Nimbit

Nimbit, Inc.

Type	Privately held company
Industry	Music Independent music
Founded	2002 (2002)
Founder	Patrick Faucher Phil Antoniades Matthew Silbert J.P. Twarog
Headquarters	Framingham, Massachusetts, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Bob Cramer, CEO Carl Jacobson, VP Marketing
Products	Direct-to-Fan Sales Direct-to-Fan Marketing Music Business Platform eTickets
Services	Storefronts for Facebook and Websites Digital Distribution Warehousing and Fulfillment CD/DVD Manufacturing Payment Processing Other Label Services
Owner	PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc.
Number of employees	15
Website	nimbit.com

Nimbit, Inc. is a Framingham, Massachusetts-based company offering direct-to-fan sales, promotion, and career management solutions for independent artists and their teams through Web-based services. The most popular aspect of the Nimbit Platform is their Mystore application that gives users a storefront to sell music and merchandise on Facebook and websites.^[1]

Nimbit is part of a growing market of Direct-to-Fan solutions. Nimbit offers two different account options, NimbitFree and NimbitPlus. NimbitPlus became available in July 2012 and offers the most comprehensive artist services.^[2] Clients include Rusted Root, Zee Avi, Suzanne Vega, The Dead Milkmen, Vertical Horizon, Carmen Rizzo, Grayson Hugh, Lucky Ali, Cory Gunz, and others.

In July 2012 Nimbit announced it had been acquired by PreSonus – a well-established manufacturer of recording software and hardware – for an undisclosed sum.^[3]

Early Days

Nimbit was originally formed and incorporated by Patrick Faucher, Matthew Silbert and J.P. Twarog in 2002, and operated out of Mr. Faucher's Framingham home. After working on a fanclub site for Aerosmith, they launched the Nimbit Webtools in 2003, which was the first content management system designed specifically for musicians. Mr. Twarog focused on developing the companies technology, and remains with the company to this day. Mr. Silbert ran the customer services division of the company, working directly with clients such as the Charles Mingus Estate, Blind Boys of Alabama, Sam Bush, The Hitman of Music Row, Tom Rush and others. He left the company in 2010. Mr Faucher emerged as Nimbit's primary business force. He secured several rounds of angel funding, enabling the company to grow and expand. In 2004 he engineered a merger with Artist Development Associates, which brought Phil Antoniades on board. In April 2010 Nimbit announced that they were bringing on Bob Cramer as their CEO.^[4]

Products

Nimbit creates solutions for independent musicians (indie artists) and independent record labels around the Direct-to-Fan Music Business Model.^[5]Direct-to-Fan gives musicians control over their music, fans, business and careers.

Direct-to-fan dashboard

Nimbit artists use an online dashboard to see and manage their music business. This includes sales information, fan information, marketing promotions and results, storefront results, central product catalog (e.g., digital and physical music, merchandise, eTickets), central content management (e.g., band profile and gigs). This allows products and content to be entered once then viewed and changed in one place.

Sales

Nimbit provides storefronts for Facebook, artist websites, blogs, Jango internet radio, PledgeMusic, Fanbridge, and Nimbit's own "music discovery site".

In March 2012,^[6] Nimbit's Spotlight Store for Facebook was released as the first storefront that was optimized for Facebook's new timeline view. This was a significant update to the original Nimbit MyStore for Facebook which was released in September 2009,^[7] to take advantage of the social networking capabilities of Facebook, giving artists fan marketing, promotion, and direct selling capabilities. Artists can sell both digital and physical products based on fan buying behaviors—and do so from the artist's Facebook pages (Fan Page or Personal Profile). The goal of this is to give artists knowledge of what each fan buys, and let them retaining more of the profits.

In July 2013,^[8] Nimbit updated their sales platform for customers outside the US, allowing artists to sell in their native currency. The update also included the ability to display storefronts in native French, German, Spanish in addition to English. Other aspects of the update included direct deposit of funds from sales via PayPal, and commissions on sales being set to as low as 5% depending on the Nimbit plan you are subscribed to.

Marketing & Promotion

Nimbit's promotion tool for Facebook, Twitter, and Email was "designed to drive fans to visit an artist's Nimbit storefront with sharable interactive promotions that feature embedded video, an audio player, personal messages from artists, and a link to a free download that redeems at the artist's storefront."^[9]

In September 2012, Nimbit added automatic follow up to their Promotion tool to encourage fans who accessed the original promotion to make a purchase citing evidence that artists who did follow up with new fans achieved far greater sales.^[10]

Nimbit also provides analytics and sales reporting.

Tickets

Artists can sell Tickets to their shows from their Nimbit storefronts. The event/show/gig information is entered once through the Nimbit Dashboard and then the etickets are automatically available on all storefronts.

Digital distribution

As part of their Nimbit Plus and Nimbit Premium subscriptions, Nimbit offers free digital distribution to third party retailers such as iTunes and music discovery services such as Spotify, through a partnership with DittoMusic.

Warehousing and fulfillment

Nimbit warehouses and fulfills (picks, packs, and ships) physical CDs, DVDs, Vinyl, t-shirts, posters, and other merchandise directly for customers who subscribe to Nimbit Premium. Subscribers to Nimbit Premium and Nimbit Plus have the option to self-fulfill orders for physical merchandise. Nimbit also handles all customer service and payment processing regarding any order placed though a Nimbit storefront. Nimbit's storefronts take major credits cards and PayPal. Nimbit processes all orders, and handles all payouts, including splits.

Disc manufacturing (CD/DVD) / Promotional Printing

Nimbit provides CD and DVD replication and short-run CD-R and DVD-R duplication. The service includes prepress graphic work, UPC (UCC-issued barcode), Electronic PDF graphic proof, and assembly and wrapping. Nimbit also provides printing services for posters, flyers, cards, and other promotional materials.^[11]

Partnerships

ASCAP and Nimbit have partnered since 2004 to offer "ASCAP Web Tools" for ASCAP members, which today is essentially a discount on Nimbit Plus for ASCAP members^[12]

Jango and Nimbit partnered in June 2012 to offer the "Nimbit Store for Jango." This allows artists to sell music and merchandise directly to new fans who have discovered their music through airplay on Jango internet radio.^[13]

PledgeMusic and Nimbit partnered in October 2011 to create "PledgeStore" which was designed to give PledgeMusic artists the ability sell direct to fans and generate additional funding after their fundraising campaign has ended.^[14]

References