Zapy

Whilst working on a previous startup (Fan.si) I was spending a lot of time with bands and musicians. Many of them were touring around North America, playing in front of hundreds of people every night.

Everyone in these bands was unbelievably talented. They had dedicated years to mastering their crafts. They had hustled and fought every step of the way to build their following and yet they were barely scraping by, financially.

It's no big secret anymore, for all but the top 1% of artists, there's not a lot of money to be made in music and touring anymore.

The idea for Zapy came one evening, watching a band put out an email signup sheet on their merchandise table. They were collecting a handful of scribbled email address' each night. Over time this was adding up and was slowly making a difference. For a band, an email address represents a new fan. It's someone who might buy tickets to their next show or maybe listen to their music on Spotify.

I was amazed that despite all the friction involved for the fan, people were still doing this. But here's the thing, when you're on stage, you have a captive audience. People are fully absorbed by what you're singing and saying. There is nothing like it. Your audience will likely never feel as connected to you or your ideas as in that moment. It's the perfect time to ask your audience to take an action, and providing the process is easy enough, you can build a lasting connection and create new fans.

I started to realize I could make this process much, much easier.

We worked with a band to try out this concept and were amazed by the response. On the first night we captured over 300 emails from a ~500 person show.

The process was simple...

• In the middle of the show, the band offers a 10% merch discount to the audience.
• They put up their Zapy email address on the screen e.g. band@zapy.co
• The audience send an email to that address and get an instant reply with a button to opt-in and claim their coupon.

And the rest is history :)

Anyways, I'd love it if you would check out https://zapy.co would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.