Today I will tell me my personal story, which started two years ago with Envato. This isn't a regular quick tip. I would like to encourage every reader to believe in what they do. It's possible to succeed!
Writing for Audiotuts+
Two years ago I saw an offer on Audiotuts+ that said you can write an article and get paid. I said myself, "I can do it. I have never written a tutorial before, but I can do it." So I wrote my first one, and was successful.
It was great, and I got a lot of money. I mean, for me this was huge—and I was still a school student. So I decided to write more, and was successful again and again.
But sadly the money wasn’t enough to live on in Hungary, my home country. I had to do more. I needed more work in the music industry.
Organizing Music Events and Exhibitions
There was an exhibition in Hungary about Ableton Live. It wasn’t huge, but this is small country. When I was attending the eleventh meeting I realised it was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be part of it. The main concept of the event was to get the top Hungarian producers to show the amateurs how they make music.
The event had a webpage, but it wasn’t successful because it didn't have much content. So I wrote a letter. Believe it or not, you can change your life with three emails.
The first I sent it was my Audiotuts tutorial email. The second was to the main organizer of the event. I wrote to him and attached my Audiotuts+ tutorials.
The third email was his reply. "OK, that’s fine. Want to do this? We can’t pay any salary." But I didn’t care. I believed that it would be something big, and started work on the webpage.
I created lots of Hungarian tutorials. The site became incredibly successful. Although there are lots of music vendors and sound engineers in the country, no one had ever been done anything like this.
The Ableton event was the first exhibition in our country promoting how to make electronic dance music. But it has never made any money. Every year it got bigger and bigger. At the fourteenth event there were more than 300 visitors and 700 online viewers. That was huge! And the music vendors saw that. They asked us about bringing their products and enterprise to support the meeting.
This is where the story really starts. I spoke to the main organizer about making an enterprise of it, and the potential that it had. He didn’t understand at first, but finally decided to let us do it.
The fifteenth event had a different name, because the artists were not just talking about Ableton Live anymore. It was called “Producer/DJ”. There were six exhibitors in the meeting with big guns, including Roland, Rane DJ, Numark, QSC, and some local vendors. It was a big success, and not just for the people who came to learn.
The big companies said the event was a financial success for them–they sold lots of product—and the exhibition had positive content. We earned money for the first time in seven years, and this was just my second year involved with the event. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough to make some improvements and investments.
Starting a Music Production and DJ School
Last year a firm ask me to start a music production and DJ school for them. That was my dream! Unfortunately it didn’t begin well. We did all the work, and they took all the money.
So we started again on our own, without money and a venue. I almost gave up.
Then a company asked me to write a book about Ableton Live. I did. I wrote it in two months, and earned a lot of money. We started the school again.
This April it started with 11 students. That's more than I was expecting.
Running the DJ Borze Portal
Lastly, my biggest success happened when the owner of the DJ Borze website asked me to become the CEO of his company, because he had to start working in Miami. That just happened in January! I stopped breathing for a moment.
Everyone in this country is familiar with DJ Borze—it has more than 180 000 visitors per month. So I decided to say, "Yes," and nowadays my job is to sell banners to the biggest music industry companies in Hungary.
The Latest Producer/DJ Event
The latest Producer/DJ event was held on April 20th. Believe it or not, the main organizer and supporter this time was Lamborghini.
It’s great story. It turns out one of my students has a high position in Lamborgini East-Europe. I mean, what are the chance of starting a new school, and someone from one of the biggest companies walks in to learn how to make electronic dance music?
I persuaded him to support our event. There were lots of products there: the new Numark controllers, The Roland Gaia synth, the MPC Renaissance, and some modular synths as well. We are growing incredible fast.
Conclusion
So I would like to say that if you love something, go for it, and work hard to reach your goal. I’m 100 percent sure it will work out.
It won't be easy. There lots of people out there who want your business to disappear. But there are others who want you to be successful, and are willing to help you.
I would like to thank Adrian Try and the Envato team for giving me the chance month by month to present my work. And thank all of my readers who follow me each month.
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