What you need to know about Airtable
Spreadsheets are dead – they didn’t scale with the industry – so we have group text threads and breakout meetings to confirm redundant information that’s out-of-date before it hits the inbox. Thankfully, there’s a solution to our industry’s systems epidemic.
Airtable is the most accessible software development language in history. In a matter of hours, it allows non-technical people like you and I to create custom business apps that organize information, align the team, and automate the bulk of our work.
I know, I know: “Stop with the apps and find me the hits.” I get it. But the ‘hit record panacea’ mentality is what got us here in the first place. Besides, what do you think your bundle of inherited spreadsheets is, anyway? A custom business app! But you're missing the most important part: a relational database.
Relational databases allow for information to exist in a single place while being utilized by an unlimited number of department-specific apps. This superpower – known as a single source of truth – gives everyone access to reliable information in real-time, thereby reducing the need for excessive internal communication and allowing computers to automate all the boring stuff.
I spent most of COVID learning Airtable from experts worldwide. Days were filled with Zoom lessons, nights with YouTube deep dives and tinkering ‘til the wee hours. By summer 2021, I had transformed every spreadsheet system used to run my music marketing agency, record label, and artist management business into custom software built on Airtable.
All of a sudden, my releases were being scheduled with the click of a button, the influencers were being activated with the change of a status, and marketing campaign performance tracking followed suit automatically. We were five people doing the work of twenty. The productivity lift was intoxicating.
A year later, as my clients and friends continued to struggle with outdated, spreadsheet-based systems, it became obvious that sharing this expertise was the most important work I could be doing in the music business. That’s when Relationl, the first Airtable Services Partner agency for music, was born.
We’re now a team of four accredited Airtable experts servicing a rapidly growing roster of 20+ clients, from record labels and distributors, to publishing companies, music law firms, event businesses, and more. Here are a few examples of the systems we build:
Release Tracking
DSP Pitch Automation
Budget and Expense Tracking
A&R Research Tool & CRM
Clearance & Label Copy Management
Artist Growth and Consumption Tracking
Composition Management
Ticket Request Management
Influencer Campaign Management
Automated Playlist Reporting
Artist Itinerary Management
We are in the midst of a systems renaissance. Software that once took a year and a million dollars to build can now be whipped up in two weeks by everyday people like us. This rapid cultural shift has made custom business software an urgent and practical solution to our industry's spreadsheet woes. It will be a few years before this reality is widely understood, but trust me, your competitors are catching on. Soon, we'll all be laughing at the things we used to do with Excel.
For more information, check out this Airtable For Music demo series I’ve been putting out on YouTube (hint: this is the entire playbook for free) and hit us up to explore how we can help each other.
Max