes a couple of days, after which you get actual confirmed offers with real dollar amounts that update as you adjust deal terms, plus tooltips and videos explaining each option. You can design the deal that works best, book a call for help, and once you choose one, generate a PDF deal summary to review or download.

The website also has a Knowledge Center with resources — including videos from Wendy Day, a strong advocate for independent artists — blog articles, and a services page listing companies beatBread works with for registering, promoting, or recording music (Matthew joked he'd make sure Even gets added to that list). In short: beatBread provides advances, has done about 2,000 of them, and has some very happy customers.

Sharon: Thank you so much — we love Wendy Day, what a font of knowledge in this industry. We have a few questions, plus some of my own.

Q (Manuel): How many artist deals do you do per month?

Matthew: We've pretty consistently averaged about one a day — 30 in a fairly typical month, sometimes up into the 50s, sometimes dipping into the 20s around Christmas. They also fluctuate in size.

Q: Is it possible to get funding only on new releases, and how frequently can funding be allocated?

Matthew: Unfortunately, not new-releases-only — our capital comes from an investment fund that believes in our algorithm, but the catalog is the anchor that helps guarantee a return, and we need that six months of data. We'd like to eventually get to a place where the data is strong enough to fund purely on new music, but right now the fund requires some catalog in the deal — even just one album or a few tracks. For artists stuck in an unrecouped deal elsewhere, we've sometimes helped them buy out of that deal (e.g., advancing $100,000 against a $30,000 unrecouped balance) so their catalog becomes available. On frequency — about 25% of artists come back and re-up their deal once it's going well (say, two years into a five-year term), typically about once a year at most, since there isn't headroom in the deal for more frequent renewals. If people are coming back, that's the best endorsement of repeat business you could ask for.

Q: Does beatBread offer an API or other integration options for music companies and distributors?

Matthew: Email me directly — matthew[at]beatbread.com (Matthew with two T's) — there are various things in the works I won't get into here.

Q (Sammy): So beatBread essentially works like investment fund money for artists, similar to a business, and they use it however they need to help their career?

Matthew: We love when people invest in their careers, but we've had artists buy houses, pay off loans, all kinds of things — our contract does require it be used for a business purpose (a legal formality), but we're not policing that closely. The original concept was to help artists fund their careers without giving up their rights, which allows some flexibility in how it's used.

Q: Are there key differences comparing Duetti or Sound Royalties with beatBread?

Matthew: I'm aware of those companies but not every intricacy of their deals. Duetti, I believe, buys your rights (or a portion) in perpetuity — that's the main difference, since you're giving something up permanently. Sound Royalties, I don't believe offers advances against new releases, only catalog, and I think their minimum is around $5,000 a year in earnings, versus about $1,200 a year for us.

Q: Is there a minimum threshold people should know before starting the process?

Matthew: Around $100 a month in income, roughly 10,000 monthly Spotify listeners — though it's a bit of a gray area since it also depends on momentum; if you're trending downward, you may not get an offer, and you won't know until the system runs the numbers. Generally, someone making $100/month consistently or growing will get an offer.

Q: Are you worldwide, or focused on certain territories?

Matthew: It can be everywhere, though data in Southeast Asia can be trickier, and it depends on your distributor — if you're with a distributor we work with often (Tunecore, CD Baby, DistroKid, etc.), it's easy; if you're on a distributor we've never worked with in a market like Vietnam, there may be a few more hurdles, but we try to make it work in most situations.

Sharon: I think that's all the questions — your email one more time in case anyone thinks of something?

Matthew: Matthew (with two T's) at beatbread.com.

Sharon: Well, look at that — we're dead on time! Thank you, this has been amazing. We're so grateful to the three of you for taking time out of your busy schedules to share this information, knowledge, and insight with our community today — helping our members learn how to navigate this ever-changing, complicated world, and giving them options, which is what we always try to do. Thank you again, and thank you to everyone who attended. Follow us at MMFUS, and enjoy the rest of your day and the rest of the summer.

Matthew: Thank you. Thank you, everyone.