In this episode of Backstage Money, host Jason K Powers sits down with Justin Longo, founder and CEO of MariNation, a new platform exploring how fans, artists, and data could reshape the way music is funded.

Justin breaks down the problem artists face today, streaming pays more than ever at the industry level, but individual artists see less value per song than ever before. The conversation explores how artists are forced to self-fund releases, tours, and content long before the music ever generates income, and why that financial pressure often stalls creative momentum.

Justin explains how MariNation approaches this challenge through a fantasy-style, risk-free music investing game that tracks real artist performance data, allowing fans to engage with music in a deeper way while competing for real prizes and experiences. The discussion also looks ahead at what the future could hold, including artist equity, fan participation, and new ways artists might fund careers without selling off their rights too early.

This episode is for independent musicians, touring artists, music entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in the intersection of music, technology, and financial sustainability.

Backstage Money is real-world finance for musicians, where music and money collide through honest conversations with artists and industry professionals who are living it.

Connect with Justin Longo & MariNation

Website: https://marinationmusic.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mari__nation

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mari..nation

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https://1024wealth.com/music

Welcome to Backstage Money, real World Finance for Musicians.

I'm your host, Jason K. Powers, and this is where music and money collide

with honest stories and practical lessons from people who make it work.

So let's get to it.

Today I am joined by Justin Longo, founder and CEO of MariNation, a

platform built to let people make money while listening to music.

By turning music investing into a game, he is building a bridge between streaming

financing and fandom, and setting the stage for what he calls the first

regulated music investment exchange.

And we're gonna talk about that.

Justin, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure.

Yeah, I was really fascinated when I first heard about this and it's intriguing.

I think it's, It's a good blend of technology, the future,

you know, and potential.

And so I was definitely intrigued and I think our listeners are

gonna be intrigued as well.

So give us a sort of short form version of MariNation what it is and who it's for.

Yeah, absolutely.

So MariNation is a fantasy and prediction based music market

where fans can trade like the momentum of their favorite artists.

So basically that means, you know.

A lot of fans, myself included.

We love discovering new music.

We love being early to things in the music industry, and this basically just

gives an opportunity to do that and bring it to light while earning real

prizes, real experiences artist owned businesses you can earn like merchandise

and that sort of thing as well.

It's for investors, it's for fans, and it's for artists.

It's for all different types of parties in the music industry.

Okay.

All right.

So from an artist's perspective what's kind of their intrigue

from their vantage point?

Abso.

Yeah, for sure.

So

I.

Focus when it comes to artists is revenue streams, right?

The music industry, music streaming has significantly devalued financially.

Songs you know, you can see that with transition from CDs to Apple Music to now,

you know, Spotify and the streaming model.

So our focus for artists is to put more money in their pocket, is to give them

a platform where they can, offer their products or offer some sort of experience

for their fans, connect to them on a deeper level and also sell them on

more product offerings aside or aligned to their streaming and their career.

So for example, we have competitions on the platform.

Those competitions are set for artist owned businesses.

So say Drake owns an OVO merchandise his OVO clothing brand, right?

Or Justin Bieber has a clothing brand.

You know, Rihanna has her Fendi beauty line, which is, you know,

cosmetics and makeup and stuff.

So we give the opportunity for artists to monetize products that

they're also pushing in regard in addition to their their music.

So that creates an additional revenue stream and we wanna help.

that for artists.

Okay, so I like how diverse it is, right?

It's coming at it from both angles.

So both sides can play, so to speak.

And I think the problem that many myself and people like you and new technology

out there we're trying to address is.

how can we help musicians from the struggle, right?

Because there's a big thing these days about streaming.

Streaming is not helping a lot of artists, but they're not getting paid what they're

worth, what they should be getting.

You know, there's just the money struggle, right?

And, you know, for most artists as I say, money comes late and the bills

come early and we need, we need.

To get money moving.

You know, artists need to get money moving.

You know, there's studio deposits and mixing and mastering and

videos and ads and tour holds and travel and, you know, it all needs

cash before music earns, right?

And streaming pays slowly or in small drips, you know, tickets, sales.

If you're already touring, ticket sales can be lumpy early

on, or small crowds bigger.

You don't know what you're gonna get, right?

Merch, you gotta supply the inventory.

So the real question is how do you fund, how do you fund the

work without stalling your work?

Right.

Yeah, I mean, it's a great point.

And the thing with, you know, innovation and technology and

streaming in particular, right?

It's increased the revenue for the entire music industry substantially, right?

Music's, never had more revenue per year in the past, like five or 10 years.

You know, Spotify and these other streaming platforms are making

an incredible amount of money.

And that also helps artists too.

It helps them gain exposure.

It helps people make music very simply and easily.

Now with technology, they can reach an artist, they can go on Distro

Kit or CD baby and distribute their music to all these streaming

platforms to anybody around the world.

Right?

That's an incredible.

like milestone in the music industry.

But the flip side of that is the monetize or the financial value per song has

decreased because it's such a commodity.

It's so frequent.

There's so much of it now because it's so easily accessible for anybody

to make music and distribute it.

Sure.

Sure.

Well, and yeah, that's a great point.

I mean, the music industry, and I don't have the report handy.

I was reading one earlier the, that just put out the.

A report on how much money these big companies are making and the numbers every

year are going up and up and up and up.

Now the big guys, the big artists, you know, they're rocking and

rolling and that's awesome.

And I think the music industry as a whole is rising because I think

people are, you know, if we like COVID days when nobody could do anything.

Live shows were not a thing.

People start being more interested in what's online.

So short form content, start rolling out Musicians really could latch onto

that with social media and really get the word out about their music.

And now everything is an effort to be viral.

You know, we wanna be viral.

Gotta make this video go viral, have this scene, go

Yeah.

whatever it is.

And that generates publicity for you.

You know, it's free publicity online.

But the artists are trying so many things now to fill in the gaps.

You know, every conversation I have with an artist on here

we have that conversation.

What, what else are artists doing to fill the gaps?

If you're not a full-time touring musician, you know, when you're home

you're probably doing something else.

You have some side hustle or some.

Some JOB even.

But it's not uncommon, right?

It, and the general public doesn't know about it.

We don't hear about it.

You know, we have the common paths, you know, where artists now trying

to fill in the gaps even to fill in the gaps of funding their music even

is, you know, you're self-funding it.

You get that second job and self-fund it or save up and self-fund it.

Some friends and family, if you're lucky.

You know, credit cards, crowdfunding even if you're more into it, you're selling

a slice of royalties or taking advances.

But each has a trade off, you know?

Right.

And, you know, interest and, and pressure and donor fatigue, we would call it.

And it's, it can be taxing on the individual.

You know, there's just so many things out there.

So many things out there.

Yeah.

I'm sure you know, you're, you probably talk to a lot of artists and, you

know, coach them on this, but the the weight that financial problems

have around artists or creative is incredibly detrimental to their career.

You know, they're constantly, I, from speaking from personal experience,

you know, I was a music producer for a couple of years, and the financial

burden that you carry around on a daily basis is very, to your creative spirit.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And it's a grind.

I mean, I think I, I admire the musician who's just, you guys gotta constantly

be out there and constantly pushing and pushing and pushing and trying and

trying and trying and do not give up.

You know, that's advice we get almost every interview is do not give up.

Hang in there.

Yeah.

Do what you do.

Do it for your fans.

Do the right thing, and.

You'll get there, you'll get there.

You know, but it's a grind man.

It is, it is.

Well let's spin back to MariNation, Amer.

Well, let's spin back to MariNation and recap it again.

So in plain English, from the artist perspective, you know, how does this

aim to potentially fill, say the middle ground for artists and help them?

In that way, you're, I, I love you have this, this risk-free simulation that on

the fan side can get into and practice music investing and, and so, so talk

a little bit about that, but also talk about how it's different than, you know,

we talked about before the show, we were talking about the organizations out there

that are, you're monetizing music rights, you know, and maybe contrast the two.

Of course, from an artist's perspective, it's a additional revenue stream and

it's a way to deepen the relationship and strengthen the loyalty for your

current fans and to gain new fans.

So that would be the primary motives for artists to partake on this

from the fan perspective with the fantasy simulated model that we have.

You basically, we treat it at the, as the stock market of music.

You come on the platform and you select artists and you.

Submit a so we give you a balance when you come to the platform.

That's a simulated balance.

It's, it's all tokens.

You select artists and as your portfolio grows, say roster, if you're a record

label, you know, as your roster grows in performance, you know you can.

Actual prizes, concert tickets, VIP experiences, cash, all of

that stuff for fans and investors.

You know, we have that simulated model.

You don't have to get a credit card.

There's no upfront payments.

There's nothing like that.

It's a risk-free environment where you get to experience music investing with

the biggest artists in the world, and you get to experience and earn real prizes

and real tangible results from that.

way we are different from a royalty exchange or some of the other platforms

where you have to sell your rights we are, as I said, it's a simulated environment.

Royalty Exchange is a real environment.

and buying and selling music catalogs.

You know, whoever owns the rights to those catalogs, you can put

it up for a sale up for auction.

And if there's a buyer willing to, you know, you get upfront payments of

cash eventually we want, we are going to introduce real world money, real

tangible assets into the platform.

But for right now, this simulated environment allows us to.

Like introduce the new, it's a new concept.

Introduce this new concept with people to get them familiar with it, get

them feeling comfortable with it.

You know, there's no real there's no real financial risk.

That's a huge thing, right?

We're, we're lowering the friction in order for people to try it and experience

the real benefits that this is gonna have for all of the people in the industry.

So our competitive advantage, the thing that makes us really unique

is our Artist Momentum Index.

It's a MI to be to be short.

So basically that means, back end of like the stock market with

percentages and all that stuff.

We have that for artists.

So we create valuations for artists, we create performance metrics for

artists, and we bundle that in to display like an actual stock for.

The biggest artists in the world.

So it's a really interesting model, how we bring together the stats and

the data to give it a a risk-free environment, a fun environment to connect

to these artists in a ownership deeper way and to actually earn real prizes.

Great.

So it's a, I mean, it's a risk-free environment, but it's real stats and so

Yes.

it seems like the artist can really.

Build on that, at least from a, from a data standpoint, like

they have access to that data

Yep.

can learn from it.

it, it'd be, it's great for artists to look at how they're

doing in the market too.

'cause can.

See what their actions are doing in real time off of our platform.

So say, you know, I just what if I'm an artist, I just announce that I'm releasing

a song next month or whatever it is.

You know, you could start to see kind of the, the shift or the decline if you're.

You know, haven't released a lot of music and see that on our platform because

we're tracking your monthly listeners and your streams and all of these

different streaming platforms and all these different data sets to show you in

real time, like, are you are you growing?

Are you not growing?

Are you, you know, staying stagnant and all that stuff.

And that could be very useful for your career to, you know, make the necessary

decisions that you need to make.

Well expound on a little bit where exactly all that data is coming from.

The data's coming from all the different streaming platforms.

You know, all the, all the famous ones that, you know, YouTube, Spotify,

Pandora, you know, Shazams, you know, how many people are shazaming your songs.

We're tracking social media metrics too.

Obviously say a million followers on Instagram doesn't translate

to a million dollars, but we do have an algorithm that is.

Pretty accurate in regards to creating an estimated balance

financially on how much a follower count would be worth in the market.

Because at the end of the day, it's the music industry.

It's the music entertainment industry, excuse me.

And you know, a following a social media presence is incredibly

valuable, especially as an artist to cultivate an audience and a fan base.

So that's where a lot of those stats are coming from, and that's

how we're kind of, piecing it all together with, with our algorithm

And then all of the giveaways and prizes and what have you,

where is that coming from?

that's coming from us.

You know, we're partnering with a bunch of artists but basically we, at the

early stages, you know, we're buying these prizes, setting them up ourselves,

and then we're just offering on the platform, you know, their users do.

Select a, a fee per competitions, and we pool that money together and then we

distribute that in addition to us also fronting some of the costs for the product

offerings, the experience offerings, the concert tickets, the sweatshirts,

the merchandise, the, possible private, you know, zoom calls with some of

the artists we're gonna partner with.

And given the fans that extra experience.

And then, so as far as artist engagement, is it an opt-in process at the moment?

Is it an opt-in process or are you kind of sweeping all artists in and then directly

connecting with the select few or the ones who want to, how, what's that look like?

Yeah.

So all the artists that we have are, are, we're just not,

they're not optin at the moment.

They're, they're all there already.

Right.

The ones that we're going to partner with, obviously they would have to opt into

the platform and get involved that way.

How they want to get involved is completely up to them.

You know, do they have a new clothing line that they wanna promote?

You know, we would partner with them in regards to getting it the

right exposure that it, it needs to, on the platform, you know.

Do they have a new song release that they would like to sort of promote and

offer a exclusive access or exclusive listening to the fans or offer some

sort of other offering with like, you know, a call or some, some private

group chats and that sort of thing.

So, those artists would obviously opt in, but our platform, the

artists are already there.

In regards to the biggest artists in the world, we have the ability to.

Use that artist data and their information to, you know, kickstart this platform.

Mm-hmm.

so it seems like there's two stages, right?

Right now you have the engagement fan engagement stage where.

I'm gonna call it beta testing.

You probably don't want me calling it that, but it's kind of beta testing

it right now to see the interaction between fan and and artist engagement,

how the data works, how artists, I mean, I'm sorry, fans learning how they

can plug in and, and when things, and, and but, but then phase two really is.

Actual monetization of it.

Mm-hmm.

that fair to say?

So there is monetization in this phase, right?

So artists are putting their, products on for these competitions, right?

And also these real world cash prizes.

You know, fans and investors and artists also get to win these prizes, right?

Artists can also buy and trade other artists on the platform.

They don't necessarily just have to, you know, hold this one role.

They can do multiple things.

They can participate in this game, which.

lot of artists, if not all of them, are also music fans, so they

Yes.

their favorite artists as well.

So that's phase one.

The phase two is getting it really open to the more general public in regards to

like, the investment community and the cryptocurrency trading community and these

betting apps and these betting platforms.

We would partner with an ATS, an alternative trading system in order

to bring that light to be registered with like the SEC and these legal

entities in the United States in order to bring it to the rest of the country.

But this simulated environment is.

Allowing us to bring it to market with all of these artists, risk-free.

Not taking any financial monetary cash from these people who are signing

up, but also give them real prizes as I, you know, continue to mention.

so currently what's the.

Income opportunity for the artist, if any at the moment.

Selling, selling products,

Okay.

selling products on our platform, and also partake in, in the trading

Okay.

win cash and, and experiences and stuff.

Okay.

And then is this something that the artist would also promote to their fans

and try to push their fans over to this?

Yeah, correct.

Yes.

And also get exposure to new, new fans as well because there are some

platforms that are trying this model to, enhance the loyalty or the connection

between the fan and the artist, right?

There's different tiers of fan, as you very well know.

There's the fans that are.

Passive listeners, you know, they put it on when they're making dinner or, you

know, doing some stuff around the house.

And then there's the other listener that, or the other level

fan that'll go to your concert.

And then there's the other level fan that'll do the concert.

They'll get the sweatshirt, they'll go behind backstage,

they'll do the meet and greet.

They'll stand in the rain for five hours to watch

Yeah.

you know, perform and all that stuff.

So platform allows that.

Loyal, true fan to like increase the connection.

And also maybe the passive listener.

The passive listener who's interested in making more money, right?

There's a lot of betting platforms, there's some investment platforms

Who wants, you know, to make, enter, enter these prize pools, right?

There's a lot of people who would like to just do that, who aren't even,

you know, loyal fans of artists, but.

Can also introduce them to, oh, this is really interesting.

I didn't know, you know, these certain artists, Taylor Swift or Drake, you know,

had these stats, or I didn't know they had these clothing lines that, you know, I

Yeah.

win on this platform.

Yep, yep.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

I'm excited for you to, to roll this out and see what becomes of it.

'cause I think there's, it's such a unique approach, you know, and,

and the interactivity potential from fan to artist and vice versa.

You know, and, and it really, to me sounds like a really unique, a unique take on,

on the whole thing, you know, especially in this movement of technology these

days, you know, we're, we're the streaming thing's really not going away, you know,

and now we have AI playing a factor.

In things, whether it's technology or the music itself.

And, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna poke that nest in this conversation, you

know, for AI music, but there's so much out there and, and I think this is really,

sounds like it's really on the front end of that, which I think sounds really neat

and, and could be very good for artists.

I mean, there's, the music industry continues to evolve, right?

And I mean, there's no.

Shortage of challenges that we'll we'll undertake to try and bridge the

gap between, you know, that passive listener to a real loyal fan that's, you

know, starting to buy your merchandise.

All we could do is offer a medium, offer a platform for artists to.

Make more money to get their products out there for fans to possibly become

part owners or feel like they're part owners of somebody's career.

You know, our role in this is to just progress the connection between

the artist and the fan to bring more money to the artist, to bring

more money to the fans and the investors and all of this industry.

We're just another.

Platform to give utility to all these people is, is our, is our model

and our, you know, our direction.

Mm-hmm.

So when, when it goes to the second phase, and we have investors and, and

money being invested into these artists, et cetera, what do you envision the, the

rights, music rights, how does it, how is it gonna affect that kind of thing?

Yeah, it's a great question, and I'll be honest, we're still.

Trying to figure that out.

But off the top of my head, the, the vision for it is

in the music industry.

The way I see it, this will be a hot take.

So I see music.

Songs have continually decreased in financial value AI music coming

on, and also more people having access to distribute their music.

The market's incredibly saturated with songs and with music.

There's tens of millions of songs being uploaded every.

To all of these streaming platforms, and there's a lot of

competition in a saturated market.

I think in my opinion, the next evolution of music is going to be

artists selling equity in their career.

It's going to be selling ownership and percentages of their overall

career like they would to a record label, because these songs

continue to decrease in value with.

Fractions of pennies per stream.

And the, the main way to make money nowadays is touring, right?

That's the main way artists, you know, receive a lot of their money.

And cash flow is from touring.

So I see this as.

The next evolution in this monetization of music is the artists selling

equity, selling stake of ownership in their career, to fans, to investors,

to management, to whoever, two other artists, other artists, buying

other artists percentages, you know, record labels, all this stuff.

I think that's the next evolution of artist.

more money from their career because the song continue to devalue.

So what else is next?

I can just sell equity in my overall career now.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think it certainly could go that way.

There's so much shifting these days and, and in a heat, we're in a heated heated

environment right now with the streaming platforms and, and they're constantly,

now, they're, now, I think it's gotten so heated now that they have to pivot.

They're, you, you're starting to see that even just in the past week at

the time, we're recording this in the past week or so, you're seeing it.

Some streaming services start to pivot a little bit in how they're treating,

how they're paying really artists and what they're doing with it and how

much control they have or don't have.

And, and I think, I think with this boom in technology lately, we're

really gonna see a forcible shift in that, in the industry like that.

And, and this may be right place at the right time, you know?

Yeah,

Yeah.

been, it's been quite the journey to get to this point though, I'll be honest.

We've we've definitely had a DA bunch of different models, you know,

talk to a bunch of artists, talk to a bunch of people in the industry,

and a lot of trial and error.

And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of luck involved in being at the

right time right place at the right time with a lot of this stuff.

But it seems like.

Streaming is, is the end all, be all when it comes to listening to music.

You know, they have hundreds of millions, if not maybe billions of people using

their platforms, and they're in the driver's seat a lot of the time.

But the sa because the ai right, the A, the AI conversation

is, know, do we need artists?

And I personally think we do right?

Touring and concerts are really needed, right?

We have a human deep, visceral connection to live music and live

events, and it's awesome, and I think that'll never go away.

AI can make music and the technology's just gonna continue to get better and

better, and, you know, who knows what, what the future may, may hold for, for

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think there's a lot to be said about live music.

You know, we need in, in general, right, the rise of social media.

We need human interaction.

Face to face, face-to-face, in person, in the flesh, human interaction.

As a society anyway, you know, and, and music has gotten that way, right?

We can stream, we can, we can pull up whatever we wanna listen

to online, you know, in two seconds I can have a song up and

And

but half and it's, you find it free most of the time.

Yeah, but

but live shows.

You can't beat, in my opinion.

I love going to live shows.

I am, I'm always trying to go to a live show, you know, and I'm always

trying to meet the artists and, and, and visit, and I'm always trying

to hit up the merch table if I can.

And, you know, I, that's important, but it's also important in supporting

the artist because they're, they gotta make a living that way.

You know, if, if you're a, if you're a business owner, you know, if you're a,

and you have a friend who's a business owner, you want to support each other.

You know, and, and if for, from a fan perspective, if you are

listening to the band, you want to support them in that way.

Not just get it for free.

We're preaching to the choir here 'cause it's musicians listening, you know,

but everybody's like, that's right.

Preach it, you know?

But, but from the musician perspective, yeah, I think, I think it's like,

yeah, don't give up live music.

Don't, don't give up selling the tangible stuff.

Don't give up.

Meeting your fans.

Keep that interaction going, but technology is here and moving forward

whether we want it to or not, and we need to play the game a little bit also.

Yeah.

I, I think there's a way to do both.

I agree with you.

I agree.

The thing that I was thinking of is, I believe vinyl sales have

increased over the past couple years, if I'm not mistaken.

And the other thing is the it's a big, it's, it's more.

They, the artists get the lion's share of their merchandise.

If I'm, if I'm not mistaken, also, right when the people were selling CDs back

in the early two thousands or whatever, I believe the artists were making the

majority of those sales at the time.

Or if not, I mean, they were making a lot of money from that because

it's a physical, tangible product.

it's just gonna be very, we, we just need to change, right?

Artists need to adapt and be flexible, like ones who have

succeeded have always done right.

You see this in artists changing their.

Persona and changing the genre of music.

Like look at some of these artists like Post Malone, he

started out as a SoundCloud rapper and now he's a country music

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Diplo the music producer, he started out as EDM and has his own label and

then he joined the group, major Laser.

And they do like Afro sort of, Rega tone, music and all that stuff, like

the ones who succeed are the ones who adapt and they change and they're

flexible to the current environment and on to have long lasting careers.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean the, we were talking about that on another show about.

Merch sales and the sale of vinyl and how it's increased year over year.

But I think for the fans, I, I think a lot, you've seen a lot of younger people

take on vinyls now and they're finding it interesting and all the older people who

are like, thank God I hung onto my vinyls, you know, that I had back in the sixties

and seventies and eighties and, and.

And now there's a blending in myself included.

You know, I've been buying vinyls when I see, when I see 'em and

you know, love picking up, picking 'em up, up the merch table if the

band's around and have 'em sign it.

You know, it's just fun to have that tangible and it's experience, right?

You having that vinyl and putting it on, you know, having that, putting

that record on and listening to it.

Right.

It's an experience.

A fun fact in 2022 was the first year that vinyls.

Outsold CDs

as a whole, they sold more vinyls in 2022 than they did CDs 2023.

Same story.

And I think that is on the rise 2024.

I'm pretty sure that, that that trend has probably done nothing but increase,

Mm-hmm.

you know, and I was looking up some stats they said.

They said here in 2023, about 43 million units of vinyl sold

versus 37 million of CDs in 2024.

24 million units of vinyl sold versus 17 million units of cd,

There

which says a lot.

That's a pretty good spread.

That's a pretty good spread.

So I don't know how current those numbers are, but that's, that's,

that's indicative of at least right now, what the trend is, you know?

It's cool that a lot of times the old becomes cool again, right?

If a

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Now it's, now it's kind of a novelty collectible, and it's

cool again to have vinyl.

Mm, mm-hmm.

Well, and I, I attribute it a little bit to Gen X and, and I, I, I, I joke,

'cause I say we're all old enough to now afford to go to concerts all

the time and buy the merch all the time or buy the vinyl all the time.

You know, so that's why you see these legacy bands coming

back around and they're like, we're gonna go on tour again.

And that's not why, but I think that's a good reason why and

'cause we're all coming out for it.

You know, we're all going.

I'll go to that.

I'll go see them again, man.

It's been 15 years, 20 years since I've seen them.

And go see them.

And then, but vinyls just the same.

You know, we're, we're a nostalgic generation

Yeah,

and we love it.

I love it.

Alright man.

let's plug MariNation as, you know, the world's first music investing

game where fans can make money while listening to artists they love.

Is that accurate?

That's great.

Yeah.

great.

You should be a our talk show host.

So, gimme, gimme just a wrap up on from an artist's perspective one more time.

What is it?

Where can they go to connect with you if they want to get plugged into this?

If they want to learn more how can they engage in what's going on and,

and get their music plugged in?

Absolutely from for artists, it's a additional revenue stream.

It's a way to deepen relationships with the current fans and audience that you

have, and also to get exposure to new fans and cultivate that loyalty that

you have with your current audience.

if you guys wanna check us out, we're on all TikTok and social media.

You can follow us at.

Mari__Nation on Instagram, MARI, under N-A-T-I-O-N on TikTok.

We have a couple accounts M-A-R-I-N-A-T-I-O-N.

If you just search MariNation on Instagram or TikTok, you could follow us or you

could visit us at MariNationmusic.com.

and you could join the wait list and we'll keep you updated.

you, let loose when when we launch it.

Good deal, and we'll have all of these links in our show notes and

on YouTube as well, so people can connect and just check it out.

Anything else you wanna add?

Anything else you want to cover?

I mean, this is awesome.

I'll be honest.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

It's a very small crowd who are in the intersection of

music and finance for sure.

Yeah, right, right.

that you know, you're helping artists with their finances.

I think it's incredible,

Yeah.

taking the pressure financially off artists so that they can focus on

creating their music and focus on, you know, making more money from music.

I think that is.

An amazing thing.

'cause like I said earlier, there's a financial burden, you know, if

you're scraping by or you have past due bills and all that stuff.

It just, it just takes a lot of space from your mind that you

should be, you know, putting towards creativity and, and making music.

I appreciate it.

Yeah.

It's, it's such a, a small market and there is a big need

for it, I think, out there.

And I, I love doing it.

I love talking to musicians, helping musicians, and, and bringing new

ideas like this to the table.

And just helping 'em give, give people more resources, right?

That's what it's about.

That's it.

Cool.

All right, Justin, thanks for walking us through it.

And this is a new idea for many people and I think it's gonna keep evolving,

and so I encourage the listener, go get plugged in, MariNation.com,

MariNation music.com, and engage with it and see what happens with it.

Listeners, I want to hear your take helpful, not helpful.

I want to hear what you think about this, and so does Justin, and so check it out.

Give us some feedback.

You know, as the host, I try to stay neutral here and, and just

give the information, but I, I, I do like this idea a lot now.

My aim is to bring you options, translate the money side, and

help you make better decisions.

So on that note, if today got you thinking about building a steady funding system

behind your music, head on over to my website as well, 1024wealth.com/music

and download your free ebook called A Musician's Guide to Infinite Banking,

shows you how to keep money accessible, keep growth compounding smooth your

feast or famine season times with your money, help you self fund releases,

tours, and gear on your own timeline.

So go check it out and when you want to talk through it, book a call with

me on that same link and we'll chat.

For now, subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

Share this with one musician who needs to hear it, and until next time, keep

your money working and your music moving.