Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Carlton Boyd, Chief Operating Officer at NxtNow:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?
A: NxtNow is a startup founded in 2021 by Carlton Boyd (Raleigh, NC), Muhan Song (Chicago), Charles Shaw (Silver Spring, MD) and Josh Whyte (Cardiff, UK). Each of the founders come with diverse experiences and perspectives that have made the development of the NxtNow platform rather seamless, which you would think might be difficult, since none of us are in the same location. We’ve accomplished quite a lot collectively thanks to constant communication via email, text, Slack, and Google Meet.
NxtNow’s goal is to drive connectivity throughout the music industry, specifically with music fans, emerging artists, music producers and relevant brands. We are accomplishing this with the creation of the NxtNow Music website, which includes the Music Accelerator, and our NxtNow mobile app, which is currently in the MVP stage.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: The Music Accelerator is a growing collection of databases that include tools, resources, and services that emerging artists and music producers can utilize to elevate their music aspirations and brand overall.
We’ve been working on the Music Accelerator for almost six months, while also developing our app MVP, so it’s very exciting to finally be able to share it with the group of artists and producers that provided us with input and feedback along the way, as well as the general public. Big thanks to Haji Outlaw, Ezza of Choom Gang, and Spend Money Kwam.
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Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: Our main objective with the Music Accelerator is to simplify the typical artist or producer search online for what they are looking for. Convenience and value are what we believe the Music Accelerator brings to them.
Instead of conducting long, extensive searches on Google for where to submit a new song or album, for example, the Music Accelerator’s Music Submission List includes over 500 of the best music blogs, curated Spotify playlists and YouTube channels to reach out to. Also, we’ve created a Demo Submission Portal, which allows for an artist to submit their song to a record label directly, leading to the opportunity to get signed.
The Artist Starter Kit and the Producer Starter Kit are Airtable based, and are categorized and tagged, making it easy for the user to find what they are looking for, whether it be online mastering services, website builders, music licensing platforms, or studio equipment/gear.
Q: What can we expect from your company in the next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: Our plans over the next 6 months are to continue adding new features into the Music Accelerator, as well as continue to add to our already established brand partnerships that we can leverage to help the artists and producers in our network.
In terms of the NxtNow mobile app, we are working on unveiling the MVP with users in the very near future.
We plan to have its full version ready to launch in early 2024.
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Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: One of the founders, Josh Whyte, is a very talented afropop/afrobeats artist, who goes by the stage name Blank Face. Having him on our team as the de facto “artist spokesperson” and being able to pick his brain about potential features for the Music Accelerator and the mobile app has been very beneficial to us overall.
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