Inspiring Story: It Is Important To Find An Activity That Will Bring You Both Pleasure And Money

“I think it happened when I was thirteen years old,” Tsarenko says when asked about the origins of his passion for music. He had no interest until he heard “In the End” by Linking Park, after that music became an integral part of his life. He started playing music at the age of fourteen, but he didn’t know what an important role it would play in his future. Tsarenko studied at a music school for about three years, then he bought his first electric guitar and studied by himself. When he moved to Prague in 2009, he joined a metal-core band and began preforming in local clubs. Tsarenko explains that, “making music my career wasn’t a decision, it happened by itself.”

Tsarenko’s first success was in 2012 when he started his first band, No Misery Left, together with a friend. It was also the year that he got the spontaneous idea to create All4band. The idea came when he ordered cover artwork for No Misery Left by Pavel Kurbanov, a Russian designer. Seeing their ideas transformed into a piece of artwork was very interesting for Tsarenko, who was 20 years old at the time and still financially dependent on his parents. So he decided to create something of his own that could be the beginning of his career.

In search of foreign customers, Kurbanov offered Tsarenko a partnership, and they spent the first six months creating the brand image: logo, website, portfolio, finding necessary social networks, and all the other necessary content. The goal was to create a full-fledged online studio that would provide a range of different services under one brand. The rest of the year was spent on promotion and, specifically, search engine optimization. Tsarenko also began attracting new professionals to create a wider range of services. Currently the team includes a manager, a graphic designer, a video producer, and a sound engineer. They also co-work with many other designers and help them sell their pre-made artwork to bands from all over the world.

“Now, after three years, I can say proudly that we have implemented more than 300 projects, working with bands from more than 30 different countries,” says Tsarenko, who never expected that it would turn out like this or grow so significantly. The first year they received no more than one order a month, and at the time there was very little feedback for the huge amount of work and time he had invested. However he believed that it would pay off in the future. It did, and they have worked with musicians of almost all genres – from blues and pop to death metal.

While All4Bands has exceeded Tsarenko’s expectations, there is still a lot more work to be done. The next step is to add several new services, including development of graphics and drawn music video clips as well as promotional services. Tsarenko points out that new bands today find it very difficult to reach their audience. As a musician, he understands this well, and he wants to help others take their first steps in the music industry.

Tsarenko juggles writing music, preforming music, and managing and developing his business. Out of the three lines of work, his favorite is writing music. Right now he writes a lot of music for his instrumental post-rock band, Diary of My Misanthropy. He wants to develop his writing in the future, because composing is something that he wants to do for the rest of his life. “My greatest dream is to write music for films and video games,” says Tsarenko.

At the beginning, when Tsarenko first started All4band, there was a lot of work but little money. At that time he concentrated all his efforts on the band and had to reject helping his parents with their own business, which caused tension in their relationship. His current challenge is to organize a tour for Diary of My Misanthropy that will hopefully happen in 2016. In the midst of everything else he is doing, Tsarenko has recently begun to record post-rock covers in his own style as well as soundtracks from movies and games. He has already published a cover of the song that fired up his passion for music, and now he’s preparing the soundtrack of Clint Mansell from the game Mass Effect 3. If he gets good feedback, he will continue doing this regularly, and it will be his first step towards his dream.

“It is important to find an activity that will bring you both pleasure and money,” says Tsarenko when asked what advice he would give passionate musicians in terms of starting a career. Since it is difficult to make money just by writing or playing music, it is wise to seek additional employment in the music field: such as a recording studio, design services, promotion, booking, or anything else.

“I have always been inspired by successful people who started their careers penniless, and I hope that one day my example will also inspire someone,” says Tsarenko. “Everything you need to create a good business – is to do what brings you pleasure and add to that enthusiasm, diligence, and a desire to produce goods or services at the level that you want to get to for yourself.”

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