Last name: Griffin haddrill
Age: 24
Hometown: Bozeman, Mont.
Currently lives: In a four bedroom house in Las Vegas with walls covered in street art.
Claim to fame: Mr. Haddrill is co-founder of VRTCL, an agency hired by major record labels to go viral on TikTok through remixes, mash-ups, chorus clips, creator partnerships and more. Algorithmic alchemy. “I usually start with the lyrics sheet to see if there’s maybe a trend we can capitalize on or maybe a creative idea around the beat,” he said. For Lil Nas X’s “Montero”, that meant devil-themed makeup tutorials and interpretive dance routines on the runway. He also works with vintage hits like “More Than a Woman” by the Bee Gees which through his efforts has been featured in over 279,000 TikTok videos, including sunset selfies, Boba tea tutorials and removal of cysts. Great music “makes influencers feel like they’re part of a cool, cultured moment, and they love to show that to fans,” he said.
Big cut: Mr. Haddrill has always had an ear for music and business. When he was 12, he gave his father a business plan for high-tech headphones. At 16, he was musical director for Gregory Lake, an underground hip-hop artist, and 100Tribn, a DJ, as he finished drug rehab in Salt Lake City for cocaine addiction. At age 20, he left San Jose State to devote himself full time to music management in Las Vegas. In 2019, he and Sean Young, a former Vine influencer, saw how social media algorithms were starting to shape the habits of young listeners and founded VRTCL.
Latest project: VRTCL, which Haddrill says generates $ 1 million in monthly revenue and employs 18 people, was acquired in July by Create Music Group, a data-based music company in Los Angeles. Mr Haddrill, who remains chief executive, is cautious about the terms of the deal. “With earning potential, the acquisition is eight digits,” he said.
Next thing: Mr. Haddrill helped turn Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s “Stay” and Saweetie and Doja Cat’s “Best Friend” into TikTok Earworms last year. But his list of dream clients is older: Duran Duran, Billy Joel and other artists from the cassette age. “One song that I always thought I could really explode again is Cher’s ‘Believe’,” he said.
Unlimited data: He recently hired Conover Wang, a former roommate and software engineer at Reddit, to develop a program for analyzing TikTok song data, including views, comments, and shares. “Software is really at the heart of our business, even though it doesn’t have a name yet,” he said. “We should probably call it something cool. »