Tyler Campbell | Greenroom
Owner of Greenroom
Tyler Campbell, owner of Greenroom, shares his journey of building an entertainment booking agency in Nashville, Tennessee, amidst the challenges of launching during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What businesses do you run?
Tyler Campbell owns Greenroom, an entertainment booking agency located in Nashville, Tennessee. The agency specializes in securing high-profile entertainment for various private events, including corporate functions, large fundraising galas, and performances for high-net-worth individuals looking to have celebrities at weddings or anniversary celebrations.
How did you get started as an entrepreneur?
Tyler’s journey began in Portland, Oregon, where he was born and raised. He moved to Nashville in 2012 to play baseball at Vanderbilt University, completing four years there before taking a job with a entertainment group. This role provided him with valuable industry experience, but he always aspired to establish his own company. After spending several months setting up his LLC, establishing bank accounts, and building a website, he was ready to launch his business—just as COVID-19 hit. The pandemic forced him to pivot to virtual entertainment, where he organized everything from keynote speakers to virtual comedy shows, despite the challenges involved.
How do you think about growth in your current business? How do you plan for the future?
In the early stages of Greenroom, Tyler focused heavily on outreach and client acquisition, gradually building momentum as he secured his first clients. Now, as his business matures, he is concentrating on refining the systems and processes necessary for booking shows, enabling him to take on more work. For Tyler, entrepreneurship is more than just a means to an end; it's a lifestyle that supports him and his growing family. This new chapter has encouraged him to think more deeply about his goals, shifting from purely personal ambitions to a broader vision that includes the well-being of his family.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Tyler believes that resilience is the most critical lesson for anyone entering the entrepreneurial world. He acknowledges that most ideas and marketing campaigns will fail 99% of the time. Entrepreneurs often launch bold initiatives that don’t resonate or face the difficult process of cold outreach to secure clients. The key, he says, is to embrace failure as part of the journey and to develop strong relationship-building skills. It’s essential to understand what your audience truly wants, rather than assuming your product is inherently valuable. As Tyler has learned, pushing through discomfort and uncertainty not only helps avoid repeated setbacks but also leads to personal growth and business success.
“You have to be very resilient to be an entrepreneur, because it’s a lot of failure.”
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Tyler Campbell 0:00
My name is Tyler Campbell, and I own green room here in Nashville, Tennessee. We are an entertainment booking agency, and we book big headline entertainment for private events. So that could be corporate events, it could be large fundraising galas, things of that nature. And then we also book big artists for just high net worth individuals who want to have a celebrity perform at their wedding or, you know, anniversary event, whatever it might be. So those are kind of the three, three clients we work with. So when it comes to growing my business, I think in these early stages, you know, my business is five years old or so four or five years old, it's just been about grinding and outreach and bringing on more clients, because I can take on the work like any new business. You're just looking for your first client, then your second. And then, you know, things get rolling. And now I'm kind of in the phase of really dialing in my systems and process for how I book these shows so that I can take on more work. I moved to Nashville in 2012 and I came here from Portland, Oregon, where I was born and raised, and I came to Nashville to play baseball at Vanderbilt. And so I played four years at Vandy. My first job out of college, I was working for another Entertainment Group and doing a lot of the same things I'm doing now. However, I knew ultimately I wanted to branch off and start my own company. And so once I knew just enough to kind of get going on my own, that's what I did. When I started my business. I spent probably four or five months kind of getting my ducks in a row, getting my LLC established, and bank accounts and everything I needed, building a website, and all kind of the bare like bones of the business. And right when it was ready to launch was week one of COVID. I'm starting a live entertainment business the week that COVID starts. And so as you can imagine, I'm like, oh my god, is this gonna last a month? Is it gonna last two months? And then, sure enough, it was more like two years. How can I pivot this to virtual entertainment? We did a lot of virtual keynote speakers. We did virtual comedy shows, which were kind of a nightmare. And so there was a lot of lessons learned during that first stretch. And I think realistically, it was a blessing, because I probably wasn't ready to get launched into like full bore entertainment, live entertainment world quite yet. And what I think is important for any entrepreneur, regardless of what type of industry or business you're in, is developing relationship skills. And you need to be able to present yourself as someone who is educated and trustworthy and good at what you do. Developing the skill of figuring out what people really want is important because people spend years and years on startups and new businesses where they might have a good product but they're not identifying the pain point. And so they're just running up against a wall over and over again, thinking, Man, my product so great. Why are people not buying it or using it? And so I think that's, that's a huge piece on a bigger picture, you know, understanding what my goals are, and kind of having a target for, you know, once you reach this place, you will have made it with your business. I think for me, a lot of entrepreneurs, and rightfully so, their their goal might be to build this amazing business and then in 10 years, sell it right, or get a big check and, you know, write off into, you know, some retirement community and have a boat and do whatever. And my business is, it's more a lifestyle for me in that it can provide a good lifestyle for me and my family. I have my first kid on the way, and so, you know, some of those thoughts, for the first time are a little less selfish being an entrepreneur have affected me as a person is I got into this business thinking I'm super introverted. I don't want to do a lot of sales and outreach. I wasn't comfortable taking meetings with you know, these big corporate groups walking into these huge fortune 500 corporate groups, going up to the 40th floor and taking meetings with 15 people like it was way out of my comfort zone. What I realized is that my motivation to build the business was strong enough to kind of snap me out of that, and now, as I've run the. Business for years, I find myself being a lot more comfortable with those type of situations, and I think that comes through in my life outside of my business. Yeah, I think that for any entrepreneur, either just getting into business or who has been in business for a while, I think the important thing, that lesson that I learned time and time again is that 99% of what you're gonna do is gonna fail, everything from your marketing, your genius marketing ideas that you have, you know, in the middle of the night or when you're taking a shower, you go, Oh, this is gonna be the one. And you launch a campaign, and you go, Oh, man, that really did not land or outreach. When you're starting a business, a lot of it comes down to finding clients, and so you're sending cold emails, you're cold calling people, and that's just a game of failure. You have to be very resilient to be an entrepreneur, because it's a lot of failure.
