Tag: musichouse

Musichouse – express yourself

Musichouse was a music ecosystem compromising of an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) for artists & producers with exclusive access to online & offline (radio) broadcasting channels via RockinTheShed. We developed a number of monetization models to appeal to our target market and even put out some exciting Pantages events when we first started touring. RockinTheShed served as an initial hook to get leverage for Musichouse. We had a great team of smart entrepreneurs like Dave Manna (Sydney’s top Music Producer), Artur (RockinTheShed host) and Denis who is today the co-founder of embedster.com (Y Combinator 2010 Alumni).

The most complete music ecosystem

This consisted of three key components:

1)  Electronic Press Kit (EPK) for bands / artists – a way for an artist to professionally express themselves online by providing information about the band and events in an electronic equivalent of a press kit. Some of the parts of this EPK include biographical & contact information, music clips with accompanying lyrics, videos from events, media information, calendar of upcoming events linked to eTicks system etc… Each EPK is monitored using custom internal analytics analyzing the “groove in your music” to help the artist profit from the distribution and monetization model linked up to their EPK.

To help with the distribution of EPK content, an array of specific social network applications and widgets “spread the word” and allow users on other networks to interact and explore artist content.

2)  Digital distribution and unique online monetization model for Music – an artist shouldn’t be locked into the 1 monetization model rather have an array of options to choose from when it comes to distributing their assets like audio, photos and merchandise. MusicHouse will have 3 monetization models for an artist to use. Therefore being able to mix and match to see what works. Because we believe in giving the artist control, we are providing 3 monetization models (to start with) for an artist to use to distribute their music.

3)  Online and Offline broadcast on radio stations world-wide through RockinTheShed (marketing arm of MusicHouse) and other planned shows. Essentially giving artists a fair go to get heard by millions of radio listeners, and thousands of ardent readers. If you were to click here, you’d be cleared of any skepticism you’d have had of a magazine’s ability to proliferate. To get heard an artist has to build “credit” through a web of interconnected and aggregated fan voting systems, fair-share inbounds back to MusicHouse and other algorithms that we have planned under the bonnet.

Vision: “To be the one stop shop for artists / bands when they want to express themselves and reach new consumer markets by getting heard internationally both online and offline”

MusicHouse would help artists and bands to promote their music by creating their very own Electronic Press Kit (EPK) which enables a connection with musicians, promoters, fans and radio stations around the world. It is differentiated through a multitude of music services to enable a richer online experience, better monetization model, and unique, powerful, integrated offline exposure channel for member bands to achieve airtime at radio stations world-wide.

What the site looked like (in development)

EPK (Electronic Press Kit) – Audio player
EPK (Electronic Press Kit) – Other sections

Musichouse Business Architecture

How we planned to monetize

The site never saw day light (production launch) since RockinTheShed (its partner & complementary business) fell apart and we decided to wrap it up. Although the technical skills learnt building this site proved (and prove) to be extremely valuable assets today.

Ernest

My entrepreneurial life in Australia

I love tinkering and bringing ideas into reality. Seeing that idea come to life is amazing. The energy, thrill, excitement and daily challenges faced in order to bring an idea into reality is simply amazing. It’s true what Don Williams, Jr once said “The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.”.

Below I share with you my entrepreneurial journey in Australia building start-ups and the lessons I have acquired by taking them. Without these I would not be the man I am today.

  • WebAnt Analytics – a quantitative service providing a holistic web analytics and customer metrics solutions that allows you to get inside the mind of your online audience. This also included the famous InSite module which could generate “phantom customers” for automation & monitoring. We used a lot of interesting models I learnt during the course of my MBA studies to provide a unique selling proposition and differentiate ourself from our only competitor on the Australian market (at the time), Red Sheriff. And then came free Google Analytics (Urchin) and the show was over. To read more click here.
  • Ramify – a company that provided tools and objective ratings of unit trust funds and Unit Trust Fund Management Companies using both quantitative and qualitative data. It was to be a valuable service to the Unit Trust Funds industry participants including retail and institutional investors, financial planners, agents, banks, Unit Trust Management Companies, regulators, etc. This one took me to Malaysia, presentations to board members of RAM (Rating Agency Malaysia Berhad) and dinners with CEOs of financial banks. To read more click here.
  • RockinTheShed – A weekly 2 hour Rock and Alternative radio station show delivering sounds from local and international artists blended with current news and happenings in the Rock and Alternative arena. The show played across 12 radio stations geographically in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and USA. We got to meeting & interview many interesting & famous bands and expand our broadcasting range. My band photography business span off from this venture. To read more click here.
  • Musichouse – A music ecosystem compromising of an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) for artists & producers with exclusive access to online & offline (radio) broadcasting channels via RockinTheShed. We developed a number of monetization models to appeal to our target market. RockinTheShed served as an initial hook to get leverage for Musichouse. We had a great team of smart entrepreneurs like Dave Manna (Sydney’s top Music Producer), Artur (RockinTheShed host) and Denis who is today the co-founder of embedster.com (Y Combinator 2010 Alumni). To read more click here.

What’s next?

You tell me…

Ernest