From 0 to Launch in 4 Days
Meet SecretSet. We connect fans with artists in exclusive and unique ways. Here is how we built and launched our SXSW Music Hack in 4 days.
Day 1
Tuesday, 3:00pm — Wednesday, 3:00pm
Time to build, but what?
As music fans ourselves, we thought a lot about what it means to have a great experience and what we liked about music. However, after listening to artists share their experiences and problems during the SXSW music hackathon kickoff, we realized the core problem we wanted to tackle.
We all agreed to go after the commerce category, if we came up with a new business model that artists liked, and it didn’t piss off fans, then we had a pretty good idea.
Can artists make money outside of selling concert tickets, swag, and albums?
Good question! So, we asked Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and learned that there were a lot of activities that artists do everyday, that us fans (super fans?) would pay to experience.
Listening parties, happy hour, jam sessions, collaboration/remix work, launch parties, and even secret/private sets.
We decided to explore the idea of small, impromptu shows with limited invites aka a secret set. Being in the know had a unique quality in itself, where local fans could enjoy a live show, while virtual fans could watch a livestream.
Hey! It looks like we have something to build!
Running with this, we settled on four guiding principles:
- Artists need novel ways to reach out to their fans.
- Fans want more intimate experiences with artists.
- Artists need new ways to monetize.
- Artists need ways to evaluate fans’ sentiments.
Armed with a firm idea and direction, we set out to build the app. After 24 hours, and way too much caffeine, we created a decent iOS build following the D.O.P.E. method.
It was now time to show our app to the judges… And the winner is? Us! We won the exact prize we set out to claim. Okay… so, now what?
Day 2
Thursday
After winning the hackathon, we became part of the inaugural SXSW Incubator run by Travis Laurendine. The incubator had one goal:
Get your product off the ground and into the hands of users.
We only had 3 days left before SXSW was over. We came to a quick realization that to validate that our idea was viable, we would need to prove that we could get fans to connect with their favorite artists through SecretSet. One problem: our app was only on Test Flight and an iOS app review would take more than 3 days. Knowing that we couldn’t get our app into the hands of actual users to test, we decided on a clever solution.
SMS is something all of our users have, so why not just use Twilio?!
Bingo! So, we split up, one worked on the SMS infrastructure and the others went out to get us our first artist. They went show to show, and after a band got off stage, they tried their best to get some face time, pitch our idea, and listen for feedback. We quickly realized we where on to something special. Artists were hyped! However, it was all about timing and most were leaving Austin the same day or leaving before we had time to organize their secret set.
Luckily, we found two who were willing and able! Mar|co and Demi Louise. Now we just needed a venue…
Getting tired and pretty drunk… let’s call it a night.
Day 3
Friday
SMS was up and running! We had a phone number that people could text and receive details on a secret set. We had a small list of venues we wanted to approach. We hit up our number one spot: Paperboy. Lucky us, they were on board! Better make sure this is legal, though, so we called our lawyer friend…
Oh, just keep the music down and don’t start a riot… got it!
Once we had the artists, the venue, and the app: we had to push it to the people!
Social Media was buzzing, we were buzzing… so we could finally enjoy SXSW before our first SecretSet the next day.
Day 4
Saturday @ 11:30am — 2:00pm
Weather turned out to be fantastic! Well, it was a little windy. We showed up to Paperboy a bit early to make sure we were prepared. Then, Mar|co showed up (WOW… THIS MAY HAPPEN) and as they prepared for the set, people began showing up.
Set goes amazingly and Mar|co was SO good! Paperboy’s owner approached us after:
We are going to do this all the time!
We started to prepare for the next set with Demi, however, we had planned on an acoustic set. The wind was picking up and it was really hard to hear. After some discussion, we decided to cancel the set. We had no proper gear, and she had another show in 2 hours. However, she was able to meet the fans in person and I think that’s what SecretSet is really about.
Artists and Fans hanging out.
After all was done, it was finally time to sit back and understand what we had just gone through. 4 days going non-stop from building, deploying, pitching, listening, drinking, dancing, walking (LOTS), and celebrating.
What an amazing experience for our team and hopefully for the artists and fans that used SecretSet, too. We think this was the start of something special.
— DOPE.team
Special thanks to Travis, Mar|co, Demi, Paperboy, Jigar & Ritesh Patel, SXSW Music and everyone else who made this happen.
