Building the Fastest-Growing B2B Music Platform in the World with Paul Wiltshire: An EOFire Classic from 2022

What if music could be licensed as easily as buying a stock?

That question hooked me within minutes of hearing Paul Wiltshire explain why he built a marketplace to connect creators and businesses. He didn’t arrive from a boardroom. He arrived from studio life — a songwriter, producer, and high-school dropout who watched a complex industry strain under digital change. I found his blend of grit and optimism refreshing and surprisingly practical.

From messy contracts to a checkout flow

Wiltshire’s observation was simple: licensing music is inefficient. Multiple rights owners, confusing permissions and slow legal processes made the market brittle. His reaction was almost engineering-like — if it’s messy, automate it. That pivot from tradition to platform thinking is what gave rise to a B2B music marketplace aimed at buyers like advertisers, filmmakers, game developers and platforms that need music at scale.

What grabbed me was how he framed the solution. It wasn’t merely technology for technology’s sake. The idea was to map music creators — songwriters, labels, publishers — to distinct buyer use cases and then apply data to match need with value. That felt like an attempt to respect creative labor while making commerce cleaner.

Small moves, big ambition: M&A as growth fuel

He talked about mergers and acquisitions like a chess player explaining a strategy. Instead of random deals, Wiltshire described targeted buys: companies that solved a tech gap, or brought a cluster of customers. It’s a growth tactic that speeds product deployment and deepens market reach.

I was struck by the restraint in his words. This isn’t acquisitive bravado. It’s deliberate augmentation: buy what complements, not what distracts. For a fragmented industry like music, that approach serves to knit together capabilities into a coherent offering.

Protect value by segmenting demand

The most surprising part? SongTrader deliberately separates buyers into three buckets: user-generated content creators, small and medium businesses, and enterprise customers. That segmentation preserves value for rights holders and avoids a one-size-fits-all pricing collapse.

In practice this means different licensing terms and discovery experiences for a Twitch streamer versus a streaming platform placing music in original programming. I appreciated how Wiltshire framed this as both fairness and smart product design — protect royalties and attract supply.

Real people, real outcomes

He offered tangible stories: creators from countries with tiny entertainment industries getting their music on big commercials. Those moments are transformational — both financially and emotionally. Wiltshire’s memory of seeing a creator’s name roll across film credits felt genuine. It’s easy to talk about scale; it’s harder to show how global access changes lives.

I felt optimistic hearing how a creator making dozens of tracks weekly could monetize more of their output simply through better distribution. That’s redistribution of opportunity, enabled by software.

NFTs and web3: cautious fascination

On NFTs, Wiltshire sounded curious but cautious. He sees potential for an additional monetization layer, while admitting the market feels frothy. His team is building complementary products for web3, but he also expects a market correction. That measured stance—enthusiastic experimentation without blind faith—read as responsible leadership in a fast-moving space.

Music as an asset class

He made a bold but believable claim: music rights are becoming a traded asset class. Large investments and rights purchases are changing how music is bought and sold. For entrepreneurs and investors, that reframes music from cultural output into an investable commodity.

I found that idea both disconcerting and intriguing. Disconcerting because commodification can feel cold. Intriguing because liquidity and valuation could unlock new capital flows for creators—if handled equitably.

Practical takeaways for creators and entrepreneurs

• Focus on supply first: create distribution before courting every buyer type.
• Segment buyers thoughtfully: different use cases deserve different pricing and discovery.
• Use data to match music: intelligent discovery beats subjective, static genre searches.
• Be strategic about acquisition: buy to complement, not just to expand.

Listening to Wiltshire, I kept thinking about the tension between creative passion and the mechanics of monetization. He lives at that intersection, and he’s trying to create systems that honor both sides. That balancing act is what made his story feel humane instead of purely transactional.

So where does that leave us? The platform wants to make licensing as routine as an online purchase while preserving the value of art. It’s a tricky line to walk, but the conviction and practical moves I heard suggest it’s possible. That possibility feels quietly exciting — and it stayed with me afterward, like the echo of a well-placed hook.