In 2009, I started a company making tracks for the Rock Band games. I worked with some impressive contacts and learned a ton of skills. It was a lovely experience and it was doomed from the start.

1. Fairwood Studios
&
The Single Point of Failure

2. Presented (in
shorter form) @
FailPDX by:
Zoe Landon
@hupfen
zoe@
leporidae
media.com

3. The Year
was 2009.

5. ‘’
Rock Band was a thing.
A big thing.
Lots of songs released
every week.
People gobbled them
up.

6. I even learned how to play drums.
Kinda.

7. ‘’
Even with all that music
every week, there was
too much music and not
enough staff to put it in
the game.
So Harmonix had an
idea.

9. Let the fans do it!
And we did. By God, we did.

11. ‘’
Very little thought went
into my first business.
I didn't know what I was
doing.
Hell, it was named for
the street I lived on.
I just did it because I
thought it'd be fun.

12. This is not marketing. Don't do it. It's a terrible idea.
But it's what I did, and it worked. Free clients led to paying clients.

13. Rockapella Giraffes? Giraffes!
And a lot of others!

14. (Editor's note: actual money nowhere near this much)

15. Over 90
releases total,
from over 60
artists.
In the span of
three years.
Some of them,
people knew of!
Some of them,
people liked!
But it all paled
in comparison
to...

16. This email.

17. This Guy

18. Me

19. ‘’
That was the big
"success" of Fairwood.
Which I thought was so
implausible, that I'd
announce it on April
Fool's Day, 2013.

20. But all was
not well.

21. ‘’
Rock Band 3 came out in
2011.
Pretty soon, it was clear
that the market was
shrinking.
Sales were down all
around.
I punted.

22. A total,
shameless clone
of the Humble
Bundle idea.
I gathered all of
my music
contacts, web
dev skills, and
marketing
ability, and
threw it all at
this.

23. Stats:
May 7-19, 2012
663 copies sold
over $1500
raised for
EFF/VH1 Save
the Music

24. Failure.
Sure, the
numbers were
okay, for a total
unknown.
But Humble
sells that many
in minutes.
Many bands in
the bundle were
in RBN, and sold
more copies of
every one of
their songs.

25. In my head, I
had failed to
actually learn
marketing.
I had no hope
without leaning
on Harmonix.
So I kept
leaning, even
when things
were going
south.

26. And then it broke. On April Fool's Day, 2013.
Harmonix's sites went down, taking the Rock Band Network with them.

27. ‘’
For a month and a half,
nothing could be done.
The whole situation was
out of my control.
Everything relied on
Harmonix.

28. ‘’
When the Network
finally came back, there
weren't enough peers.
Everyone had moved
on.
Rock Band Network,
and Fairwood Studios,
was done.

29. What
Went
Wrong

30. ‘’
The rockband.com
downtime was merely
the last straw.
My failure wasn't their
fault; it just highlighted
the problem I always
had.

31. ‘’
Fairwood Studios was
tied, very strongly, to
Harmonix.
They provided so much
that I easily became
dependent on their
continued success.

32. ‘’
Once Rock Band failed,
Fairwood failed.
The Indie Allstar Bundle
convinced me, accurate
or not, that I didn't have
a chance without the
games.

33. ‘’
It wasn't Harmonix's
fault that I couldn't
succeed without them.
It was my fault for
getting complacent and
dependent.

34. Lessons
Learned

35. ▣ Be extremely careful working on someone
else's platform, lest you become dependent
▣ Backup plans aren't just for technology - have
backups for business model, key partnerships,
anything you can
▣ Make sure you understand everything your
business receives for free - just in case you
suddenly don't receive it anymore
▣ Maybe put more than an afternoon's thought
into your business idea
Lessons Learned

36. A single
point of
failure
Eventual
failure*
*It's not guaranteed, you might still be successful, but it puts the odds against you, and do
you really need more odds against you in business?

37. Thank You!
Zoe Landon
@hupfen

38. What I'm doing now:
RCRDList
RCRDBox
Fortnight.Club

39. ‘’
PS:
The day after I drafted
this presentation,
Harmonix released the
first Rock Band tracks in
two years.

40. ‘’
They're now making
not-so-subtle steps
towards deciding if
there will be a Rock
Band 4.
I really hope they do it.