David Atkinson

as an entertainment consultant in Nashville, TN. Although I gained huge experience in how to use local & national marketing vehicles (such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet) to connect the right marketing plan to the right audience, I also saw a broken music industry, where musicians had no business voice. I left Nashville for Minneapolis to start a record label. I signed, executive produced, manufactured, and promoted a roster that included a two-time Grammy Nominated artist, and a national blues-rock band.

As the owner of a small independent record label with artists on both coasts and the Midwest, it was hard for me to afford to pay for expensive air travel, hotels, studio space, etc., when my roster was recording their CDs. To enable these musicians to record together, I relied on FTP sites for music file transferring and storage, PayPal for musician payments, and video chatting for production communication. It was here when I realized that several musicians I knew were in the same predicament and could benefit from a website that not only combined these features in one convenient location, but was also a "musical ecosystem," enabling musicians to seamlessly transition through all stages of musical development, from education to creation, promotion, sales and beyond. And this is when, SwapBeats was started…