Today we’d like to introduce you to Blake Coppelson.
Blake, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started Proximity back in 2011 to help share music more accessibly when I went to my friend’s houses. Little did I know I was indirectly the first person uploading these tracks to YouTube. As a result, more people than just my friends and I were listening and now subscribing. Labels, managers, and artists directly started reaching out to me once I had roughly 5,000 subscribers. Since then we’ve grown organically over eight years and much of that is staying true the curating good music and maintaining the integrity of the channel/business.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Yes and no. Being dependent on a third party platform even YouTube isn’t best. Playing by their rules comes at a cost – and with algorithm changes comes shift in analytics. That being said, we’ve been able to shift off of YouTube and diversify on different platforms but also create our own database of emails and users to reach out to if we ever have new label releases or merch drops.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our company is a curator of pop/electronic music. We help sift through the millions of records being released every week to just seven songs a week being showcased. Our specialty is just our taste in the specific genre of pop/electronic and with that we’ve created a loyal fanbase who wait for each upload every day.
What I’m most proud of, as cliche as it sounds, is the community that we have created. We have users who are lifting each other up emotionally through comments, critiquing music in a productive and professional manner, and engaging with Proximity as if it was one of their best friends. I don’t see Proximity as a company but as your friend, which is why I was speaking in first person. I think the personal connection we have with our fans in something that sets us apart from other business doing the similar things and thus creating a stronger longer lasting bond.
What were you like growing up?
Personality-wise I was always more street smart oriented. I was studying pre-med in college, when halfway through I realized it wasn’t my preferred route and switched to music industry. I was always that kid in high school burning CDs to show my friends music the next day and got excited checking my favorite blogs every day. I was also always into business and creating something out of nothing – which I guess explains how I started Proximity.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://youtube.com/Proximity
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/Proximity
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/Proximity
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/ProximityM
Image Credit:
Respective artist Press Photos
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