April 23, 2009 Who owns Music Think Tank?
After a little more than a year in existence, here’s the proposed ownership structure for Music Think Tank. Please feel free to weigh in.
The goal of this structure is to attract smart music industry thinkers and writers that want to build a brand with a group of like-minded individuals.
Sometime this summer or sooner, we will announce the formal ownership structure.
Here are the proposed equity splits:
MTT managers acquire 5% percentage points per year, maxing out at 15% (total) per manager.
- After year one - Bruce Warila owns 5% of MTT and Andrew Dubber owns 5% of MTT.
- Managers will continue to earn in over years two and three.
- Managers equity is non-dilutable.
All the authors combined acquire 10% percentage points per year.
- Only the top 33% of authors (in a year) can acquire these percentage points.
- Managers can also be authors and share in this pool.
- ‘Top’ is defined by authors that generate the most unique visitors and comments per year.
- Traffic is counted using Google Analytics, comments are just counted.
- Any author with more than three posts to MTT can obtain access to our Google Analytics account.
- The author’s 10% is carved up by the percentage of the traffic and comments generated over (divided by) all traffic and comments generated during the same time period.
- Traffic generated by images (via Google image search) is not counted.
- Traffic that does not directly hit author’s posts (for example, the home page) is not counted.
- Posts are excerpted after 72 hours of standing open on the home page (excerpting may increase the count).
- The year is tallied from May 1st to May 1st.
- The ownership schedule will be posted by August 1st each year.
After year one, 20% of the MTT equity has been allocated. 80% of the MTT equity is still up for grabs.
MTT is currently generating over 25,000 unique visitors per month (12/2009).
Someday MTT may take on sponsors or find other ways to compensate owners for their investment. Right now, MTT is not pursuing revenue.
If you would like to post on Music Think Tank, please start by signing yourself up to post on MTT Open.
Reader Comments (7)
Bruce,
What type of legal entity is MTT, or what type would it be under this model?
Its an intriguing concept, and I think the scheme is good, but I think it may have some devils in the details.
As always, I tip my hat to your out of the box thinking and dedication to keeping MTT relevant.
Best,
Jed
A couple of quick thoughts...
At first blush, 33% seems pretty restrictive. I suppose you ran some "historical models" using Google Analytics to reach that number.
Should comments really count? It seems to me that traffic should be enough, because more comments equals more traffic. Some posts might be informative or helpful, but not generate a lot of comments. Others might be controversial or outright inflammatory, and generate lots of comments as a result.
Just trying to get the ball rolling on some sort of discussion. I like the idea and the transparency!
Brian Hazard
Passive Promotion
http://www.passivepromotion.com
Jed - no legal entity yet.. We need help in that department. Email me if you want to help. Anyone that is an attorney that wants to advise.. Please contact me through this site.
Brian - 33% is 1/3rd of all the contributors / authors.. I am concerned about running up against state laws that limit the number of stockholders a non-public company can have.. Upon legal advice, we may increase the number to something much higher..
Comments - I hear you on comments (the pitfalls). However, pageviews are not the only thing a site like MTT should be after. I think we would rather have a small engaged community than a lot of quick visitors. We could just post naked shots of hot models and go for page views.. Commentors are very important to MTT..
We are going to have to put mechanisms in to prevent someone from gaming the system.. However, I have yet to meet someone that posts here that seems like the type..Better to be safe than sorry..
Andrew and I are up for ANY suggestions and/or any help in organizing MTT to achieve the goal outlined above. Brilliant comments or private advice is appreciated...
I dare say naked shots of hot models would garner a fair share of comments as well. ;)
Thanks for the clarifications!
Yeah, after all...it wasn't text, drugs and rock n roll!!
I think that in order to maintain the integrity of the posts comments should definitely be counted. Search engine fodder may get the page views, but doesn't do much to further the conversation. Great model - can't wait to see how it all turns out!
Interesting idea, how's it going at this point?