From Michael Shoup, Founder & CEO of 12South Music
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On May 6, 2012 I turned 30 years of age. Surrounded by family and friends and at least 2 sheets to the wind, I proudly announced I was leaving my comfortable, flexible 9-5 job to form and run a startup company made of cut-throat musical renegades (I had yet to find) who would revolutionize the Entertainment Industry.

2 weeks later, I awoke to my entrepreneurial ground zero with equal parts “This is the dream, baby!” and “OH.SHIT.” shaken (not stirred) into a cocktail of anxiety.

2 years later, our merry band of vagabonds has written a quarter million lines of code, helped some of our favorite artists take career changing leaps online, and traveled from coast to coast meeting some of the most artistic entrepreneurial minds of today.

This is our story.

I first met Bobby Dirienzo in 2011. I was working as a designer and After Effects editor while moonlighting as a consultant for artists online and quietly promoting my first musical release since 2007. Years earlier, I had lost a great deal of money inefficiently pursuing a career as an artist, and that experience had burned into me a unique perspective that continues to be my saving grace. To help me juggle everything, I had hired a Virtual Assistant through Odesk to be “me” while I was busy at the day job. Now I was going all in, hiring an in-town assistant, forming an LLC, and putting a legitimate name to the amalgamation of things I was doing. 12South Music.

Bobby interviewed for the job. He didn’t get it. To paraphrase my younger self, I believe the reasoning was “You’re overly ambitious.” What this mostly meant was “I don’t know how to be your boss.”