This KC startup gets the good kind of feedback.

Ah, the life of a touring musician! The wild and crazy nights of … tracking your expenses and submitting orders for more band merch? Ugh.

The music business, like every other line of work, suffers from its share of drudgery, but local startup BandHack aims to simplify things for independent performers.

Founders Justin Belfield, Jason Conley and Jody Hendrix have developed a suite of online solutions:

»   MerchHack, which lets performers place orders for T-shirts and other merchandise—with no minimum orders. (That can be a major hurdle for smaller acts.) BandHack has partnered with a local company to fulfill those orders. By bundling several performers’ orders together, they’re able to access better rates.

»   DiscHack—like MerchHack, only for compact discs.

»   RoadHack, which will connect users with band-friendly mechanics, hotels, pizza joints and other service providers while they’re on the road.

BandHack emerged from Kansas City’s BetaBlox incubator, and it unveiled MerchHack and DiscHack at this spring’s Westport Roots Festival. Most of the early users have been involved in American and roots music. But the startup’s
solutions will work for performers of any genre.

And that’s good news for DIY indie artists who don’t enjoy the backing of a record label.

“So far,” Conley said, “we’ve got really good feedback on it.”