Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share insights from Music Executives and Artists for aspiring and emerging music managers, executives and artists on how to navigate the music industry. This newsletter is brought to you by Mauricio Ruiz.

Dear Reader,

Going viral is not a career.

It feels like one for a minute.

Your phone starts moving different. Followers come in fast. People who had no idea who you were yesterday suddenly have your email, your manager’s number, or some random “my friend knows him” way to reach you.

Record labels start circling.

Managers start pitching.

Everybody sounds like something needs to happen immediately.

And honestly, I get it. When you’ve been waiting for a break, it’s hard not to think, “This is it.”

But attention is not a business.

That’s where a lot of artists get caught.

Quick business check:

If you’ve got music out, you’re probably leaving publishing money on the table.

Publishing royalties can come from streams, performances, and online usage, but collecting worldwide is a maze of registrations and middlemen.

That’s why KOSIGN exists. Built by Kobalt, KOSIGN lets you submit once and they handle global registrations to help you collect every cent you’re owed, plus direct DSP licensing (Spotify/Apple) where possible. No long lock-in either: rolling quarterly term.

It’s selective, but the application is 100% free. Apply now.

Matt Hansen posted a cover of Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed” in a parking garage.

No rollout. No campaign. No big strategy meeting.

Just a phone, a song, and a moment that hit.

Then he went to sleep.

By the next day, everything was different. He went from around 500 followers to something like 500,000.

That is insane to wake up to.

One day you’re trying to figure it out like everybody else. The next day people are telling you you’re the one. Some of them probably mean it. Some of them are chasing the heat. Either way, the room gets loud quick.

A lot of artists would have rushed.

Most people would have.

That’s not even a knock. It’s human. The music business starts calling and suddenly every conversation feels important. Every meeting feels like it could change your life. Every offer feels like it might disappear if you don’t take it right away.

Matt didn’t move like that.

The viral moment opened the door, but he didn’t let it make the decision for him. He took the meetings. He listened. He learned. He paid attention to what people were offering, but also to what they wanted back.

The music business loves urgency when urgency works in its favour.

“The window is closing.”
“You need to move now.”
“This may not come back around.”
“You’re hot right now.”

Sometimes that’s true.

Sometimes it’s just pressure.

And when you’re inside the high of a moment, it’s hard to tell the difference.

Matt knew he needed help. He needed a manager. He needed a lawyer. He needed people around him who could sit in those rooms and understand what was really being said.

That’s not weakness.

That’s being smart.

A lot of artists confuse independence with doing everything alone. I’ve never agreed with that. Independence is not isolation. It’s knowing what kind of help you need and not giving away the whole thing before you understand what you have.

Matt didn’t run straight into a traditional label deal. He started building around himself instead.

Management. Legal. Creative. Touring. Content. A band. Photography. People who could help the project grow without taking it out of his hands.

That’s usually the missing piece after something goes viral.

Everybody sees the spike. Not enough people think about the structure underneath it.

The old model was simple. Get hot, get signed, let the machine build around you.

That can still work. I’m not pretending labels don’t matter. The right label at the right time can change an artist’s life.

But the label doesn’t always have to be the first real piece of structure.

Sometimes it’s the lawyer who protects you. Sometimes it’s the manager who can see the full board. Sometimes it’s a distributor giving you enough money to keep going. Sometimes it’s the creative director who understands the world before everybody else does. Sometimes it’s the tour team proving the songs work outside of a phone.

Matt used distribution deals that way.

Not as some genius hack. Just practically.

He used money to keep building without giving away everything too early.

That sounds obvious, but it’s not. There’s a big difference between taking money and selling control. If you know what rights are involved, what songs are included, what comes back to you, and what the money is actually for, outside capital can be useful. It can buy time. It can fund the next move.

But if you take the money because you’re scared the moment is going to disappear?

That’s a different thing.

That’s not strategy. That’s relief.

And relief can get expensive.

One of the strongest parts of Matt’s story is how honest he was about touring.

Everybody says the money is in touring.

Eventually, yeah. It can be.

Early on, though? Touring can be ugly.

Matt lost real money. Around $250,000 on his first tour.

That number is crazy. Especially when you remember the tour was not some disaster. The rooms sold. Fans showed up. He brought a band. He cared about the show. He treated small rooms like they mattered.

Because at that stage, you’re not only selling tickets. You’re changing how people see you.

You’re telling the audience, promoters, agents, labels, and maybe even yourself that this is not just a TikTok thing.

This is an artist.

There is a cost to making people believe that.

Sometimes the return doesn’t show up in the settlement. It shows up later. A fan brings friends. A promoter takes you more seriously. A clip catches. Someone sees the live video and finally understands the song.

That’s still return.

It just doesn’t always look clean on paper.

Opening slots are similar.

Some artists look at opening like a step down. I understand why. Everybody wants the headline slot. Your crowd. Your lights. Your moment.

But opening can be powerful if you don’t waste it.

Matt opened for bigger artists and treated those rooms like they mattered. Not just as performances. As chances to win people over.

You’re standing in front of people who didn’t come for you. That can be uncomfortable, but it’s also valuable. The room is already there. The audience is already warm. Now you have to make them care.

Too many artists play the set and leave the opportunity on the stage.

They don’t capture anything. They don’t follow up. They don’t think about conversion. They just hope people remember them.

Hope is not a strategy.

Matt used the shows. He captured the moments. He posted the clips. The live content showed the emotion in the room, and that matters. People don’t just want to hear that a song is working. They want to see other people feel it.

A polished video can be beautiful, but a real crowd singing something back hits different.

And in Matt’s case, those clips helped move records. They helped the songs feel bigger. They pushed streams. They made the music feel like it was living somewhere beyond the platform where people first found him.

That’s the part managers should sit with.

A money-losing tour is not automatically a bad decision.

Sometimes it is. Let’s not romanticize bad math. Some people lose money because they’re chasing ego, optics, or a version of the business they haven’t earned yet.

But sometimes the loss is buying something useful.

Fans. Footage. Belief. Proof. Leverage.

You need to know which one it is before you spend the money.

That, to me, is the bigger lesson in Matt’s story.

It’s about control.

Matt could have easily been boxed in as the guy who went viral singing covers. That happens all the time. The internet gives you a moment, then the industry names you before you’ve had a chance to name yourself.

And once that box is built, it’s hard to get out of.

Matt used covers as the entry point, not the identity.

There’s a difference.

He made original music. He toured. He built a team. He collected fans directly. He learned where his audience was. He made content from the road. He kept moving while people were still trying to figure out what category to put him in.

That’s how a viral moment becomes useful.

Not by acting like the old industry doesn’t exist.

By knowing enough about it to not be fully dependent on it.

That’s where things are changing.

The artists who win now are not always the ones yelling about independence. Sometimes they are the ones quietly building enough leverage to choose better partners.

Matt doesn’t come across anti-label to me.

He comes across like someone who understands that a partner should add to what is already working.

Not replace it.

A great label, distributor, manager, agent, lawyer, creative director, or publicist can change everything. I believe that. But they should be helping amplify the world the artist is already building.

They should not be the ones deciding what that world is.

That has to come from the artist.

After that, it’s still on you to build something people can walk into.

The team. The show. The fanbase. The business around the music. The direct connection with the people who care.

And enough leverage so that when the industry does come in, it’s adding to the story instead of taking it over.

Matt Hansen didn’t just go viral.

He made the moment useful.

That’s the part worth studying.

Watch Episode 68 with Matt Hansen LIVE NOW

To celebrate 50,000+ subscribers on YouTube and 50+ podcast episodes, we turned the first chapter of The Manager’s Playbook into a digital magazine issue.

But before anything, thank you. If you’ve watched, listened, shared, or even sent one message saying “this helped,” you’re the reason we’re here. You didn’t just support content. You helped build the community around it.

Inside the issue is a curated rundown of every episode, the biggest takeaways, and the lines worth revisiting when you’re building in real time. Think of it as a reference guide you can save, share, and come back to whenever you need clarity.

Read the 50th Edition Magazine below.

Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the host and creator of The Manager’s Playbook podcast, dedicated to demystifying the world of music management, and Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, an Artist Management company with over 5 billion audio streams worldwide. Our past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez, Skratch Bastid and more.

I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Our client list includes The Weeknd, Eminem, and Celine Dion, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard and the NBA.

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