Megan Moroney (BBA ’20) named her debut album “Lucky,” but, in reality, luck didn’t have much to do with it.

Hard work and dedicated supporters helped launch her singing career, from her Instagram feed to the Country Music Awards Festival and the Billboard 200.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” Moroney told a crowd of University of Georgia students during an event hosted by the UGA Music Business Program. “No one else around me was writing songs every day. I didn’t have to; I could have just been an influencer, made money, written twice a week, and it might have worked out. But I was writing during the day and going to writers’ rounds at night. People started to notice; they were like, ‘Oh, this girl’s always at everything.’”

Originally from Douglasville, Georgia, Moroney studied accounting at the Terry College of Business and spent her free time posting covers of country songs on her Instagram account. But all that changed after a performance at a party held by her sorority, Kappa Delta.

The party’s headliner invited her to open for him at the Georgia Theatre, and after that show, she didn’t look back. She was ready to move to Nashville, but her parents talked her down. She agreed to finish school but shifted her major to marketing with a digital marketing emphasis and a Music Business Certificate.

She moved to Nashville in the summer of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a risk, but one she felt prepared for.

“I thought, ‘I might move to Nashville, and it might not work,’” she told students. “But living with my parents during COVID in Douglasville, Georgia — it’s not going to work.”

Moroney worked as an Instagram influencer while writing songs and making connections in the half-shuttered city. She found a manager and producer through internships while in the Music Business Program.

Moroney credits music business classes on publishing, contracts, and tour planning with guiding her career. The lessons helped her strike the right deal when offers rolled in after she attracted record companies’ attention.

“Right after I released my EP (Pistol Made of Roses), I had five record deal offers,” she said. “One thing I remember (Music Business Director David Barbe) saying was, ‘Never accept the first deal you’re offered. If I didn’t take the MBUS courses, I would be in a shady publishing deal.”

She feels the knowledge directed her career, allowing her to make the most of the opportunities in the past four years.

“It’s so funny because I was one of y’all sitting here listening to the speaker who was some cool producer or something,” she told students. “I came to these meetings and RSVP’d for events. I don’t want to get preachy, but whatever you want to do is possible. You just have to work your (but) off.”

The UGA Music Business Certificate Program is a privately funded academic program housed within the Terry College of Business. Students from any major can earn an interdisciplinary certificate in the music business through a hands-on education about music and business fundamentals, copyright issues, creative content, artist management and production and technology.