Mark Eckert
That Pitch – SEED Spring 2025
Published December 10, 2025
As part of our ‘Meet Our Founders’ series today, we introduce Mark Eckert, Founder of That Pitch based in Charlotte, NC. That Pitch distributes music into 100+ of the world’s top music licensing libraries. To date, we’ve made independent artists millions of dollars in over 40 countries.
Q: What problem are you trying to solve and what influenced you to start your company?
A: Advertisers, filmmakers, and YouTubers paid a combined $6 billion+ to use music in their work. And the overwhelming majority of that music didn’t go to independent artists. The vast majority of independent artists don’t have access to these opportunities. And if they do, they’re getting screwed by a middle man who takes an often large, and opaque percentage. I would say, I wasn’t inspired – rather – I was angry because I got screwed on a Marriott deal. I was paid less than 20% of what the full amount was for a commercial, of which I had to pay my team. 80%+ went to the agent. That’s just not right. And I learned, that was the standard. It just felt… unjust. I was wrapping up a few records for a couple major label artists (they can take over a year to complete.) And thought I’d try making a site and see if I could try to fix it back in 2018. And here I am – still chuggin’ along!
Q: What are you most excited about right now? What keeps you up at night?
A: Excited – This industry is riddled with fraud disguised as ‘middle men’ because people take a huge % from artists… and theres’ nothing artists can really do. This opens the door to double or triple revenue into artists pockets all around the world from b2b usage of music. I had an artist from India reach out to me saying that the revenue he makes from That Pitch supports his entire family and he’s building a music school in his town. An artist from Greece said she bought wine for a big party she was throwing during an otherwise rough month – just from That Pitch royalties. An artist from Singapore was in a Burberry ad. An artist here in NC got his track in a Celtics / Heat halftime show.
I live for this. It’s not that I’m just excited. I have a purpose. So many stories get out there from music, lives are literally saved from songs (mine was) – and every day I get to help fund those stories being told. It’s why I got into music. To share stories, and emotion. It connects everyone. Anything that helps make more of that – is needed more and more in this world. And I’m honored every day I get to be a part of that process.
What keeps me up – the music industry is extremely small. There’s really, only a couple hundred real ‘decision makers’. Your reputation is literally everything. We don’t have a large enough industry to reinvent yourself if you screw up. It’s a constant battle of setting boundaries to really good friends (if a deal doesn’t make sense), and asking (but not asking too much) for favors so people don’t think you’re using them. Most of my anxiety stems from ensuring that I have a good reputation, and can maintain a neutral stance with the hundreds of different music licensing libraries, 10s of thousands of artists, and constantly changing landscape of this industry (and often, ignorance from people who are new to this corner of the industry, but are often loud haha).
It’s hard to balance everyone and it weighs on me heavily to make sure I make the right decision, especially when it can literally determine people’s livelihoods. All I have is my integrity, and mentors. I’m unbelievably grateful that I have incredible mentors to help me make these decisions – but it still can be hard to do so because like most big decisions, it’s not a yes or no, it’s a series of pros and cons. And that responsibility ultimately falls on me, and weighs on me deeply.
Q: How will your NC IDEA grant funds advance your company?
A: This has sped up our tech and legal roadmap significantly. A lot of the deals I am working on are very much so time sensitive. Because of these funds, I’ve been able to compliantly build out internationally compliant licensing tech, which works for various copyright infrastructure, and all under deadline.
In lamens terms…
Every country has different copyright laws. Music has multiple layers of copyright within each song. And those copyrights are owned by lots of different people. Writers, Labels, Publishers, the bassist who got kicked out of the band 12 years ago but still has 1%. Similar to a patent, everybody who owns part of the IP has to agree to license it out. It becomes increasingly complicated as a song, or album, can literally have 100 stakeholders located in various countries.
If you are BMW in Germany, and want to use a song by Alicia Keys (a US artist) in your next tv commercial, you have to follow both German & US laws for licensing the song, and paying royalties back to the artist. You need approval from every label in each country, and each songwriter & publisher. And if that ad plays in other German speaking countries (Austria as an example), you then need to adhere to their laws – and collect those royalties according to their institutions – and get paid everyone what they’re owed.
Labels have teams around the world doing this for major artists. It’s expensive, timely, and annoying. And because of that – the majority of revenue goes to them for these kinds of deals. Independent artists obviously, don’t have those resources 99% of the time unless they get signed by an agent (who often takes a large percent).
NC IDEA’s funds helped me fund the automation & legal consultation of this entire process for independent artists in every country. It’s never been done. I had to additionally travel to multiple countries during this process to finalize specific agreements as well (as culturally, some institutions prefer in-person still.) All of this complicated stuff was automated, and looks simple such that literally anyone could use it. Literally – your grandma could learn guitar, upload her song to That Pitch – and we can distribute her music directly into 100+ music libraries (online stores that sell licenses to filmmakers), covering every continent, compliant in every territory. And she’ll get paid 100% for any film that wants to use her track. If she were to do this herself, it would take her decades. Now she can do it in 5 minutes.
That Pitch opens up a $6 billion pie to artists who would have never had a chance from this corner of the industry otherwise. Basically, there’s 11 million artists on Spotify. And we’re the only option for them for this source of revenue.
Q: When did you know you wanted to take an entrepreneurial path?
A: I’ve actually never had a job. I got thrown into the music industry when I was 13 or 14. Started as a session drummer in studios, flew around the states, was playing with bands, and then my mom taught me how to get drum students (she taught piano). My friends who worked in fast food were making $7 an hour on someone else’s schedule, and I was making $60 an hour teaching + a couple hundred drumming on records on the weekends or on week nights, making my own schedule. I would actually drive to jazz clubs on a school night to play until 3am, and get up for school the next day. After I dropped out of Berklee, I was either touring or producing records.
Q: What have you enjoyed most about starting your own company?
A: It’s way easier / less stressful than producing records for major labels. Way easier.
Q: What is one thing you wish you understood about entrepreneurship before you ever got started?
A: At least in my industry, being able to discern who’s “self-important” vs who’s *actually* important. It’s really easy to get intimidated by very loud people in this industry who are very confident and name drop. Being able to understand on the spot (internally) if you should be influenced by this person or not is a pretty powerful thing and saves a lot of time, money, and headaches. Because everyone is going to tell you they’re the next Justin Bieber. Haha.
Q: Who do you look to for advice and mentorship?
A: Andrew Lindner – Frontier Growth; Daniel Grimmett – Dark Label Music; Brian Hood – Six Figure Creative; Trevor Hinesely – Soundstripe; Joel T Jordan & Jason Jordan – Republic/Disney/Synchtank/Symphonic/Earthprogram; Andrew Batey – Beatdapp ….. and LOTS OF BOOKS
Q: What other passions do you have besides your business?
A: Drumming, Producing, Traveling in a country where I don’t know the language.
While visiting Charlotte, Mark recommends:
I basically just go to shows, or eat. Haha.
- Music – Go to Mo Betta Thursday’s at Crown Station, chill at Common Market in Plaza and meet locals / sometimes they have a cool random hip hop night, Not Just Coffee Jay Street Jazz Night, and see if there’s a show at Snug Harbor.
- Food – If you want a burrito and an EDM set – hit up El Malo. Oh also… Yunta off of S Blvd, wild Peruvian/Japanese food. Feels like I’m back in New York. Oh, and there’s a hole in the wall spot called DŌZO which just opened down the street from me. Most authentic Japanese food I’ve had in NC, reminds me of a lot of the spots I’ve been to in Osaka.
Support That Pitch and Mark by:
- As far as the NC ecosystem specifically – I would love a plug into Epic Games, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, North Carolina’s University Film Programs, Band Masters of NC – all of these companies / institutions spend millions a year on music licensing. I’d preferably, like to funnel those funds back to NC musicians, rather than what is currently being done (primarily outsourcing to various other music ecosystems such as LA/NY/Nashville.) There are additional tax benefits for them to do so.
I am already working on a JV with Eversong, where we will play NC music in hundreds of grocery stores around NC as background music. 100% of those royalties go back to the musicians.