The Action Catalyst
Crowd Surfing, with Cassie Petrey (Social Media, Music, Marketing, Business)
Tue, 16 Jul 2024
Cassie Petrey, CEO and co-founder of social media/music management firm Crowd Surf, talks about starting a Backstreet Boys army at 12 years old, questioning Hillary Clinton, how hardware leads to social media change, the limitations of VR, advice on differentiating yourself in a crowded field, innovating new pay structures in the music and digital marketing industries, what the REAL hardest part of your job will be running a business, and the critical use of Sabrina the Teenage Witch in her workflow.
i don't want people to think they're right about me i don't want the naysayers to think they're right about me if somebody thinks i can't do something it's you know kind of secretly like a not a negative motivator but kind of a fun motivator like but that's kind of how i am it's motivating to be like hi i'm here i know you didn't want me to be but here i am you can't get away from me and i'm gonna change your mind because i'm gonna do great things for this project that are gonna make you look great too and it's gonna happen one way or another
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Today's guest is Cassie Petrie, CEO and co-founder of social media and music management firm CrowdSurf and a Forbes 30 Under 30, as well as a Billboard 30 Under 30 recipient. Her clients include heavy hitters like the Backstreet Boys, Camila Cabello, and Pink, as well as Apple, Google, and top labels like Universal, Sony, Disney, and more.
Well, hey, I really appreciate you being here. Of course. So you obviously have such an incredible background, especially for being, and I'm just going to say it, so young. So I kind of want to start there. One of the things I read about your background is that when you were 12, you had 10,000 followers to a AOL account for the Backstreet Boys.
Yeah, I would say like today's version of that would be if I had a TikTok about an artist or a Twitter slash X or Instagram account that was dedicated to an artist, but we didn't have that at that time. So the way that a lot of younger people who were big fans and liked digital showed their
appreciation for the artists they love was by basically making a newsletter we all called them zines so i had a zine that i ran um and would curate several times a week and send it out to you know other people in the fandom who had subscribed and it was it was a really good like sort of business learning experience for me because i learned a lot about um the first thing you learn about when you run an email list is about rules and regulations around spam and
So in order for me to be able to send that amount of emails out at once, because at this time, we didn't have things like MailChimp and tools to send email. So you would send it from AOL, from the email account. And I had to apply and be on a whitelist to be allowed to do that. So I learned a lot about the rules of spam and the internet at an early age because of that.
But I'm really grateful for that experience.
Okay, so I've got to put this in perspective. You're 12.
Yeah, sixth, seventh grade is like when I really, really liked the Backstreet Boys, like beginning of American middle school.
That's a legit thing to like. When I was 12 years old, I was worried about making sure I had enough hairspray for my bangs, got braces in the seventh grade. Who liked who? Where did this come from? Just talk to me about that.
So I think that I get a lot of actually this interest in technology from my grandfather. I lived with my grandparents growing up and he was always a very curious person about not just about technology, but about everything. So he always had the new gadgets, kind of like nerdy, but also like really adorable. But as I've gotten older, I realized how... awesome of a quality that that is in him.
So he always had like computers before everyone else, you know, like a laptop that, you know, you know, kind of more similar to what we have today. And we had AOL before a lot of other people. And I think that his curiosity kind of sparked that curiosity and me as well, like wanting to, to learn about that sort of stuff. So I think a little bit of it came from there.
But also, I think a lot of it came from the friend group that I was in, not that they were all building websites, but we all really enjoyed pop culture. We liked going to concerts together. So doing this stuff was a part of my social life. And some of the stuff I was creating and posting online and showing my dedication for the Backstreet Boys was also like a part of my friend group.
We all really liked music and watching TRL and liked watching VHS tapes of concerts and like going to concerts when they came
into town so i think that my friends having you know maybe not the exact interest in terms of like internet marketing but in terms of being interested in pop culture in general made me comfortable really like being my true full self in that activity of mine so did you have any idea how this internet marketing was gonna just explode
When was your first like, hey, I'm on the cusp of making some major histories?
So I don't know if I ever envisioned myself being a part of that trend coming to life. I think I always just saw it for what it was going to be as soon as I see it. As soon as I hold a tool in my hands, I know what it's going to become. When I saw Musical.ly for the first time, I knew what it would become today.
I didn't know it would be called TikTok, but I knew what that was going to lead to and what that... was the what that is now but i saw that like at the end of 2016 like i just held that tool and i was like this is you know instagram revolutionized how we socialize with with photos and And TikTok has revolutionized how we socialize with videos.
And I don't think we'll see another big social media platform shift until there's a big shift in like hardware that's being widely used by everybody. Because hardware has always dictated what social media does. So everyone's like, what's next?
And I'm like, I don't know if there's something significantly different next until there's something significantly different that we all have access to and we're all holding in our hands every day. So more people having laptops created MySpace.
more people being able to text from a phone created Twitter, more people being able to have photos on their phone created Instagram, and then more people having videos on their phone created TikTok. That really is what dictates what platform comes next.
You know, we'll obviously have new tools and new things come into the market, but I don't think we'll see as drastic of a shift in social platforms until there's hardware to sort of inspire that shift.
And I think to your point, hardware available to the masses.
Like I think VR is a big thing, but it's still at a price point that not everybody... VR, you can't, there's a lot of limitations as to how much time you can use it for. I mean, for a lot of reasons, you couldn't be in that situation in a VR room for more than 20 minutes. One, it's going to be difficult for people to
figure out how to take a break and go use the bathroom because you're going to have to like gear off and gear off in mid experience. It's probably not good for your brain. I don't know like the science behind that, but I imagine that it's not great to do that kind of experience for more than 20 minutes. I think that there's some limitations.
Two, in terms of like one, it being mobile, being able to carry it with you, but two, like how long a person can engage with that in a healthy way. So I think that that has a second to sort of develop before we see major changes because of that.
Here you are today, co-founder of your own social media music management firm. You are young.
I like that. I feel old all the time. So call me young as much as you want. Being, you know, young and female, they're both of those things either together or separately can definitely create adversity sometimes. I will say, though... I haven't had some of the horror stories that other people have had, luckily.
Like, I've had my moments where I can call where, like, I know that if I said the same thing on the phone or in an email in a room and I was older or I was a man or I was both of those things that I would be taken more seriously. And I see some of my clients who have older white male managers and they... I feel like those guys do nothing for the artists and the artist idolizes them strangely.
I'll never understand some of that. So there's some frustrations that I have for that. But overall, I just I think I just always have kind of had the mindset like I'm going to do this no matter what. And I will keep pushing no matter what. You know, I have those moments, but I'm not going to let it stop me.
And I actually had I feel like this moment happened at the right time in my life, not this year, but the year before I attended a Forbes summit in Abu Dhabi. And because of some world conflicts, Hillary Clinton was supposed to be there. in person, but she wasn't able to, but they had her conference in.
And I was fortunate enough to be selected to ask her a question directly, which was a really awesome moment for me. And the question I asked her, and I was kind of dealing with a couple different things at work that were challenging, not because of the people that I work with, but because of external circumstances with some of the clients I work with. And I asked her, I'm like,
You went through like the greatest, like one of the greatest career losses that you can. You lost a presidential election. Why are you still here? Like, how do you keep going after that? Because I think a lot of people, if they lost a presidential election would be like, yeah, bye. Yeah. Where's the nearest rock I can crawl under? Yeah.
And she's just like, I don't want people to think they're right about me. Like, I don't want the naysayers to think they're right about me. I it's like I almost have too much ego or too much pride to do that. But I think that's a really positive thing. And I feel the same way.
Like I if somebody thinks I can't do something, it's, you know, kind of secretly like a not a negative motivator, but kind of a fun motivator. Like, but that's kind of how I am. It's motivating to be like, hi, I'm here. I know you didn't want me to be, but here I am.
You can't get away from me and I'm going to change your mind because I'm going to do great things for this project that are going to make you look great too. And it's going to happen one way or another.
Oh my gosh. Okay. So do you consider yourself more of an artist or more of a business person?
Definitely a business person. I think I'm very creative, but definitely like in a business way. I think I'm really good at creating new processes to solve problems that like nobody would have pieced together the same way.
I think I'm really good at looking at somebody's art or product of being an artist and figuring out how they can make some changes and make their business operate more efficiently or market their product more efficiently. But I'm definitely business like through and through for sure.
So this whole genre of business is relatively new. I mean, what is it, 20 years old, maybe?
Yeah, I've been working at it since the beginning. And I would say like the birth of it, I would say MySpace was like the main moment, I think, birth of social media. But Pure Volume, which was a couple of years before that, I think was an important predecessor to what like the... music player on MySpace was.
So pure volume MySpace era is kind of like the birth of modern social media as I see it now.
So knowing now all the platforms that we have, what advice do you give to folks that say, hey, now, I mean, let's say it's been 20 years. I mean, now it's flooded. So how do you differentiate yourself if you were just now coming up into it?
So there's still a lot of problems to be solved in the music business in general. I think attaching yourself to a problem that you feel like you have insight on that people may not have thought of as a really good way to get into a business that's competitive like the music business.
And the problem I saw is there's this platform called MySpace and I see a bunch of local college bands using it, but I'm not seeing big artists use it. And I'm not really sure why, but I know that fans would like engaging with popular artists in this way. And so I just kind of went for it because I didn't see anybody doing it.
And I thought about me and I'm like, this would have been so cool if the Backstreet Boys could send updates on MySpace bulletins and share new songs on a player and DM people back and post content in real time. I was like, this is so cool. I would have loved this. And I want to help other artists do that. And I'm going to take the burden off of artists having to think about that.
And I'm going to be making some of their fans happy and feel more seen and communicated with in the same time. But I really attached myself to this problem or thing that wasn't being done yet. And I think that's always a good way into a business. It's easier to win in business if you pick a lane that isn't as crowded, but might have problems that affect a lot of people on a frequent basis.
That's great counsel. So running your company, what are some of the business things that you wish you knew that you had to learn the hard way?
One of the biggest things I had to learn the hard way is that it's a very different payment schedule in terms of how you get paid as a business versus how you get paid as an employee. So there's a lot of laws protecting employees in terms of you having to be paid on time in the way they were promised. In business, it's a little more dicey.
I would say most companies aren't going to pay you for at least 30 days per And sometimes they tell you they're going to pay you in 30 days, but they actually don't pay you for six months. And sometimes in worst case scenario, people don't pay you ever. You get ripped off. So, you know, I've obviously evolved like my policies over the years to protect myself from different situations like this.
But when you pick up a project, you're having you're kind of having to invest a little bit like you have to invest in staff. and resources before you get paid, especially at the bigger companies like a Warner or Sony or a Universal or Disney. They're going to pay at least the minimum, they'll pay you 30 days. A lot of times it's 90, 120.
Sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle and you don't get it for like six months or a year. So you just have to plan your cash flow schedule accordingly and know how much cash you have to have on hand to run your business and have a really good system in place for keeping track of what's owed to you and when to cut off projects when they haven't paid.
So I'd say that's one thing that I just wish I understood better because I didn't start a company with that knowledge or funding. And at the beginning, the first year, it's really hard to be like, oh, I thought I would have gotten paid by now and I can't pay my rent. And this is scary. So I have that under control now, but people don't pay their bills on time.
It's just not the same as being an employee. So really think about that. when you're starting a business, if you want to do that. I'd say that's part one. And part two, probably the hardest part of your job is not going to be the service you offer or the product you're making.
The hardest part of the job for me, and I think a lot of other people who run a business, is the personnel and staff side of it. It's really tough. I feel like there's not a lot of education on how to, while you're in school anyway, on how to hire the right people, manage them the correct way, and then That evolves per generation too in what's happening in the world.
How you manage people before and after COVID is pretty different. How you manage people in the office versus work from home, very different. And I would say that's definitely the hardest part of my job. And I think I've learned a lot. And I give a lot of other people advice now on those topics. But it was a hard journey, one, from a business standpoint, but two, emotionally.
Because it's hard to not take things personal when... Somebody that's worked for you for five years quits that you really liked and you felt like you had a friendship with too, or somebody leaves and goes to another company, or it can even be like emotionally daunting sometimes when you delegate a task to somebody and they don't do it, you get in your head and you're like,
Am I not delegating right? Do they just not like me? Do they just not care? And it really has taken a lot of work to be able to have a better emotional relationship with employees leaving or not doing their jobs correctly.
Thank you, by the way, for the vulnerability of sharing that. Of course. One of the things I think you really hit the nail on the head with is the people side of the business. What are some of the resources that you've leaned on to help develop your leadership and management styles?
So I've gone through different phases in my life about how to handle these different things. Because I will say it is like, I still have problems with it today. It is still an ongoing journey. I don't think it ever won't be. I think it's managing people and groups of people is a hard job. So for a while, I had a business coach.
Me and my business partner would actually do some of the sessions together. And I think that that served us really well at that point in our life when we were doing it. I don't know... if that's the right situation for me anymore. But I think that if you're looking for a place to start, even like a monthly session with like a career coach or a business coach can be
super helpful just to gain insight. And it's kind of like having a therapist in business is how I say it, but it is super helpful when you're able to like address a specific situation and work through how to deal with it and also why like you may be emotionally feeling about it a certain way.
And I actually, you know, I do therapy every week and I talk to my therapist about some of the issues I have with employees too, not really like on the decisions I should make, but why I feel a certain way about them or why... what is this drumming up inside of me and resolving that issue?
Because it actually probably has nothing anything to do with work, but you know, work and your history of your life, you know, they do affect each other. So it is, you know, I think it's important to figure out some way to analyze why you may feel like you're overreacting in certain situations at work and not have that conversation be happening with people that you work with.
So I think that that's something that's, that's really important to, I've read a lot of different books over the years, but I would say, and a lot of them have helped me in different capacities, but I will say the one book that always helps me when I'm struggling with personnel issues and how I feel about them is The Four Agreements.
I know that's not really a business book, but I have a mini version of it actually that I keep in my purse. And if I go through it and think about each agreement. And this is like the mini version of the book you can read in like five minutes.
But I find if I go through it, I can pinpoint like what's out of balance with that issue and kind of bring it back into perspective and bring it back into logic. And once I bring it back into logic, I feel like I can make a better decision. And also for me, I'm lucky I have a business partner. So I would say that's another thing that's kept me grounded.
I got really lucky with my business partner situation because I've seen a lot of people go into business together and it was not the right partner for them. And the reason why I think we work is purely just luck. We didn't ask each other the right hard questions at the beginning of this. I wouldn't have known the right hard questions to ask when I was 20 years old when we did this.
We got lucky in terms of being really aligned on the big stuff, what's important to us. And just, I think having a good moral compass and being generally good people has worked out, but I've seen a lot of people not be in the same situation as me. So I got lucky on that one.
But it's nice to have somebody like her to be able to talk to about these issues as well, because other perspectives are important in these tricky personnel situations sometimes.
Absolutely. So total shift of gears.
When you unplug, what do you do? When I unplug, it depends on how much time I have. I think that if I'm trying to wind down to like go to sleep, I love television. Apparently, I love first responder television. I didn't realize that was a genre until one of the streaming platforms gave me a category that was like first responder TV. And I'm like, oh, I guess that's my thing.
Television is kind of like, I guess, sort of an easy lift to take me out of my head if I've had a rough day. My favorite thing to do to relax is to watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch on Hulu. I like even if it's just like 10 minutes, I like to like turn it on. It's strangely like such a peaceful sitcom for me.
But I like to watch that even if it's like in a small dose or like five to 10 minutes before I go to bed while I'm eating something like that. I really like it. I love going for a walk. I walk a lot. I walk a lot when I'm on conference calls, actually, but I like to walk and maybe call a family member. Sometimes that's helpful to kind of take me out of my head and relax a little bit and
you know, brings me brings me joy. And if I have more time, I like anything to do with the water. I love swimming. There's a nice swimming pool complex that I can walk to for my house. That's awesome. That's one of the reasons actually, like why we moved to this area. We also moved to this area because we live in Santa Monica, we wanted to be closer to the ocean. So I like being around the ocean.
And if I have the most time, I like to travel somewhere and go somewhere where I can swim and do snorkeling and other nice things in the water. But I really enjoy swimming, snorkeling, and finding sea turtles in Hawaii. That is my ultimate way to relax. Oh, that's awesome.
What's next? As you look to the future, where do we go from here?
I think I have a couple lanes for next. There's still a lot of problems to be solved in digital marketing and there's more work than ever for artists to do. So I think that my business will still be evolving on that front and continuing to figure out how to make artists' lives a little bit easier on the digital marketing front in this like ongoing need to create a ton of content.
So I think that's going to be one important thing. Second lane, artist management. I really want to find one or two more artists to really get behind and be a part of their team. So I'm kind of looking for those projects right now. But I would like a couple more of those over the next few years. I think lane number three is I really want to figure out how to evolve how
digital marketing people in the music business are compensated. So right now we operate very much on a retainer basis. So you get a monthly fee for the work that you do. But the amount of work that we're doing is just becoming so astronomical that I recently struck a deal with a record label on a project where we're taking a percentage of master versus getting paid per month.
And I think that's going to work great for the artists because they're not going to have that upfront cost going against their advance in their record deal. The record label doesn't have to front that cost upfront. But if this project does work, I win and I feel good about the work I did in the beginning of their career and getting them going on the digital front. I'm really hoping to see
more projects that are formatted on a percentage basis. And that's a legacy that I want for me, but I want to be a part of other digital people being able to do that too. So that's why I'm openly talking about these deal structures because I want other digital marketing people to maybe think about a percentage might be a better option for them.
Like in the music business accountants slash business managers is what they're called. And lawyers and artist managers are compensated on percentage. And I think digital is oftentimes just as important as any of those roles. And I want digital to be compensated and rewarded in the long run in a respectable way if they're an important part of an artist's career.
and then item four i want to make a book about evergreen principles of social media it's something i'm working on right now but i because i've done this for so long i've seen there's a lot of things that change but there's a lot of things that stay the same so i'm working on that right now i want to put that out in the next couple of years and then five i do have a goal of doing some sort of television production at some point
Whether it's a reality show or a drama, I have a couple of things in the mix, but I want to bring one of those ideas to life at some point. But those are like my main focuses at the moment.
I really don't say this lightly, but I think it's super inspiring to see the path you've paved. I mean, you're wise beyond your years.
Oh, thank you.
I really appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. Of course. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you all.
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