John Hecker: Founder of Merch Bar on Building a Marketplace for Music Merchandise

The Casey Adams Show

Listener.com Podcast Network

Business, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of The Casey Adams Show, John Hecker, founder and CEO of Merch Bar, shares his journey from the music industry to building a technology company focused on merchandise. He discusses the challenges and successes of signing artists like Avril Lavigne, the impact of streaming on the music business, and the role of AI in music creation. He also delves into the importance of fan engagement, the crowdfunding campaign with Republic.com, and offers advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Learn more about Merch Bar: https://www.merchbar.com/

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Merch Bar and John Hecker

02:29 John Hecker's Journey into the Music Business

04:52 The Story Behind Signing Avril Lavigne

10:59 Transitioning from Music to Technology

17:55 The Impact of AI on the Music Industry

21:19 Understanding Merch Bar and Merchagogo

24:20 Exploring Equity Crowdfunding with Republic

29:56 The Evolution of Music and Fan Engagement

37:31 Entrepreneurial Mindset and Personal Growth

42:31 Future Visions: Community and Engagement in Merchandising

46:23 Purpose and What Keeps Us Up at Night

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, welcome back to the Casey Adams show. Today, I am joined by John Hecker, the founder and
0:06.8	CEO of Merch Bar. John, thank you so much coming the show. Thank you. Of course, man. So you
0:14.5	are, you're calling in from New York City. So thank you once again for taking the time.
0:19.2	I've been looking forward to this interview, man. I know we were
0:21.1	just chopping it up a little bit before we dive in here. But you guys, you know, I always like
0:25.5	talking about current events. You guys have had quite the day today kicking off a great fundraise,
0:30.2	which we'll talk about here in a moment. But before we dive in, I would love to give the audience
0:35.1	a quick high level of what it is you and the team have
0:38.0	built at merch bar and just give us like a quick high level before we really dive into
0:42.0	your story and everything that you guys are building.
0:44.2	Yeah, well, merch bar is sort of the, what's the, the marketplace for officially licensed
0:52.6	merch in the music business, but some entertainment aside from that, but mostly all music.
0:58.0	I guess people compare us to the fanatics, albeit they are much, much bigger than us, for music.
1:06.3	We have 340,000 artists now on the platform.
1:09.5	We're Spotify's, Instagram, and YouTube's merch partner,
1:14.7	or preferred merch partner.
1:17.5	And it's been fun.
1:20.4	I got into, you know, my co-founder at MerchFarer is on the tech side.
1:27.4	And my, hold on the phone is, that shouldn't be happening.
1:32.2	Sorry.
1:32.6	You're good.
1:33.2	I'm in a room I don't normally use.
	...

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