Encore has been my home for the last ten years. A third of my life. It’s utterly surreal to be writing a letter about moving on from the company I started.
Although, come to think of it, likening Encore to a home or a house doesn’t feel quite right… Comparing Encore to a boat would be more apt; it certainly hasn’t sat in one place for the last decade.
When James and I began building Encore, we pulled together whatever scraps of wood we could find to assemble a makeshift raft, and we set off on an adventure. We had no idea where the adventure would take us. To be honest, we had no idea how to even navigate the sea. But we couldn’t resist the siren call of building something from nothing, and we had faith that we’d figure things out along the way.
A year later, we began recruiting a ragtag crew of shipmates. Shipmates who could help us craft sails and move faster in a more precise direction.
Shackleton’s famous advert for his 1914 Antarctic Expedition might as well have been one of our first job ads:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.”
Safe return and even continuous employment were both doubtful.
We made less than £1,000 of revenue in 2015, and a grand total of £17,252 in 2016; we now make that amount every few days!
A round of investment from investors who believed in us and believed in our mission meant we could hire skilled engineers to create an engine, designers to make our vessel more streamlined, and a crew to keep the ship running smoothly.
But even with investment, Encore’s fate was never guaranteed. In fact, investment only raised the stakes. We worked like dogs to deliver on our promises to investors and grow revenue by 476% to £201,000 in 2017.
For six consecutive years between 2015 and 2021, we more than doubled revenue every year (with the exception of 2020). We were unstoppable, and the pace was thrilling.
And when I use the word we, I’m referring to the small army of missionaries who changed the music industry for the better through their time at Encore. Teammates from all over the world with hundreds of years of experience between them.
According to Slack, we’ve had 96 different people work on Encore over the years. Ninety six! That number increases to over a hundred if you include the new Mixcloud leadership team.
Over a hundred people who dedicated whole chapters of their working lives to building Encore. A hundred people helping over 50,000 customers find exactly the right act for their special day. A hundred people contributing to a marketplace that seamlessly moved tens of millions of pounds into the bank accounts of our musicians, as if by magic.
I’ve performed at a couple of weddings myself this year, and it’s been a visceral reminder of how live music can touch people’s hearts on the biggest days of their lives. We’ve done that thousands of times since 2014. Over the next decade, you and your future teammates will provide that magic at least another 100,000 times for over ten million guests.
It’s been such a privilege to not only lead, but to learn from such a remarkable group of people.
One of our Core Values is to Never Stop Learning, and that has certainly been true of my time at Encore.
I’ve learned countless lessons over the last decade; too many to list here. To remain at the helm of the ship with the faith of the team, I’ve had to reinvent myself over and over again.
Some of these reinventions happened naturally and were self-led. Others were more painful and abrupt, motivated by tough feedback from teammates I trusted. Thank you to everyone who has given me the gift of feedback over the years. I know it sounds trite, but I really did start Encore as a boy and leave as a man.
Please do not stop giving each other feedback.
When someone gives you feedback, trust that they’re doing it because they care about you. They believe you can handle the feedback, and they’re invested in your personal growth. If they didn’t care about you or your progression, they wouldn’t take the time to help you grow.
The Encore journey, for me, has been an incredible one.
So, why am I deciding to step off the boat now?
The answer is simple:
Ten years is a long time to be at sea.
We’ve weathered many storms together. Storms, like the pandemic, that should have killed Encore. There are a thousand parallel universes where Encore didn’t survive 2020, and somehow we exist in the one where it did. But that survival didn’t happen by accident. I’ll be forever grateful to everyone who stuck around during a year so bleak that most rational shipmates would have abandoned ship. George and Perrine are two of those people who stuck by Encore in its hour of need. Thank you.
After ten years scaling Encore and navigating choppy waters, I was beginning to experience the sharp end of burnout, and I knew coming into 2024 that it was time to think about succession planning.
With Encore now a part of the wider Mixcloud group, I feel ready to step off the boat and onto firm land.
As I mentioned during All-Hands, it’s become crystal clear to me that Encore is ready for a new leader.
I mentioned Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in my All-Hands presentation. I’m lucky to have spent the majority of my time at Encore operating near the peak of that pyramid.
Maslow describes Self-Actualisation as “to become everything one is capable of becoming.”
Encore stretched me more than I could have imagined, and I’m certain that every ounce of my potential was squeezed out of me during my 20s.
But if I’m honest, I started to feel my own drive and motivation at Encore wane over the last year due to fatigue. The role of CEO is demanding one, and takes a lot out of you. Ten years is also a long time to be so narrowly focused on a single problem.
I need some time to recharge before even thinking about founding or being the CEO of a company again. You deserve a leader who is charged up and operating consistently at peak performance with the potential to grow even further.
Perrine is that leader.
Five years ago, in September 2019, Perrine applied for an open Booking Specialist position at Encore. An excerpt from her cover letter reads:
“I have greatly enjoyed the challenges and creative freedom that go hand in hand with a freelance career, but I would now be very happy to work as part of a team of dynamic, musically-inclined colleagues. I am used to working hard and I bring a high level of commitment to anything I do, as well as excellent interpersonal and organisational skills. This position sounds like the new challenge I have been looking for, and I believe I can be a real asset to your team.”
This has all been true.
Perrine’s commitment to both Encore as a business, and the wellbeing of her teammates, has been steadfast and unwavering.
I’m sure I speak on behalf of us all when I say that Perrine is one of the most organised people I’ve ever met. Her meticulous work ethic was an asset during her first few months at Encore, and became a superpower when the pandemic struck.
Perrine stepped up to lead Customer Support – without being asked – during an intensely chaotic and fraught year. Not only did she overhaul all our systems and automate the shit out of our processes (my words, not hers) but Perrine took on an invaluable pastoral leadership role during that time. It was during this period that I saw just how much Perrine cared for her teammates. I learned a lot about leading teams from Perrine during that difficult time.
From the moment Perrine arrived at Encore, she has consciously invested time and energy in getting to know everyone beyond their day-to-day roles. These strong relationships and high levels of trust made her promotion to Head of Operations & People in October 2023 a very natural one.
Perrine has always had a strong vision for what “People & Culture” could look like at Encore. She’s responsible for many of the things that past and present teammates have said they loved about working at Encore, and I know she has a lot more ideas about how to make Encore an even better workplace.
When making an offer to Perrine five years ago, I wrote:
“I’m very confident that Encore is a place where you will thrive around like-minded, ambitious teammates who will help you achieve new heights in your career, and that adding you to the team will accelerate our growth.
You are very aligned with all of our company values (Never Stop Learning, Be True, Music Is The Reason, Own Your Role & Take Care of Each Other) and everyone who met you is very confident you’ll get on well with the rest of the team.”
Since joining, Perrine has accelerated Encore’s growth, guaranteed its survival during critical moments, and made it an altogether more enjoyable place to work.
Without Perrine, I would not feel comfortable stepping away from the business. My decision to leave now is testament to the faith I have in her as a leader.
I am going to miss Encore and all of you dearly.
Thank you for all the energy you’ve invested in making Encore the great platform it is today.
Today’s Encore crew is high-calibre, nimble, and extremely efficient. If you’ll allow me one more nautical analogy, I’d liken Encore in 2024 to a catamaran; lightweight, swift, minimal drag, and greater stability with less tilt than a single-hulled boat.
Please continue to make Encore a fun, friendly and fulfilling place to work for each other.
Go the extra mile for our customers, our musicians, and your teammates.
Give the gift of feedback whenever you can.
Treat each booking as if it were the biggest day of your best friend’s life.
Champion our musicians and their talents.
And never stop learning.
My final wish for Encore is for it to go live in new countries, and to make it easier for customers and musicians all over the world to find one another. I trust that you’ll make this happen when the time is right. 🦅
Peace out ✌️
James
P.S. I wanted to thank and recognise everyone individually for their contributions to Encore. This list is, very roughly, chronologically ordered. If anyone is missing, it’s because they weren’t in CharlieHR! We are standing on the shoulders of giants.
- James King
- Tom Gough
- Will Marsey
- Tom Le Feuvre
- Zoe Lakota
- Jonny Venvell
- Josh Wilson
- Xandra Fletcher
- Paula Muldoon
- Gustavo Pezzi
- Simon Meredith
- Jo Williams
- Sophie Rimington-Pounder
- Hattie McCall Davies
- Ben Varnam
- Joel Vincent
- Barri Coen
- Ilken Bahcecioglu
- Erika Curbelo
- Cláudia Marques
- Chiara Beebe
- Harry Burgess
- George Gretton
- Mikey Brown
- Perrine Gouarne
- Alex Dinwiddie
- Tommy Hamer
- Veronica Colyer
- Becky Tarry
- Matt Shearsmith
- Alfie Farrow
- Alicia Juniper
- Chad St Louis
- Charlotte Sleet
- Giulio Bardi
- Jordan Olukanmi
- Kunmi Fasanya
- Richard Jones
- Sean McConnell
- Sam Badgery
- Giverney Edwards
- Ash Warne
- Chloe Tan
- Morven Brown
- Hannah Barton
- Jack Ferry
- Holly James
- Cormac McAuliffe
- Jess Dixon
- Pete Finlay
- Sam Faulkner
- Fergus Brooman
- Dan Puckey
- Jenny Huzell
- Ed Horsey
- Katie Offiler
- Alexandra Mandadero
- Donna Rimer
- Dan Willis
- Maria Jacobsen Holmes
- Charlie Mark
- Mands Overton
- Áine Deane
- Ava-May Rooney
- Lisa Mifsud
- Annie Sansom