Other entrepreneurs told Darren Gallop that the hardest part of life for a start-up is right before things take off. Luckily for the music industry, he isn't planning to give up before that happens

Before launching his software company, Marcato Digital Solutions, in 2010, Darren Gallop had been thinking for years about a system that would make the music industry more manageable. And he should know: Since he was a teenager, Gallop, 36, has experienced the full spectrum of the industry, as a musician, road manager, roadie, producer, sound engineer, and driver. Until 2007 he had been a drummer with Cape Breton-based rock band Slowcoaster, with whom he toured for nearly five years. 

So Gallop had a pretty good idea of what kind of tool would be a powerful aid for people in the business, and much of that has to do with planning and scheduling. “If it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t exist,” he says. That’s the new standing order for Gallop and his Sydney, N.S.-based team. 

All critical dates have existed on Gallop’s calendar since 2009, when he developed an online scheduling technology called Marcato Musician, designed to make life easier. “I can plug an event, date, and time into the system, then everyone knows they’re booked,” says Gallop. “If someone has a wedding six months down the road it goes in, or if an interview time is set, everyone is notified immediately.

But Marcato does much more than sync online calendars; it also allows music industry members to communicate all aspects of their business more efficiently. Organizations that have used it include Cape Breton’s annual Celtic Colours International Festival and Nova Scotia’s Stan Rogers Folk Festival, as have such musicians as Gordie Sampson, David Myles, and Kim Stockwood. 

Necessity, the mother of invention
It all started with Gallop’s first venture, Company House Records. During the 2006 East Coast Music Awards (ECMAs), several Cape Breton bands hosted a rock show. After the show, New York-based music producer Warren Bruleigh, a Cape Breton native known for his work with The Violent Femmes, suggested the Cape Breton rock contingent, which included Gallop, start their own label. In 2007 they launched Company House with four clients on its marquee: Slowcoaster, The Tom Fun Orchestra, Carmen Townsend, and Kyle Evans. 

Yet Company House grew too big, too fast. “We felt like we were in over our heads,” says Gallop. “The phones were ringing off the hook, Tom Fun’s record was out, Slowcoaster’s record was out, they were both on tour, we were in pre-production for Carmen and getting demos from Kyle—so much was happening that it was stressful trying to keep everything from caving in.”

If necessity is the mother of invention, then desperation is its catalyst. “I assumed there must be a piece of software out there that’s built to manage all the moving parts involved with managing an artist’s career,” says Gallop. The constant barrage of emails and phone calls he received repeatedly asking for the same information, including itineraries, press kits, contacts, and photos led him to seek a solution. “It wasn’t even about making improvements to the industry at that time,” he says. “It was about helping our chaotic office get its act together so we could pull everything off.” 

By 2008 Company House was mired in debt. “We expected that we could raise more funds after our launch; when we didn’t, instead of shrinking the roster and narrowing our focus, we kept on the original plan with unrealistic optimism,” says Gallop. He ended up laying off staff and trimming the artists on the label. During that crisis, the genesis of Marcato emerged. But with an estimated $400,000 price tag of taking the Marcato prototype from dream to reality nearly put the brakes on the venture.

At that point, Gallop met with Bob Pelley, a Sydney-based mentor at Innovacorp who was introduced to Gallop by one of Company House Records’ angel investors. Pelley told Gallop about Innovacorp’s I-3 Technology Start-Up competition. “That was when I was almost ready to say screw this, let’s just go back to our chaos and try to duct tape a few tools together and calm the fire a little bit,” says Gallop. It’s a good thing he didn’t toss in the towel; his Marcato pitch won the Cape Breton I-3 competition in December of 2007. 

“Winning that changed the game,” says Gallop. “We had just won $100,000, so $300,000 didn’t seem unattainable.” They acquired the remaining funds from the ECBC and CBDC. Today Marcato has five full-time employees and is developing Marcato Musician, its artist management software, and Marcato Festival, its festival management software. Company House Records has been resurrected as a leaner boutique label; its flagship artist, Carmen Townsend, recently released her first full-length album, Waitin’ and Seein’.

Bob Pelley has continued to work with Gallop since his 2007 win. “Darren has incredible tenacity, focus, enthusiasm, and commitment,” says Pelley. “The overriding factor is that he felt pain himself in the music industry when it came to managing bands, he knew he wasn’t alone, and he knew there had to be a better way to do things.”

In a blog, Gallop describes how he uses Marcato to help manage Townsend’s career. He organizes a plethora of people across the globe, including the local Cape Breton team, a marketing manager and publicist in Toronto, a radio tracker in Vancouver, an Australian label, and business partner Bruleigh in New York. “I’m always pumping information out—calls, emails, demos—to stay on the radar of those who can help further the end goal,” say Gallop.

His persistence paid off with a recent coup when legendary U.S. rock-and-roll sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart chose Townsend to open for their cross-Canada tour. This came on the heels of Townsend’s HMV “Next Big Thing” win last fall. In building Townsend’s career, Bruleigh’s connections enabled Gallop to hire Gord Ganno, the lead singer of The Violent Femmes, to co-produce Waitin’ and Seein’. Jessie Harris, the songwriter for Norah Jones, offered to let Townsend cover one of his tunes. “Building the hype has nothing to do with the audience; it has to do with the team,” says Gallop. “To create an industry buzz, then feed that back to the team, keeps the energy snowballing.”

The medium of that energy is Marcato. Software competitors used to intimidate Gallop, but now he sees them as positive. “We collectively are sharing the burden of creating this new space of online artist-platform management,” he says. “The competition is helping push the
industry across the chasm to make this a mainstream thing. And the real competition is change. It’s all the other people using the older ways of communication, whether it’s bulletin boards, phones, fax machines, or Microsoft and agendas.” 

Now Gallop’s dual job of managing Company House Records and Marcato is symbiotic. “I find it’s easier to engage people in my platform as an artist manager,” he says. “Otherwise, I might as well show up in a briefcase and a suit and I’m a sales guy selling software, you know? So there’s a legitimacy being a manager as I try to sell this on a global market to a niche industry.” 

That legitimacy garnered Gallop three nominations at this year’s ECMAs: Company House Records was nominated for Record Company/Distributor/Independent Label of the Year; Gallop for Manager of the Year; and Marcato Digital Solutions for Independent Company of the Year. In August, Marcato secured more financing, led by Innovacorp. The $500,000 will be used to accelerate growth and build the sales team: “It has been three and a half really hard years,” says Gallop. “[Other entrepreneurs] have told me that the hardest part is right before things take off.” He isn’t planning to give up before that happens.