In my last entry, I wrote about achieving some cool feats by taking the driver’s seat and executing with my new band, Cool Silly.

Well, I just took this entrepreneurship project to the next level a few days ago…. how you might ask?

An album release! (mini-album to be exact)

Yep, we just released our debut mini-album a few days ago in Taipei, Taiwan.  With the exception of a professional mastering engineer to master our album, everything else we performed ourselves, including the following tasks:

1. Music production (lyrics, music, recording, mixing)
2. Design of posters, album booklet, and other various paraphernalia
3. Release party coordination
4. Digital outlet for selling our album
5. etc. etc.

I won’t lie, the execution of these tasks was not a trivial feat.  I slept on average 5-6 hours each of the ten days prior to the release date.  But not without eventual success and satisfaction!!!  We had an awesome turnout at our release party and sold as many albums/posters as there were attendees.  We are really stoked about this release and are confident in the six songs on the album.  Cool Silly is going on radio pretty soon and TV should be right around the corner.

You can preview the songs on the album on our website. The album is available for purchase in the form of an instant digital download (with digital album booklet) there.  All you need is either a Credit Card or PayPal.

Please help support us! You won’t be disappointed I promise. The album will soon be on iTunes as well as other worldwide digital platforms.

The challenge of being your own boss, creating a product from scratch, and taking that product to market is no easy task. But to finally achieve this first step of releasing an album lays the necessary groundwork for future development. Sometimes taking that very first step is the hardest one a.k.a. actually taking action on an idea. But that is the beginning of commitment. And commitment is one of the major items necessary for getting something done (whether it be in the form of a contract or verbal agreement).

Bottom line: take that first step! More to come…

There has been a significant shift in the reason we still purchase music these days. Ten years ago, the reason we bought a music album was because of one of the following:

• Enjoyed a song from the artist on the radio
• Found the artist attractive
• Friend’s recommendation
• Saw a memorable live performance

In other words, we bought albums for the right reasons. These days, it’s much different. Here are the three primary reasons why we buy CDs:

• Don’t know how to download the music for free
• So indie or niche that the music is not available for download (you searched)
• You are buying simply to support the artist (you may already own the downloaded digital files)

Let’s focus on #3. This is very interesting. People are buying CDs simply to SUPPORT the artist, so he/she can get the royalties. It’s the same reason you would drop a few bucks in the street musician’s guitar case… Never would this have been a chief reason a person bought a CD ten years ago.

Again, I find this very interesting. Ethics is not much part of the equation I think.

Software, music, movies, images, books… more and more things are becoming downloadable everyday. Where are we headed?