WIN Supporters Spotlight: Artist Growth’s Matt Urmy on Building Better Tools for Independent Music Teams

Artist Growth is a project and event management platform built for the music and entertainment industry. Bringing schedules, touring, ticketing, analytics and communication into one place, the platform helps artist teams centralize the operations behind modern music careers. Trusted by companies across the industry, including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Red Light Management and Roc Nation, Artist Growth combines industry expertise with technology designed to simplify the work behind the music.

With a background that includes touring as independent artists, the company’s team understands the realities of building a career with limited resources. Its approach is rooted in a simple principle: independent teams should have access to sophisticated tools that help them work more efficiently, without adding unnecessary complexity.

WIN Supporters is a program available to those who want to support WIN’s work, champion the global independent music sector, and engage with its entrepreneurs in a sustainable and mutually beneficial way. The program offers unique benefits that complement the Friends, Partners, Affiliate and Associate membership schemes run by WIN members, which businesses are also encouraged to explore and join for additional ways to engage with the independent community.

In this WIN Supporters Spotlight, we spoke to Matt Urmy, CEO and Founder of Artist Growth, to discuss how technology can help independent music companies manage growing operational complexity, make better use of data, and give artist teams the tools they need to thrive without the resources of major companies:

How are your services adapted to meet the specific needs of independent music companies?

Independent music companies are often managing the same complexity as much larger organizations, just with smaller teams. Artist Growth is designed to give those teams one place to see what’s happening across their business and actually act on it.

We bring together artist, streaming, social, touring, commerce, and operational data so managers and labels don’t have to spend their time jumping between platforms, spreadsheets, dashboards, and email threads. The goal is simple: less time hunting for information, more time making good decisions for artists.

How does being a WIN Supporter connect with your long-term vision as a company?

Independent music companies are a huge part of who we’re building Artist Growth for

We believe independents should have access to sophisticated technology without needing the resources or infrastructure of a major company. Being a WIN Supporter gives us an opportunity not just to introduce Artist Growth to that community, but to listen to independent labels around the world and make sure what we build reflects the way they actually work.

How do you think technology and innovation can better serve independent artists and labels?

The next generation of music technology shouldn’t create another dashboard people have to check. It should eliminate work

There’s more data available to artists, managers, and labels than ever before, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s more clarity. Information is still scattered across streaming services, social platforms, commerce tools, touring systems, spreadsheets, and internal documents

We think the opportunity is to connect those systems and make the information useful. Increasingly, that also means allowing teams to interact with their data in more natural ways, asking questions instead of digging through reports, and getting to an answer quickly enough to actually do something with it.

Technology should give independent teams leverage, not another job.

What have you personally learned from working with independents that you apply in your role today?

Independent teams are incredibly resourceful. They’re used to doing a lot with a little, and they tend to have very little patience for technology that creates more process instead of removing it.

That has reinforced something we think about constantly at Artist Growth: powerful software still has to be practical. A feature only matters if it saves someone time, helps them understand something they couldn’t see before, or helps them make a better decision for an artist.

We’re grateful to Artist Growth for their continued support as a WIN Supporter, and we look forward to building on our partnership to further connect, empower and champion the global independent music community.