Diary of an independent label - setting up

So it June 2010, we've been up and running with the website www.g4dz.com since March 2010 with the label registered with companies house since August 2009
The 1st thing I did was...get help!
I hired my regular accountants CC Young & Co. to register the company name Groove4dayz Records Ltd and sort out all the forms etc for me. We opened a business bank account with personal capital using the certificate of corporation you need to set up an account for a limited company and had logos designed by onespace creative. We were already registered with ppl/catco, this is necessary for getting those isrc codes for your releases. (An ISRC code is encoded into your track and identifies it as belonging to you, it makes the job of logging radio plays and royalty collection much easier for all concerned. You'll get your royalties quicker and you'll also be able to prove that you own the recording). The process took quite a while, but PPL were very helpful throughout, you just have fill out the many forms and wait for them to let you know when all is done. Upon request they then send you a login & password for the catco database ( now called PPL Repertoire Database ) so you can register your releases. This also allows you to credit all the musicians; necessary if you want the musicians who played on the tracks to get performance royalties. (each musician only needs to be logged once, even if they played multiple instruments on the track, it doesn't affect the amount of money they receive although you may want it officially noted exactly what they played on the record).

Next we got our website organised. This involved content content content. Writing the biogs, sorting through pictures, video, all the audio for the shop etc. Although in May we changed the download section of our shop to bandcamp. It's made the whole download thing so much easier for the music buyer and accounting everything is easier for you as a label, also it allows choice of download quality and all sorts of cool stuff - take a look at the faqs.
Getting a team to help..... again key to this whole process....even though you may be able to do all of this stuff yourself, to have support and people to bounce ideas off and to tell you when you're being unrealistic, too adventurous/safe - I've found invaluable. There are a lot of setbacks when starting a new business, having support is important.

Fil Jones designed the website and worked closely with me on changes, tweeks and ideas, not just a guy hired to do a job, but someone who is a creative consultant and designer. Badly designed websites/layouts etc. that are hard to navigate lose you potential fans/purchasers.

Label manager Sharmin Jones concentrated on the release we had going on at the time (more on this later). They were invaluable - thanks guys. Getting people involved who believe in the music and whom you enjoy working with is imperative for overcoming the sheer amount of work running a label takes.

Of course there's loads of detail left out here and I'm writing this in June instead of when the process happened, so we're happy to answer any questions about any of the stuff raised in this post.

- Managing Director Yolanda Charles