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Katie Byers of HomeDitty Speaks at First Friday Event Series

HomeDitty is a startup with roots in Greater Des Moines (DSM) and allows lovers of music to experience music at home, with family and friends.

From Stay-at-Home Mom to Business Owner

After staying home with her daughters, Katie explains how she figured out what brought her joy before she became a wife and mother. She kept coming back to music, art and helping people. After being asked to host a house concert, she found her passion and started HomeDitty. Katie and her husband began to host concerts once a month. She began to get requests for musicians and realized there was a need for more people to host house concerts. With only so many venues, musicians needed more ways to make money as they traveled from show to show.

Research

Katie spent a year researching legalities and then launched HomeDitty. She also studied third-party platform models like Uber.

Credit Card Processing

Musicians must sign up for a Stripe merchant credit card account, online payment processing for businesses like HomeDitty. Katie explains that before Stripe pays the musician, they keep their credit card fees and then takes an app fee of 10 percent and sends it back to HomeDitty, which is how the business makes money.

House Concerts

House concerts can be done in houses or venues of any size. Katie says people can bring their own chairs. Some hosts in a two-story house have people sit on the stairs for the concert. The event is casual.

Propelling Word of Mouth

Katie discusses how the business has grown through word of mouth, not marketing. She’s been fortunate to have earned media through television news features, a Register article and as a guest on Talk of Iowa. Social media has been a free marketing avenue.