Lesson from early in 2016
The past few months were very interesting and we learned a lot of things. Like all early stage startups, we want to do a lot with our very limited ressources. Furthermore, nobody knows us, nobody waits for us, and since the beginning of the project we had 10 000 ideas of features, we imagined several revenu models, thinking that people would love Social Symphony and would pay for it… Most of these features and ideas were bad. But thanks to our passion and because we are aware enough about our limits and our potential, we constantly learn about approvals and rejections and above all, even if most people don’t say it: it’s ok to work in the shadow. Failure and success are part of life and we learned to deal with that.
Let’s talk about the last news
Lesson: dreams and cool stuffs are great but investors want money back
In january we were selected to talk about Social Symphony at NUMA (famous french incubator based in Paris, Belgalore, Casablanca, Moscow and recently Barcelona). 648 startups applied and around 100 (I guess) were invited to pitch their project. Finally 17 were selected and we are not part of them.
We were not selected but members of the jury were very excited about the app and they download it during Q/A part of the meeting. Like everybody who use Social Symphony for the 1st time: in less than 10 secs jury of NUMA created an harmonious music with a beautiful smile in their face :) It was a real surprise for us when we read their email but we were not angry or dispointed. I asked why and NUMA sent us the feedback of the jury. Basically it was:
- The team: 👍
- The product: 👍
- The business model: 😶….??
We realized (I mean “truly”) that passion only is not enough when you want to build a business and we were not very clear when we (I) talked about business model. Ok no prob, we will work on it! 😊
New core and angels
We want Social Symphony to be faster, more modern and fully compatible with all the recent iPhone models.
Like we said in our last newsletter (don’t hesitate to subscribe and you’ll received private beta versions of the app!), we decided to completely rewrite Social Symphony using SpriteKit (that is mostly used by mobile game industry). First of all, we want to make the same app (without more features) with the new core. Next features will be added later: “step by step” like these great philosophers said 😛
Today a great design is crucial (more than before and above all when we talk about mobile/web app for customers). At Social Symphony we didn’t have designers in the team, and we don’t have the money to hire one. We had to find a solution. Tiffany, a very creative and good friend of mine, asked me if I would be interested to work with students in UI/UX at ECV Digital, a new kind of digital school based in Paris, on the design of Social Symphony. Last december, 9 groups of students proposed their vision of Social Symphony and honestly, their proposals were absolutely brillants and it was very hard for us to choose only one team.
Finally, since mid january, we work on the interface of the next version of Social Symphony, with a team of three designers (three women, yes!!! I always thought that a good team must have a good mix of men and women).
In this next version (we hope to release it by the end of march), you’ll be able to create music adding 8 samples even in the smallest screens! Plus, a free reggae pack (jamaican style)!
We struggle to accomplish our dream to offer you the best music maker app of the world, but you’re worth it!
If you enjoyed this article, please click that little green heart below. That would be incredible.
you can also subscribe to Social Symphony publications on Medium:
Thanks for reading, if you want to drop me a message please do it : http://socialsymphonyapp.com
