Startup.info Talks to Trqk about Music Royalties and Using Data to Your Advantage

Check out excerpts below from Trqk Chief Creative Officer David Della Santa's recent interview with Startup.info

We talked to David Della Santa of Trqk on how to help the music industry use data to its advantage and this is what he had to say.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Trqk. 

David Della Santa: I started an advertising-music production company called Volume.ms in the late ’90s in San Francisco. Not being much for that shiny commercial sound or having any traditional training, I was one of the first to apply computers, sampling, and other then-alternative production techniques to ad music. That was enough to give me a little slingshot into the industry before the others caught up, and I’ve been lucky enough to land over 500 music placements, or syncs, for clients like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Nike, Reebok, Audi, Wells Fargo, and Quaker Oats. However, streaming, laptops, and a recession later took a chunk out of sync fees, so I started paying more attention to my performance royalties to make up some of the difference. In case you’re unfamiliar, performance royalties are the money songwriters get every time their music plays on the radio, in a TV commercial, or during a live show. Up until then, someone else was administering my royalties for me. The first time I registered my work and filed a claim, I thought I had missed something or done it wrong. How could it be this tough and time-consuming?

And then I got my first statement. The whole thing was so opaque with no clue how my Performing Rights Organization (PRO) found performances of my work, how they calculated what I earned, and especially how I would learn anything from all the rows and columns of data that might help me make more money. That’s when I realized –– I should have a clue, and so should everyone else who collects royalties. 

For that reason, I am co-founder with my high school symphonic bandmate Sathvik Krishnamurthy of Trqk. Trqk is a Music Royalty Intelligence platform dedicated to helping creators and publishers work more efficiently while growing their income with strategic royalty insights.

How does Trqk innovate? 

David Della Santa: First and foremost, we make the data around performance royalties transparent and understandable. All creators need to upload their PRO statement, and Trqk automatically crunches the numbers and puts the insights into easy-to-understand visual charts and graphs. Trqk also detects unpaid royalties for artists, so we are actively making them more money.

We can do this well because we know our audience — I am one of the composers we serve. My network is a 20-year collection of musicians and composers I’ve personally worked with who will also directly benefit from our building. They are our first line testers. Granted, it’s a small sampling of our audience, but it’s a relevant sample. We develop and release to them first. Then we listen. 

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

David Della Santa: I have to decide what makes the development cut, and what gets left on the cutting room floor. Since we are an early phase startup, we have a small development team. I have all these wild ideas of what would help composers, but there is only so much we can build. And by design, we shouldn’t build all the ideas I have. A right product focuses on core functionality, perfectly and delightfully delivering it. So what gets cut is often a difficult choice. Ultimately, we are trying to make something that helps as many composers as possible without building something so complicated that no one can use it. 

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

David Della Santa: Well, no one is doing what we are doing. A few companies like Kobalt offer some of our insights, but their main focus is that of a publisher, and their services are not available to the long tail composers we serve. Ultimately, we are not trying to compete with anyone. We want to support composers and the music industry by providing tools that make their jobs easier and ensure everyone gets paid.

**Team Trqk extends sincere thanks to Startup.info for this awesome interview! To read the full story click here.