Record Producer Weku Did That on Entrepreneurship, Business and Beats

20 years ago, super producers like Timbaland, Pharrell Williams, Scott Storch and Swiss Beats just to name a few were getting paid over 100k for a beat, but since then times have changed and the cost for production has since dropped down with some producers to $0.00. Record producer Weku Did That shares some of his thoughts with us on how you can make money as a producer. Born Victor Onyenweaku, The Nigerian-American entrepreneur and University of Florida graduate majored in criminology while minoring in film and graduating with honors. He then went on to study for his master’s degree in business and entrepreneurship also at the University of Florida. He has been selling his services in the music and film industry professionally for almost 8 years, however he has been working as a record producer, cinematographer and creative director for 15+ years.

We asked what the process was for him when making the transition to selling your services as an entrepreneur? “When you decide that you no longer want to have a job where someone else makes your schedule, it’s a bit of a shock because you don’t necessarily know where to start. You don’t necessarily have to have a college degree to be a successful business owner, however the process might be a bit easier as far as navigating through the terrors that are investments, profits and losses. When you’re starting a business, no matter how much you try to foresee cost, I don’t think you can ever gauge your maintenance expenses for a business and depending on the business they can range from very little to a lot.”

Going further into cost, what would you say is the most expensive thing that you have purchased? He laughed and responded with, “Marketing”. Marketing is where most businesses fail. I failed horrendously at marketing when I first started because I would always try to cut my cost there. As a creative, the pressure of keeping up with the latest equipment versus buying what will get the job done at industry standard, versus just buying what your clients think is the industry standard is the hardest balancing act to hit. When it comes to being a producer figuring out what hardware to get and what plugins to buy, is difficult simply because you more than likely have friends that do the same thing and they want to steer you towards what’s best for them but you have to remember to have your own business model and what’s best for you won’t always be what’s best for everyone else. You can cut costs with equipment depending on where you are in your business model, but you can never cut costs with marketing.”

“Great companies like apple will run the same commercial over and over again simply because you can never over do the marketing even with your return customers, they always need reassurance in your product. Tapping in on the current state of music production and income that comes from it, would you consider it a viable source of income? People have to understand how the music industry works when it comes to getting a return. First off I feel like the time that you invest in it will always outweigh the return. However if you focus on all the different avenues that you can make money from your music I think you can make a very viable income from music. There is a lot of money to be made just from getting your music placed in movies or television, and beat leases are still a good source of income, along with selling sound packs. If a producer learns how to be a vocal engineer and mix his or own records that’s another way to make money, I mean it doesn’t have to come from just making beats.”

Any advice you can share with anyone trying to break into the business? “I would say be patient because Rome was not built in a day. Make sure you always have your paperwork in line, pay attention to your split sheets and your backend royalty percentages, make sure register your business as an LLC so you can protect yourself somewhat and get certain tax breaks, never cut cost on your marketing, establish important relationships business wise that will encourage growth because not every networking connect is worth it or for your success, don’t talk bad about anyone, keep your personal business experiences with people private and most of all remain creatively open.”

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