MSC Rendezvous || Rachel Evatt, Aroundsound
In 2018 July, we launched a large-scale coworking hub to support Budapest-based startups. We like to launch early and learn fast. The first teams moved in even before the construction was ready. We are more than grateful to have our Beta Community on board, and we would like you to meet them too.
How did you get into tech?
I studied engineering at Oxford, then got my masters degree from Princeton. Then I worked for a few years as a consultant. Later, I tried out “the other side of the table” when I worked for a VC, before launching my first startup, Zoombu. It was later acquired by Skyscanner, and for the next 7 years I stayed there as Product Director and in growth and ops related roles, before starting to work on Aroundsound.
What is Aroundsound?
Aroundsound is the “Instagram of sound”. It is a place where you can capture, edit and share audio recordings. We’ve come about this because we noticed audio is a very distinct way of capturing the world around you. A very different experience compared to video and picture. It’s not invasive, because you can hit record without being forced to look into a camera and close yourself into a frame, and it’s much easier to stay authentic. Listening back and viewing the content is also interesting, it’s a 3D experience. Also, we are very interested in audio because there is a lot of focus on voice-controlled home devices such as Alexa and Google Home.
How far are you?
We released an Android version for early adopters, in parallel we work on the iOS app. We’d like to have to have it on both platforms before we start to push it because we want to build a community and we need to serve both Android and iOS users. We expect to launch them in the fall, then we will run some growth experiments.
Tell me a little bit about the team!
My Co-Founder and I had worked together at my first startup and then at Skyscanner. Ian is a great engineer, a great developer and we have quite complementary skill sets. We started to play around with the idea a while back, and now we’ve raised a seed round. Part of the round came through Mark Logan, who was the COO at Skyscanner, and we’re more than happy to have him on board. The investment allowed us to grow our company.
As you know, members of the core team — who previously also worked with us at Skyscanner — are based in Budapest and work from Millenaris Startup Campus.
We have a little #skyscannermafia here now. Many of your previous colleagues are launching new startups from here. We believe this kind of “knowledge circulation” is essential to growing an ecosystem.
I absolutely agree. For example, we participated in Seedcamp with my first startup. It was essential for us, not just because of the great mentoring and advice we got, but because of the connections we built with other startups and peers. Sharing and talking about your challenges with people who are in a similar situation and solving similar problems with the help of others’ experience is invaluable. Virtual and physical communities — like MSC — are crucial for an ecosystem. You need a space to hold meetups and share knowledge. There is a lot of energy that comes from being around ambitious people.
