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My guest today is Tracy Patrick Chan. He is currently the Head of Music at Twitch. He is the top honcho; the dude; he’s the guy in charge of the direction of all things music at Twitch. He started at Twitch at the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020.
He has a very impressive resume. He was the guy that created Spotify for Artists. Before that, he was at YouTube and created the artist tools like YouTube analytics. And depending on when you’re listening to this episode, things may have changed and evolved quite a bit because we talk about specific programs and features, but the bulk of what we discuss is how to be successful on Twitch.
Should you start Twitch? Who’s Twitch for? Is it good for everyone or just a select few? Do you need millions of followers to make a living on Twitch (you don’t)? He talks about a really interesting stat about making a living on the platform. It’s astounding on what you actually need to make a living on the platform.
Today’s a special episode. It’s a live podcast episode in the spirit of what we’re talking about, which is livestreaming on Twitch. We invited Ari’s Take Academy students to be a part of the conversation, and you’ll hear a few of their questions at the end.
Twitch for Artists: https://www.twitch.tv/p/en/artists/
Quick links:
4:50 – About Tracy Patrick Chan
10:23 – Challenges with musicians streaming on Twitch
13:12 – Subsidizing lost income from touring with livestreaming on Twitch
21:55 – Making a living on Twitch takes fewer fans than you think – here’s how to do it
41:42 – What are musicians allowed to stream on Twitch? Can they stream cover songs?
44:15 – How much of Twitch is live and how much is replays?
46:40 – What is Soundtrack?
49:07 – How to get your music on Soundtrack
52:00 – Ari’s Take Academy student questions
1:03:40 – What it means to Tracy Patrick Chan to ‘make it’ in the New Music Business