Michael Walker: Yeah. Alright. I'm excited to be here today with my new friend, Ronan Mullins. Yeah, Ronan is the Co-Founder of Boost Collective. They're a leading music marketing platform that serves thousands of artist campaigns monthly. And, uh, let me pull up a couple of notes here that we had. So, they specialize in scaling organic Spotify playlisting campaigns to connect with real fans and build real engagement. They work directly with artists and labels to help them amplify their reach and be able to make a bigger impact in the music industry. So, Ronan, excited to have you on the podcast today to talk a little bit about how artists can win in such a noisy market—when there's so much happening in terms of new songs released every day. How do they actually cut through the noise and build a real relationship with their fans? So, thank you for taking the time to come on the podcast today. 

Ronan Mullins: Yeah, man. My bad—with the name Ronan, I feel like there's a bunch of “Ro” names, so I respect it, man. Yeah.

Michael: Roland—for when I think of Roland, I think there's a Stephen King book that features a gunslinger named Roland. And I've always thought that Roland is like a pretty badass name. Ronan is right there with it. I like it. Yeah. Thank you, I appreciate it. But, yeah, Ronan, maybe for anyone who this is the first time meeting you or connecting, could you share just a brief introduction to yourself and how you started Boost Collective?

Ronan: Yeah, for sure, man. So, we started off about eight years ago. I was in high school—I was in like 10th grade. It was crazy. This was kind of like when the SoundCloud sort of thing was going on. We had all the SoundCloud rappers and all the people who were posting lower quality stuff—clips, whatever. I feel like mixing was just completely out the window back in that time, and I started Boost in high school because I'd always loved music. I always liked making music—I was making EDM and stuff. I was super big into the big Dutch scene that was going on. It's always had prevalence, but I would say it kind of peaked in 2013 and stuff like that. That was when it was big—Ultra Music Festival—I wanted to play on stage and stuff like that. I wanted to be a DJ, right?

And so I was posting music to SoundCloud, but it wasn't getting much traction, so I was obsessed with looking up articles on how to get more streams and plays on SoundCloud, YouTube, and stuff like that. I feel like there wasn't that much help, especially back then. So I decided to take a deep dive into what I could do—like all the sorts of things people were doing back then, like big repost networks and mass DMing and whatnot—spam, essentially. So we kind of started Boost—me and my business partner Damien—back in 2017 on a lot of those guerrilla music marketing tactics.

We started the company—it went well. We had a crappy website, and over the years it's kind of morphed into what it is today. We have 15+ people. We're headquartered in Toronto, Canada. And yeah, I'd say if you're an artist, I don't think you can go one day without seeing a Boost ad on Instagram. That's the big thing—people are like, “Oh, I've seen your ads.” So yeah, we primarily work on Spotify with our e-commerce offerings. Anyone can go on, buy a package. We grow playlists through ad traffic, and we have a really nice system for allocating and curating, essentially.

And that's our unmasked stuff. Then, as well, we do more one-on-one campaign stuff with artists that really go into discovery, engagement—all that sort of thing—growing artists in that lane.

Michael: Cool. And just to clarify, when you said that you have 15 people, you meant 15 team members now?

Ronan: Yeah—people on our team currently.

Michael: Not like you have 15 artists who you're running campaigns for?

Ronan: Yeah, no. We do like 4,000 artists a month, so we're pretty high-volume in that regard. But like I said, we have a smaller division where we just focus one-on-one—building artists, world-building, advertising, marketing, brand strategy, capitalizing on moments—all that sort of thing.

Michael: Cool. Having worked with 4,000 artists that are currently running campaigns, I'm sure you hear a lot of the same challenges or problems that people are facing when they first come to you. So I'm curious to hear your perspective on what are some of the biggest challenges and problems that musicians are facing nowadays.

Ronan: Yeah, for sure. I mean, problems and challenges—I always like to preach, and I'm sure you've heard this a million times with other guests on here—is really just music quality. The recording, who you're working with, the kind of sound you're pushing out—Is it new? Is it innovative? I think a lot of what people are pushing out these days is sort of an imitation of what they like or what they hear and isn't truly them.

I think it takes years, in most cases, to develop a sound. And I think that's the biggest problem that artists face—and will always face—as long as artistry stays how it is. It's just about developing sound, creating something that people like. And then, of course, with that comes, “Hey, what's marketing like? This is so tricky for me. Am I doing well on Spotify? Why aren’t people listening to my music? Why am I getting skipped?”

Usually, it comes back to—at the end of the day—ground zero: music.

Michael: Got it. Yep. Awesome. So it sounds like what you're saying is that marketing is important, but really the ground zero thing that needs to be true before you even start marketing is that you have a product that's worth marketing—that you're doing something unique, that you're standing out, that you have a unique sound that's not just imitating, but actually doing something original.

So I'm curious to hear your recommendations for if an artist is listening to this or watching this right now, and maybe they're early-ish on, and they're trying to figure out what makes them unique or what their unique sound is, and they're trying to figure out how to improve the quality of their music to have something that resonates more.

Where do they get started?

Ronan: Yeah, I think that's a good question. Some artists are innately just creative. I'll work with artists that have a lot of that stuff down, but they haven't really marketed it or they don't have any kind of budget to get things going. But creatively, they’re really strong.

So I think some people are just innately more creative. And if you aren't, then it's okay to seek help for that. Ultimately, artists that are succeeding—or are going to succeed—are going to have a team built around them. Everyone who's still independent—even at the highest level—still has a good backing behind them: a videographer, someone who can help them with styling, etc.

I was working with an artist recently—they just couldn't get anything to work. We were running an ad campaign, and I think his look was very abrasive, so it was turning people off. He had a company go in and create a style guide for him. Like, “These are your colors. Let’s do artist world-building. Let’s think about where you're from.” He was from Montana. So it was like, okay, what would resonate with people in your area?

If your goal is to break in the city you're from, what are the people like there? If you're walking outside every day, and your easiest access to a venue is in Montana, how do we give you a look that you feel comfortable sporting, that’s true to you, but also resonates with people?

There are lots of ways to go about it. You could hire a company. You could go crazy on a Pinterest board and really get in that zone for hours in a month. But you definitely need to perfect a look. I'm not really seeing artists that are popping who don’t have some sort of distinctive look about them—where you know as soon as they drop a track or post—how they interact—whatever it is that’s inherently them, if that makes sense.

Michael: Hmm. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So it sounds like what you'd recommend is starting by either using Pinterest or a board of references—kind of get clear on what you resonate with.

Yeah. And not just what you resonate with, but kind of finding that Venn diagram where it's things that are authentic to you and things that resonate with a wider audience, and trying to find that spot in the middle so that you can be authentic while also connecting with an audience.

Yeah. Awesome. So I'm curious to hear your perspective on improving the quality of your music.

Like, if someone is just starting to make music right now and maybe the songs are good—they don't have a problem with the creative part of it—they love writing songs, they have like 20 or 30 or a hundred of them. But now there's a gap between radio-ready, amazing quality versus where they're at right now.

And let's imagine that budget is sort of constrained, and so they're trying to figure out how to get the best value for their limited budget, but have good enough music and quality to really have commercial success.

Yeah. What do you recommend that they get started with?

Ronan: Utilize as many resources as you can on the internet.

I want to give a shoutout to Rick Barker. I don’t know if you talked to Rick before.

Michael: I’ve had him on the podcast a few times.

Ronan: Yeah, Rick’s a cool guy, man. Every time that we jump on the phone, we go into some of the artists that he's building and stuff like that.

And we kind of floated the idea of marketing his new course that he's got out. So he gave me access to this course—I watched it. He interviewed—it was like a multi-hour thing with the Grammy-winning Songwriter of the Year. I don't know if he told you about it—for last year, Ron Thomas.

He has hits on hits on hits.

And this talk was really, really good. So I would probably push artists to something like what he's got. You should definitely check out his stuff.

Yeah, this writer is super prolific, right? He’s got the AP Brutal Mars “Rosie” track right now that’s top five. That had like a billion streams since October.

And I think he just had this one idea that stuck with me within the course: you don’t need to get all 380 million or whatever the population of the U.S. is right now. You don’t need 400 million people to like you. You just need your million people at the apex, at the top.

And so, whoever you are speaking to needs to be defined. I think that’s one thing a lot of artists—especially in the hip-hop/rap space—things are just very generic right now. And I think we’re in a resurgence of pen game, if that makes sense. So defining who that audience is.

To answer your question, definitely finding resources online that can help you get better with just writing.

But in terms of song quality, I think there’s a ton of people out there that will mix your track for like $100 and do a really great job.

I still go to someone—I hired this one engineer from Atlantic. He’s on the payroll at Atlantic. I think I spent like $500. It was per request of this one artist. And the mix that I got back was, in my opinion, worse than one of my friends that does mixing for me for a hundred bucks.

So I think there’s a bunch of people that can help. I think artists just don’t get proactive enough to ask for help. They’re in their head about asking for help. They want to do everything themselves. They have whatever—the ego.

But yeah, focus on great songwriting. Define who your audience is. Create content—obviously the musical content—what you're writing about that appeals to that audience.

Pick your audience, get stronger at that, and ask for help if you need a songwriter. If you know a small artist that you think has good pen game, ask them to come to the studio. That’s one way to get it cheap.

You can book a studio for $50 or $100, and then invite someone. They’ll come for free. If you say, “Hey, use some of the time as well,” they can help you out on tracks, and you’ll get ideas flowing.

Michael: Hmm. Awesome.

Now let’s imagine that someone who’s listening or watching this right now—they have the songs. Let’s imagine that they actually have a compelling sound and they’ve kind of defined who their audience is and the people that are most likely to resonate with it.

I’m curious to hear more about Boost Collective and the types of campaigns that you’re running right now. Obviously, the world is evolving rapidly, and now there’s AI stuff everywhere.

I’m curious what you find—at the time of recording this—what’s really working best for you right now to help artists that have a compelling product actually build an audience and make a bigger impact?

Ronan: Yeah, for sure. So, if you're just going off the Boost site, we have a bunch of packages and stuff like that.

We have a team of people that will go and create playlists. They will market those playlists, run ads to those playlists, and we’ll grow them. And they’re divided by genre.

We have someone listening to the song, someone placing that song within playlists that are going to work.

This is super great for an artist that is starting off, right? Someone who doesn’t have much, who wants to test the waters. I always say, test a few tracks.

You put budget behind maybe three to five songs. You might find that song B outperforms song C by like three or four times the results.

And a great way to do that is throw it in front of an audience pool that you know is guaranteed to hear it.

So I think that’s one way that a lot of people really like our playlisting—is that right out the gate, you can see what metrics you’re getting as fast as possible. And then you can take that data and say, “Okay, this song might be better to double down on.”

It really depends on what that artist desires—what they want.

There’s a lot of artists that don’t want to make content. There are a lot of artists that just want to throw it in front of ears and listen. I think playlisting is the best way to achieve that.

If you’re trying to build a brand that is all-encompassing—you want to play live, you want to do all this stuff—then obviously your approach needs to be way grander than throwing your song on a playlist.

That’s why I feel like in marketing, there are a lot of people that have opinions on what is the most effective thing. And I think the most effective thing just depends on what that artist is trying to achieve.

Is it purely, “I just want streams”?

Is it purely, “I want to build—I want to have my thousand fans and we’re doing what we’re doing for those fans”?

Or do I want to be the next Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Drake, whatever?

So yeah, for Boost, I think—like I said—on my end of things, I really focus heavy on the one-on-one. Getting in the nitty-gritty with the artists and developing those artists far beyond just a playlisting promo.

But I think Boost—our bread and butter—is organic playlisting, building real audiences on playlists, ad traffic, all that sort of thing.

Michael: Hmm. Awesome.

So it sounds like where you specialize in terms of organic traffic is Spotify playlists.

And when someone gets their songs on those playlists, they basically have guaranteed ears that are actually going to be listening to the songs.

Now, depending on which song it is and how well it resonates, you can have up to like three times better results just from one song versus another.

So it’s good to test out and see which ones resonate most. Yeah, for sure.

And also having the wider kind of perspective on how streams fit into your full community and your full business is smart as well.

I’d be curious to hear that second part specifically.

What have you found that’s working right now that helps extend—Let’s say that an artist does start to get streams and some initial views and maybe even followers on some of their socials.

Now they’re trying to figure out: how do I take these fans from just listeners and turn them into real fans—building an engaged community and starting to monetize it more?

What do you find is working well right now?

Ronan: Yeah, for sure. I think that question is probably the most important question. That's the one that all the label heads are after. That's the one that every management company is after, right? And I think that sort of thing, as much as I would love to say, can be bought—there's an aspect that can't be bought, right? There's that genuine, true fan engagement that obviously is assisted by marketing, by throwing money at things. I've seen amazing brands, amazing artist brands, amazing tracks. I've worked with the artist, they've released it—it's done almost nothing. But then you throw like a [00:19:00] thousand dollars behind it and wow, a year later we're at a million streams, right?

And then you've seen stuff that you'll put behind that is objectively good to my ears or to people I'm sharing with, and then you throw another thousand, two thousand dollars on it and it doesn't perform well, right? I think the market is obviously going to take what the market is going to take. I think some artists, it depends on their style—their fan base will just eat it up. Sometimes it won't.

But to really—let's say they're gating stream. Let's say an artist is at like 10, 20, 30,000 monthly listeners. So they're not in the pure bottom of the barrel noise. People are clawing their way to try and get out. They have a few tracks that are getting residual streams, month six to twelve or whatever, and it's in their catalog, right?

[00:20:00] I think the next step is definitely looking at seeing what's working, getting things that are on the newest trends. I know people don't like to chase the trends, but sometimes that's what it's gonna take. I think getting more nitty gritty on the refinement of the product—so what we're putting out next—I think there's a bunch of things you could map out.

I think I would sit down with an artist, I would look at their quality, I would analyze all the backend metrics. I would look at—okay, like as a distributor, for example, like we have a distributor, right? We can check the skip rates, for example. Let's go and see on these tracks the percent of people that are skipping on this music. You know what I mean? Let's go back to the drawing board and create something that is really, really good.

I was talking to one kind of executive—I think he's at Empire now—but he was talking about how he just kept going back to, "I'm really good at [00:21:00] putting great tracks together." And he has the metrics to back up like, okay, if we take this step or take that step to elevate a song, right?

I bet—like if there's an artist, let's say he makes a song, but if it was sung by Justin Bieber, it would probably perform 10 times better. Something with Justin Bieber's voice—the market has reacted and said, "Yes, this is gold standard material."

So I think there's a lot you can do. Let's say you have the same thousand dollars to spend. I think an artist that's independent, that doesn't have a backer or a distro that's giving them money, might have a thousand, two thousand dollars to run a campaign for a three-month period or whatever, right?

The best way that you can make use of that is really going to the drawing board and having that product that is amazing, kind of like we spoke about earlier in this podcast. But yeah, what can we do to make sure that this song isn't gonna get [00:22:00] skipped for the life of us? And how do we really connect what we just wrote, what we just produced, what we just created—how do we get that resonating with our audience the best we can? What's the approach to that?

And then there's all sorts of things on the marketing end—checklists that we'd want to do. Organic, social, content ideation, creative strategy—all that sort of thing. It's crazy, right? It's something that obviously, like the labels for example, have massive amounts of manpower to be able to handle.

And then on the larger end of the artist spectrum, I think it's really just about scaling verticals. So like, do you just live on IG, TikTok, short-form reels? Is that the only way you're scaling your brand? Well, maybe we should think about radio, internet radio, like a sync opportunity, an appearance on a podcast, [00:23:00] an appearance somewhere else, a show live—whatever it is—to scale all those verticals. Like in the back of a streamer's stream on Twitch, whatever. You know what I mean? I think it's just like thinking broader. Going broader. So you wanna master one and then go broader.

Michael: Hmm. Got it. Yeah. Super smart. I'm curious—you having access to the wider data when it comes to things like skip rate, what's the average or kind of standard that you're looking for where it's like, "Ah man, if this song is getting a skip rate above X percent," you're like, maybe it's time to go back to the drawing board?

And I guess it probably depends on the audience—are they in front of the right audience that they're not gonna skip it because they actually are the kind of people who would enjoy it? And also the quality of the music. But yeah, I'm just kind of curious what you look for in terms of a skip rate.

Ronan: Skip rate is super, super interesting. I think—like percent wise, 'cause it goes by percent. And the cool [00:24:00] thing about it is that it's gonna show you how many sub-30 streams you're getting.

So what that means is a stream is not counted until you have like 30 seconds of a song streamed, right? So if someone—like for anyone that doesn't know—you'll stream a song, but if you skip it at like 26 seconds in, Spotify is not gonna count that as a stream. And that could harm your chances of them deciding to push it in their discovery features like Release Radar or their radio, or autoplay, or DJ.

So it's very crucial in today's landscape to make sure that you get that listener to that 30-second threshold.

But to answer your question, I mean, I can just pull up the data. I'm looking at data right now. I've got an artist here that has 1.6 million monthly listeners, and their top track in the last month has a [00:25:00] 23% skip rate. And the complete rate is 65.8%. So 65.8% of every single listener went and streamed through the song essentially. And then it'll tell you the sub-30-second streams.

This is the part that I feel like makes—or would make—the artist and their team want to cry, essentially. This one has 112,000 sub-30 streams. So those are 112,000 streams that we could have got if we would’ve got people to 30 seconds. Which is crazy, right?

The song has, in the last 30 days, 465,000 streams—so half a million streams—but we lost out on about 112,000. So that number could have looked like 600,000 if we would've got people.

Michael: So, so interesting. Super interesting. Yeah. I was just imagining deliberately putting parts in the first 30 seconds of your song that are like hooks, that are like buildups.

[00:26:00] It's like, "Wait for it. Wait for it." Yeah, like 31 seconds.

Ronan: Yeah, for sure, man. I mean, it's just like content creation. At the end of the day, I think that's where we've moved. I think everyone—what is it? Like Gen Z has a worse attention span than a goldfish? That's what the—whoever study—I don't know if that's true. I'm Gen Z.

Michael: I've heard that before too. Yeah, I don't know the study, but I've definitely heard that.

Ronan: Yeah, so I think, I mean, it's the same way with making an ad for your song. I mean, if your first—it's called the hook rate—the percent rate. It's like the first three seconds of your ad. Like, if 50–60 people are leaving, like you see those charts when you run a creative and like, okay, you have 100%, you were at zero seconds—yeah, because they're just scrolling on their page—but then instantly it's falling down. You're just wasting money, right? So I think artists—it's the struggle, right?

Some artists are all about, "Oh, this is my [00:27:00] art," and, "I want to have a 30-second intro," or "a 40-second cinematic buildup to my song." You know, that's great. I think if you are The Weeknd—I don't know if you heard his new album—but like, a lot of his tracks take a minute to get started. I think it's more of a cinematic experience album.

But then you have more viral creators and kind of viral artists where their song just starts right away. It really just depends. I think if you're kind of a legacy act, it doesn't matter. If you're someone whose audience at least is the youngest generation, then it just might be something to think about.

Michael: Hmm. Got it. So I think probably the last question that I have is related to monetization for artists. Let's say that they've got a decent amount of Spotify streams, they've started to build traction, they have a bit of a [00:28:00] community, and now their biggest question is, "How do I take these people that I'm resonating with, that I've built a bit of a community around, and how do I actually make it into a sustainable income?" I'm curious if you've seen any creative things that artists are doing or seen any patterns where you're like, "Wow, it seems like this kind of thing is really working well for artists right now" that people can plug into.

Ronan: Yeah, I mean, there's a bunch of things. I think you could always sell merch and attach it at the track level on Spotify—like underneath the song, you can attach a merch item that resonates with it. I think that's one good way to go about it if you really have someone who shows up for you every single time. But I'm gonna guess most artists don't have that, that are watching.

I think the main thing I want to focus on really is, how do we create a roadmap for you to where you can get to the point where you don't have to rely [00:29:00] on purely spending money every single release to make any sort of impact, right?

So I believe strongly in numbers. I believe strongly in projections and knowing what I can get for what cost. In terms of that aspect, it's like, let's try and make a return on streaming. I think the big debate is, "Oh, streaming doesn't pay enough," and yeah, it could be better for sure. But that's what we got, and those are the cards that we have in our deck. So let's run the calculations and then think hypothetically, "Okay, how many people do we need to shove at this?" You just need a sustaining fan base to do it.

So, there's this one artist I'm working with right now. His name's Auggie—shout out to Auggie. I think he's at around 40K, and he was at like 5 to 10. I've been working with him for a few years now. He's in L.A. right now. I took him from like [00:30:00] 5–10 to 40 or 50K peak monthly this last drop. He was kind of starting from zero. He'd make a post on Instagram—no one's going to go and check out the song, right? There is no community there. He'd post a song and get like 100, maybe 200–300 streams within the first few days of releasing the track.

What we did is, we created a whole comprehensive content plan where we went out and shot creatives for his song. It was called Adderall High, and the song was basically about being so intensely in a state of focus that it kind of feels like you're on Adderall, right? No one could knock him down from that focus. That was the writing behind that track. So we went and got creative with it.

I think the winning piece of content that won [00:31:00] for that song was: he was in a therapy session. The first three seconds of the video were from the therapist's standpoint—so he’s holding up his phone behind the computer screen like, “Yo, this guy won’t stop yapping.” And it’s Auggie—the artist—talking about his problems.

Then it switches to another angle in the same room—two camera angles, but this is like pro camera. Then he breaks the fourth wall and speaks at the camera with the lyrics. The first lyric is like, “Lately I’ve been feeling stressed.” So it works perfectly in this scenario-based video of him being in a therapy session, which matches the theme of the song—a lot of people can relate to that. People going through struggle, going to therapy—it resonated incredibly well.

We’re building on what this represents. We got like 500,000 streams as of now—we're at about 500,000 streams in about 80 days [00:32:00] on that track. So to build momentum into the next weeks—we’re putting out a new one for him on March 7th—is cool. We already bought that data. We spent, let’s say, $3K on it. So how do we make $3K back?

I think over the course—like $3K–$4K—over a year, that song is going to make it back. The metrics were right on that track. Took about 12 months to recoup that investment. But going forward, the next track should be, in theory, easier than the last one—if it’s a great track and we can also get it to resonate with people. It should be easier to recoup that money because we have the audience from the last track that we already paid to get. We have the data now, right? We can retarget those people.

We got like 300–400 comments on those ad videos promoting that last track—on the therapy video and a bunch of other videos that we tested. So let’s get a little more guerrilla with it. Let's go run a pre-save campaign. Let's run up like 300–400 [00:33:00] people pre-saving and following out the gate for a stronger release week.

You could even use ChatGPT to create a mapped projection of how long it's going to take if you're retaining a stream floor of whatever it is. I think our stream floor will be like 2,000 for the last track, and you can just plug it in. It's like, "Okay, cool. It'll take 350 days, 370 days," whatever, to recoup the investment if pay-per-stream is $0.003, whatever.

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Ronan: So I think it’s that, and then creating a really, really robust release schedule. My plan for him—transparently—I’m going to spend probably like $10K–$15K on the next two or three singles. So we’ll be like $15K in the red. We’ll be recouping our investment as we go.

Out of that, what came out—we have like 1,500 new followers on Spotify. We’ll reach like 3,000–4,000 by the end of those releases, maybe more. We have a ton of new [00:34:00] audience on Apple, Amazon, and YouTube now. We have a ton of people in the DMs we can send pre-save links to. They've forever pre-saved, they've followed, so they’ll get hit with those tracks.

Basically, the point is to get him to the point where he can start releasing new music and we don’t have to pay as much to get the same result. He can drop two tracks—they can probably get 50K–150K–200K across all DSPs on their own, without the promo push, in two or three releases from now. That will go back to recouping some of that investment faster.

So yeah, I think it’s really just like: play with the deck of cards that you have, do the best that you can, take risks—but calculated risks—and really see if you can come up with a strategy that will, in hopes, make back that [00:35:00] investment.

In music, it’s always been a long game. It’s a catalog game. It’s about building catalog, it’s about placing your bets on tracks and waiting a year or two—with good marketing—to get return back, and being comfortable with making that investment.

So yeah, I think a lot of artists might be a little afraid to do that. But the ones that have got it—some guys just have it and they know what they’re doing—and you have, let’s say, a team like my team or someone else that’s good at what they do, I think there’s a way to make a roadmap to ROI.

Michael: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It sounds like what you're saying is that it's a little bit like a snowball that kind of goes down a hill. Like over time, with each release, you might not make a return on the first release, but when you start to pack on the snowball over time, then it gets easier and easier for it to gain momentum.

An analogy that kind of came to mind was almost like you're driving uphill at the beginning. And in order to drive uphill, you kind of need this fuel or this gas to push the car uphill, and it's like the natural gravity is going to pull you back. So unfortunately, you have to push. But there's this point where you're on top of the hill.

And then you go over the hill, and now gravity's working in your favor, and with less and less gas, now it's kind of moving on its own. It's a little bit like that with the algorithm where once you kind of have that traction, now it's moving in the right direction. So you don't necessarily have to invest as much in order to keep having momentum. Or maybe like Hot Wheels. Like every once in a while you have a booster that goes whoosh, and then it kind of shoots it forward, gives you momentum.

But it kind of shifts because you're not going uphill anymore.

Ronan: Yeah, for sure. Totally. That's a great analogy. A great way to look at it, for sure.

Michael: Awesome. Well, Ronan, man, it's been great connecting. And just out of curiosity, how old are you?

Ronan: I'm 23.

Michael: 23 years old. Dang. That's awesome, man. And you built a team to 15 people?

Ronan: Yeah, it's doing well. I'd say, I want to say we're probably the largest Spotify playlisting kind of company that is on a mass services thing.

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Ronan: So yeah, it's cool, man. We'll see where we can take it. Obviously, goals for me—just bigger, better, more campaigns, more artists, bigger artists. See how we can make impact, and then of course, give back, share, and see the results of my findings.

Michael: Yeah. Mm. Cool. Well, good for you. I mean, you're definitely more mature than I was when I was 23 years old.

Ronan: Thanks, bro. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. This means a lot. Really excited to see what you guys come up with, especially with that new HQ, all that stuff. Definitely would love to swing by Orlando sometime and chop it up.

Michael: Yeah, I mean, for sure. Based on everything you just shared and based on what I've seen from Boost Collective, it seems like there's some big alignment opportunities and partnership stuff.

Ronan: Yeah. Let's do it, man. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Michael: Yeah. You got it. And for anyone that's listening or watching this right now who is interested in diving deeper or learning more about Boost Collective and the different packages that you offer, where's the best place for them to go to dive deeper?

Ronan: Yeah, for sure. I mean, obviously probably just the website—boostcollective.com—right now. That's probably the best way. Or you could check out—I just started a new Instagram where I'm going and diving in on the metrics and all that side of things that I'm seeing working for artists, kind of more on the tailored approach.

But yeah, Boost social, my social, or just the Boost, I would say.

Michael: Awesome. Well, like always, we'll put all the links in the show notes for easy access. And Ronan, great connecting today. Thanks again for being on the podcast.

Ronan: Likewise, man. Thank you so much.