Sprouter Talks…to TourSavant

The music industry is becoming increasingly interested in leveraging the social web and becoming more engaged with fans. And it’s not just the large music labels that are adopting new tools and ways of interacting – it’s startup companies as well. Nashville-based startup TourSavant.com is one such company – founded in late 2008 the company is a virtual road manager for independent bands with online tools & applications. They have a virtual tour router to help bands plan tours, and experienced road managers available to answer questions. Paul Rogers is the Founder and CEO of TourSavant. He talks to Sprouter below about why he started TourSavant, his advice for entrepreneurs, and what’s coming up next.

Sprouter: Tell us about how you got the idea for TourSavant and how you started it.

Paul Rogers: About a year ago, I had been working in the studio with a very cool band called Cactus’s (myspace.com/cactusshavewon) and while they were recording, they really wanted to get out on the road and play some live shows.  We all thought it would be cool to play the material for some real people, sell some CD’s & T-shirts and just have a good time.  Since we did not have a label behind them, I raised a little money and just put them on the road to go win fans.  That showed me how much help good young bands need to get on the road and stay on the road.  With the help of some good friends and contacts, we over came many barriers including getting them in to Canada to play a show at the historic El Mocambo.  Once I realized there must be a ton of bands in their position I began to look for a company who was doing what I started calling “Virtual Road Management” and, to my surprise, I could not find one. So I went and met with some very smart music and technology colleagues to brainstorm with them my vision on what I wanted to build.  With a very large thumbs up from my new Board of Advisors, I began the arduous task bootstrapping a website and building the tools I thought bands would need to succeed on the road.

S: What were your biggest challenges starting TourSavant?

PR: Building a revolutionary tool from scratch was tough but without any initial financing, it was difficult to taper my big vision to something manageable. I believe you must create your own momentum and as I went to my network of folks and talked about it, I was led to a company who could do this with me even though they had never done anything like this before. Another challenge was of course the amount of logic and data required to build an auto tour router. There again my network saved me. I had worked with a genius programmer when I was in music publishing and he was up for a bootstrapping challenge and so we have been working together on this for months.

S: What are the top 3 tips you’d give to early-stage entrepreneurs?

PR: 1. Share revenues don’t make costs (don’t hire before you need to but be generous with early team members.)

2. Never stop looking to make things better no matter how difficult it may seem.

3. Reach out to all of your resources, you never know what a friend, colleague or contact might be able to help you with.

S: What do you think can be a game-changer for an early-stage startup?

PR: Never underestimate momentum!  Creating even small partnerships and link sharing deals can help to get the ball rolling.  Use every possible opportunity as an outlet to have even one more person view your site.  This will ensure the momentum ball keeps rolling and eventually, with enough hard work, the right people will see your project!

S: What’s coming up at TourSavant?

PR: We are constantly refining the logic for our tour router and are excited to have members test driving the site now.  We will be announcing some cool new discount partners early in 2010.  The big news however is that we are looking at partnering with some new friends we have made and giving one of our first bands a 4 city sponsored tour sometime in spring! We obviously have some other tricks up our sleeve but you’ll have to log on to www.toursavant.com often to find out more!!!

Thanks to Paul for talking with us.