Episode 455 – Vinyl Sales Set A Record, Big Box MI, And HotDrop CEO Max Goldberg

My guest this week is Max Goldberg, who’s a co-founder and CEO of the music discovery app HotDrop. HotDrop is a platform that connects undiscovered artists with superfans. Founded by a team of Gen-Z music addicts and artists, HotDrop addresses the current generational shift underway in music discovery and consumption. The service’s 30-second snippets enable rapid discovery, are easily shared with other music fans, thus yielding high virality for emerging artists. HotDrop allows users to swipe through various short form audio snippets with supplemental links and info provided by indie artists themselves. Within two days of its initial launch, the HotDrop app had more than 25,000 downloads and ranked 7th on the App Store. During the interview we spoke about the problems with music discovery on major music platforms, misconceptions about music on TikTok, how very short listens can still lead to recommendations to friends, the communal listening experience, and much more. I spoke with Max via Zoom from his office. On the intro I’ll take a look at vinyl albums setting a sales record, and mass marketers getting into the musical instrument business.