8 Key Points For A Music Product Start Up

These are tips from an even held by the Music Startup Academy in San Francisco for music entrepreneurs for creating a digital music product.

1. What Problem Are You Solving?

Is it a real problem within the music space? Identify your problem clearly and ensure you’ve demonstrated it exists through exhausted market research. Examine where other products or features fail and position yours to fill that void.

2. Who Are Your Competitors?

 Perhaps worse than not identifying a real problem or solving for one that doesn’t exist, is creating a product for problem that is already being solved. Take some time – scratch that, a lot of time – to review the marketplace and identify who it is addressing your same solutions (no matter how well or how minute) before diving in headfirst and risking the time and money.

3. Who Are Your Target Users?

These should be the people whom you’ve drawn inspiration to solve a problem for.

Study them intensely – their habits as users / consumers, their preferences, their behaviors, etc. and tailor your product towards them. Another thing to consider after you’ve indentified who they are, is ensure thatenough of them exist to meet a viable demand. It can’t be just you making a product for yourself (although it's fine to start out this way), so ensure there are others that exist who would benefit from your idea.

4. How Will Music Be Used and What Rights Do You Need?

This is a crucial step to ensuring the viability of your product.

Are you using tracks in their entirety? Snippets? Will it be stream only, or are you allowing downloads? How are you obtaining them?

There are a plethora of options and routes to go down, but before designing the user experience, do keep in mind the gargantuan licensing hurdle that will inevitably come your way when dealing with labels. 

5. What Platforms and Technologies Can You Leverage?

Will your product be available via mobile? Desktop? Both?

While these decisions have a lot of factors that go into them, some of the more important ones to take into account are the type of user base that would be most receptive to your product, the costs that go into development, and the ideal platform that can handle and deliver your product.

6. Do You Have A Working Prototype?

Any idea always sounds great when it exists in the air, but it’s imperative to have something to demonstrate when approaching labels, press and especiallypotential investors.

It doesn’t need to be flawlessly designed, but it is important to ensure that the basic functionality is in working order and that the problem you’ve identified is clearly being solved with your prototype. A prototype also helps in identifying roadblocks early so you can better identify problems and glitches before the public does.

7. How Will You Make Money?

I’ve heard the saying “focus on the product first, money second” several times at various conferences and seminars. Without a sound business model that is both viable and realistic, the lifespan of your product will be reduced – as does the likelihood of it evolving and expanding into something greater.

8. How Will You Market Your Business?

You may have the greatest product on the planet, but if no one knows about, what good does that do you?

Marketing your product will be key in ensuring that the right people get exposed to your product at the right time. Here’s where it pays to be specific in understanding your target users and coming to them directly in demonstrating your products benefits. Marketing is certainly its own beast to tackle, so consider employing the services of an experienced marketing team to help you create awareness and generate buzz.

 

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