SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
926 How Teen Launched $250k Record Label, Then Kidney Failure, Now $1.5m Agency
05 Feb 2018
Chapter 1: How did Ani Sanyal launch a successful record label before 24?
This is the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn. Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts, and other insider information that creates business news headlines. We went from a couple hundred thousand dollars to 2.7 million.
I had no money when I started the company.
It was $160 million, which is the size of many IPOs. We're a bit strapped. We have like 22,000 customers. With over 5 million downloads in a very short amount of time, major outlets like Inc. are calling us the fastest growing business show on iTunes. I'm your host, Nathan Latka, and here's today's episode. Hello, everybody. My guest today is Ani Sanyal.
He's built a successful record label and toured the world before turning 24. Then he was diagnosed with an end-stage kidney failure. Today, he runs a digital agency which works with exciting early-stage companies, and his goal is to help inspire people to find their purpose through the pain. Ani, are you ready to take us to the top? I'm here, Nathan. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. You bet.
Thanks for jumping on. So let's go back first to the record label. Uh, how do you do this and tour the world before turning 24?
So, uh, I think it's, it stems from, you know, uh, my parents are from India. And so I'm growing up, you know, as a first generation, you know, Brown kid in this country and, um, identity, you know, was a huge issue. And hip hop to me was, um, it was a funnel, you know, it was a vehicle for me to tell my story and find a way to, you know, reach people who are going through similar things.
And so when I was in high school, I wanna say around 16, 17 years old, this is 2005, 2006, you know, MySpace is exploding. Um, music is becoming a direct to customer business and, you know, we're seeing the digital revolution, so to speak, um, for recorded music.
And I just knew that there was, you know, I could tell there was something and I knew that there was an opportunity here that needed to be leveraged.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Ani face with his kidney failure diagnosis?
Um, and so it started with, you know, kind of hacking around and figuring out how to leverage digital, whether it was with my space, connecting the dots with other artists, um, selling your music on iTunes, you know, kind of in high school was a big thing at that time. And so those are the kind of humble beginnings.
How much did you make selling music on iTunes?
Wow. In high school, we were making probably a couple thousand dollars a month. And that, you know, that kind of increased throughout that time. And the funny thing was, you know, once the market shifted to streaming, This is obviously, you know, five, six, seven years later. It was significant impact on, you know, an artist, our artist's income.
It hurt your income or helped it?
Absolutely hurt the income when it came to just raw digital sales. Obviously, there were more opportunities since we were further, you know, in our careers. But in terms of, you know, raw digital sales, it was definitely a downturn. And I empathize, you know, with all kind of independent artists who are going through that now.
And until you've seen it, you know, on the other side, it's hard to tell.
But now are you cranking out your own music or you're making money off helping other people get exposure?
Both. So predominantly making our own music. And so I was in a group called Green Street. It was two emcees and a producer, kind of like a tribe called Quest for, you know, the new generation type of vibe.
And I'm way out of my league here and my uncoolness is going to come out here for a second. But like what role were you like? Were you on the mic, the drums, the beat is spinning. What were you doing?
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Chapter 3: How did Ani's experience with kidney failure shape his perspective on life?
Sure. So a brand deal money wise was essentially a company like, for example, Marlboro, the cigarette company out there. They were doing a new activation where they wanted to have artists licensed music. you know, and, and have that become a part of their rollout. And, uh, they would basically pay us upfront to license music and then also provide us with tour support and things in Japan.
How much did they pay upfront? Per song we were getting around 5,000 at that time. Um, so you do three songs, you know, you net a little bit of money, you go over there and make some more money on merch and, um, hand to hand, you know, sales and things like that on tour. And, um, that was kind of my first introduction to, um, I'd always been an entrepreneur, so to speak.
I was the lemonade stand kid growing up, and I would draw comic books and try to sell them, and whatever it was, I always had a hustle. My social handle is Ani Hustles, and I think that just kind of epitomizes what I'm about. But I think from a record label side, to be able to be creative, tell your narrative, and also make money, that was some exciting times.
Now, you were diagnosed with something very serious when you turned 24, and how old are you today? 29. Okay. So five years kind of managing through this before we talk about how you did that. Sure. Give me a sense of the size of the business the day before you got the prognosis or the diagnosis that you got. How big was the company?
So at that time, we had been working with ā we had four different artists under the label. We were ā Which was called what, by the way? Green Street Records. Green Street Records, yeah. Yeah, and we were touring nationally pretty much 50%, 60% of the year. We had developed a merchandise arm. There was digital music sales. There were revenue coming in from other brand deals.
And so numbers-wise, I want to say ā yeah, it's tough for me to say because it was all over the place, but it was a very active, you know, full time type of thing.
And it was, um, it was wholly encompassing, you know, how much did you make an in the year before the diagnosis?
Top line, man, I want to say, I, so as an artist, after you split everything and you know, my, my personal take home would probably be around like 40, 50,000.
It wasn't a top line business size. I mean, are we talking 400, 500, 800 grand a year?
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Chapter 4: What was the transition from a record label to a digital agency like for Ani?
What happened?
End-stage kidney failure, which is essentially the point where you've reached where you're three months, so to speak, until you need to get a transplant or you're on dialysis. And the caveat to kind of everything that I've said so far, you know, while I was on tour in Japan and touring, you know, scoring a Bollywood film in India and doing all these things, I was managing my condition.
So I was aware of it. And the doctors would always say, you know, we have no idea how, you know, you're managing with these kind of physical results. People like you at this point are usually, you know, laid out in bed. And that just, you know, goes to speak to, I think, purpose and passion. And when you have, you know, something that you're so, you
you know, focused on and motivated on, I think it really changes your entire, you know, way you approach life. Um, but you know, the, the week before I got my diagnosis, I had, um, booked a tour to India. Essentially I was supposed to be in India for two months, um, working on a Bollywood film and doing a I got the diagnosis. The doctor said, you know, wrap it up.
You know, you need to stay home and get healthy. And I was like, you know what? We'll deal with that when I get back. And so I ended up flying out the next week to India with this condition. And and that was, you know, a whole different story. But I think just goes to speak to, again, you know, the testament of purpose.
And then, you know, when I got back, it was it was pretty dire and ended up going on dialysis at the age of 24, which, you know, if anyone knows anything about dialysis, it's not an easy thing to do as a young person. And I spent about six months- What was that like?
From a mental standpoint, it was extremely difficult to be an active person like I was, to be in multiple rooms and multiple people. I think leading up to that year, I went to dinner with Nas. I don't know if you're familiar with Nas, but for people who are, I had dinner with Nas.
Make me cool. Who is Nas? Give me some street cred here.
Nas is one of the most prolific hip-hop artists of all time. He's in everyone's top three, so to speak. He released arguably the most classic, well-crafted album of all time, which is Illmatic.
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Chapter 5: How does Ani define the mission of his digital agency?
Um, him and Jay-Z used to have a famous feud. And so he's kind of like, you know, he's kind of that guy.
Well, I hope, I hope I have a cool audience. I hope some of them are listening, going, Nathan, we know Nas. How do you not know Nas? So I hope some of you guys know him.
Um, Nas runs a big VC firm right now. So that might be another access point for some of your audience. What's the firm called? Oh, they're called Queensbridge Capital Partners. Okay. Um, I know they've done, uh, Casper, um, Uber and a couple other, you know, kind of early stage companies at that point. So,
So take me back real quick. So you're going to India. You know, you have this thing. Yeah. You just put your brain in a place where you try and focus on the work. So you forget about the dialysis, like the diagnosis.
Absolutely. I believe in, you know, mental strength. I think Trump's all physical, you know, issues that we have. And obviously that's a blanket statement. I know everyone deals with their own issues. thing at their own time. But for me, it was 100% mental.
So you would just tell yourself every morning, wow, I'm healthy today. I'm doing what I love in India. Let's get to work.
Pretty much.
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Chapter 6: What strategies did Ani use to grow his agency to $1.5 million?
And there became a point where I could barely get up in the mornings. That was a physical impediment that I definitely dealt with. But it was like, this is what you live for. And to be able to see the world, travel the world off of music and creativity, that was a huge thing for me. And so I was always stay inspired, I think, but that was a difficult thing.
And looking back now, I don't know how I did it, but I'm very glad that I did it. I have no regrets. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Go ahead. No, finish with that because you think.
Because I think that when it comes to purpose and passion, we only get certain opportunities to tell that story. And these are the moments that kind of define, I think, who we are as people, entrepreneurs, whatever it is. That's where I think it happens.
So this is when you were 24. You're now 29. You seem healthy talking to me here on video. What happened between those five years?
A lot happened. I was extremely blessed to to receive a kidney from my father, which is, you know, something that is really deep on a whole bunch of different levels. But, you know, I was I was incredibly lucky and blessed to have that and to basically resume a healthy life after about a year.
Were you close to your father before or did this bring you closer?
We were close before. I would say, you know, he's he's an immigrant father. And so the idea of hip hop, rap, musically, you know, record labels. And that was extremely challenging for him to grasp, you know, for a lot of our time. Obviously, you know, we grew a lot closer post our whole experience. And and nowadays, you know, I think he secretly shows us off.
You know, my brother and I run the agency and I think he secretly brags about us because he understands what we do now.
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Chapter 7: How did Ani's family dynamics influence his journey?
He calls him Naz, I think. So you might know him, but he knows him as Naz.
funny so so that's interesting and i i asked the parent question because you know because of what you chose to get into i could have easily seen a relationship there that may have been strained where the kidney brought you closer i mean were you guys on talking terms pre kidney of course of course no okay so it wasn't so it wasn't super strained never that i mean you know as i think again you know as immigrant families there's that different bond that you really all you have is each other um and we were close but i think there were definitely um
You know, just just misunderstandings and miscommunications, you know, as a lot of families have. And especially when you decide to go out and do something bold and do something on your own. You know, I went to New York University for economics and finance and I had, you know, an entire world that was that was open to me. And I decided that that wasn't who I was.
and decided to take the step and it was, it was, you know, tough for a long time, but I do give my credit, you know, my parents a lot of credit for, um, for not getting in the way, you know, maybe they weren't a hundred percent supportive the whole time, but they, you know, they kind of trusted the process and trusted me.
And I think now, you know, nowadays we all kind of joke and laugh about it, but.
In, before we get to your current business and how you're scaling it in that moment, when you realized your, your father was a match.
Yeah. Yeah.
Did you immediately think, I don't want him to do this?
That's a really good question. It's a tough question. I don't think I had that thought because I had an implicit faith throughout the whole thing that whichever kind of road that we went down would be the right one. There was a lot of issues with him and kind of like how he wasn't. 100% medically cleared. And it was this thing where he knew he was taking a risk on his life and on my life.
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Chapter 8: What advice does Ani have for young entrepreneurs?
And I said, wow, why is this working? And I said, you know what, I'm going to try it. So I went to prosperworks.com forward slash love your CRM, signed up, and it immediately became clear why it worked. Those of you that love growth hacking, you should go to that link just to see how they do the onboarding. That's prosperworks.com forward slash love your CRM. In short, it's like magic.
You know, I'm not the guy that, you know, finishes the sales call, and then takes the time to actually put data into the CRM. They have this magical way of just doing it. And it's a beautiful thing. So every morning when I wake up, I just go, okay, what leads are ProsperWorks telling me to reach out to because they're most likely to close and it works so well.
And you guys know, I love money and I love only focusing on the leads that are going to close. So I encourage you to try ProsperWorks or sponsoring the show. Check them out at prosperworks.com forward slash love your CRM folks. That's again, prosperworks.com forward slash love your CRM. So green room creative, what's it do? And is it a typical agency business model? I'd say make money.
Uh, business model is typical for the most part. I think where we differentiate ourselves is our approach to, um, our approach to the work essentially. So we work with early stage and small and midsize companies. Um, and the focus is entirely on growth. So I like to refer to us kind of as the digital growth agency.
And I say that differentiates us from other agencies because a lot of times nowadays people are chasing impressions of you know, they're chasing, you know, reach instead of actually chasing the conversions and the impact on the bottom line.
And I think our strength comes from the ability to synthesize creative production, actual paid media strategy, and the overall consulting and kind of, you know, market research side of things. And so we, every meeting, you know, all three teams are in that office, they're, you know, they're together on the call, and we approach every client, kind of in a holistic manner.
And I think that leads to a lot of, you interesting things when you get down funnel, you know, because the understanding is deeper.
And what will you guys do this year in total revenue, you think?
Um, we are North of $1.5 million this year, which is, um, you know, which is a big jump from, from last year.
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