When Passion becomes Purpose
Music was second nature to Mark Brownlee in his adolescence, so much so that it has shaped his career, rendered him an industry advocate and ultimately changed his life. Mark, together with his new wife Vicki, founded Nightlife in 1989 with his best friend and business partner Tim de Souza, driven by his desire to hear great music on a night out. Today Nightlife Music is your number one music subscription service for businesses, curating great music and visuals for bars, hotels, shopping centres, gyms, cruise ships and more all around the world.
Nightlife’s humble beginnings started in Red Hill, Brisbane, where Mark lived with Vicki, listening to their favourite music, attending endless gigs and enjoying their twenties. “We used to go out a lot, and then we would watch MTV when we got home. There were fifty songs you’d watch that you would have given your right arm to have had played at the club that night. We would say it was a good night if we got at least 5 songs.” That’s when Mark birthed his idea of a machine that allowed you to do that. “Obviously the juke box was around, but with the rise of MTV and music videos I wanted to make something where you could have both.” And so Mark got to work designing the first ever video juke box.
Mark studied Engineering at University in Wimbledon and Tim did the same degree in Manchester in the UK. The pair met during their late schooling years in London and have been friends ever since. When Mark told Tim about his plans and that he needed his help to execute them, Tim said it “sounds great” and turned up on a holiday visa six weeks later from England. Tim, who was also an engineer, had worked for large corporates Boeing and Ford and possessed the necessary skill set to manually build the video juke box. Mark’s hand-drawn plan of the circuit board for this model in 1989 is now on display in the Museum of Brisbane.
“It took about 5 or 6 years before we actually started making money.” Persistence, patience and a deep belief in what they did paid off for the Nightlife team. They had their video juke boxes in various bars and venues, with their clients paying a monthly subscription for their service. “Incrementally and organically our business grew, however, just as we started making money the world stopped wanting to use VCRs”.
Despite downfalls such as these, Nightlife has been able to stay relevant and successful over the past 30 years. If anything, the frequently changing technology of our time has been a challenge that Mark has willingly accepted and continually triumphed. This is due to his entrepreneurial and forward-thinking mind, for which he used to employ a combination of things that have always kept Nightlife one step ahead and a major player in the game. This includes the use of a strategic business model and brand values driven by passion and product execution.
Being a subscription-based service since the company’s inception has meant that even while developing new tech to keep up with the trends, they still had revenue. “We were sustained by our subscription model — all we ever had to change was our tech. Same thing, different tech, it’s always been our advantage”. This led to the next evolution — being an entirely user experience driven business. Mark’s passion is for people to share, engage and enjoy music in the most interactive and friendly way possible. “It’s always been easy selling the product because it’s just so good, it’s been about adapting with technology but focusing on the end result and the best user experience. We don’t use tech for tech’s sake”. Our principal has always been to make it easier for people to play better music”. The formula is simple. Tech is their tool for producing the best customer experience possible, period.
These attributes have worked as armour for Nightlife, “at every stage of growth there has been competition”. When asked how they combat the rise of platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play, Mark answered “It’s simple — firstly, we are a business to business service, these platforms are business to consumer, so we are different. But just to be safe — if you can’t beat them. Join them”. And this is precisely what they did. Nightlife is an official partner of Spotify and is working with other leading music services to function alongside them. Their most current venture, crowdDJ, fully integrates with Spotify for music selection to make the service super user friendly. This again comes back to Mark’s passion for making it easier for people to play better music.
When asked what the biggest obstacle for their business has been, Mark elaborated that “it has most definitely been the legislation around music distribution”. Mark’s enthusiasm has evolved over time into new ventures, becoming an industry advocate, fighting music piracy and working with the government to create a new music licensing framework for Australian artists and the Australian music industry. “We’re working with the labels, record companies, artists and the publishers — they are the ones that need to be educated on their rights so that they have the know-how to fight in their own back garden”. Mark is striving to help create a more relevant copyright framework (as it has not been updated since 1968) so that the boom in the music industry benefits Australians, not just the global music industry. “The licensing needs to catch up with the tech — we’re using phenomenal devices and platforms to distribute enormous amounts of music, yet we’re functioning off legislation from back when we only had radio. We have been working with tech for a while, so I think we’re well informed to have a go at this. It’s all about educating the right stakeholders”.
When asked if there were any exciting business ventures for Mark in the future, he elaborated that the business is advancing the opportunity to have Nightlife systems implemented on a fleet of cruise ships. “If all goes well with this, and we pull off the installation, we may end up in the future on a fleet of another few hundred cruise ships and make our entry into the American market”.
The evidence is incontrovertible that Mark is the leader of a successful business. It has kept up with the trends through innovation, open minds and unwavering customer centricity. When asked what advice he would give to someone with a newly formed startup, Mark answered “Two things — firstly, talk to your staff every day and find out what’s in their heads. They probably know more about what’s going on than you. Secondly, talk to your consumers, if not become them. Your user experience should be your top priority”. Nightlife and Mark have survived the never-ending tech tsunamis of the last thirty years, enduring the rise of Apple, Google, Spotify and various other music service competitors when many have not. They must be doing something right. Mark is a testament to staying to true to what you believe in and only changing your tools to make this happen.
Nightlife, a company founded by a guy that just wanted to hear great music when he went out. Now a global enterprise. Dream big! Happy Global Entrepreneurship Week.
