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Jeff Dillon welcomes back Eytan Wurman, founder and CEO of CommonTime Pathways—the recruiting platform built on a simple, disruptive idea: creatives deserve the same recruiting pipelines athletes get. When Eytan and Jeff first talked about a year ago, CommonTime was just getting off the ground. Since then, the company raised $1 million from Yamaha and Reach Capital, expanded beyond music into theater and dance, and took the platform to the international stage at the ISME World Conference.
Eytan shares the big realization that reshaped CommonTime's mission: they weren't just helping music kids connect with scholarships—they were repositioning the artist as the center of an AI‑enabled future. He explains why music faculty are the most underutilized recruiters on campus, why they're already visiting high schools and adjudicating festivals, and why Common Time simply makes them 20 times more effective.
He also offers a brilliant analogy for two‑sided marketplaces: they're like middle school dances. Everyone's on the wall, no one wants to touch each other. CommonTime created the dance floor, set up the DJ booth, and then had to figure out how to get people to dance. The answer? The snowball dance. Get one college and one kid to talk, then another, then another—until everyone sees it's safe to join in.
For anyone thinking about enrollment innovation, creative talent, or what higher ed looks like in 2050, this episode is a must‑listen.
Key Takeaways
- Artists Deserve the Same Recruiting Infrastructure as Athletes: Common Time is an athletics‑style recruiting platform for creative humans—musicians, and now theater and dance students. Colleges can find 13‑year‑old violists, oboists, and tenors the same way they find soccer players.
- Music Faculty Are the Most Underutilized Recruiters on Campus: Music professors already visit high schools, adjudicate festivals, give lessons at summer camps, and build pipelines. Common Time makes them 20 times more effective by connecting them with non‑majors who want to keep playing in college.
- Creative Students Are the Center of the AI‑Enabled Economy: The Forbes/LinkedIn versatility data shows that English and performing arts majors are among the most versatile degrees. As AI handles more technical production work, the ability to perform, present, communicate, and curate experiences becomes more valuable, not less.
- The Unintended Consequence: Parents Are Talking About Music Like Sports: Students are telling their parents they want to study music earlier—and they're using Common Time to convince them it's viable. Parents are starting to see music as something that might pay for college, not just something that's good for you.
- Application Pledges Change the Conversation: Colleges can now offer application fee waivers, audition waivers, and pre‑assigned scholarships tied to a student's profile—sometimes two years before they apply. It's the same model as athletics recruiting, and it signals early interest that changes how families see a school.
- The Enrollment Cliff Is Creating Urgency—and Opportunity: With three million fewer college kids expected over the next five years and $75 billion in lost tuition revenue at stake, colleges are grasping for new ways to enroll students. Common Time opens the door to 10 million creative kids in the US alone.
- Two‑Sided Marketplaces Are Like Middle School Dances: Everyone's on the wall, no one wants to touch each other. The hardest part is getting people in the door. Common Time created the dance floor, put up the DJ booth, and then ran the snowball dance—one college and one kid at a time until everyone joins in.
- Common Time's Vision for 2050: To b...
Chapters
- (00:00:00) - Introduction and Guest Background
- (00:01:54) - Catching Up: What's Changed at Common Time
- (00:03:06) - Expanding Beyond Music to All Creative Fields
- (00:04:40) - The Versatility of Creative Degrees
- (00:07:41) - How Common Time Pathways Works
- (00:09:25) - Building Scouting Infrastructure for Artists
- (00:11:20) - Art, AI, and Human Potential
- (00:12:42) - Fundraising and Investor Perspectives
- (00:15:50) - Taking the Idea to the ISME World Conference
- (00:19:37) - Redefining Success and Family Buy-In
- (00:21:42) - Application Pledges and Scholarship Mechanics
- (00:24:51) - The Enrollment Cliff and Pressure on Colleges
- (00:27:53) - Scaling a Two-Sided Marketplace
- (00:31:43) - Vision for the Future and Closing Thoughts
