Failure is a part of every entrepreneur’s journey, and Cody DeLong experienced his share early.

At 16, he began booking and promoting local heavy metal and punk concerts where he grew up in Fremont, New Hampshire. He walked into school one morning after pocketing $1,000 from a successful concert the night before, thinking he had a pretty sweet gig. But it didn’t always turn out so well. At 18, he found himself several thousand dollars in the hole after a show he booked in Exeter, New Hampshire, bombed. He borrowed the $3,000 from his mom to make up the difference.

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“(Sound Rink) is representative of that,” said Kristin Thompson, a researcher at the Future of Music Coalition and co-director of its Artists Revenue Streams project. “They’re monetizing the experience of meeting the band or getting special treatment at a show.”