Young Entrepreneurs: Billy Woodford, NoCopyrightSounds

Name: Billy Woodford
Age: 24
Company: NoCopyrightSounds
Website: www.youtube.com/NoCopyrightSounds

An avid gamer, 24 year-old Billy Woodford spotted a gap in the market for free, copyright-safe music after growing frustrated with licensing issues when trying to include music on online videos of him gaming. Sure that he had identified a market with plenty of potential, Woodford launched his modern version of a record label, whereby content creators can use NoCopyrightSounds entire catalogue without plagiarism issues or having to pay royalties.

The business, which generates revenue through advertisement deals with YouTube and Spotify, has managed to remain profitable since launch by keeping overheads to a minimum and has impressive turnover predictions for 2015.

However, despite his solid financials, Woodford says that his biggest breakthrough was not securing big advertisement deals or turnover growth, but witnessing his company’s rapid rise of followers – especially when famous gamers feature music from NoCopyrightSounds on their videos. Woodford is also extremely proud of his partnership with Twitch (the leading video game platform that Amazon purchased for £585m this year) as this has given him the affirmation that he made the right choice branching out on his own and that his firm has a promising future.

The young entrepreneur, who didn’t let fear of the unknown or lack of industry knowledge and contacts stop him for realising his dream, says that his willingness to get out to network and learn is one of the main benefits of being a young business owner.

And by starting the company and growing it entirely on his own, Woodford feels that watching it develop into a sustainable business has made his gamble of leaving a full-time job to launch a company based on just gut instinct – despite plenty of reservations from his parents – even more worthwhile.

Now, the music channel’s founder, who has nearly one and half million YouTube subscribers, wants to carry on his business’ steady growth to become one of the major music labels in the world and the dominant brand for content creators looking for new – and free – music.