[brudgers]

[Generic/random advice from the internet]

1) Create custom visuals for touring musicians. Should I find a rep or agency to represent me for landing big projects? Should I start reaching out directly to the business managers of musicians? Should I start a company with a partner?

To me, the big idea is right. The approach vector is wrong. Talk to musicians directly. They are the one's calling the shots. Talking to their gatekeepers means dealing with someone whose jam is gatekeeping. Gatekeepers are risk adverse because they want to keep their position as a gatekeeper.

No primary is going to reject your product because you bypassed their gatekeepers. They might redirect you to one of their people if they are interested instead of hanging with you. Or they might reject you outright.

The next step is hard work and lots of rejection. The reality is that most people in any business have existing relationships for goods and services...e.g. people who use VJ services in their business already have working relationships with people providing VJ services.

Going further, touring musicians tend to have a team they tour with..."there's a VJ in the tour van" so to speak. That person has experience with the problems of touring.

2) Continue making VJ packs for thousands of VJs internationally. Should I move to an annual membership fee instead of a monthly membership fee on Patreon? Should I move to an online shop format instead of a Patreon membership?

My advice is to become more personal. More custom. What actual problems can you solve for for specific VJ's and how much will they pay? Basically, consulting/freelancing/contract work for people with money to spend on bespoke products.

Doing either or both of those things will raise your experience when making new commodity products if you go that route. And three revenue streams is better than one. Be flexible, try lots of things and see what there is a market for. Good luck.

[saaaaaam]

Problem with talking to musicians directly is that they might quite like or even quite love the idea, but they often prefer to hand off decisions about stuff that they are not super passionate about to the people who look after the money. Many musicians actively avoid wanting to have to deal with the commercial and logistical side of the shows and stuff around their music and delegate that side of stuff to managers and labels, so that it doesn’t distract them from their core mission which is creating.

So to get those musicians on board you need to make them passionately care, creative to creative.

So as you rightly point of the best way is to approach the creatives who design shows for lots of musicians and get them to care to be able to sell it in to the musicians and their teams.

[brudgers]

There are always problems when you are solving problems.