EFEx is a UK-based music SME with a core project team of Tom Besford (Chief Executive), Terry O'Brien (Founder/Sales Director) and Elinor Jenkins (Marketing/Communications Officer). Aspiring music creators in the UK often struggle to establish successful careers as they are unsure how to begin and where to get information. Support from experts and networks is vital at an early stage, but most of these are based in London and concentrate on mainstream music. Establishing regional and genre-specific networks is critical to ensuring the UK music industry maintains the diversity and originality of UK music. To this end, EFEx is developing a platform that will provide free learning resources to help music creators build their careers and grow their earning potential. It will also offer a unique subscription-based network to create connections, helping UK music creators to access new markets and new income sources.

Perhaps surprisingly, fewer than 50,000 of the 11M musicians who promote content on Spotify are able to make a living from their music, and this points to a substantial market of unsigned, independent musicians around the world who are looking to acquire music industry expertise and to penetrate markets. Research shows that industry experts and networks are essential when building sustainable music careers, and that there's a 'brain drain' of musical talent to London by artists trying to seek out these networks and understand the complexities of this industry. (EMBT 2022, Manchester Music Economy Research) Early career creatives tell us that they don't know where to begin; many have few industry contacts and often make poor choices which can lead to major problems mid-career. English Folk Expo supports musicians and their teams to build sustainable careers in the music industry. DCMS funding will enable us to build an online platform and this new platform will provide learning and professional networks for independent UK music creators, from any genre, increasing their earning potential and supporting them from startup to sustainable career. It's based on two prototypes that have already achieved proof of concept and strong evidence of demand. We have built similar resources previously but aimed exclusively at folk, roots and acoustic musicians. This project sees us branching out from our core genre, to provide resources and opportunities right across the independent UK music sector. The subscription platform will connect music creators to a treasure trove of experts and networks, where platform subscribers can post and share opportunities and offers, as well as reach out to over 500 music industry professionals from across the world, with a market value in excess of £10 million. An annual subscription will cost a fraction of the cost of other commercial equivalents. By accessing free webinars, crowd-sourced conversations, forums, written and recorded content, they will access new revenue streams, share complex knowledge about the global music industry, and connect to new markets. EFEx will generate income from subscription content, and this will be reinvested back into the platform and our charitable objectives. All of our programmes aim to remove regional disparity, and support specialist genres and independent music to have a viable and growing network and audience. This new online platform will be the bedrock from which we launch meaningful change, in how people discover careers in the independent UK music economy.