How Zvezdan Zdravic Turned His Dream Into One Of The Premier YouTube Channel And Label
7clouds is one of most subscribed channels in the world and one of the biggest music lyrics channel.
Often we hear success stories of the biggest brands and companies in music . Zvezdan Zdravic ( Owner - Founder of 7clouds ) is building bridges between the generic music curation and label scenario. The 13 million subbed channel is widely recognised as one of the biggest and powerful curation channels . Zvezdan found his calling in supporting artists and empowering them to take the next step. Zvezdan says “ The name 7clouds originated from a Serbian saying “To be on the 7th cloud” which means to feel extremely happy. Interestingly enough, the same proverb exists in English but the number 7 is replaced with number 9, hence it goes like this “to be on cloud nine”. I wanted people to feel joy of listening to 7clouds uploads and records so that’s why I decided to stick with that name”.
He is the heart and soul behind the fast growth of the beloved lyric channel. He recalls “ 7clouds, the YouTube channel was created in 2013 with the intention of sharing my music taste with the world. Initially, the channel was focusing on EDM and 1 hour gaming mixes, transitioning to lo-fi hip hop and then electro swing mixes. Since I really enjoyed future bass music and pop music started sounding a little bit like future bass, I tried to find the tracks that marry those genres. Nowadays, 7clouds is focused on finding melodic tracks with unique vocals that blend EDM and pop music and sharing them in the form of lyric videos”
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Boosting a huge catalog of 13 million subscribers , Zdravic works day and night to make sure proper functioning of this channel , “ As a curator on both YouTube and record label side, I listen to a lot of demos daily. This is often time- consuming. I try to pick out the tracks that fit the brand well as well as try to work with as many emerging artists that produce a unique sound in their music. That means listening to hundreds of demos sent via email and our submission platform. A lot of major labels also pitch us their content for the YouTube promotion, and we have built a lot of great connections over the years with their managers. I also always try to scout for new talent and listen to a lot of curated music playlists on Spotify and YouTube in order to keep up with the latest music. On top of that, I work with my team to coordinate and plan the releases from start to finish, from distribution to agreements, create marketing plans and work on creative marketing strategies that we can utilize to push our releases in the best way possible. I’m also running Instagram and working on social media content. With a lot of videos being published daily, I don’t have time for video creation which is a job I delegated to my brother who’s been helping me in that area for several years now” .
After conquering the YouTube curation scene and supporting artists through thick and thin , Zvezdan turned his eyes towards the “MUSIC LABEL” scene . Zvezdan wanted more into the music business scene . Answering is to why he started this ? He said “ I founded 7clouds Record label in March 2020 and our first release was “Mona Lisa” by Limi, a New York based singer. The label’s focus is on finding undiscovered artists then using the reach of the brand and expertise of the team to help them build out successful releases across DSPs, and turn them into names recognizable amongst the other established acts associated with the brand. The reason for starting the label was that I wanted to make a footprint in the music industry. Since my YouTube curation was widely appreciated, I knew I could transform that to the record label as well. Additionally, YouTube has tightened the rules around running music channels and I felt they wanted us to focus on bringing more original content (music) to their platform instead of just curating and promoting other people’s music”.
One major question that runs through the music industry is the undiscovered musical artists . Often majority YouTube curation turned label forget the smaller artists / not so big names artists and focus on the commercial aspect of the business by featuring bigger artists since it pays much better . Zvezdan had completely different approach , One of the prime reason why 7clouds is loved more as compared to its rivals is because they truly care about their fans in a manner that the smaller artists have an equal chance of being covered as the bigger established artist . He adds “ We are getting demos from both small and big artists. Like I said, we focus on the quality of the tracks and not on how big the artists may be. We would sometimes decline a track from a “bigger” artists just because it doesn’t fit our label well. On the other hand we would sign several songs in advance by an artists who has 100 monthly listeners on Spotify just because we see potential in them and their producing style fits our label “.
Zdravic did not reach where he is today without struggles he says “ I once heard struggles are a apart of the journey , While looking back on the past 7 amazing years , my journey has been nothing sort of struggles which I like to call it as learning experience . I am extremely grateful for where I am now and the experiences the I have faced , I am now ready and standing tall among the falling curation channels . “ A lot of years have passed until I finally figured out how YouTube algorithm works. After optimizing my videos to perform the best they can, my channel started blooming.YouTube is constantly changing rules and updating terms of conditions to supposedly help the curations which is sometimes reflected completely inversely in real life. There are certainly many advantages to using YouTube as our main medium for promotion. Our audience gets to engage with our original music and visual content and can let us know what they like and dislike. That way we are able to improve and deliver the best content we possibly can “
Unlike any other YouTube channels and that have a million subs and barely an engagement rate of 100,000 viewers per video , 7clouds has remained strong within the industry .
The pandemic hit everyone hard Zvezdan adds “ It's been surprisingly easy to work during the pandemic. Everyone works from their homes most of the time anyways, so switching from office to home was easy for all of us. We have daily meetings via zoom or skype and are constantly connected on all of our projects. Rory and Shannon, the label managers make this even easier for all of us included. During the pandemic, a lot of people have been staying at homes and they consume more content than they used to because they’re safe in the confines of their home. We noticed our views on both YouTube and Spotify have actually gone up during this pandemic. This makes it beneficial to artists who in turn earn more revenue. Being an artist during a pandemic is challenging, but not really that hard. Artists who are touring or not performing live anyways, get benefits of everyone being solely focused on content consumption on the internet like people engaging with their content more and that in turn hopefully leads to more income for them.
This very statement from the founder shows how well prepared and organised the company is . At the end we finally asked him what his plans were with the organisation for the future “ I will aim to find undiscovered artists and use the reach of the brand plus the collective expertise of my team to share their original creations far and wide. My focus in the year 2021 is to work with as many up and coming artists and get our name out there. We also want to get our audience on YouTube and Spotify accustomed to high quality original content and familiarizing them with the artists on our label”
