Giggo- can three guys from Italy disrupt the London live music scene?

What can three guys from Italy do to the London live music scene? The answer is: improve it, modernize it, and totally disrupt it!

Marco Santesso from Belluno, near the famous Cortina D’ampezzo (‘’Haven’t you heard about Cortina? We had Winter Olympics there in the fifties!’’), Alessandro Vidal (‘’I am half Venetian, but I live in Padova, it’s the city in the heart of Veneto, the famous Italian region) and Oscar Simon Chu Ortega (‘’I grew up in Italy, but I am from Buenos Aires in Argentina. My father is Chinese and my mother is Peruvian’’) — them three are going to introduce Giggo to London, and next to the world, to revolutionise the local and international music market.

Giggo is an app that connects musicians and DJs with gig venues and organisers in three easy steps:

1. Artists and Hosts create their profiles.

2. Hosts create events, onto which Artists can apply.

3. Hosts find their perfect match — the gig is booked!

We’ve invited Marco, Alessandro and Oscar to ucreate office in London, Aldgate to find out more about what they are up to.

‘’We had the same idea at the same time but in two different places.’’ — Marco starts to tell the story of how Giggo came together. Just after finishing high school, Marco — a young pianist/guitarist at that time — used to organise gigs and even Euro tours through MySpace. ‘’This is when I thought: why isn’t there any online unified platform where musicians could specifically connect with concerts’ organisers?’’ He did not have the resources back then, but he kept the idea — and few years later, in London, he met Alessandro Vidal, the musician with lots of experience in playing live in Camden and North London pubs.

‘’We had mutual friends, who knew that we have something in common.’’ — says Alessandro. ‘’When I moved to London and told my flatmate about my idea for a platform for musicians, he said: This sounds familiar! You need to meet someone!’’ This is how Alessandro and Marco met in the pub. And decided to set up a business together. ‘’And Oscar is Alessandro’s friend from uni — he joined us when we realised we need someone to help us with marketing and social media. This guy doesn’t play any musical instruments though’’ — Marco laughs.

At the moment Giggo team is growing. ‘’We have an amazing designer, who is a good friend of mine and also we work closely with developers; one of them is a friend of Oscar. We like to work with our close, trusted network’’. — explains Marco. ‘’I was so happy to put the right team together’’ — says Alessandro. ‘’So you need to get the right people, you need to get along. You definitely need to have the right skills and various skills, so you know, everyone can fill the gaps, and we managed to do that’’ — he adds. ‘’The team is everything’’ — says Marco firmly and Oscar adds: ‘’Actually, the first thing which investors look at, is not the idea — it is the team.’’

When is Giggo going to approach investors? ‘’Well, at the moment the app is in the alpha version, but the iOS app is going to be submitted to the Apple Store in next coming weeks’’ — says Alessandro. ‘’It was so exciting for me to see the app icon on my phone screen’’ — Marco grins. ‘’As soon as we are ready with the beta version, we are simultaneously going to launch our kickstarter campaign for crowdfunding. We are going to get the funds to actually develop the new Android app and the website, and then we will approach some other sources of investments. We want to focus on crowdfunding first, because we want to prove to potential investors that we managed to get the funds through kickstarter and show them the positive track and therefore be more appealing for them for future investments.’’ — explains Oscar. ‘’Then we are going to implement different marketing strategies’’. — Giggo’s social media mastermind (the one who doesn’t play any instruments, though) continues: ‘’We are going to implement various strategies, from door to door to e-mail marketing’’. Alessandro simplifies: ‘’We are planning to send messages on Facebook to music bands, musicians and artists to let them know about the app, whereas the venues we are going to go and visit face to face to tell them about the opportunity that the app brings.’’

They are very hopeful about the benefits that the app will bring to the live music world. ‘’Music is our passion. We are musicians, and we just want to play! We are so going to use the app once it’s ready, we can’t wait’’ — say Marco and Alessandro. Whereas Oscar is backing their hopes with the pre-done research: ‘’The venues are gonna use this app to increase their revenues. We found studies proving that a pub having one live music session a week may increase their revenue on a weekday up to £350 and up to £650 on a weekend!’’ Another research that Oscar has been sincerely excited about is interviewing venues: bars, pubs and clubs, and also musicians. ‘’We asked the whole target segment, and we discovered that everyone was very hyper about the app! About 95% out of the people that we interviewed admitted they would actually use the app. We realized that actually, it may gonna work!’’

They believe that the live music industry here in London is like nowhere else. ‘’It is the best market-place for our app.’’ — says Oscar. — ‘’Not only because of the high availability of the music venues and bands, but also because there is a right infrastructure for startups; in terms of looking for co-working space, availability of funding, and of course talent. Probably, there is no other place in Europe that may provide all these factors together in one place.’’ When I ask them, would it be possible to set up a similar startup in Italy, they laugh. ‘‘In Italy it would cost thousands of pounds to set up a company and it would take us ages’’ — they explain. ‘’Here, it costed us 18 pounds and took us a couple of hours to set up a limited company. Then we waited another two weeks for a registration number. Incredibly easy!’’ — says Alessandro.

Nevertheless, they don’t want to limit themselves to the London market only. ‘’We can expand in any country where live music is part of the culture” — says Oscar. — ‘’all the Anglo Saxon countries, places like Canada, Australia, United States, New Zealand, but also the whole Europe and Asia. I lived in the States and travelled around Asia too and I realised that as well as in US, also in the countries like Japan, South Korea or China live music is huge! Everyone loves karaoke!’’ — he laughs and says: ‘’As soon as we get some investments, we will start pushing the product out onto other international markets, we will expand.’’

‘’And not only that…’’ — starts Alessandro and Marco finishes: ‘’We can extend it to other performing arts as well!’’ The app in the eyes of its founders has huge potential and can also be of great use for comedians, dancers, etc. ‘’If this one works, there could be a platform for every type of performing arts’’ — says Marco. ‘’This is a possibility’’ — Alessandro admits.

The app could also give the unique possibility of getting a music band to let’s say your private birthday party in a backyard, or a garden. ‘’Or a wedding’’ — adds Oscar and he laughs — ‘’ I reached an age where I have friends getting married. I know the struggle of finding a band or a DJ, and I think that Giggo can make things easier for them.’’

With Giggo, you can throw out a party in any space, private or public. Be it your own living room, or a small Italian restaurant that requires someone to play guitar around the tables on a Valentines Day — Giggo makes it possible and simple.

What has been the biggest challenge for these young startup founders so far? ‘’Time management’’ — says Marco who apart from setting up the exciting new company has a full time office job at Rocket Internet Ventures. ‘’We have to be masters of multitasking’’ — laughs Oscar and adds: ‘’We are young, so we just do it. Basically, we don’t sleep’’.

‘’We don’t sleep!’’ — echoes Marco.

‘’And we play’’ — says Alessandro.

Written by: Sara Komaiszko