Half Expertise Scout, Half Business Insider, Half Creator Advocate, All Patreon

Tom McNeill as soon as let a baroque chamber orchestra conductor take the stage in an Insane Clown Posse t-shirt. He was considering, “This man clearly loves Insane Clown Posse simply as a lot as he loves Bach!” The board of administrators nonetheless have been considering, “What on earth is a juggalo?!” A number of jobs and one continent later, Tom remembered that conductor when he helped Insane Clown Posse launch their Patreon. It introduced his decade-plus-long profession within the music business full circle and helped show his level that each one music – and all creativity – has worth, it doesn’t matter what that board might have thought.

In his days as an artist supervisor for a expertise company, Tom would work with possibly 12 artists, 365 days a 12 months. Now, as a Creator Partnerships Supervisor for Patreon, he works with 365 artists a 12 months for 12 days every. Working this manner, he’s in a position to make an even bigger affect on extra creators and assist of us like Beardyman, KT Tunstall, Mona Chalabi, and others launch their companies with year-round success.

You by no means know what a mean day for Tom will maintain. Some days, it means reaching out to Joe Budden’s agent after listening to about his Spotify breakup. Different days, it means serving to Insane Clown Posse launch their web page in a single day. After which working with their streaming accomplice after the juggalos handle to crash the location with the sheer quantity of their enthusiasm.

On the floor, Tom’s job sounds very, very cool, and that’s as a result of it’s: as a Creator Partnerships Supervisor, Tom is liable for reaching out to all types of creators after which serving to them launch on Patreon. He brings creators to the platform in a number of alternative ways—some discover the platform on their very own and others by focused campaigns run by Tom and the Creator Partnerships workforce. However then there’s “the magic bucket of goals,” as Tom cheekily calls it. That is how among the greatest names discover their strategy to the platform. Creators will be referred by their brokers or mates, they are often a part of Patreon’s prolonged community, or, within the case of Rhiannon Giddens, they’ll come from Tom sending an electronic mail after listening to an NPR Tiny Desk Live performance.

On any given day you could find Tom listening to Tiny Desk live shows. “All of the flamboyance is stripped away — they’re intimate.” And tuning in to these live shows isn’t simply enjoyable for Tom. They’re inspiration. “You see Tiny Desk live shows and that intimacy of individuals sitting in the identical room, only a meter away from the artists—that’s the sensation {that a} actually good Patreon membership ought to have.”

However in fact (and I promised Tom I’d say this), his job is just not all Tiny Desk Live shows and emails to business connections. A serious a part of his function is ensuring creators are set as much as construct probably the most profitable Patreon communities potential. Typically that requires Tom to persuade a skeptical agent that Patreon is the appropriate platform for his or her consumer. And generally, like when the SUPER NUNS launched their Patreon membership final 12 months, Tom has to achieve out to the Vatican for particulars on the “papal Paypal.” As a result of the precise pope turned their first subscriber. The precise pope.

However all that apart, his favourite half isn’t (nearly) rubbing elbows with celeb creators or assembly artists he’s a fan of. One in all Tom’s favourite elements of the job is simply being part of constructing the brand new artistic financial system. “So typically within the leisure business, it’s a must to sit inside a silo. You select your lane and also you say, ‘I’m going to turn out to be an skilled in movie, music, TV, or podcasting.’ However one thing that I like about Patreon as an organization and about Artistic Partnerships as a job is that you just’re in a position to see what everyone’s doing, and get a very broad view of what a podcast is doing that video creators can study from, and what a video creator is doing that musicians can study from…It encourages experimentation and studying.”

For Tom, it’s not nearly serving to a musician make extra music, or serving to a YouTuber make extra elaborate movies. It’s about letting creators specific their true, genuine, artistic selves and serving to followers join with that.

One in all his favourite examples of that expression comes from the rapper NoName. She makes use of her Patreon to run a guide membership specializing in authors of colour, and her viewers loves it as a result of it’s so authentically her. For Tom, it’s an ideal illustration of the brand new artistic ecosystem, the place an artist can say, “don’t make me select a style; don’t make me decide a lane and keep in it. I’m a artistic particular person, and I wish to type an genuine, unbiased group across the issues I care about.”

That sort of experimentation, variety, and inventive freedom is really distinctive to Patreon. And solely at Patreon can one particular person get to play an element in serving to media icon Joe Budden launch a fan membership, the SUPER NUNS fight human trafficking, numerous bands and musicians survive a worldwide lockdown, and so many extra artists carve out a spot for themselves with their followers and the world at giant.

You may (in regular circumstances) discover Tom in Patreon’s New York workplace, assembly together with his workforce over Shake Shack and discussing the most recent Tiny Desk live shows. And in 2021, our Creator Partnerships workforce’s function is ready to continue to grow as Patreon works with larger names with even larger communities to assist them launch quicker all over the world. You may study extra about our open roles right here.