Q&A with Sonalytic
Sonalytic are unlocking billions of pounds of non monetised digital content with a technology that is hundreds of thousands times faster than the current solution. See them pitch at the Imperial Showcase on April 27th.
What was the point of inspiration for your innovation?
It’s clear to all of us that the current trajectory of the music industry is dire. Even though people are listening to more music than ever before, the associated revenues have been in sustained decline for more than a decade. Ultimately, artists — and particularly smaller, independent artists — are losing out, to the extent it’s necessary for many musicians to work a second job to fund their passion. We believe that by helping to monetize music in new and innovative ways, this broken model can be fixed. Music is our passion, and we truly believe that technological innovations can be the solution to this difficult problem.
How did you come together as a team?
John and Ben have worked together in their company Juno Media for almost 20 years. Thomas and Martin met in Berlin in 2014. After a period of remote collaboration and endless Skype conversations, we finally all decided to take the plunge and locate ourselves in London at the beginning of 2016. We haven’t looked back!
What has your journey been since then? How has the VCC helped?
The central theme of our journey has been understanding the problems and needs of the many interacting parts of the digital music puzzle. Why are existing solutions failing? What actions have existing platforms taken to help fix these issues? Where do record labels fit into the picture? And what do artists want? The core message that we’ve taken from the VCC is that finding solutions to these problems requires going out into the field to conduct first-hand research. We’ve learned to structure these “customer learning” interviews in ways that ensure we receive honest and reliable answers, to communicate, digest and understand our findings, and to design and implement our business strategies according to what we’ve learned from these first-hand interactions. We’ve also learned an enormous amount about the technical and legal aspects of founding our company, building a world-class team, and securing funding from external investors.
