How to Create a Record Label

Making a career for yourself in music is tough. It takes a lot of guts, talent and determination. The hours are long and exhausting, and even then it's not guaranteed you'll make it. This is just as true for artists as it is for record labels. If you decide to take the plunge and start your own record label, follow these steps.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Choose your city. Record labels thrive in big cities. If you don't already live in one, get there. Big cities are like magnets for people with ambition. Set up shop there and keep your eyes open. Chances are that if you're considering starting a record label, you already live in a city with a music scene you want to support.
2. Become well acquainted with every aspect of the music scene you are trying to enter. Get to know clubs, venues, promoters, supporters, advertisers and most importantly bands. If you know the right people, this endeavor is much more easier.
3. Decide what type of music your label will focus on. You don't have to limit yourself to one genre, but you need to pick at least one thing that you are good at. Your reputation and future of your business depends on this. As you get bigger, more bands from the genre of music that you promote best will approach you, making your job a little easier.
4. Save your money. This is going to be your full-time job, but you may need some other jobs to get it going. It takes a lot of money to start any business, but a record label isn't a very stable one to bank your assets on. The chances of getting a loan might be low.
5. Approach bands or artists to sign to your label. This is going to be hard. But if you have been in the scene for a while, you'll know who needs representing. The really hard part is convincing the band that you will help them out. Some bands will be wise to the fact that you are new and probably just as poor as they are. You're going to need to really commit yourself to promoting them exclusively, until you build up the assets to start promoting other bands.
6. Hire staff to help you out. At first, this will be financially impossible. But if you do it right, you will be able to pay one or two more people to come on board and help you with the many facets of label owning. Hopefully, those one or two people will snowball into many more.