Why I Built getNgigs: A Letter from the Founder

I have been playing music most of my life. Not at the level where someone else handles the business side. At the level where you're the one sending the emails, building the setlists, loading the gear, and wondering whether any of it is actually moving in the right direction. I know what it feels like to love this thing and also feel like the industry was never quite designed to support you.

That experience is what eventually led me to build getNgigs. Not a frustration with music itself, but a frustration with how unnecessarily hard the business side of it had become for the people doing it independently.

The Problem I Kept Seeing

Independent musicians are running small businesses. Most of them are doing it without a team, without a manager, and without tools that were actually designed for their situation. The software that exists in the music industry was built for labels, for touring acts with full crews, or for streaming and fan discovery. The working artist trying to book 50 to 150 shows a year and build a sustainable career from it had largely been forgotten.

And on the other side of that equation, venue owners and bookers were dealing with their own version of the same problem. They needed talent. Reliable, professional, genre-appropriate talent that fit their room and their audience. But finding it meant scrolling through social media, sifting through generic pitch emails, or relying entirely on whoever happened to be in their network that week. There was no structured way to connect the two sides efficiently.

The artists needed a professional home. The venues needed a better way to discover and book talent. And nobody had built the thing that connected both of them in a way that actually respected how the business works at the independent level.

That was the gap. And once I saw it clearly, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

What I Wanted to Build

My original vision for getNgigs was straightforward: a platform that gives independent musicians the professional infrastructure they need to run their career like a business, and gives venues a smarter, faster way to find and book the right artists for their room.

Not another social network. Not another streaming platform. Not another tool for artists to build a following or rack up plays. Those exist. What didn't exist was a platform built specifically for the booking relationship: the transactional, professional, back-and-forth between an artist who needs gigs and a venue that needs talent.

I wanted artists to have one place where their entire professional identity lived. Their bio, their genre, their photos, their live video, their availability, their technical requirements, their contact information. One link that answered every question a booker would ever have, and that the artist controlled completely.

I wanted venues to be able to post what they were looking for and have artists respond, instead of waiting for the right cold email to show up in an inbox. And I wanted both sides to be able to manage the full booking conversation in one place, without losing threads or missing follow-ups.

Simple in concept. More complex to build well. But the core idea never changed: make the booking relationship easier, more professional, and more accessible for the people doing the work at the independent level.

Why It Matters Beyond the Platform

Here's something I believe deeply: live music is one of the most genuine forms of human connection we have. It happens in rooms of every size, in every city, between artists who have spent years developing their craft and audiences who show up because they want to feel something. That exchange is irreplaceable. No algorithm recreates it. No stream captures it.

But the ecosystem that supports live music at the independent level has always been fragile. Venues close. Artists burn out from the business side before they get a real chance. Connections that should happen don't, because the infrastructure to facilitate them doesn't exist. getNgigs is my attempt to strengthen that ecosystem in a practical way.

When a musician books more gigs, they earn more income from their craft. That income lets them keep making music instead of walking away from it. When a venue finds the right artist for their room consistently, their live music program grows. When their program grows, more artists have places to play. The whole thing feeds itself in a positive direction, but only if the connection between artists and venues is working well.

That's what we're building. Not just a booking tool. A healthier infrastructure for independent live music.

What getNgigs Looks Like Today

The platform is live. Artists can build a full professional profile that doubles as their EPK, manage their booking pipeline, track their gig calendar, and browse open opportunities on the gig board. Venues can post open calls for talent, browse artists by genre and location, and manage booking conversations from inquiry to confirmation in one place.

It's the beginning of what we're building, not the finished version. There is a long roadmap of features and improvements that are coming. But the core value is already there: a professional, purpose-built home for the booking relationship between independent artists and the venues that support them.

If you're a musician who has been managing your career across a patchwork of disconnected tools, getNgigs is for you. If you're a venue owner who is tired of the inefficiency of booking through DMs and cold emails, getNgigs is for you too.

An Invitation

Building a two-sided marketplace is one of the harder things you can do in the startup world. The platform is only as valuable as the community that uses it, and the community only grows when the product earns that trust. We are in the early stages of earning it, and we take that seriously.

If you're an independent musician, I would love for you to build your profile and experience what it feels like to have a professional booking presence that actually works for you. If you're a venue owner or booker, I would love for you to post your first open call and see what the platform can bring to your programming.

And if you have feedback, I genuinely want to hear it. The people who use getNgigs in these early stages are shaping what it becomes. That's not a marketing line. It's the reality of how good platforms get built.

Thank you for being here at the beginning.

Paul Tollefson
Founder, getNgigs

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