Speed dating our ideas

Week 3 | March 19-March 23 | Speed Dating

After narrowing in on an audience at spending some time doing research with musicians, this week we focused on exploring specific services we can offer to amateur musicians.

Scenario Planning

After some brainstorming we came up with 4 distinct services related to providing resources to local musicians and created storyboards for each one.

Scenario 1: AirBnB for Practice Space

This service would let businesses and individuals with unused space rent it out to musicians looking for places to practice.

Scenario 2: Performance Opportunities

This service would partner new musicians looking for a low pressure place to perform with local businesses looking to have live music.

Scenario 3: Podcast Reviews

This service would locate local, on-the-rise musicians and ask them to host a podcast where they review the work of musicians in their area.

Scenario 4: Tinder for musicians

This service would help musicians discover new band mates/practice partners and spaces for gigs.

Speed Dating

On Thursday we did a round of speed dating with our four scenarios. We showed our scenarios to a group of 4 classmates.

Overall we got the most feedback on Scenario 1 (AirBnB for practice space) and Scenario 4 (Tinder for bandmates and gigs.) We were a bit surprised as these were the two we thought had the least potential. The one we had felt most excited about was Scenario 2 (opportunities to perform at local businesses) but our speed daters said that existing methods already made it rather easy to find gigs (especially if no payment is requested.)

Scenario 1: AirBnB for Practice Space

• Finding a space to practice really is a current challenge
• It would be good if spaces had amps and other equipment because transporting these things is a pain
• Rather than a one time transaction, having a continuing relationship with the space provider would be preferred
• Rather than a space to practice it could be good to rent a space for a small concert

Scenario 2: Performance Opportunities

• The barriers to getting a first gig isn’t really that hard. This isn’t solving a musician pain point.
• Getting a recurring gig is the difficult part

Scenario 3: Podcast Reviews

• Getting human recommendations on local gigs or musician instead of computer generated ones is really compelling
• There’s a nice crossover of people who listen to podcasts and people who play/listen to music. Could help get a larger audience.
• Having multiple hosts or guest host could mix things up and make it more interesting

Scenario 4: Tinder for musicians

• Finding bandmates that are a good personality fit is a real struggle for musicians. This is a good area to focus on.
• Instead of discovering gigs for businesses it might be more interesting to find gigs for individuals (ex: birthday parties.) This is an area that is not currently marketed and might have more spur of the moment need (and therefore work better for discovery apps.

Next Steps

Although the podcast service was not the most popular through speed dating it is one our team is interested and want to explore further. However we acknowledge that the podcast in itself is probably not enough of a service.

We want to explore combining a few of our scenarios to create a more holistic service. Some opportunities we would like to explore is renting spaces for performances (rather than practice), building local musician communities, and creating a platform for local artist to give reviews and make recommendations.