Analysing my Taxi data

[bamtone]

Nice stats Rob!!!
Thanks for sharing that.
You've done great in that 3.5 years!!

[rdance]

yet another thing i like about the forums...lots of philosophers. with regard to the discussion on making a living in music, i will refrain from quoting plato or lao tzu or adam smith, and just say....muhnny, money money money money money money money money.

rob o., thanks for sharing your taxi history. it is helpful, probably more than you realize.

i hope more members do this, especially ones who have been around for a few years. (wasn't there a thread on this topic a couple of months ago?)

each is a story, and i imagine they are all a little different.

[andygabrys]

And ROI is a longer term indicator. It really doesn't mean much this early in the piece. It's like evaluating the ROI of an education whilst still at university. I'm still in learning/apprenticeship phase.

that's a decent way to view it.

as far as investment, if one is doing all production / mixing at home, this is a pretty low risk kind of game.

[brentmagstadt]

This is a fascinating thread.
I just ripped out my stats off the site as well, and they are, needless to say, illuminating.
Rob, thanks for that initial post.
Everything is so wildly objective in this business, it's crazy. But seeing these numbers give me 1) my history visually, and 2) provides targets to measure improvements against, moving ahead.

Being a hardcore analyzer, this is helpful for my headspace.
So, right on - thanks!

[funsongs]

Maybe I watch too much Shark Tank.

[Russell Landwehr]

. I'm still in learning/apprenticeship phase.

I just experienced a serious paradigm shift.

[jdstamper]

Hey Rob, thanks for sharing this.

I like to track my 'stats' too ... sometimes I get hung up on the numbers. But most important is to learn from the returns (and by that measure, I must be learning a lot!)

[RonKujawa]

Very helpful original post, Rob. Thank you, sir. I'm off to compile my own stats now.

Ron

EDIT:

Thanks for the inspiration to track this data myself, Rob. I found it very interesting.

submitted returned forward ratio
2011 9 7 2 22%
1st half '12 12 11 1 8%
2nd half '12 34 31 3 9%
1st half '13 35 31 4 11%
2nd half '13 16 13 3 18%

Although I wish the forwards were higher, it's good to see the numbers trending up. And it felt really professional to actually do the math.

[admin]

Rob,

You made one point that hardly anybody ever makes or credits TAXI with, so thanks for that:

"When I first started, I literally had no clues about the business or music for media."

Considering you've invested a mere $700 in membership and renewals over the three years, that seems like a very small price to pay to learn that an industry existed. Forget what you spent on submissions, as it's easy to see from your chart that you had what I call "Newmemberitis," but eventually got the hang of things.

When I started TAXI in 1992, it was virtually unheard of for indie musicians to get their music into libraries. Libraries were all done by charts and session players. They sounded canned and homogenous back then. I know because I used a ton of them in my second career as a post engineer at one of the top studios in the world.

I think Marc Ferrari was the only other guy to use any music from indies around that time in the early '90s. But the point is— and please excuse me for bragging a little here—but TAXI changed the world the day we first sent indie music to a small library in NY around 1993. How many thousands, maybe millions of musicians all over the world are now actively involved in pursuing careers in music for media, and the only investment it took for you to become aware of it, and get immersed in it at a pretty serious level level was $700... really, only the first $300!

I see people puffing out their chests on a site that rates music libraries, and often times they're slamming TAXI. But what they all forget is that TAXI opened up a world of possibilities for them. A world they didn't even know existed prior to TAXI. And now they pontificate like they're world class experts, rating libraries that accept their music with high marks, and those that hold a higher bar with lower marks.

So THANK you Rob for acknowledging that, "When I first started, I literally had no clues about the business or music for media." Nothing makes me feel like all the work I do has real meaning and purpose more than hearing that.

If I can jack the thread for a moment, I'd like to comment on one more related topic. Success is relative and subjectively personal to every individual. One person's success can very well be making $5,000 with music in addition to being a brain surgeon. Another person's success might be making $200,000 a year with his or her music. But in the end, you've only got so many hours in a week, so your income is limited by how much you can produce in that given time.

You could eventually start your own library and make money from the music of others, but the market is already overcrowded and it's probably too late to start. You'll also find out that if you gross $1,000,000, you'll need staff, sales people, office space, general insurance, E&O insurance, attorneys, accountants, utilities, marketing and advertising expense, healthcare for your staff, travel expenses, professional organization dues, etc., etc., etc. And after taxes, you'll net about $100,000 of that million you grossed. Trust me (and every other small business owner I know) on that.

But there are two things you CAN do to earn more with the given number of hours you have and your own two hands. Make BETTER music, and make the RIGHT music. Check in with the people who act like big shots on that site that rates libraries five or ten years from now. That VAST majority of them will still be making little to no money, yet acting like they're experts. Why?

Because they spend more time trying to impress other people rather than working hard on making great music. I got an email from a member thanking me because he made $30,000 with his music last quarter, and credits TAXI for that. He's never been on that site, yet he's very active on this forum, very generous with his advice, and nobody has any idea how much money he makes. But he once told me the same thing you said in your post, "When I first started, I literally had no clues about the business or music for media."

That you're aware of that, and stating it publicly tells me that you're on the right path. Worry less about stats, more about your music, and keep me apprised of your success five years from now.

Thank you!
Michael

[Casey H]

One person's success can very well be making $5,000 with music in addition to being a brain surgeon.

Don't tease my wife like that, Michael!!


Seriously, I always say Taxi rarely gets the credit deserved for the "indirect" successes and harder to quantify and measure aspects of what they do. The education, the community, the motivation from the listings, and so on. As I reflect back on the road rally, I am still in awe as to how much knowledge is shared by not just the industry folks, but by other members. And I think of all the tracks in music libraries which may have been Taxi returns at one time but would never have been written if not for a Taxi listing and maybe would never have been good enough if not for Taxi and member feedback.

And Rob (Cruciform), in addition to being mega-talented and persistent, is always the consummate professional in how he conducts himself. That goes a very long way.

Casey