About This Episode
On this episode of Insiders we get together with Farhana Aboo. Currently, Farhana runs marketing at AEI Group, an industry leader in music-based content publishing to young audiences. Amongst other things, like live events and A&R services, AEI Group manages or owns a huge collective of music YouTube channels, such as UKF and TheSoundYouNeed, with a total cumulative audience of over 35 million subscribers.
Today, we will talk with Farhana about her thorny path in the music industry and staying in-between jobs; her experience at MTV and Perform; AEI projects and working with the new generation of music media.
Topics & Highlights
06:30 — On working at MTV and Viacom
David Weiszfeld: What [was] the big learning from working at Viacom? I don't even know how many thousands of employees Viacom must have but it's such a huge company in media and content.
Farhana Aboo: [...] It was how the streamline is, how much more access you have [...]. For example, when I was an intern, I had to book the Christmas party. [MTV] was like: "This is your budget. Go and organize it.'' It was a cool venue and they [told me] " it's X amount" and I was "oh I'm sorry" — it was out of the set budget. [But] then, the venue were like: "Oh no no no, you know, because we really want to work with you...". That made me think: "Oh my God! What else can I get just by saying I work at MTV". That was an eye-opener: just having access to that big company, a big name, that opened a lot of doors — both personally and professionally.
David Weiszfeld: People don't realize that. When you work in a big company, the name of the company helps. My first internship with Universal Music and I thought of myself as a 17-year-old guy who likes music. And all of a sudden, you're making calls and you're like "Hi, this is David from Universal". People are like "Well hello, David from Universal". That helps a lot! And that is something that you cannot forget when you go after work as an Indie, and become "Hey I'm David, from Me" and then you're like "Oh, yeah, actually. People were answering not because of the first name, [they were] answering because of the company name".
09:45 — On staying between jobs
David Weiszfeld: You left MTV, but between MTV and Perform, you had a couple of years you actually had to do jobs just to pay the bills. I was very shy to ask you if we could mention that, but I think there's a lot of learning [here] A lot of people go through a moment in between jobs where they have to do something [they don’t like]. We're not all born with a million dollars in our account, [...] I’ve had to do things I didn't really want to do as well. [...] So, how was that period?
Farhana Aboo: [...] Essentially, I lost my job [at MTV]. But at that time I was like “I worked to MTV, I will get a job, easy", so I was pretty relaxed about it. And then [I started] applying for places, and I wasn’t even getting any responses. I was like "what's going on? It says MTV on here!" A friend of mine worked at House of Fraser, a retail department store, and he's like "Well, why don't you just come work for a bit while you are job hunting" [...] So, I ended up there for a couple of years. For the first year, I was like "OK, something gonna come up, something gonna come up” — and then, nothing did. [...] Once you've studied, [...] once you worked somewhere where "Oh my God I work at MTV!", to then be like "I'm holding T-Shirts and people are asking me stupid questions about whatever they want to buy" — It was quite demoralizing. [...] But instead of letting that get me down, I was like, "how can I approach this in a different way to get out of here?". [...] So, I decided to invest a bit more, I got a loan, and I signed up with the CIM, which is the Chartered Institute of Marketing. It was really difficult to study and work full time, but I hadn't even finished it, and I got an email: someone contacted me to "come for this job", and I didn't even realize it was a job interview — and it was Perform. [During the] interview, they actually told me that it was CIM that stood out. [...] I learned from that to never keep doing the same thing for a long period of time. If it's not working, you need to change things up. It all depends on your attitude: if you feel defeated, and you let that keep you down, then you're not going to get out of it. I recently talked to someone who wants to work in music, and it's not working out. He's only just finished Uni and he was like "Maybe this is not for me, maybe...". I was like "You've been in there for two months, I had two years when I was stuck somewhere!". So, I think it's always about looking at things from a different angle and just [looking for something that] you can do to help motivate you.
David Weiszfeld: I think it's very hard for [traditional music industry] to imagine how AIE operates — just because it's such a specific type of company. The best way to summarize it for a “normal music guy” is: "You know all those big YouTube channels? Well, there is a company that helps them organize their strategies, branding, monetization, and overall growth, like an actual corporate strategy, almost. That company is AEI.'' That's the best way for me to summarize it. But how do you guys pitch yourselves, describe yourself?
Farhana Aboo: Well it's actually been like an ongoing thing — because of the complicated nature of the business, we've had trouble ourselves trying to explain what it is that we do. More recently, we've kind of distilled it down to “we bring like-minded people together, and allow people to have a lifetime career in music”. Essentially, what you said is correct, but it's not just YouTube channels though — it's young entrepreneurs, who have a passion for music. We help develop their business from a passion-project into [a long term career]. AEI operates on three different levels: music, content, and live. On the music side of things we do everything from distribution and licensing to synch and publishing. We mostly work across the Youtube channels that we own or manage, and [...] the artists that they're supporting, [and the] labels that release the artists’ music. We also work with independent artists are not associated with any of those labels.
On the live side, we’re doing events based around the brands, UKF events, the SoundYouNeed events, [and so on]. And a few years ago we got into festivals [as well]. We launched El Dorado Festival four years ago. [...] It's in a really nice picturesque Herefordshire — lots of fun. And then we have an investment in Let It Roll, the biggest Drum & Bass festival in the world. We also did Detonate Festival, which is up north in the UK as well. So that's not just to do with live music and YouTube channels — we work with events and promoters [as well]. Which is why we said: we bring like-minded people who have a passion for music together.
23:19 — On working in a new media space
David Weiszfeld: I think that's absolutely unique in the industry. One of your directors, I think, started the business when he was 16 or 17. I guess [AIE] is a very specific type of company, operated by people who understand the new paradigm, the new digital landscape. It's so much easier to work with new [media] when the entire environment is full of people who are “new”, and you have a few very experienced people to coach those young brains. The young minds and the young spirits, they don't actually see [this new landscape] as change — they see it as “just the way it is”.
Farhana Aboo: Well one of the things that you might have asked me later on: how we adapt to changing technology. And that is exactly it: Luke started his channel at 16, only to share music with his friends. And then, he didn't realize how he would snowball because of technology and being it the [virality effect]. [Now], he's one of the owners of the company and we don't see that age difference because of what he brings to the table. [The] owner of NCS (No Copyright Sounds), which has over 22 million subscribers, Billy — he was a video-gamer. He just wanted to upload his YouTube videos with music on it but [they] kept getting taken down. He was like "alright, I'm going to sign the music myself — then I won't have that issue". Again, he was fulfilling a need of other people like him. And that snowballed, [and helped] discover the likes of Alan Walker.
In fact, recently, we have a track that we distributed for NCS, called Cradles by Sub Urban. It got good support on Spotify — and then a few weeks ago, someone did a video on TikTok, [...] a dance on the track — and it went viral. Then, someone else from Russia did a weird Tik Tok video with it. It went viral and [now] over 800,000 videos have been made [with it]. And the streams are literally mad. It's all [about the] new technology and sometimes, even we [go] "oh, right, we need to learn more about it". Working with younger people, [younger] artists, and just taking everyone's ideas on board — it doesn't really matter, whether they're an intern or the CEO. It's about the ideas. I think everyone [at AEI] is really excited about trying new things [...], which [is something that] a lot of big companies have an issue with.
David Weiszfeld: One of the things that probably marks the difference between AEI and a lot of other companies is that [you can’t use] the methods that you applied two or three years ago. It's not like releasing a single if you're a major, where it's[always] kind of the same. The YouTube algorithm has changed a lot in the past two years. You guys must be tweaking, and tweaking, and looking for patterns. Today, you're talking about this TikTok video that is booming — but in two years it will not be that same type of thing, [and] five months ago it was not that as well.
35:33 — Farhana’s advice to 19 year-olds
David Weiszfeld: What would you say a 19-year-old to an 18-year-old person, starting in the media/tech/content industry?
Farhana Aboo: Yeah. I speak at so many conferences, and we also speak to kids in school [and] universities. I feel really passionate about helping the younger people come through. Because I had no idea that I could work in music until I did work in it — no one told me that there were these option. I would just say: explore as many options as possible. You don't have to feel bad if you don't know what you want to do. Just get curious about things that you're passionate about. Who knew that just playing video games would make you a huge success, like Billy from NCS? So just because your mom said, "with all these CDs that you're buying and all the movies that you're watching, what are you going to do with that in real life?". In reality, you can do a lot. So just be curious. And, because there's so much information and access now. Go to networking events. Do research. Just explore what you're passionate about, and see how you can make that something you can do as your career.
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Full Transcript
David Weiszfeld [00:00]: So yes, great to have you on the program. We want to always start by explaining a little bit who is the person that is speaking to the audience. So I want to start very early in your in your life. Things you've been doing before music. You did a lot of digital marketing, content marketing, brand marketing. Were your parents and family from this? Is this something you were brought up into?
Farhana Aboo [00:27]: No marketing or anything like that at all in my family. It's just me. However, music is something that is, kind of, I would say in the blood. The place where my people are from, in India. You know how people have occupations, these people are tailors and these people are blacksmiths. My people are known as entertainers and musicians. So my mom's dad was a classical music teacher — Indian music. And growing up, I was brought up in Kenya, my parents had a band. So basically music is something that has kind of always been there. As a kid I was obsessed. I spent most of my hard and part time job money on buying C.D.s and albums on a weekly basis. I didn't actually have any musical talent but I just loved music. But no one around me worked in music, so I didn't even know that was a possibility.
David Weiszfeld [01:29]: It's insane the amount of money I must have spent in records & CDs. And when you see kids today, they're just listening to all the music they can without having to buy it. And I remember when you had to like when you bought the CD you were listening to it on loop, twenty five times, because you actually put money into buying the object.
Farhana Aboo [01:49]: Also you had to use a Discman so you could only carry a number or C.D. out with you, right?
David Weiszfeld [01:55]: For sure. What was the actual first experience you had with content, with marketing, with music professionally? Was it the first internship at college which is something before?
Farhana Aboo [02:06]: Yes. I wanted to go to uni, but — no ideas. I picked advertising and marketing because they had a bit of creativity and a bit of business in them. And, as part of the course we had to do, a six-week placement. I didn't really have any interest — while I was there, I learned quickly that ad-agencies weren't quite where I would fit in, or I had an interest in. We had someone from the year above come speak to OWY to prepare us for the work placement when we were applying. And she happened to have done hers at am online PR agency, that specialized in music, video games, movies or things. I was like "Oh my god that sounds like fun. It's called Way to Blue. That's where I wanted to go. So I applied there, nowhere else. I got the placement and when I got there it was almost like I mean obviously the work I did was very like "intern": sending out C.D.s and writing things and very basic things. However it was like a lightbulb moment. Up until that point, I had not realized that I could have a career in music or even film industry. I just thought "I'd have to do marketing for I don't know". It was either advertising agency or big corporate company... To think that I could work in music hadn't even occurred to me. Unless I was like an A&R or an artist, so yes, it was the first time I actually thought "I can do this. Yeah that'd be cool".
David Weiszfeld [03:43]: In our interview with Bob, he mentions the first shot that he got at Yahoo. And the idea is from the outside you think "Well those people must be extraordinary with superpowers, super networks. They must know everybody. I don't know anybody. I'm a normal person.'' And then when you arrive and somebody gives you a shot: some people can't, but if you can survive and sink or swim. If you can swim and then you actually realize "oh s***, I'm part of these people now and everybody on the outside is thinking that I am special". And it's just about getting that first shot and getting that first mentorship, a lot of the time. I think you arrived at MTV in 2005. Do you remember what digital was in 2005? I think people might not remember but Youtube is 2007. Facebook pages is probably 2007. So what is digital in 2005?
Farhana Aboo [04:40]: I remember. So when I went to Uni, that was before MTV. Digital then was legal. I mean at that point we didn't even think about piracy. But Limewire, file sharing. I was like "Oh my God I have access to all these movies and music and I don't have to pay for it". That was amazing. And then obviously there was MySpace. So obviously, not work-related, but everybody had MySpace and it was all about making your MySpace look very customized and pretty and things like that. And that's most of all I can remember about digital back in that time.
David Weiszfeld [05:13]: I think in 2005-2007 you could send the file through dropbox? Nor Google Drive or any of those things that we have now. You had beta-cams and lot of physical objects being UPSed around the world. I remember having to send CDs, and then wait that the person would receive my package, then ask if he listens or she listens to The CDs. Which feels really ridiculous today.
Farhana Aboo [05:39]: Yeah it was an interesting time. I can't even imagine it, people were using Blackberries with the little tiny screen.
David Weiszfeld [05:47]: What's the big learning from working at Viacom? I don't even know how many thousands of employees Viacom must have but it's such a huge company in media and content.
Farhana Aboo [05:56]: It was! It was actually my first proper job. Not even just in music, but in general. So for me it started off with a six month internship. I was so excited because, you know, back in the days, MTV was where you kind of aspired to go to, and I had an internship there. But it was such a massive company and it was very corporate. I actually didn't realize that until after I left, but I was fortunate enough to work in the part of MTV that was operated like its own small business. It was known as the MTV Emerging Markets and the role of that department was to launch localized MTV channels. So they launched MTV Poland, MTV Arabia, MTV Israel, MTV Ukraine. So it was part of MTV, but it has operated like its own little business. So I didn't feel the big corporateness of it too much until they started paying more attention to us when we launched into Arabia. It was becoming a big deal. But it was how streamline is and how much more accessibility you have. And to everything that Viacom does — Paramount and Nickelodeon — I didn't realize that MTV was just one of those things. Also just working at some level MTV. Because I started as an intern, I did book the Christmas party for example. And they were like "This is your budget. Go and organize it, it's a cool venue and they were like "oh it's X amount" and "oh I'm sorry". It was out of the budget, because I was given a set and a budget and then the venue were like: "Oh no no no, you know, because we really want to work with the...". And that made me think "Oh my God! What else can I get just by saying I work at MTV". So that was an eye opener. Just having the access to that big company, a big name, kind of opened a lot of doors. Like personally and doing the job as well.
David Weiszfeld [08:07]: People don't realize that. When you work in a big company, the name of the company helps. My first internship with Universal Music. I really thought of myself as a 17 year-old guy who likes music. And all of a sudden, you're making calls and you're like "Hi, this is David from Universal". People are like "Well hello David from Universal". That helps a lot. And that is something that you cannot unforget when you go after work as an Indie. And you become like "Hey I'm David from Me" and then you're like "Oh yeah actually. People were not answering because of the first name but maybe they were also answering because of the company name". That's why working at a big company helps a lot of you. You left MTV. Between MTV and Perform which is a big group, the big sports, media, content group. You had a couple of years you actually had to do jobs to pay the bills. And I was very shy to ask you if we could we mentioned that. I think there's a lot of learning, a lot of people in their career go through a moment in between jobs where they have to do something. We're not all born with a million dollars in our account. And so most of us have had to do jobs. I've had to do things I didn't really want to do as well. And so I ask you like do you want to share maybe some of the learnings? There is obviously learnings in doing something you don't like, that makes you realize how much you like what you did before. How was that period? Was it tough? Did you look forward? How much is grit important in your life by not letting go? Can you tell us a bit.
Farhana Aboo [10:01]: So I left MTV as I was telling you, because they were restructuring and my role was.. So I started as an intern but they kind of kept me on and created a role for me because I worked with some amazing people there. When they were making all these redundancies. My role was a contract role and which was basically made permanent. Essentially, I kind of lost my job. But at that time I didn't grid. I was like I worked to MTV, I will get a job easy". So I was pretty relaxed about it. And then applying for places, and not even getting any responses. I was like "what's going on? It Says MTV on here". A friend of mine worked at House of Fraser, which is a retail department store. And he's like "Well, why don't you just come work for a bit while you are job hunting" and I was like "Oh yeah, that's a good idea, at least I'll get some money coming in". I ended up there for a couple of years. So in the first year, I was like "OK something's going to come up, something gonna come up" and then nothing did. And luckily, I have this attitude: if something's not working, instead of continuing to do the same thing, look at why it's not working or what are the other steps that I could take to get out of that. And although I had fun, like the people I work with were fun. And I like talking to people but once you've studied, you spend that much money getting a degree. You work somewhere where "Oh my God I work at MTV" to then be like "I'm holding T-Shirts and people are asking me stupid questions about whatever they want to buy". It was quite demoralizing, but — and you would feel quite depressed because you are like "Where's my life going? I can't do anything" — but instead of kind of letting that get you down, I was like "What can I do to stand out from everyone else? And how can I approach this in a different way to get out of here?". So I did a few courses, I did like Photoshop and Dreamweaver. But then I also decided to invest a bit more so I got a loan, and I signed up with the CIM, which is the Chartered Institute of Marketing diploma. So I do know that it was really difficult to study and work full time. But I hadn't even finished it, and I got an email. Someone contacted me to "come for this job", and as I was telling you earlier, I didn't even realize it was a job interview that was going for. And it was Perform and my CV was on monster.com, and I had put it on that I was doing the CIM. And when I went for the interview, they did actually tell me that was what stood out. So immediately, that loan and that hard work was kind of right — It's actually working. What I learned from that was never keep doing the same thing. For a long period of time, if it's not working, you need to change things up. Also, it all depends on your attitude. If you feel defeated, and you let that keep you down, then you're not going to get out of it. I recently had someone who was with a friend of mine: he wants to work in music and it's not working out. He's only just finished uni and he was like "Maybe, this is not for me maybe...". I was like "You've been in there for like two months, I had this two years where I was stuck somewhere". If you have a defeatist attitude, then that's what you're going to get. So I think it's always about looking at things from a different angle and just kind of seeing what you can do to help motivate you. Or just get out of this. Although, Perform wasn't music. It was working in marketing. It was working on something that I had spend time and money in building up my skills. Yeah. That's the only thing I can learn from there.
David Weiszfeld [14:01]: There is the double down: you spend a year trying to find something that doesn't work and you actually take a loan to go study more and add more risk. And then, actually, that pays off in a very counterintuitive way. You keep applying and then the people just reach out to you spontaneously. Yeah. That's amazing. Most people who work in music might not know what Perform is. And Perform is actually quite a large company. It has 3000 employees. Could you explain very quickly what Perform does?
Farhana Aboo [14:43]: I hadn't even heard of Perform until they contacted me. But what I learned is that it's a massive company focused on Sports, Media. They started off as a small company and then grew really quickly. When I was there it was like hundreds of people, they had two locations at the time. And it was kind of similar to what we were doing with MTV, with having localized MTV channels. They had a streaming channel for every imaginable sport. I mean they had a channel archery: who subscribes to an archery channel on a monthly basis? Darts, tennis, football, basketball, handball, rugby, like anything you can think of, that is a sport — they had a channel for that. They operated in two ways. It was quite a long time, well over seven years ago when I left there. They had channels that were fully owned by them but then they also work almost like an agency for certain channels like Tennis TV. But I think Tennis TV has gone back to ATP now. And the channels work on a subscription basis, so they live-stream sporting events. So tennis was like a big one that both the WTA and the ATP. People subscribe to the channel on a monthly basis, or they used to have like passes for specific matches or whatever is. They were a content provider. I'm pretty sure they've evolved into a lot more that I don't know about, because I left seven years ago. And although, tennis or sports was not something that I was passionate about, I learned so much from that job. I think that is the job where I have to say. Prior to that I hated data analytics and things like that, because I never had to deal with it. And then when I came to Perform, the amount of data they have, and how they use it, and how creative you can be with data was something that was a massive learning experience for me. I was like maybe data is not so bad. Now; I’m like geeking out over like: "give me more data!"
David Weiszfeld [17:06]: Would you say that's the biggest learning between Perform and MTV or Perform and AEI, or any type of music company you must hear of. The how-tos and the best practices is laser focus on actual data and facts. Is that the number one change, the number one difference?
Farhana Aboo [17:26]: I think, with MTV, because of the time that I was there, I guess digital was only just kind of coming about, and I had nothing to do with that part of the business. I kind of tried to think back. Although I learnt a lot from MTV, I can't focus on a tangible thing that could take away from that, other than seeing how the business works. So I mean how the music industry from their perspective works. But when it came to Perform, it was more like Marketing, and being strategic, and I think that really helped when I got the job at AEI. To take those skills and apply them to AEI, working with YouTube channels and the amount of data that we get. And just being kind of more streamlined and strategic. And using data to inform what we're doing. I think the skills that I gained at Perform definitely have been invaluable. The amount of work has been fairly small, so I've been able to be a bit more hands-on with things, and I can see what's happening was. I don't know if other media, or music companies do it the same way, or if you have a specific department that does that and then everyone else hasn't a clue. Whereas with these two places, I did actually get to do it.
David Weiszfeld [18:58]: I think it's very hard for a standard music company to imagine how you guys work at AEI. Just because it's such a specific type of company. The best way for me to summarize it as a normal music guy is: "You know all those big YouTube channels, well there is a company that helps them organize their strategies, their branding, their monetization. And the overall growth, like the actual corporate strategy, almost. So that company is AEI.'' That's the best way for me to summarize. How do you guys pitch yourselves, describe yourself?
Farhana Aboo [19:46]: Well it's actually been like an ongoing thing where — because of the complicated nature of the business, we've had trouble ourselves trying to explain what it is that we do. More recently, we've kind of distilled it down to the core thing, that describe AEI is, basically, we’re bring like-minded people together. And allowing people to have a lifetime career in music. And essentially, yes, what you said is correct. It's not just YouTube channels though — it's young entrepreneurs, who have a passion for music, have similar values to us, and we basically help develop their business from a passion-project into something they can have a long term business with. So for people who don't know what we do: AEI operates on three different levels. So, you've got your music, you've got your content, and then you've got your live. So the music side of things: we do everything from distribution, licensing, synch, publishing. We mostly work across the Youtube channels that we own or manage. And we work with the artists that they're supporting. All of those labels, all of those brands also have labels that they release artists music on. And we also work with independent artists are not associated with any of those labels. And then on the live side, we started doing events based around the brand. So UKF events, the SoundYouNeed event. And then a few years ago we got into festivals. So we launched El Dorado Festival four years ago. We've partnered with a brand called Cirque Du Soul. These young guys were doing events across the country, In the UK, like a university led kind of event. So we launched four years ago a small rustic festival El Dorado. It's like in a really nice picturesque Herefordshire. Lots of fun. And then we have investment in Let It Roll, the biggest Drum & Bass festival in the world. And we also did Detonate Festival, which is up north in the UK as well. So that's not just to do with live music and YouTube channels. We kind of work with events and promoters and things like that. Which is why we said: we bring like-minded people together who have a passion for music. So you know it could be music. It could be running a YouTube channel, starting a record label or running events. So anything to do with that, we kind of get our hands in that.
David Weiszfeld [22:34]: Yes. And I think that's absolutely unique in the industry. One of your directors I think started doing the business when he was 16 or 17. I guess it's a very specific type of company, operated by people who understand the new paradigm, the new digital landscape. You would you would say it better. One of the things that surprises me is the ability that you guys have to scale brands. To get to scale the revenues alley or the exposure of a brand. And so to start from a Youtube channel, to create a community around that channel, to have a new identity genre associated to the channel, and to be able to leverage that and make a festival sounds very easy to say. It must be extremely hard to actually build. Because the brand is not the artist. The brand is not a media, like an old school media, but it is definitely a new media. I was gonna ask things like "how has technology impacted the way you work? Like since MTV to Perform, and today AEI. How do you guys actually work every day that makes you think like that it just didn't exist five years ago? Already the concept of YouTube channels didn't exist seven or eight years ago? How does that materialize on the day to day level for you guys?
Farhana Aboo [24:09]: First of all, the brand-owners that we work with. Some of them are in the U.K. but the others are like all-over. The Internet itself has helped discover talent across the world and be able to still work with them. But like internally, we have team members who work remotely and that is due to tools like Slack, the instant messaging. We have Versana because we're doing so many projects that just to be able to track everything. That's definitely help as well. I don't really know how we do everything. We're quite a small team. I think that it's about 40 of us in total now — we've grown considerably. All the brand-owners: there's two or three that are in the office, the rest of them are remote. I think technology in terms of just accessibility, doesn't matter where you are in the world, you can still using Google for everything. Google Drive, Google Docs. You don't have to send files or anything like, that has really helped as well. Obviously Music through SoundCloud or Dropbox files. I mean if people send downloads you're like "what is this for". Send me a link — a Youtube link or SoundCloud link.
David Weiszfeld [25:46]: It's also, I think, how you consider a senior person at a company called AEI, when you know that some of the founders of 26 or 27. And some of the owners of the channels must be the same type of age. The average age. It's so much easier to think about new things where you're in an entire environment full with people who are basically new. And you have a few very experienced people to kind of coach those young brains. The young minds and the young spirits, they don't actually see that as change. They see this as just the way it is today.
Farhana Aboo [26:21]: Well one of the things that you might have asked me later on: how we adapt to changing technology. And that is exactly it: Luke started his channel at 16 only to share music with his friends. And then, he didn't realize how he would snowball because of technology and being it the ability to share things that. He actually quit uni. He didn't finish to take that more seriously. And then, he's one of the owners of the company and we don't see that age difference because of what he brings to the table. You can have a conversation with him and not think "Oh, you're only this age". That is also amazing, the ideas that he comes up with. I think the other the other owner for NCS for No Copyright Sounds, which has like over 22 million subscribers. Billy, he was a video gamer. And he just wanted to upload his YouTube videos with music on it but kept getting taken down. He was like, "Right, I'm going to sign the music myself, then I won't have the issue of my video getting taken down". Again he was fulfilling a need of other people like him. And that snowballed, and you now discovered the likes of Alan Walker. In fact recently, we have a track that we distribute for NCS. Literally just put it out. It's called Cradles by Sub Urban. It got good support on Spotify — and then a few weeks ago, someone did a little video on TikTok like you know a dance from that with the track and it went viral and then someone else from Russia did some weird TikTok video. It's gone viral and it's been shared. About how many videos are being made? About over height hundred thousand videos being made of it on then. And the streams are literally mad. But it's all this new technology that sometimes, even we, are like "Oh right, we need to learn more about it". So it's working with younger people, the artists are younger, and just kind of taking everyone's ideas on board whether they're an intern or the CEO, it doesn't really matter. It's about the ideas. I think everyone is really excited about trying new things and not scared of trying new things which I think a lot of big companies have an issue with.
David Weiszfeld [28:56]: I think one of the things that probably marks the difference between AEI and a lot of other companies is that the methods that you apply two or three years ago cannot be reapplied. It's not like released a single if you're a major, where it is different but it is kind of the same. The YouTube algorithm has changed a lot in the past two years. You guys must be tweaking, and tweaking, and looking for patterns a lot. Today you're talking about this Tik Tok video that is booming — in two years it will not be that same type of thing. Five months ago it was not that as well. Do you guys have a method for that actually? That's a curiosity question. Is there a moment during the week where people are describing the new techniques, the new patterns, the new campaigns. That kind of "Oh that's new. We should probably do that as well".
Farhana Aboo [29:47]: I wish we were that organized. It's more about the curiosity and the passion that everyone has for music and technology. So everyone is subscribed to, or looking at different things. So like when it comes to marketing, I'll be reading different publications or watching these things. People who are releasing music will be looking — like the guys who upload YouTube videos are constantly looking at the algorithm. So the one thing that we do really well is actually share information internally whether it is not in an organized pattern, but we also go out for drinks a lot. So we’re always talking about things as well as outside of work, like "Oh, did you see this or that" or "I was on Instagram the other day, I saw this". "What do you think about doing that?". You know for example, pre-sales and things are they like "well what can we do that?". So we are talking to our developers "let's try and build it". So it is everyone's hunger for finding new things and sharing it, and then experimenting. I think those are the things that really drive everyone that worked within the team. And that's kind of how we keep evolving each time, having people who work in each department who are really passionate. And keep an eye on everything. And then sharing that information with each other.
David Weiszfeld [31:05]: And then having a pub meeting!
Farhana Aboo [31:08]: And the pub meetings are the best, we have the best ideas there.
David Weiszfeld [31:12]: Of course after 7:00 p.m. That's usually when the ideas get interesting. I don't want to grab too much of your time and I realize it's almost 45. I want to segway to the conclusion. At the beginning of the interview, I mentioned you were the first woman on the program. And I am ashamed of that.
Farhana Aboo [31:32]: You invite me in that episode so it's fine.
David Weiszfeld [31:35]: But I think it was an important thing to not start the series like this. I wanted to ask you a bit about a work-life balance. We were jokingly talking at the beginning of the interview that you were working remotely today. I was working remotely yesterday. And so, actually, I also notice you do a lot of sports and that seems to be a central in your life. Can you talk a bit about the work-life balance? I don't know if there is actually something specific about a woman work life balance? There's obviously maybe more kids-sometimes situation. How have you been able to find like a center in this professional life, that is a bit chaotic?
Farhana Aboo [32:23]: I think partly with just the way I am. I'm kind of always, as much as I love my job or enjoy what I'm doing. I kind of have always had like a stop. It's 6:00, I've done work, I'm going to go and do whatever I want to do. I want to socialize with my friends, or see family, or just sit down and watch Netflix. Whatever it is, I've always had that any way. But I'm also very fortunate in the sense that AEI is also very encouraging about having a work life balance. I think almost half, if not half, of people in the office do meditation. So we do transcendental meditation that the company subsidize the courses for. We do yoga in the office. I’m not a sporty person, I would say, but I like doing martial arts. I did Jujitsu at University, Kickboxing and more recently I've been getting more into boxing and because I really enjoy it. I make time for it and I actually did a white-collar fight a few weeks ago and I won. So that was great. Yeah. So it's just doing things that I enjoy that are not work related. And making sure that, because you don't want to get burnt out, that you lose your passion. The one thing, I always wanted, even when I was at university, was to do a job that I enjoyed. Because you spend so much of your time at work. So my motto in life is just to have fun. So if anything is not fun, and you're feeling burnt out, you're not going to want to do it. So it's just to make sure that you're doing enough to keep it balanced. Doing things that are fun for you, that are outside of work is important.
David Weiszfeld [34:12]: II was going to say you're going to actually lose your passion by burning out along the way.
Farhana Aboo [34:21]: I'm just saying things like just more things. Like making sure, you don't have notifications on your phone for Slack or email, things like that after you've finished work. Unless there's obviously a working on something on a deadline, then you can check in. But other than that, making sure that when you finish when — you finish work.
David Weiszfeld [34:37]: Last couple of questions. They're always hard. The first one is easier: what would you say a 19 year-old to an 18 year-old person, starting in the media tech content industry.
Farhana Aboo [34:52]: Yeah. Because I speak in so many conferences, and we also try and go and speak to kids in school, University. Because I feel really passionate about helping the younger people come through and because I had no idea that I could work in music until I did a work experience, or no one told me that there was these options. I would just say that explore as many options as possible. You don't have to feel bad if you don't know what you want to do then. Just get to me, as many people as you want get curious about. Things that you're passionate about. Because who knew that just playing video games would make you a huge success, like Billy from NCS. So just because you're passionate and something, and your mom said "with all these CDs that you're buying and all the movies that you're watching, what are you going to do with that in real life?". In reality you can do a lot. So just be curious. And because now there's so much information and access, go to networking events. Do research. Just explore what you're passionate about and see how you can make that something you can do as your career.
David Weiszfeld [36:07]: You can actually make a career of any passion if you're the most passionate about it.
Farhana Aboo [36:13]: Absolutely. Our two founders, Dell and James, they basically Started AEI because they didn't want to get a proper job. And here they are, like 20 years later, and they still are doing this.
David Weiszfeld [36:28]: So, last question, and that one usually gets a big hmmm. What would you tell you if you were if you met the 19 year old you today. What would be the best advice that you wish you had gotten when you were 19?
Farhana Aboo [36:47]: That is a difficult one, because I think all the experience that you go through make you the person that you are. So you don't really want to change too much. I would probably just say to be a bit more confident in my abilities and realize that a little bit sooner than when the journey is taken. But again, it's all about the learning, isn't it. And then you get where you are because of what you went through.
David Weiszfeld [37:14]: If and if she got the ultimate tip when you were 19 maybe you hadn't you wouldn't have gone through the grind. And so maybe you would have had less grit..
Farhana Aboo [37:27]: To have more working experience from an earlier age, rather than wait until I was at university and much later. Yeah.
David Weiszfeld [37:34]: Well cool. It's been 39 minutes. I wanted it to go a few minutes ago. Thanks for your time. Thank you for doing this, and see you soon!
Farhana Aboo [37:45]: Yes. See you in London. Bye!!
Founder & CEO, Soundcharts.com & bsharp.biz
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