Supply births demand

[sabriel9v]

This is an interesting excerpt from an article I was reading online. I'm only posting this part cause for the most the author was giving lip service to his favorite artists. But here are the goods.

 

 

When I advise clients, one of the first things I describe and help them be clear on is that there can be an important difference in the creative force that drives entrepreneurs, artists, and inventors to innovate and the force that drives consumers, fans, and followers to purchase, support and rally behind their product or service. The sad fact is that most artists make music for themselves and their immediate crew. They are driven by ambition, circumstance and the desire for self-expression more than they are interested in being scientific about learning what it is about their work that people like, and then determining how to market themselves accordingly, without compromising who they are. The emergence of a hot artist, commercially successful style or new trend can seem ‘random’ because the vast majority of us can’t predict when a person will reach the point when they want to ‘create,’ for the benefit of the public or when people will like something or why. But the illusion of surprise disappears when we look at the matter from a supply and demand point of view. Most artists have a horrible time balancing their need to supply something that they want with answering the question of what the people demand in the present tense and what they want now and in the future which no one is currently supplying. Stubborn artists fall into either 1) a take it or leave it attitude (eff’anybody who's not feeling me!’) or 2) conformity (‘I’ll act like I’m original but really copying so and so's style…’). If more artists would trust their instincts while studying the unique aspects to their style that people like - and which no one else is offering commercially – they can build something special and long-lasting. This means the usually self-centered artists have to fall back a bit and learn from their audience - accepting that the ‘demand’ for some things can only manifest after it is supplied. You can’t be sure that you ‘have something,’ in many cases, until you offer it in the marketplace and study the reaction.