Miami University's first student-run record label company, MIOX, will be moving off campus with a new team come fall 2009.
"I came this year with the hope to basically end MIOX as a student organization and take it off campus as a private company," said junior Dan Albert, founder and head of MIOX.
After this semester, Albert said MIOX will no longer be a student group and will not receive university funding and can only use the campus to host concerts.
"We'll still be there for the students, but not associated with the school system," Albert said.
Albert said he has had assistance from the Miami University Institute for Entrepreneurship, which provided him the guidance to start a business.
"We've served as mentors for the team, as we do with any student that wants to start a business while in college," said Joseph Kayne, director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship.
Kayne said the institute helps students start businesses, like MIOX. He added the institute highly supports Albert's decision to start his own business.
"We believe that entrepreneurship education is learning by doing," Kayne said. "We're always thrilled when a student decides to take the content out of the classroom. We'd love to see more people like Dan starting their own businesses."
Along with leaving the university, Albert said MIOX will no longer be associated with the Miami Institute for Entrepreneurship and will begin working independently.
According to Albert, the cost of recordings, limited university funding and the state of the economy led him to make this change to keep MIOX running.
"I have come to the realization that it is not the right fit," Albert said. "I see a difference in an entrepreneur and a music entrepreneur."
During his experience with MIOX, Albert said people were not always supportive of his success.
"Through my time here, people have told me that it was never possible," Albert said. "Now, whenever I hear the phrase 'you can never do it,' it's like a competition for me and means that I have to achieve what people think I can't."
Albert said he was told he could never be featured on mtvU, but he said MIOX produced a segment called "The Dean's List" in 2006 that was aired nationally on MTV.
"[People] want to see Incubus and John Mayer on campus," Albert said. "I don't see why that's not possible, because it is."
MIOX's beginnings at Miami trace back to 2006, when it was co-founded by Albert and junior Eric Sunray, who still helps occasionally despite leaving to start his own band.
"We wanted to create something for students who weren't musically talented, but were interested in the music industry," Albert said. "There wasn't an organization on campus that had something we wanted to do."
With the two students' interest in music and limited knowledge of the music industry, Albert said he and Sunray started the organization to expose local artists.
"We described it as booking artists and recording them, typically what any record label would do for their artists," Sunray said. "We wanted to affect the music scene in a positive way because there wasn't much going on at the time."
The two had big goals, but MIOX has changed since 2006.
"We want to be heavy on the local involvement but also with other universities and around the country," Albert said. "In order for Miami's music scene to grow and be more noticeable, we need to have people who are willing to make connections nationally and gain that recognition."
Not only will the organization move off campus, but Albert said he will bring in new members.
"Having been the founder and head of MIOX for a few years now and being a senior next year, I'm looking to transition and find a whole new team of students who are knowledgeable of the music industry and can take MIOX to run it the rest of their college years," Albert said.
Albert said he will be interviewing any student interested in being part of the team, which he plans to include six to eight people.
"We're looking for leaders within the music industry and for students here who are for the music and students in general," Albert said. "I'm not looking for musicians. I'm looking for someone who wants to do anything to help the music they're passionate about."
Students who are interested should contact Dan Albert at (314) 570-5576 or albertds@muohio.edu.
