Arman Iranpour: Social Entrepreneur

Urban Time: Let’s start with your name, where you’re from and what you do.

Arman Iranpour: My name's Arman Iranpour, I'm from Winnipeg, a city in central Canada. Not many people know where (or what even) Winnipeg is, and most people usually assume I'm located in Toronto. Winnipeg is further West and is much smaller than Toronto, however it's still a fairly urban city.

UpperStream is a collective we started working on almost a year ago. After producing music for a number of years, I'd realized that it was too difficult to really go anywhere with music coming from Winnipeg. Especially since at the time, I didn't have the marketing and networking tools I have currently, which would've really benefited the music. I decided then to create THE platform, since there was none where I lived. This platform became UpperStream, a collective of producers & artists, along with dope, simple clothing created and curated by designers and marketers together. The team was exclusively small and limited mostly to Winnipeg people besides some of the producers/artists.

Urban Time: These different artists, what connects them to UpperStream?

Arman Iranpour: So now, our music collective actually consists of artists from all over Canada & the US. We have artists in LA, Toronto, NY, Kansas, NC, & DC. The artists are branded through/promoted by UpperStream, giving them a platform to release music exclusively through, and a group of other artists heavily supporting their work. They receive merch from us and rep our brand wherever they are, creating a 2-way building model from both the music side and the clothing side. I, along with one of my partners Ali (@AliYWG), and our lead Designer, Galata (@ItsGalata) scout artists based on a few different variables. We look for artists who are established but haven't fully broke through yet, allowing both the artist, & us as a brand to grow at the same pace. This way, neither party "outshines" the other, and the balance allows for all-around growth. We also look for quality & consistency; artists who we believe have the potential to lead the industry in their craft. Once we stumble upon an artist who posses these traits, we find a way to contact them and get them on board! The artists are set up with their own page on our website and receive consistent/effective promotion of their music. We also work with them on their branding sometimes to ensure that the quality of their branding matches the quality of their music. As we've grown ourselves, we've collected so many tools, resources, & connections that we're able to provide to our artists as needed.

Urban Time: That's very cool to hear, speaking on the artists, is there any specific genres or styles you look for? What type of artists?

Arman Iranpour: Generally R&B singers, TrapHop producers, & artists who blur the lines between different genres. We have artists like Louis Val & Baeside whose music is difficult to categorize into a specific genre. That's definitely something we love pushing, artists who break boundaries and just make cool music.

Urban Time: Tell us about your inspirations, as a group what are your goals?

Arman: My inspirations stem from very different places. I love what Steve Jobs did with Apple, dominating various industries through simple design and quality products, along with undeniable branding. I observe a lot of what OVO does, I think their marketing is mad innovative and that's definitely something that flies over people's heads. I guess the rest of my inspiration comes from the people I surround myself with. They all inspire me on a daily basis to work harder, work smarter, be better, and think clearer. Our goals as a collective are fairly straightforward, we all want freedom. Everything from creative constraint, to financial freedom, to freedom to travel, etc. The element of freedom is present in everything we do, and is what we strive for. On a more physical level, we're really building and creating the creative platform we feel is missing where we're from, & closing the gap between our city and everything going on everywhere else; eventually making content in the city more accessible and interesting to the rest of the world.

Urban Time: What's the next step in order to make that happen?

Arman: Right now, our focus is on covering as much ground as possible, expanding further and more heavily into the Toronto and LA markets. Making the right connections and networking heavily, as well as using creative/innovative marketing methods that will continue building upon the platform.

Urban Time: What is the relationship between the artists? Do you know them personally?

Arman: Yeah definitely! Some of them are like family now. I get to travel a bit more now for business so I've had the opportunity to link up with a few of them in their own cities. For some of the other artists we usually FaceTime frequently & keep in touch, discuss marketing plans & how their music is progressing. It's been a blessing working with such talented artists who are also such cool people aside from the industry.

Urban Time: That sounds really cool, can you tell us about the clothing brand? What influenced that?

Arman: Our focus with the clothing was heavily on simplicity & quality. Once you have a simple, quality product, & can present it well, you have it all figured out. I work closely with my designer, Galata (@ItsGalata), to curate marketable, dope designs for the clothing. Galata is pretty much a creative genius, & his notebooks are filled with groundbreaking sh*t, so soon we'll be able to really impress people from the design-side. It's tough though to really put out heavily creative clothing as a start-up brand, because sourcing manufacturers and budget play a difficult role. But as those factors are starting to become less of an issue for us, we're definitely starting to develop more innovative products design-wise.

Urban Time: What's somethings we can look forward to from the brand?

Arman: Re-invention of older products, newer designs, a lot of cool editorials and lookbooks this summer (for those who really appreciate photography & fashion) & a stronger presence in Toronto & Los Angeles as our artists Louis Val (@LouisVal_) & Rikki Blu (@RikkiBlu) are quickly emerging in the music industry.

Urban Time: Let's talk about your app and the other things you do, what brought you to create an app of all things? How did that start?

Arman: The app is actually my least important venture (IMO) as it was more of just a marketing/branding challenge for me. I actually purchased the app off its previous owner & made a few adjustments to the code to rebrand it. It's basically a generic addicting game app. For me, marketing a game app that basically already exists (there's hundreds of 'clone apps') is the ultimate marketing challenge, so I tried it. When we launched it, we got a lot of local backlash due to it being similar to other existing games, however the backlash resulted in a lot of downloads & my Twitter account being trending in Winnipeg (lol). So now we're sort of just deciding what to do with it, it's still doing well in the app store but it's not really a long term venture. I say "we" by the way because a friend of mine Dallas is also involved with the app.

Urban Time: That sounds like a cool experience, what other things do you involve yourself with?

Arman: I also run a social marketing firm, Echo Social Firm. Echo and UpperStream are my main focuses right now, and I'm working on growing both heavily. Echo is basically a young vibrant marketing firm focused on simplicity and creativity for developing innovative marketing and branding solutions and strategies. We work primarily with other businesses but also with artists as well. We're also aiming to create a content distribution side of Echo which will distribute the coolest content in Design, Art, Fashion, Marketing, Branding & Music. Other than working on UpperStream & Echo I don't really do much else. I put heavy focus on personal development, which takes over all the rest of my free time.

Urban Time: What would you say to artist and innovators like yourself who are starting up from a small town? In other words, what have you learned from your personal experience that you wished you had known from the start?

Arman: Great question, I think first of all, I have a long way to go myself and don't have it all figured out. What I CAN say though, is always know what your objective is. This is going to get real practical. Once you know your objective, you'll be able to understand just how serious you are. Once you understand how serious you are, you'll know to what degree you'll have to take things; whether its making sacrifices, or putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, or eliminating toxic people from your life. Those things are all key factors that matter EVEN MORE when you're from a small town, because the odds are definitely against you. Master those things, and then just make sure to create quality. Whether its a product or service, the biggest factor will always be quality. Once you have the quality covered, then the 2 biggest growth/expansion tools, networking & marketing, become much easier. People you network with, and consumers who you market your product/service to, will always gravitate towards you A LOT more if you enter the market with a great QUALITY product/service. That's how we built a lot of the connections and foundations we did, we just made sure we distributed quality from every aspect, did a good job of networking and marketing, and people gravitated towards us.