Co-CEO of Soundstripe
Web: soundstripe.com
Contact: Hayley Brinkman, [email protected]
“Follow your curiosity,” Micah Sannan, co-founder of Nashville-based licensing company Soundstripe, says. “I think that’s the best advice I’ve ever been given. Because it’s going to lead you to places you care about, and typically what you care about are the things that come to fruition. That’s really important. And, as soon as possible, find mentors and advisors who can help guide you.”
Sannan used that advice in 2016, when he started Soundstripe with co-founders Travis Terrell and Trevor Hinesley. “My business partners and I started a recording studio together in 2009 and did music for commercials. You end up with a lot of 30-second tracks that don’t make it, just sitting around,” Sannan says. “We figured a bunch of other composers and producers had the same issue, so we started collecting a catalog and created a simple licensing process with affordable, high- quality music.” The licensing platform offers royalty-free music, sound effects and, most recently, stock video clips to content creators, which has helped provide a stable income for musicians.
Unlike other licensing companies, Soundstripe’s music is created in-house by a roster of musicians, producers and mixers, including Aaron Marsh of Copeland, Stephen Keech of Haste the Day and Grammy-winning engineer and producer J.R. McNeely. “We had open submissions for a while to build our roster, and we basically built a little internal team, so we’d have singers, songwriters, mixers and producers on staff,” Sannan says.
By working with artists who own their own music, Soundstripe has been able to help support musicians during COVID-19, which has hit the live entertainment industry hard. Fortunately, Sannan says, Soundstripe has actually seen an increase in the demand for music for certain types of content, such as fitness videos, during the pandemic. “It’s been such a rough year for the music industry, we’re so grateful we’ve been able to keep going and support artists.”
