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Protecting Songwriters Has Been A Problem Since Music Started. CEO Farah Allen Is Solving It With Blockchain: The Labz, On Mogulwatch

Protecting Songwriters Has Been A Problem Since Music Started. CEO Farah Allen Is Solving It With Blockchain: The Labz, On Mogulwatch

IP protection
Farah Allen, CEO of The Labz. Photo provided

While streaming platforms like Spotify and Pandora continue to grow, the IP protection tools are still lacking for music creators to operate their craft as a business and make money.

After years of stagnant numbers, the music industry is growing thanks to streaming platforms and technology. Total revenues in 2018 were $19.1 billion, according to the IFPI’s Global Music Report 2019. Latin America showed the highest numbers for regional growth.

In an industry where the emphasis on technology is more about creating the music than organizing and tracking it, songwriters, producers and attorneys want access to tools to help monetize their business.

CEO Farah Allen is looking to close the gap between the creative and royalty processes with her new platform, The Labz.

I started The Labz for a couple of reasons. One was the lack of executive opportunities in the technology sector for me, as a Black woman.

Farah Allen, CEO of The Labz, an online platform making it easier for the creative community to determine ownership and percentage splits for future revenue.

The Labz is an online platform that works to make owning the rights to your work “as easy as file sharing and writing lyrics,” per its website. Users create an account and collaborate on the platform, secured through blockchain, to help make it easier to determine ownership and percentage splits for future revenue.

An IT consultant and security specialist by trade, Allen developed the software-as-a-service solution over the last few years and recently launched it.

Through guidance from accelerator programs such as DigitalUndivided and Comcast Universal The Farm , her company is on the road to becoming a player in intellectual property (IP) protection.

Atlanta-based The Labz just partnered with the Country Music Association. It opened a satellite office in Nashville and has one planned in Los Angeles.

In a conversation with Moguldom, Allen shared the benefits of attending an accelerator program, the frustration of being ahead of her time and how she built a million-dollar system with $50,000.

There was a continuous loop of lawsuits over copyrights. I was already solving the problem in my world of tech consulting for corporations. I saw the research, I knew I could do it, and I fell in love with the problem.

Farah Allen, CEO of The Labz, an online platform making it easier for the creative community to determine ownership and percentage splits for future revenue.

Moguldom: Why did you start The Labz?

Farah Allen: I started The Labz for a couple of reasons. One was the lack of executive opportunities in the technology sector for me, as a Black woman. Another reason was that I heard about the problem in the music industry with songwriters not protecting their work and having to fight to do so. There was a continuous loop of lawsuits and issues in litigations over copyrights. I was already solving the problem in my world of technology consulting for corporations. I did my research, and I saw there wasn’t a solution that matched what I was giving corporate enterprises. Large companies were being helped in this area, but when it came to the creative community, no one was really solving this problem. I saw the research, I knew I could do it, and I fell in love with the problem.

Moguldom:  Essentially that is what we want to do as entrepreneurs, right? We want to go and solve a problem we believe needs to be solved. What has been the reception of your product from the music community since you don’t have a traditional music background?

Creation, protection, and data should be collected at the very beginning of the song creation process. I see creators (not) wanting to be businesspeople. I created a technology where the tech does the business part for them like any other industry.

Farah Allen, CEO of The Labz, an online platform making it easier for the creative community to determine ownership and percentage splits for future revenue.

Farah Allen: Protecting songwriters has been a problem since music started. I began my research into this issue about five years ago. We started developing the idea, doing our research, talking to the overall industry on a higher level, and then the laws started to change. Pushing the principals behind the Music Modernization Act started becoming popular and something organizations were trying to push through for regulation by the government. It made this issue more public and that was good for me and for The Labz because we were already solving a problem for which everyone was all of a sudden trying to find a solution.

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Suddenly the industry was talking about something I had already figured out years ago — that creation, protection, and data should be collected at the very beginning of the song creation process. I see creators as wanting to be creators and not the standard businesspeople. I created a technology where they are allowed to do that and the technology does the business part for them like any other industry.

Moguldom: How are you using blockchain for your product and customers?

IP protection
Farah Allen, CEO of The Labz. Photo provided

Farah Allen: Blockchain is how we realize the ownership data and where the song is registered. Blockchain is great for memorializing and time stamping when someone does any type of transaction. Currently, if someone is to argue that someone else stole their song, lawyers or litigators are doing extensive data collection for evidence. They’re collecting email information, they’re collecting email transactions, they’re collecting text messages, trying to figure out a timeline as to when everything occurred. A lot of those things can be altered. A good lawyer on the other side can say evidence collected in these basic manners do not matter because it can be altered. But what blockchain does and what it’s currently doing in in the legal world is acting as the core proof because you cannot change the blockchain transactions. We’re giving that to our users. You can officially copyright your stuff, but we offer you better protection than an email or a database that’s not inside of the blockchain.

We have received offers to go to other industries with our same platform. Industries like movie production, photography, journalism and anyone that has issues in the area of their contribution on a collaborative project. I think we’re just getting started.

Farah Allen, CEO of The Labz, an online platform making it easier for the creative community to determine ownership and percentage splits for future revenue.

Moguldom: What challenges have you faced since launching?

Farah Allen: When we started, people had a hard time understanding how they could protect their work during the creation process. We spent a lot of time enlightening the music community on what we were finding with our research since our platform wasn’t built yet.

Another challenge was fundraising. We had our thoughts on how fundraising would go because we had this awesome idea and this great team of professionals that have been there, done that and I’m pretty awesome myself, but fundraising was a challenge. We would see companies with a similar value proposition as us go on to raise $5 million. We couldn’t figure out why we weren’t raising even $20,000 at first.

It took a while for us to raise our first round of capital. We had already finished 90 percent of the platform by the time we received funding. Being a Black woman, I had to be very savvy, get people onto the team and get people excited about working with, helping or even partnering us. I had to become all things other than a bank.

We built a million-dollar system with $50,000. It forced us to do more research because we had no choice. It ended up being good a thing for us because we know more than we would have if we had money initially. We’ve interviewed over 5,000 people. We understand creators on a level that if you have not done the research before trying to build a solution for it, you will build according to your understanding of what the need is instead of knowing the customer and building what creators need in a manner they need to be presented to them. But raising money is hard because you never know if it’s because of what you look like, if investors think you are not ready or prepared enough, or if it is a personality thing. You never know.

Moguldom: How much have you raised in capital?

Farah Allen: We raised funds from Comcast Universal The Farm, and Quake Capital. We just closed a round with Quake Capital. Altogether we have received a quarter of a million dollars. We also have some private angel investors.

Moguldom: You’ve talked about some challenges. What are some notable wins?

Farah Allen: We’ve gotten great support from the community in general. We do a lot of speaking and giving back. We have also formed a lot of partnerships. We just officially launched this month and we already have B2B customers. One of our big clients is RSG Media. We’re also working MyMy Music and the Disturbing tha Peace Production team led by Gerald Keys. We have received offers to go to other industries with our same platform. Industries like movie production, photography, journalism and anyone that has issues in the area of their contribution on a collaborative project. We have a good idea of the roadmap and where this company could go internationally. I think we’re just getting started and there are tons of opportunities and we’re excited about it.

Moguldom: You officially created this company in 2017, but just starting to sell and go to market this year. You had another company before that also focused on the music industry. What happened?

Digitalundivided opened my eyes to the world and what it really means to have a technology startup that could one day be worth millions of dollars.

Farah Allen, CEO of The Labz, an online platform making it easier for the creative community to determine ownership and percentage splits for future revenue.

Farah Allen: Yeah, I actually did a pivot. I had a similar idea, but it wasn’t as complex. The company was called the Song Society App. It was a mobile app for music creators. We built that app within a couple of months. Unfortunately, we didn’t do enough research and we will admit it. It was good we pivoted because we realized there’s a way bigger market and a lot more peoples’ lives that we can impact. Once we pivoted with the next generation of the product, we got so much support. We got into an accelerator and different programs. It was the difference between night and day from our first idea, which didn’t get any support. We went from pretty much almost the same thing on a mobile and smaller level, to iterating and getting tons of support for something we hadn’t even built at the time.

Moguldom: Was it through the accelerator programs at Digitalundivided and Comcast Universal The Farm where you determined you needed to pivot? If so, would you say it helped you to be a part of an accelerator program?

Farah Allen: Yes. It was from those places where I learned we had to pivot. There’s a huge gap of knowledge you can’t even predict if you’ve only been in corporate America. I was at the very top of my game as an IT consultant and I had no idea the world that I was going into, and the lack of information I actually knew. I pivoted because I found more information through these programs. I learned our first iteration was never going to be a scalable company for reasons I could not have googled. Google and the internet are great, but don’t give you an in-depth knowledge of what is really true and what’s not true for your business. Digitalundivided really opened my eyes to the world and what it really means to have a technology startup that could one day be worth millions of dollars. I can’t ask my friend that owns a Smoothie King or McDonald’s for information on what it means to grow a tech startup. Unless you have a really good mentor, advisor, or consultant that can breeze through the steps as you go along, I recommend people to go through an accelerator so people can understand their lack of knowledge. It’s the difference between a year or two of you eventually finding out what you needed to know all along.

Moguldom: You’re in Atlanta now, but you were once living in Miami. Have you considered relocating back to Florida since the tech scene is burgeoning?

Farah Allen: We just partnered with the Country Music Association and have opened a satellite office in Nashville. We will also have a satellite office in LA, as we are working our way into theatrical TV, movie, music, and becoming the platform of choice for those type of creators. Miami is home. It has reggae and Latin, roots there. We’re working to find opportunities and partners so it makes sense for us to go to Miami and make an impact there. We’re looking to go into the Latin America and Caribbean market. As a Jamaican, I know the area has some major music roots. The Caribbean island suffers from being able to protect their rights to their work as well. And so yes, I will be coming back to Florida in the future.

Moguldom: What do the next five years look like for The Labz?

Farah Allen: It will be a billion-dollar company or will be going into an IPO with clients in different industries, not just music. We will be the No. 1 platform for collaboration and IP protection.

Blockchain is great for memorializing and time- stamping when someone does any type of transaction. Blockchain is acting as the core proof because you cannot change the blockchain transactions. We’re giving that to our users.

Farah Allen, CEO of The Labz, an online platform making it easier for the creative community to determine ownership and percentage splits for future revenue.