[besson3c]

Calling all web developers/musicians:

I'm a jazz musician who has been developing websites for years for colleagues of mine... examples of my work:

http://www.michaelhackett.com
http://www.lynnearriale.com
http://www.alexheitlinger.com
http://www.janiecejaffe.com

I'm working on an independent study in my University I have entitled "Design of Marketing Technology for Musicians". My business includes providing low-cost dynamically driven websites and web infrastructure within a musician's organizational space. I've developed a PHP/MySQL driven CMS that allows me to reduce developmental hours considerably, which drives my high volume/low cost business model. I also provide an "end-to-end" solution, meaning I host my websites on a dedicated FreeBSD server I adminstrate.

I graduate after this semester and will be looking to make this project I started in the late 1990s to be a full-time pursuit. I'm realizing that there is too much work to be done in starting up the company for me to do alone (even now - I'm getting more work than I can handle), so I'm pursuing forming a partnership or at least outsourcing work to somebody I can trust.

An important aspect of my service my customers appreciate is my empathy for the needs of the musicians I work for. Therefore, at this point I would really prefer to work with somebody who shares my background (or something similar) and understands the needs of musicians with formal musical training (e.g. jazz/classical through University/College). I might be willing to compromise this criteria, however... if you feel really Gung Ho about what I've described so far, I'd still like to hear from you.

This is obviously the grand whirlwind synopsis of what my business is about and what I'm looking for at this point. If you are interested in learning more about the prospect of working with me, please email me at joe [at] netmusician.org (don't bother checking out the netmusician.org website - it's years old and due for a major overhaul). Please include samples of your work and tell me about yourself!

Disclaimer: I cannot offer any contractual commitments nor can I make you incredibly wealthy at this point. As you can probably assertain, I'm in the very early stages of formalizing the work I've been doing for years on the side. At this point, I'm sort of kicking the tires and trying to determine whether I can find somebody to work with, and whether they believe in what I'm doing enough to want to stick it out for the long (or semi-long) haul. If your primary motivation at this point is to make as much money as possible, this isn't the opportunity for you. If you are really passionate about helping talented musicians with their business (which does not necessarily exclude the prospect of making a good amount of money), please do email me so that we can discuss this at a greater length.

Thanks!

(Sorry for such a strange post, but I've been having problems finding somebody with the ideal qualifications! Please pass this on to whomever else might be interested)

[anthonyvthc]

Dammit I wish I had ANY web design abilities; I would jump on this. I totally understand where you're coming from and what you're looking to do. As a musician, I think it is a very noble (and perhaps risky) endeavor. Good luck!

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by besson3c:
An important aspect of my service my customers appreciate is my empathy for the needs of the musicians I work for. Therefore, at this point I would really prefer to work with somebody who shares my background (or something similar) and understands the needs of musicians with formal musical training (e.g. jazz/classical through University/College).

Sorry dude but I see no need for that at all. A web site is a web site.
How 'bout putting some geeky dude in as a back-end handling all the tech stuff and you acting as a front-end handling all the customer stuff?

I might be wrong, but I think you're gonna be waiting for a long, long time if you shoot for the "ideal" candidate.

[besson3c]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Sorry dude but I see no need for that at all. A web site is a web site.
How 'bout putting some geeky dude in as a back-end handling all the tech stuff and you acting as a front-end handling all the customer stuff?

I might be wrong, but I think you're gonna be waiting for a long, long time if you shoot for the "ideal" candidate.

Because web designers are designers, it is crucial to understand the needs of the audience we are designing for. It reduces the number of prototypes that are necessary and makes usability testing easier.

It is important to me that we have a handle on this, whether my future partner has formal musical training or not.

You might be right about waiting a long time, but I figure it's also best to aim high.