BALTIMORE, MD –– Serial entrepreneur and music enthusiast Matej Harangozo and his business partner Tolu Owoyemi have launched an Indie Artist Accelerator that is making waves across the U.S. and around the world. It is an interactive, artist-forward business community to further disrupt the music industry and empower artists to turn their passion into a sustainable career.
Indie Artist Accelerator is an online digital incubator that serves as a roadmap to success for independent artists.
"I find that independent artists consistently face the same challenges: They are passionate about their art and great at creating music, but they do not know how to increase and convert their online fanbase into real revenue, or know very little about the actual business ” Harangozo said. "I teach them how to make it on their own. I teach them how to look at themselves a little bit more like a business than as an artist. Because of that — major labels don't like my business model. I'm disrupting the structure they've built and relied on for decades and making it easier for artists to get their fair share of the pie."
Led by Harangozo, the Indie Artist Accelerator provides unlimited access to the following features:
Artists can enroll for a fee of $59.95 per month. Little over 400 have already registered for the program, and new members are joining daily.
To learn more about how you can enroll in the Indie Artist Accelerator, call Digital Science Media at 443.812.6018 or email matej@opensourceent.com.
About Matej Harangozo
BALTIMORE, MD –– Starting April 19th, serial entrepreneur and music enthusiast, Matej Harangozo, will guest segment on the Clinton Sparks’ weekly Twitch show called “Win Big with Clinton Sparks” airing at 9 pm ET. Every Monday during the #musicbizweekly segment, Harangozo will present the latest trends and music business news while having banter back and forth with Sparks on the topics they’re seeing in the industry. Those interested in the music business or marketing in general can gain valuable knowledge by tuning in.
"Appearing on Clinton Spark’s Twitch show is an amazing opportunity and dream come true,” Harangozo said. “I’m looking forward to learning from an expert like Clinton while sharing some of the insights I’ve gained in working with talented music artists such as China Mac, OBAS, and Papa Duck."
Sparks is an entrepreneur, investor, executive, author, and marketing maven who is a Grammy-nominated-multi-platinum producer, DJ, and songwriter that has sold more than 75 million records. He has done production work for big-name artists including Lady Gaga, Pitbull, Big Sean, and more. During his decades-long career in the music industry, Sparks has gained a large following on social media and has nearly 5,000 followers on Twitch.
“I am excited to have someone as professional and insightful as Matej on the show to help further enlighten and educate the millions of viewers that want to learn and build a career in the music business,” Sparks said. “Get familiar!”
Harangozo is the creator and founder of Digital Science Media and the new virtual community: Indie Artist Accelerator. As an award-winning entrepreneur, innovator, and music enthusiast, Harangozo has also gained a substantial following on social media and has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and The Baltimore Sun. Together, Harangozo and Sparks are a powerhouse duo disrupting the space.
To learn more about the show or to tune in visit this site, call Digital Science Media at 443.812.6018, or email matej@opensourceent.com.
About Digital Science Media
Digital Science Media is the marketing arm of immigrant entrepreneur Matej Harangozo’s music business incubator/accelerator Open Source Entertainment. With the help of his business partner Tolu Owoyemi, the company represents breakout artists including Hello Sister, China Mac, the gospel record label Black Smoke Music, and many others under the hip hop industry legend Wendy Day.
Here is an excerpt from the podcast:
Ann Brennan: That for you, so what do you think the music industry is heading?
Matej: The trend that I really love is two major trends. One is people like myself and others probably Michael as well, is really educating the independent artists on the music industry. I've never seen more educational material out there about how to properly navigate through the music business. Now, you know, it is sort of a wild, Wild West industry because there's a thousand different ways you can grow your brand. But business one on one concept never go away. Supply and demand and how to set up Marketing Strategies for Artists or structures on Facebook or YouTube or whatever the case may be.
But there's one trend that is exciting me and I could see that because major labels don't like it. I've gotten pushback. I've gotten warning D.M. messages, which I'm not going to get into now. But that's one trend that excites me. The second trend is that everything in the music industry for art is and not just music, but even for content creators is starting to be monetized the proper way. So whereas five, six years ago, we're still living in this grey land of like, yeah, let me put our music on Spotify, on Apple Music, I'm getting pennies on the dollar and I'm working so hard. But it's just, you know, I can't find this consistent like monthly income to live off of for monthly musicians.
So now fast forward to 2021, its not just the streaming platforms that are out there, but you know, kind of like monthly, like Patreon, for example, or even, you know, only fans. I know it gets a bad name because of what type of people are monetizing their skills through only fans. But essentially it's like you build a fan base, you build the demand for what you're doing, and there's probably thousands of ways to monetize it, either given exclusive access or putting your music or content on all these major, major platforms that have finally, you know, getting around the law to make sure everything is properly monetized, that people are not stealing your intellectual property as a musician, that if they catch somebody else, you get to decide, OK, cool, I'm going to let them do a cover of my song, but I'm going to take eighty percent of their monetized revenue off YouTube.
They can keep twenty, because at the end of the day they’re branding me as well. So I'm excited about that trend and those two trends, specifically. More of the education for independent artists and the fact that everything is becoming more and more monetized and secure and the ability that artists can extract that monetization from their content.
Ann Brennan: Well, I have to say, as a mom of a young musician, I'm happy to hear that too. You were right. When you've got a son who says I'm going to be a musician, oh, great, let me open my basement for you. So hopefully that's not going to be the case. But you know what let's move on to something. The difference between being an entrepreneur and a business owner. Because we told people today that they would come here. We're going to talk about what it means to disrupt an industry and how they can use some of this information in their businesses? Talk a little bit about the difference between being an entrepreneur and being a business owner using Marketing Strategies for Artists.
To learn more and listen to the podcast, Listen Here
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[(L-R) Matej Harangozo, Bernard Porter | Download JPG]
New company offers a social media and digital marketing course in partnership with KSU College of Professional Education to help artists, musicians, and producers become successful in their careers independently
KENNESAW, Ga. –– Owner of Digital Science Media, Matej Harangozo, and CEO of PCG Artist Development, Bernard Porter, launched their joint venture - PCG Edutainment in the fall of 2020. The company provides college course curriculum and instruction in the fields of music, social media, digital marketing, and artist development edutainment. The latest partnership is with Kennesaw State University’s College of Professional Education as part of the Joel A. Katz Music and Entertainment Business Program.
The course “Social Media and Digital Marketing for Music Artists” will include two modules. The first module runs from June 1 to August 6, 2021 and the second runs from August 9 to October 8, 2021.
Sessions will be taught by the two music industry veterans - Harangozo and Porter - and focuses on the ever-changing music industry and social media platforms. This course explores the science behind building a strong artist brand online and strategies to master all the possible ways to monetize your music.
Students who enroll in the course at Kennesaw State University can expect to learn:
This is the second official accredited program for PCG Edutainment. The pilot program launched this fall under the official name of: PCG Artist Development at Visible Music College in Memphis, Tennessee. Harangozo and Porter have a common goal of being America’s leader in artist development and education. More courses will be offered at various schools throughout 2021.
For more information on PCG Edutainment, or if you’d like to enroll in a program, email info@digitalsciencemedia.com.
About Matej Harangozo
Award winning entrepreneur, music enthusiast, and innovative technologist. Matej Harangozo is a driver of disruption with a track record of developing cutting-edge platforms and automation protocols. A serial entrepreneur and web/software systems visionary, he is currently co-owner and managing partner of Codaemon, an e-commerce solutions provider. Through his quest to help independent artists get noticed, he additionally created Open Source Entertainment, a music business incubator, and Digital Science Media, its digital marketing arm. These two organizations are disrupting the music industry - representing breakout artists including Hello Sister, China Mac, the gospel record label Black Smoke Music, and many others under the hip hop industry legend Wendy Day to name a few. Once recognized by the SBA as a Maryland Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Harangozo lectures at college universities and is a keynote speaker for TEDx and the Musician Mastery Summit. His companies have been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and The Baltimore Sun. Visit digitalsciencemedia.com to learn more.
About Bernard Porter
Our Founder Matej Harangozo was recently featured on the Liberty Music PR Podcast where they discussed the recent purge of nearly 750,000 songs from Spotify's platform along with business theory and what it really means to be a musician or creative in 2021. The podcast labeled Matej as "a true fountain of knowledge, with an even more inspiring story."
Podcast Description on Apple Podcasts states: "As an experienced entrepreneur, Matej has been a driver of innovation and strategy while being instrumental in the development of cutting-edge platforms and automation protocols within all of his past and current business ventures. He stays ahead of the most recent trends in e-commerce and digital transformation to deliver quality technical and brand management solutions."
Here is a brief excerpt from the podcast:
Interviewer: Wow, that's amazing. There’s bits of your journey that resonated with me. So I did the same thing. I was actually an office manager. We spent a lot of money on PR campaigns & we got so much bad stuff, you know, so many bad services and bad agencies out there. I think a lot of the agencies are not very good at supporting those emerging grass root artists, at the very start of their career, and I think a lot of artists are really dazzled by the fancy rosters and big names, and think if I go with these guys, they are going to look after me. It's always quite the opposite, actually, I think because a lot of agencies don't know how to work with smaller artists. This is hard. It's very easy to work with the big artists. So, yes, I would think one of the hottest topics I suppose right now and what has been huge when we do what we do at Liberty, is pitching, doing some branding for Tiktok. Tiktok is huge for us. But one of the biggest things everyone always asks is, you know, what about my Spotify and I think a lot of artists are really blindsided by numbers like I need to get thousands of plays because of X, Y and Z. I didn't quite understand what they needed those plays for. And actually what is truly more valuable is, you know, followers and engagers. But at the start of the year, we would have seen and this is how we connected. Spotify doing a huge purge of songs that first I think they dumped around 3+ million tracks from mostly smaller artists. Now, do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?
Matej: Sure. And let me first start by saying you hit the nail on the head. Guess what? Spotify is one of the only platforms that shows the numbers publicly, of how many streams you got and all that, which gets artists into the same psychological issue as younger audiences have with Spotify. That's why Spotify took away likes and views. It's a psychological trick to release endorphins. But Apple Music doesn't give that information up. Neither does Amazon music. Plus, you make three times more the amount of money. So let me talk about the Spotify take down. Spotify has been playing this cat and mouse game since day one. One of the reasons they're in this cat and mouse game is because they offer free accounts and free accounts are a haven for IP address bot farms. This is how you are able to create fake likes, fake comments, fake streams. You think about it, all social media platforms are free so you can create millions of accounts and try to get them to behave as a real human being. And then you can offer these services, fake views on YouTube, like all the stuff that I mentioned. So this is how the fake streams work. Not saying all playlists do that, but this is how, first of all, fake streams work.
So Spotify has been going after this for a while. And the reason a lot of artists got taken down from DistroKid specifically and I mentioned this in the video that you saw, is that a lot of people that know that Spotify actually has an equity stake inside of DistroKid and we don't know what the amount is. It could be 5 percent, 20 percent. But generally, when you have a stake in a company, you have sort of some control. So wouldn't it be easy for Spotify to reach out to CD Baby or Ditto music, which I mentioned Ditto music, had a client who got their tracks taken out from Ditto music. It's just very small numbers. But of course through Distrokid it’s much easier for Spotify to say, “hey, we detected a million songs using 90, 80 percent fake bot streams that we are sure that we detected. Take them down.” Again, why? Spotify doesn't want to pay out on fake streams. Imagine hiring an employee, they come to your office and they give you fake 10 hours of service. Are you going to pay the money? Probably not as a business owner. So you think about what, Spotify? Yes. Spotify is a multibillion dollar company, but you look at their quarterly revenues, they lose money. There's multiple reasons for that. They're squeezed by the major labels because when a major label has a license agreement with Spotify, Spotify pays out a different amount that independent artists get through Distrokid, CD baby, Tune Core and these others independent distributors. But to answer your question, surely the reason that happened to those artists is because Spotify has more control over Distrokid than any other platform. And Spotify is getting better and better at detecting fake bot streams.
Interviewer: And it's interesting because I've spoken to a range of people. Now, I had a look at Twitter. There's loads of negative comments on there. I mean, I really think some people would say I built an album last year, it's purely as a fundraiser for the artists during the pandemic with no, we had no paid promotions, purely organic plays, they took them down. I spoke to a personal friend of mine who's a producer. His song was taken down. He can't afford to use an agency. He's quite clever and he's doing some organic pitching. So where and, you know, do we think it is a blanket kind of take down of the artists that maybe didn't fall into that net, what do you comment on those genuinely innocent people that were dragged into that?
Matej: That's a good question. And I would really have to see more data, like when they say they didn't partake in any... Were they on any playlists? Right. If they said they organically pitched themselves to playlists and organically accepted them. Here's the problem with playlists. In late 2019 and early 2020, we did at our client's request. Some of them have a lot of money to spend per month, like six thousand dollars a month to market. They were bombarding us like “get us on playlists. Get us on a playlist.” So me being in a software development company. I've already had an API to Spotify. I'm like sure let's figure this thing out. So I started tracking playlists by listenership. How many listeners do they truly have? Completely avoided followers. But we did have the followers in the equation. Right. And we're trying to identify the quality of playlists. We also started reaching out to companies that were pitched to playlists, that seem very reasonable companies. You know, we spoke to the owners or the people that would pitch it on a very reasonable to understood business. But here's the problem with these third party playlists. How much do they truly know about the third party playlist? They can't control what they do and what I've noticed playlists do them by looking at the statistical data is that somehow over time, first of all, playlists may get greedy. If you're a playlist company, that's all you do. You've got to make money. So one issue is that you take any artist’s money and put them on your playlist, which in my opinion drives down the quality of listenership because they put some trash on there, you know, again, my opinion, but we all know we reject them. But the playlist becomes low quality to the listener.
Second thing I noticed is that they try to supplement these extra streams by maybe doing a hybrid like 40 percent fake bots, 60 percent real listeners, which they're constantly chasing through Facebook ads or whatever. So you never know, and these playlist companies are not going to disclose it. So that's what might have happened to these artists. Unfortunately, they thought they were doing the right. They thought they were organically reaching out. And you know, look, they landed on a playlist that was willing to play them because they liked them. But that playlist got a little bit too greedy, that had a little bit too much bots, who knows? But here's my opinion. I don't see why Spotify, as much as they're getting strangled by major labels to constantly get more and more licensing fees to play these, I don't know why they would try to make enemies with independent artists. They want more independent artists in their platform. You see what they're doing with podcasts, Joe Rogan podcast and these other ones. They're trying to become sort of more exclusive. Spotify knows better than anyone in this world that they are a consumer game. They have to be consumer centric. And, yes, even though they're sort of trapped by these major labels, because, look, if Universal was like, “OK, Spotify, fine, we're taking our whole universal catalog off of Spotify.” That's so many artists we all know to love. Maybe Adele, will be taken down. Taylor Swift, certainly, you know, all the cash money rappers like that's all gone. Think about what this does to the consumer. So Spotify doesn't have much room to negotiate in that sense because essentially they're doing the same thing Apple Music is doing and Amazon music and Tidal, and you name it. I mean, how many digital streaming platforms are out there right now? Like a hundred plus, you know, that much smaller.
Interviewer: We only have talked about same kind of one's, don't we? But the thing is, with the whole I mean, I have to agree with the major labels are actually the big purchasers of fake streams. And actually some of the biggest artists, we know, have the first couple of days of releases amplified fake play, just to give it that way. And then obviously the natural reaction comes thereafter. So it seems like it's one for one and one for the other. Do you think the independent artists might leave Spotify completely? What you think they're going to do? Not a hate thing on Spotify right now, especially with the kind of streams that they've needed around about, one hour and minimum wage at Spotify, how it has a thousand plays, whatever.
Matej: I mean, perhaps they should. Right. But they don't have leverage. Spotify is the leverage. If you're an independent artist, you want your music to be accessible as much as, as easily as possible. Convenience, right. It's like, look, I don't know. You know, I know Europe is way better with regulation on food. Right. The government and the population has to stand up to a company like McDonald's to stop putting trash into our food. But if they don't have enough leverage from the consumer side and the consumers are not educated, they don't care and the regulation is weak. For example, here in the US, the McDonald's is going to produce worse. Look, I go to Czech Republic every year. That's when families from Slovakia. I eat McDonald In Europe, it tastes differently. So does Coca-Cola, like we all can agree that the food in Europe is different. Yeah, so, you know, think that from that perspective, yeah, it sucks for independent artists, but that's why they have to learn the business. That's why I have my page. You have to understand the business. And in the beginning stages of your career, unfortunately, you're sort of stuck. But look, if everybody would understand how to properly market and only direct to consumer, skip playlists, direct to consumer, you won't get in trouble. We have right now 50 active clients, all marketing direct to consumers. None of them got shut down. But we have clients come to us who got shut down. And I see what type of playlist they use. They thought they were using legit playlists. Some of them got on for free.
So it's unfortunate. But if you think that 90 percent of third party playlists are a potential risk and only 10 percent are good, like, for example, if Oprah had a third party playlist and she gets you on there, that's probably a good playlist. She doesn't need money from anybody to put you on her playlist. Maybe even a department store like Macy's, a good playlist. But anything that's generated by a third party, you even have to question some of these DJs, right, that are out there. They have a big influence. Maybe they get a little bit, especially the older ones. They get a little greedy. They start taking money from anybody. Then somebody approaches them like, hey, guess what, you got a playlist, we can get you way more listeners on your playlist, they don't know better. They're not software developers. They just care about the money. Now they get some company infusing some, you know, third party bot streams. And again, you know, if I'm sitting at the Spotify office and I'm their accountant, I will be screaming at the CO, do not pay for fake streams. What are we doing, guys? We're losing money quarter after quarter, you know? So, like, what do you do on Spotify? I'm not defending anybody. They're not paying me. I wish Spotify was paying me money. But, you know, I just look at it as a businessman, from that perspective on both, the independent side artist and Spotify.
Interviewer: And what do you think? What should artists say purely wanting to rate, they don't have a team, not lucky enough to have a marketing agency? Then what should they be doing?
Matej: Learn how to become a marketer. In my opinion, in 2021, every artist or creative needs to understand marketing. Either they're on their own in the beginning, they got to wear that hat or they got to understand enough or have some side casual, side business, like you said, to hire somebody competent. Now, unfortunately, the music industry, again, who knows? 75 percent of the companies may be not competent, you know, not saying they're trying to scam people, but they don't even know. But you've got to be a marketer. So I will suggest learning how to run Facebook ads, Instagram ads, YouTube ads and direct that traffic to your URL. This is how we scale our clients Apple Music accounts.
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Our Founder, Matej Harangozo was recently featured on the Radio Entrepreneurs Podcast where he discussed his upbringing, Digital Science Media, as well as how COVID has affected business & our distinct competitive advantage.
Here is an excerpt from the podcast:
Jeffery: Hello everybody. And again this is radio entrepreneurs. My name is Jeffrey Davis of radio entrepreneurs as CEO president. So maybe you'll see you'll see that up on the top corner or bottom corner and also the host of the show. Our next guest I'm pretty excited to talk to, Matej Harangozo. Founder of Digital Science Media. Welcome.
Matej: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Jeffery: Digital Science Media sounds like something I'd watch on Netflix at night.
Matej: You might perhaps
Jeffery: Tell us about it.
Matej: So Digital Science Media is a new innovative and progressive digital marketing agency for the entertainment industry. So we mainly work with medium sized record labels, independent artists or any digital entrepreneur if you want to call that. Anybody that creates content for entertainment or even educational purposes and wants to get their brand out there to the next level. But not just market their brand and their products and services but also treat their art like a business. We really infuse a lot of business education into our services.
Jeffery: So tell us about your history, how you got into this?
Matej: Well I guess you could say I'm a serial entrepreneur in the true sense of the word. Came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe, from Slovakia when I was twelve. Did a lot of little side hustles in high school that would allow me to make you know a little bit of extra money on the side. Went to school for engineering, mechanical engineering. I did drop in my third year because I decided I didn't want to be an engineer, drawing up AutoCAD drawings or working at an engineering company. So I started a real estate company with one of my really good friends and been a business partner to me for a lot of different ventures. So we went from real estate, then the market crashed. We got into energy efficiency, into software development, websites and to guerilla marketing through being a part owner of the Arrow Advertising franchise who has 45 franchises worldwide. And as we were having some successes I've always wanted to get into the music industry back since I was in high school.
So, In 2016 unfortunately we had to shut down our most successful company today which was GreeNEWit energy efficiency. I had a choice to either I guess go get a job working for some company or you know see if I could still make it with another venture so I got into a music industry full time. I also partnered up with my development team out of India where we formed a new company called Codaemon, which I also own and focus on full time. But we focus on e-commerce buildout. E-commerce management for Fortune 500 companies all the way down to startups. But you know, 2017 I got into the music industry full time after kind of dipping my toe in it from 2013 to 2015 or 2016 realizing how much of a wild wild west of an industry it really was. And then once I got into it is applying the range of different entrepreneurial experiences that I had being an engineer, having experience and understanding of different industry sectors I combined all that knowledge applied it to the music industry and it's been working wonderfully. So out of pure demand of my entrepreneurial brand online as a music business influencer, an educator, a lot of demand started coming down the pipeline asking can you also perform these marketing services for us. So we formed Digital Science Media because initially I was going to launch a music artist incubator, which is still in the works. We have a digital version of it called the indie artist accelerator which is part of our service offering. But in short, two of those are the main focus of Digital Science Media, educating artists on the music business and helping them with the marketing and branding particularly on the startup level.
Jeffery: So has COVID help changed your business at all?
Matej: I'm fortunate to say that both my companies, both software development and Digital Science Media has grown during 2020, which is a blessing for sure. I'm not surprised honestly but it's been a good run in 2020 despite not being able to go outside.
Jeffery: Have you changed your marketing at all. Are you regionalized?
Matej: We're nationwide, in North American & Western Europe. The entertainment industry, I would say we had a few clients out of like London, Canada even South Africa. But we're primarily North America because where we specialize and grow your brand is in the US first. But you know, nationwide because of COVID especially, my employees are working remotely. So that same way, we can take a client pretty much from any state in the US or Canada.
Jeffery: Interesting. Are there any new trends in the technology?
Matej: Both good and bad. Yes I would say more exploitation is going on with kind of, if you wanna call them, business vultures preying on uneducated entrepreneurs offering them perception based marketing tools which don't actually create any useful function in my opinion. But also you know, the trend in technology especially for the entertainment industry, definitely people being innovative with figuring out how to grab more of their revenue from digital streaming platforms, online concerts, really focusing growing their brand in a particular way online so they can convert their influence into sponsorships and endorsements. So you know, definitely some innovation in other sectors because we deal with e-commerce companies. I'm certainly seeing large companies realizing that they're able to get through 2020 remotely. I see a trend of shedding these leases and bringing onboard project management systems and services and more for sophisticated CRM's to help manage their entire staffs from the cloud essentially. A lot of companies got the kick in the ass this past year to focus on that online management and bringing in more online systems to help with the growth or at least make maintenance of their company, I would say.
Jeffery: Is the industry that you're in help mostly small businesses or large companies? Is your particular focus make you more agile? What's your competitive advantage?
Matej: I think we are definitely agile. Our competitive advantage is that we actually teach the music business, which a lot of our competitors don't. Especially in entertainment industry. Put it this way, I think that major labels don't necessarily like my model. Because I'm empowering independent artists to be better business men and business women and to kind of succeed independently. The major label traditionally leaves and there's some new ones that are starting to smarten now. But traditionally they want to get the artist and exploit them while they're not as business educated, while the talent is there, if you know what I mean. So we do specifically focus on medium sized labels. Some of them may have relationships or venture partnerships with major labels but I would say mostly we focus on the independent side on purpose. So I think that's our advantage. There's a huge market gap where there's a lot of independent artists already creating decent sized revenue but don't have the business knowledge to really take things to the major level and they still need major labels. We're hoping that through our marketing and business education, we can help them get there without a bad deal from a major.
Jeffery: All very interesting and we hope we get to interview you more than once this year to talk about things. If somebody wants to know more about Digital Science Media, I can think of a couple of people I'm going to want to talk to. How would they find you?
Matej: DigitalSciencemedia.com. Simple enough or if you wanna follow me, you can follow me on Matej_h_entrepreneur.
Jeffery: Thanks for being on radio entrepreneurs today. Continued success and remind everybody, we're gonna be streaming more stories every day on radio entrepreneurs.
Matej: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
To learn more and listen to the podcast, view it down below.
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BALTIMORE, MD –– Owner of Digital Science Media, Matej Harangozo, and CEO of PCG Universal, Bernard Porter, today announced the launch of their joint venture - PCG Edutainment for Musicians. The company will provide college course curriculum and instruction in the fields of music, social media, digital marketing, and artist development for music artists attending accredited universities across the United States.
PCG Edutainment for Musicians will combine up-to-date trends in the music industry coupled with a knowledge of the ever changing social media platforms to help music artists build and monetize their brand online and create successful careers independently. Designed by two music industry leaders - Harangozo and Porter - the goal of PCG Edutainment for Musicians is to offer its artist development curriculum to select music programs within the accredited college system and replicate the success of their programs internationally within the next five years.
The joint venture will educate on the science behind building a strong artist brand both physically as well as online, and to teach artists how to master all the possible ways to monetize music in this new digital age of music to have successful independent careers. The first official accredited program for PCG Edutainment has launched this fall under the official name of: PCG Artist Development at Visible Music College. The company aims to enroll 50 students in the program at Visible Music College in its first year. More courses will be offered at various schools throughout 2021.
"I am excited to work with Bernard and the entire PCG team of providers to bring real artist development in accredited college settings,” Harangozo said. “Because we have industry professionals in the trenches everyday as instructors, we are bringing an extra level of real world experience to deliver an impactful and useful course."
"We are confident this will achieve high level academic alignment, along with immediate application and connection for student artists' long-term success," Porter said.
Harangozo and Porter have a common goal of being America’s leader in artist development and education. The new co-owned joint venture leverages their joint capabilities, continuing the successful collaboration in developing solutions for helping music artists get noticed. PCG Edutainment for Musicians will benefit from the combined experience and expertise of the two music leaders.
For more information on PCG Edutainment, email info@digitalsciencemedia.com.
About Matej Harangozo
Award winning entrepreneur, music enthusiast, and innovative technologist. Matej Harangozo is a driver of disruption with a track record of developing cutting-edge platforms and automation protocols. A serial entrepreneur and web/software systems visionary, he is currently co-owner and managing partner of Codaemon, an e-commerce solutions provider. Through his quest to help independent artists get noticed, he additionally created Open Source Entertainment, a music business incubator, and Digital Science Media, its digital marketing arm. These two organizations are disrupting the music industry - representing breakout artists including Hello Sister, China Mac, the gospel record label Black Smoke Music, and many others under the hip hop industry legend Wendy Day to name a few. Once recognized by the SBA as a Maryland Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Harangozo lectures at college universities and is a keynote speaker for TEDx and the Musician Mastery Summit. His companies have been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and The Baltimore Sun. Visit digitalsciencemedia.com to learn more.
About Bernard Porter
CEO and founder of PCG Universal and CEO and co-founder of PCG Theatrical, Bernard Porter is a seasoned entertainment executive with 27 years of experience. His A&R prowess is nationally recognized. Porter was instrumental in signing superstar Jason Aldean to Broken Bow Records. A successful business entrepreneur, Porter has spent his career developing and securing high profile joint ventures within both corporate and private sectors, guiding them in all phases of creative media, production, marketing, and national product launches. In addition, he has served as an entertainment consultant to many record labels, broadband networks, major artists, large corporations, state tourism boards as well as to specialty venues, including the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Simon Mall properties, Dave & Buster’s, and Marriott Hotels. Visit PCGartistdevelopment.com to learn more.
Our Founder, Matej Harangozo was recently featured in an article by startup.info discussing the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has affected business & the music industry.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
We talked to Matej Harangozo of Digital Science Media on how the firm is disrupting the music industry during COVID-19.
Matej Harangozo: We are doing well. I am fortunate that all my family is doing well — no one has caught the virus. In fact, my father lives in China, and my mother lives in Europe. Because of this, I get real insight from two different continents to see how things are. I don’t have to rely on the media to get a sense of how things really are in other parts of the world.
Matej Harangozo: In 2012, I had my first townhouse, and this was right around the time when I moved out of my mom’s house. This was during the early days of our startup, greeNEWit. As greeNEWit scaled and enabled me to have more free time and more money, I spent a lot of money on my hobby, which is music production. That led to a lot of expensive studio equipment, so I decided to turn it into a company and came up with the name “Open Source Entertainment”. To this day, I remain a big fan of the open-source mentality when it comes to software development. At the time, I was also a part of the national building performance institute (BPI) home performance technical committee that worked to define how to collect energy efficiency data and process information between all stakeholders (i.e., power utilities, home lenders, building contractors, appliance companies, etc.). There was always the battle between using the open-source methodology or something private. The BPI homeperformance.org committee decided to go with a standard that was a quazi (open-source/third-party tech) solution due to the lobbying and pressure from some of the big companies involved.
Given my experience with the open-source concept, I thought it made sense for my new venture to use this methodology. Many of the big-name record labels did not practice solid and genuine business practices and created a similar pressure against the independent or DIY artist business model. They did not educate artists on how to maintain a brand that operates as a business, and therefore many artists were getting raked when it came to contracts. So, I figured there had to be a better way of running companies and to show artists how to truly benefit more from their art and actually create generational wealth from it on their own. So, I had this idea of an artist incubator/accelerator that would use open source methods to teach artists and their teams on how to be successful in the space… sort of my version of a modern ethical record label.
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Our Founder, Matej Harangozo was recently in another article by School For Startups Radio.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
Matej Harangozo is an award-winning entrepreneur, music enthusiast, and innovative technologist. He is a driver of disruption with a track record of developing cutting-edge platforms and automation protocols. Matej has spent his career driving strategy while being instrumental in the development of cutting-edge platforms and automation protocols. He built a company called greenNEWit from the ground up, starting with 0% credit cards to 50-plus employees and $5 million in revenue at its peak. He’s now turning to something he’s really passionate about: music. He’s been selling music ever since he was a teenager and later got into recording. Now, the side hustle has sparked his next big idea. Open Source Entertainment, Harangozo’s music business incubator, and Digital Science Media, its Digital Marketing Agency in Baltimore MD, helps artists turn their talents into revenue streams. Apart from music, Mateo is also Managing Partner at a Baltimore-based e-commerce solution provider, Codaemon LLC, where his work areas entail developing and implementing ROI-driven business strategies, omni-channel marketing, digital marketing and business analytics.
]]>Started by serial entrepreneur and music enthusiast Matej Harangozo, the company represents breakout artists including Hello Sister, China Mac, the gospel record label Black Smoke Music, and many others under the hip hop industry legend Wendy Day to name a few.
Originally from Eastern Europe, Harangozo immigrated to the United States to pursue his aspirations as an innovative technologist entrepreneur, but has since followed his passion and turned his attention to the music industry. He created Open Source Entertainment, a record label and music business incubator/accelerator, and Digital Science Media, its digital marketing arm.
"As independent artists, you need to know how to increase and convert your online fanbase into real revenue, otherwise it's very difficult to support yourself,” he says. "Major labels don't like my business model. I'm disrupting the structure they've built and relied on for decades and making it easier for artists to get their fair share of the pie."
Harangozo is also currently co-owner and managing partner of Codaemon, an international e-commerce solutions provider. He also built a company “greenNEWit” from the ground up—starting with 0% credit cards to 50-plus employees and $5 million in revenue at its peak. However, he refocused his energy on a passion close to him since his high school years: the music industry.
To learn more about Digital Marketing For Music Industry Artists & how you can get your digital content dispersed to the music and entertainment industry, call Digital Science Media at 443.812.6018 or email matej@opensourceent.com.
About Digital Science Media
Digital Science Media is the marketing arm of immigrant entrepreneur Matej Harangozo’s music business incubator/accelerator Open Source Entertainment. The company represents breakout artists including Hello Sister, China Mac, the gospel record label Black Smoke Music, and many others under the hip hop industry legend Wendy Day.
Click here for the latest up-to-date trends in Digital Marketing For Music Industry Artists. ]]>Our Founder, Matej Harangozo was recently featured in an article by ideamensch.com about Digital Marketing in Baltimore MD.
In this article, Matej discusses his roots and background before he entered the music industry, plans for the future, and some general Q&A.
View the beginning excerpt of the article below:
Matej Harangozo is an award winning entrepreneur, music enthusiast, and innovative technologist. He is a driver of disruption with a track record of developing cutting-edge platforms and automation protocols.
He built a company “greenNEWit” from the ground up — starting with 0% credit cards to 50-plus employees and $5 million per year in revenue at its peak. During the same time, he bought and scaled an international franchise that employed another 35-plus youth employees in the Baltimore area. A serial entrepreneur and web/software systems visionary, he is currently co-owner and managing partner of Codaemon, an e-commerce solutions provider.
Recently, Harangozo made the pivot to something he is really passionate about: music. It is an industry he dreamt of being in ever since he was in high school. Through his quest to help independent artists, producers, DJs, and influencers get noticed, he created Open Source Entertainment, a record label and music business incubator, and Digital Science Media, the arm of Digital Marketing in Baltimore MD. These two organizations are disrupting the music industry — representing breakout artists including Hello Sister, China Mac, the gospel record label Black Smoke Music, and many others under the hip hop industry legend Wendy Day to name a few.
Read full article here: https://ideamensch.com/matej-harangozo/
]]>In this article, Matej discusses his roots and background before he entered the music industry, plans for the future, and some general Q&A.
Matej Harangozo is an award winning entrepreneur, music enthusiast, and innovative technologist. He is a driver of disruption with a track record of developing cutting-edge platforms and automation protocols.
He built a company “greenNEWit” from the ground up — starting with 0% credit cards to 50-plus employees and $5 million per year in revenue at its peak. During the same time, he bought and scaled an international franchise that employed another 35-plus youth employees in the Baltimore area. A serial entrepreneur and web/software systems visionary, he is currently co-owner and managing partner of Codaemon, an e-commerce solutions provider.
Recently, Harangozo made the pivot to something he is really passionate about: music. It is an industry he dreamt of being in ever since he was in high school. Through his quest to help independent artists, producers, DJs, and influencers get noticed, he created Open Source Entertainment, a record label and music business incubator, and Digital Science Media, its digital marketing arm. These two organizations are disrupting the music industry — representing breakout artists including Hello Sister, China Mac, the gospel record label Black Smoke Music, and many others under the hip hop industry legend Wendy Day to name a few.
Once recognized by the SBA as a Maryland Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Harangozo lectures at college universities and is a keynote speaker for TEDx and the Musician Mastery Summit. His companies have been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and The Baltimore Sun.
Harangozo’s unique upbringing in Eastern Europe and as a US immigrant has shaped his unique outlook on business, innovation, history, and culture. These attributes are the drivers behind his success and will continue to guide his principles and future endeavours. He resides in Hanover, Maryland with his girlfriend Courtney and their two dogs.
In 2012, I had my first townhouse and this was right around the time when I moved out of my mom’s house. This was during the early days of our startup, greeNEWit. I spent a lot of money on studio equipment so I decided to turn it into a company and came up with the name “Open Source Entertainment”. To this day, I remain a big fan of the open source mentality when it comes to software development. At the time, I was also a part of the national building performance institute (BPI) home performance technical committee that worked to define how to collect energy efficiency data and process information between all stakeholders (i.e, power utilities, home lenders, building contractors, appliance companies, etc). There was always the battle between using the open source methodology or something private. The BPI homeperformance.org committee decided to go with a standard that was a quazi (open source / third party tech) solution due to the lobbying and pressure from some of the big companies involved.
Given my experience with open source, I thought it made sense for my new venture to use this methodology. Many of the big name record labels did not practice solid and genuine business practices and created a similar pressure against the independent or DIY artist business model. They did not educate artists on how to maintain a brand that operates like a business, and therefore many artists were getting raked when it came to contracts. So, I figured there had to be a better way of running companies and to show artists how to truly benefit more from their art and all that it was. So, I had this idea of an artist incubator that would use open source methods to teach artists and their teams on how to be successful in the space… sort of my version of a modern ethical record label.
In high school, as a side hustle I started bootlegging CDs. I was the first person at my school to have the very first 1x CD burner. It was 1998 and it was the age of LimeWire and Napster… well before the iPod. The music industry didn’t know how to handle this new trend. In full transparency, a lot of my friends would sell weed on the side to make extra money. I was not a citizen. My mom would always say “Matej you must stay out of trouble or else you will get deported. Don’t do stupid shit.” So, what my friends were doing was not an option for me, but I thought burning CDs was a smarter way to create a solid side hustle. When I moved to America I started listening to hip hop even before I spoke English. My dad was always pissed about curse words and gave me a hard time for it. So, I used my Sony HiFi stereo system (because it could re-loop one to five seconds of a song) and erased the bad words of all of my favorite songs. This allowed me to still listen to the music I wanted when he was around. He never knew.
I also figured out that when you put a high quality headphone into a microphone jack, one of the speakers becomes the microphone. I had some friends who were rappers. I would get some instrumentals, like Madonna instrumental breaks or other songs, and then have my friends rap over it. I always wanted to have a record label. I was — and still am — a big fan of Tupac. He was very dedicated to educating his community and helping people be in business for themselves. I created my own label: Infamous Records. I added that logo to every CD I burned along with the words “Executive Producer Matej”. And of course this was using all cash money and bling bling fonts [haha]. Needless to say, I was the go to guy if you wanted a mixtape. I would burn the new DMX CD, for example, for $5 a copy. But if you wanted a custom mixtape, that was an extra charge of $10 to $15 a copy. I also dabbled a bit with music software. I got DJ software my senior year and would create simple beats here and there. I ultimately put that on hold as I needed to think more seriously how I could support myself financially, but I always knew one day I would find a way to get into the music industry.
The time that was most instrumental in making the shift was from 2010 to 2011 when I was co-founder of a booming energy startup. I had more money and free time so that allowed me to invest and get into this venture more seriously. I initially spent about $15,000 in studio equipment and set up a recording room in my basement. My girlfriend at the time was a singer and that helped push me into it as well. I taught myself to use pro tools, how to record vocals, how to create instrumentals and so on.
Now — fast forward to 2020 — through Open Source Entertainment and Digital Science Media we are helping independent artists, producers, DJs, and influencers get noticed all while disrupting the music industry. We support breakout artists including Hello Sister, China Mac, the gospel record label Black Smoke Music, and many others under the hip hop industry legend Wendy Day to name a few.
I have business partners associated with each company I’m involved with, and I meet with them daily. I also have a virtual assistant from MyOutDesk who manages my calendar and a great deal of the day-to-day admin tasks. Early mornings I attend scrum meetings with our team leads and engineers from Codaemon, and I do the same thing with Digital Science Media. I knock that out before 11 am ET. During the day, I am working on business development, doing ops clean up, and then toward the end of the day we circle back and have a final scrum meeting with the project teams and developers. I have a final call with my business partner Tolu from Digital Science Media. He is supporting our full time employees and keeping things running. Any time in between is always reserved for content creation and sales calls. I created the demand for my music business through creating engaging, solid, and valuable content and posting it daily. So, that initiative will never stop. Plus, it’s the most enjoyable aspect of what I do.
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