Meet Angela Tyler | Music Publicist, Owner of Muddy Paw PR

We had the good fortune of connecting with Angela Tyler and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Angela, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
If I’m being totally honest, I was just tired of getting laid off from jobs I hated, and spending my days crying in corporate bathrooms over jobs I didn’t want.

I’d been running my music blog, Infectious Magazine, for about five years at that point and I knew that I loved the music industry and wanted to help bands on a larger scale and get paid for it. After years of being on the receiving end of press releases I thought, “hey, someone is paying them to do this. Maybe I could do it too.”

And that was it! I was incredibly naive with nothing to lose and there couldn’t have been a better time for me to take that risk (which really didn’t feel like a risk at all) than my early twenties.

What should our readers know about your business?
If you take just one thing away from this interview let it be this: just do the thing you want to do. It’s cliched advice, but one thing I’m grateful for is that I started my business in my twenties, before I had ads and webinars and endless articles giving me advice about how to be. It’s amazing we have so many resources to help us prepare for anything we want to do, but I think my naivety when starting was my biggest strength. I had nothing to compare myself to, no rulebook, I just did what I wanted, had fun, and was excited by every single (tiny!) result.

Now in my thirties, with all the information constantly bombarding me, it’s MUCH harder to take those risks and to not research something to death before I act. My advice, as a chronic overthinker and researcher, is to throw all that away and just do the thing. Just get started and then once you have some traction, you can go back and fine-tune. But you’ve got to get going first.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’m in Boston right now and I’d definitely take them to some of my favorite restaurants — I show my love through food! Barcelona Wine Bar, Buttermilk and Bourbon, and Pearl and Lime are all among my favorites! As for activities, we’re in the winter right now so I’d take them ice skating at Frog Pond followed by hot chocolate at Burdick’s and a stroll through the parks and Charles Street/Beacon Hill. Perfect Boston afternoon!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Oh gosh there are so many people that have helped me along the way! One thing about the music industry is how cutthroat it can be, but I was really lucky to meet a few mentors when I was first starting out that helped me shape the business and my approach to entrepreneurship. Before that, I saw what I was doing as this fun sort of freelance gig, something I was making money at and wanted to keep doing, but nothing that I understood the mechanics of.

I had this idea if I just kept doing what I was doing it would eventually grow and to a degree, that worked. But these mentors taught me to look at it like a business and when I started treating it as one, everything changed.

Website: https://wearemp.co/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/muddypawpr/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amastrogiacomo

Twitter: https://twitter.com/angela_mastro

Other: My (non music) writings: https://angelatyler.substack.com/