Half Expertise Scout, Half Trade 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 pondering, “This man clearly loves Insane Clown Posse simply as a lot as he loves Bach!” The board of administrators nevertheless had been pondering, “What on earth is a juggalo?!” Just a few 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 trade 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 perhaps 12 artists, 365 days a yr. Now, as a Creator Partnerships Supervisor for Patreon, he works with 365 artists a yr for 12 days every. Working this manner, he’s capable of make an even bigger impression on extra creators and assist people 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 kinds of creators after which serving to them launch on Patreon. He brings creators to the platform in a number of other ways—some discover the platform on their very own and others by focused campaigns run by Tom and the Creator Partnerships crew. However then there’s “the magic bucket of goals,” as Tom cheekily calls it. That is how a few of the largest names discover their method 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 e-mail after listening to an NPR Tiny Desk Live performance.

On any given day you’ll find Tom listening to Tiny Desk concert events. “All of the flamboyance is stripped away — they’re intimate.” And tuning in to these concert events isn’t simply enjoyable for Tom. They’re inspiration. “You see Tiny Desk concert events 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 after all (and I promised Tom I’d say this), his job will not be all Tiny Desk Live shows and emails to trade 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 precise platform for his or her consumer. And typically, like when the SUPER NUNS launched their Patreon membership final yr, Tom has to achieve out to the Vatican for particulars on the “papal Paypal.” As a result of the precise pope grew to become their first subscriber. The precise pope.

However all that apart, his favourite half isn’t (nearly) rubbing elbows with movie star creators or assembly artists he’s a fan of. Considered one of Tom’s favourite elements of the job is simply being part of constructing the brand new inventive financial system. “So typically within the leisure trade, it’s a must to sit inside a silo. You select your lane and also you say, ‘I’m going to turn into an knowledgeable in movie, music, TV, or podcasting.’ However one thing that I like about Patreon as an organization and about Artistic Partnerships as a task is that you simply’re capable of see what everyone’s doing, and get a very broad view of what a podcast is doing that video creators can be taught from, and what a video creator is doing that musicians can be taught 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, inventive selves and serving to followers join with that.

Considered one of 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 shade, 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 inventive 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 inventive particular person, and I wish to kind an genuine, unbiased neighborhood across the issues I care about.”

That type of experimentation, variety, and artistic freedom is actually distinctive to Patreon. And solely at Patreon can one individual 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 world lockdown, and so many extra artists carve out a spot for themselves with their followers and the world at massive.

You possibly can (in regular circumstances) discover Tom in Patreon’s New York workplace, assembly together with his crew over Shake Shack and discussing the most recent Tiny Desk concert events. And in 2021, our Creator Partnerships crew’s function is about to continue to grow as Patreon works with greater names with even greater communities to assist them launch quicker around the globe. You possibly can be taught extra about our open roles right here.