What It's About
The walls were shaking, the earth was quaking, and Rockmixx shook this NYC DJ all night long!
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
For those looking to follow in his footsteps, Rafe feels that Rockmixx is a one-of-a-kind product and that there’s only room for one iteration of it on the market.
However, he does see a lesson—and one that can be applied to any industry—in how it came to be successful: research what people in a field are doing, and find the “whitespace,” the gaps that the market is overlooking or ignoring. Then be able to explain the monetary benefits of what your offering can provide to prospective customers.
Fun Fact
Musical mash-ups first came to prominence in the 1980s, mostly through sampling of older soul and R&B music added to hip-hop tracks. Those efforts were often called “remixes,” “blends,” or even “collages.” A famous precursor was produced in 1956, when producers spliced musical snippets that comically dramatized the heavy proclamations of Orson Welles in his “War of the Worlds” broadcast. Frank Zappa extracted his guitar solos for entirely different songs in the 70s.
Mash-ups aren’t confined to music: the art world sees many satirical mash-ups, where artists might, say, put an Andy Warhol soup can in a gloomy Dutch Masters painting.
Notes from Chris
Episode 482
As a guy whose day job is supplying sales support and PR services to organizations around the globe, Rafe Gomez has mastered the powers of persuasion. But even he was surprised when Rockmixx, his side gig of making mash-up recordings of classic rock songs, blossomed from contests to identify all the mashed-up tracks to syndication on radio stations all over the world. Rockmixx was born of a collaboration between Rafe and John Mullen, a former New York city radio executive. Rafe’s years of experience as a top-rated mix show DJ on a New York station prompted John to suggest producing mash-ups of classic rock hits and invite show listeners to guess which bands were in the mix. That gambit gained momentum on American radio stations, and when Mullen suggested Rafe try international syndication, the volume of success was turned up to 11. His syndicator now sells recorded show packages to stations in countries like Finland, Sweden, Mexico, Russia and many more. Rafe’s background in live events, where he would mash recorded rock tracks enhanced by his live disc spin and live electronic percussion gave him the chops to produce the shows. Rockmixx offers both hosted shows, where Rafe introduces the show and then names the tracks at the completion of sets, and shows for non-English-speaking areas where the hosting duties are handled locally by station on-air personalities. To get this going, Rafe spent around $1,000 for a computer upgrade with DJ and audio-production software, as well as lots of music downloads. But he uses the same tech tools for Rockmixx as he used in his radio mix-show days from 2003 to 2008. Aside from the occasional purchase of music to add to his library, his expenses are fixed. With a monthly profit of between $2,000 and $4,000, you can say the rock gods have smiled on him. For those about to rock, we salute you!
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Rockmixx: Rock out with Rafe's unique musical mash-ups here!
- Ep. 471, Ep. 474, & Ep. 481: Some of the episodes that also center around finding the "whitespace" in various markets
- Marketer by Day, DJ by Night Brings in Extra $30,000/Year: She had worked in the music industry, but she had never performed—until she discovered a hidden talent that pays $200/hour
- Getting Investors Amped Just Takes a Little Jamming: A Toronto science teacher creates an attachable guitar amplifier that pairs with a smartphone, raising more than $250,000 and appearing on Dragon’s Den
- Music Therapist Writes Custom Lullabies For Restless Children: After leaving her day job to care for a new child, a music therapist also creates a new source of income
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