Anya Oleynik, the founder of the Craft Music app, always said that the tunes you find on Craft Music are analogous to a business owner’s “favorite restaurant.”
The Craft Music app is more than just a platform for artist collaborations. According to Oleynik, “Craft Music is a mindset, a lifestyle of which independence is at its core.”
“Just like hosting a private dinner party, you do what you want to do,” Oleynik says. “There are no rules. This is the first place where you prove yourself worthy of your independence. If you want Lucky Charms beer, EDM music, supermodel guests, Nietzche debates, Picasso discussions, then you do you. It’s your world.”
The Craft Music ecosystem solves the challenges faced by musicians, visual artists, and businesses, by bringing them together and providing tools that allow them to collaborate easily.
It is a social media platform, pocket studio, and marketplace for creatives and businesses that allow them to create, advertise and sell in entirely new ways.
Businesses can employ musicians, visual artists, and other content creators to make engaging, authentic material to advertise their brand and products.
Oleynik believes ubiquitous peer-to-peer financial solutions are on par with health care, clean water, and internet access, as a basic human right. She sees this as the most perilous social issue of our time.
According to the World Bank, nearly 2 billion people do not have access to a bank account. The Craft Music app empowers all creators with or without a bank account. Musicians accrue sizeable financial returns from just about any place on earth.
For Oleynik, Craft Music is more than just a business initiative or a philanthropic endeavor: She considers empowering musicians to be her life’s work, the legacy for which she hopes to one day be remembered. Oleynik is convinced that the world needs this platform. “There are tens of thousands of undiscovered genres and visual artists around the globe,” she says; “and we give them the power to change their lives forever.”
As daunting as the skeptics are, they aren’t Oleynik’s number one concern. It’s the musicians, who need to conquer their fears and doubts. Oleynik travels around the world to promote her work. She delivers her speeches in small industrial towns like Bridgwater, just three hours west of London. In September, Oleynik travels to Johannesburg, South Africa, to meet Ryan Johnson, who used to set up the music for the British Royal Navy in far-flung places. “For Craft Music to make a difference, all artists need is access to the internet and absolute confidence in their talent,” Oleynik says.
Figuring out how to get people to buy in is as varied as the internet itself. Such challenges could demoralize anyone. But Oleynik remains indefatigable and undeterred. Just like the nascent fax machine, it took a formidable vision to convince people they needed it. Craft music is too important not to exist.
So why, then, is Oleynik the one to build the Craft Music app? “I think it’s because I care. A lot of times, caring about something and believing in it trumps all trepidation,” she says. “I couldn’t connect the dots in the beginning, but it didn’t matter.” If history is any indicator of the future, it’s not a good idea to bet against Anya Oleynik.