How Soniq Pivoted without Angering the Investors
By the time you’re done reading this, you won’t be mad. Please don’t be mad. Anyway, brace yourselves, this is gonna be a lengthy one!
Look, I know that y’all’ve been missing my biweekly updates that feature me blabbering about the useful and the useless, but times were turbulent for Soniq. This is not to say that times were bad, but tough? Oh yeah!
From the get-go, we hinted at the fact that we’re sailing into by-and-large unknown waters. Our mission and vision has always been helping musicians get paid and we all know that the common contemporary musician definitely doesn’t get their fair cut.
But this isn’t something new; everyone is aware of this. The biggest issue with this is the same as with any other problem: finding the best possible way to solve it.
There’s one more thing that we hinted at from the get-go. Well, not so much “hinted at” as “blatantly claimed in our white paper”. We unashamedly (huh, this really is a word) told you that we’re going to need your help in accomplishing the Soniq mission. Well, now is the time! Right here, right now we’re going to propose our brand-spanking-new idea that we’ve been working on for a month (hence, the lack of updates) — an online music contest app!
Wait, what about the skills exchange thing?
Don’t worry, the idea of Soniq was never based around coming up with a single product that’s simply going to make the world a better place for the modern-day musician. We vowed to provide many solutions, and the Skills Exchange Platform still remains in our hearts and on our future paths. Unfortunately, with the skills exchange platform, we bit a bit more than we can chew; we loved the taste, but realized that we couldn’t handle it at the moment and in a timely fashion, so we spat it out. Our idea is to build a more viable and, shall I say, lighter product, so that we can afford another bite of the sweet, sweet, juicy, tasty idea that is the skills exchange thing.
Okay, I might’ve gotten lost in this lengthy metaphor, but for those of you who were all like “whaaaaaat the hell is this dude tryin’ to say”, here’s the gist of it:
Every project is like a big old Humvee that nonchalantly guzzles both time and money; things that we, as a non-ICO, completely self-funded project don’t have enough of to throw away. We recognized that our new idea is a significantly more viable, efficient and effective way to round up the music fans and experts. Music fans and experts that will be happy to use the Skills Exchange Platform once we build it.
So what the unholy heaven are we doing?
Soniq Stars! No, we’re not starring anywhere, Soniq Stars! That’s the working title of our new idea! Like it? Hate it? Tell us about it! Anyway, here’s what it’s all about.
Soniq Stars is an idea for a platform and a mobile application where musicians can show off their skills and participate in competitions. These competitions are sponsored by who else, other than yours truly, Soniq, in the flash, but also by other entities. Why would anyone want to participate? Well, in addition to being a fun, exposure-generating experience, the rewards are given out in the shape of our freshly-minted SONIQ token!
The gist
We realized that people enjoy music talent shows like the Voice and the American Idol. We asked around, did a couple of surveys and we realized that people want an online, mobile-based version of these shows. This is exactly what Soniq Stars wants to become. An app that will enable the user to swipe through an Instagram-like story feed and watch the competitors perform, react and vote. In some or all phases of the competition, the voting will be performed using the SONIQ token — think of it as our take on the traditional SMS voting.
Votes will be limited in some way, specified by the rules and the phase of the given competition.
The looks
You can expect that we have a lot of great role models for our upcoming app’s aesthetics (*coughs* Instagram *coughs*), but, unfortunately, we don’t have any mock-ups to show you at the moment. What we do have is this god-awful work of unholiness (painted by yours truly) that is nowhere near an accurate depiction of our design-to-be.
The contests
Contests will be theme based. Stop looking at the that failed abortion of a piece of art to the left. What was I saying? Yeah, contests will be theme based (as in singing, guitar, piano, etc.), time-limited and ran in multiple phases.
The contest sponsors (us or other entities) are the ones who specify the reward pool, of course, in SONIQ.
As for the participants, well, and this is the best part, they can join any contest for free! I mean, asking money from musicians would be kinda counter-intuitive for a company that claims that they want to help musicians get paid as their mission! Participation in Soniq Stars contests is also as easy as uploading a new story on Instagram!
Naturally, the uploaded content will be moderated in some way, at the beginning manually and moving towards automation as our user base grows. This is necessary in order to prevent posting of inappropriate content.
The business model
After all and before anything else we are a team of professionals. We aren’t business freshmen; this isn’t our first rodeo; we’ve been around the block more then once; okay that’s enough. As entrepreneurship veterans, we know that circulation of a currency is what gives it life… hey, sharks are like that too, money is like shar… god damn it, focus! Anyway, here’s how we aim to achieve a circulating supply of our dearly beloved SONIQ.
The viewers
First of all, the main benefit for the viewer will be that he or she will be able to enjoy Soniq Stars from anywhere and at any time. No more waiting for the new American Idol episodes to air. Secondly, the viewers aren’t fed what the show producers want them to gobble up — you can watch singing competitions, guitar competitions, drumming competitions, hell, even yodeling, if that rocks your boat (provided that there’s a similar contest active).
Now, an exciting part — we are exploring the option to allow you to earn SONIQ on a daily basis by voting, commenting, reacting and promoting talents that you are a fan of. Over time, you’ll build your profile and rep and unlock access to more exclusive and more profitable events!
The contenders
As for the contenders, their access will be free. We let the artists do what they want to do the most, perform music, one way or another. As a contender, you’ll be able to earn daily by participating in multiple events, build your profile and rep to gain access to more exclusive events and win bigger rewards.
Yet another free bonus: by participating, you’re getting exposure, promoting yourself and building your fan base. Pretty cool, huh?
The sponsors
The Soniq Stars helps the sponsors find the best talent out there that can help them get the best fitting voice/guitar solo/whatever for whatever you may need. You may be a musician that has a cool tune that needs a kickass guitar solo. Well, invest your SONIQ, create a competition and find that perfect musician (a bit of spirit from the skills exchange idea).
Of course, the sponsors can promote their events and earn based on success metrics.
Everyone gets the chance to have fun, earn and find musicians to collaborate with.
The pivot
Phew! Ain’t that something! We’re working on slightly modifying our white paper so that it better captures our vision; nothing major, mind you. We are working on updating the road maps on our website, as well as in the white paper and the brand-new Soniq Stars web page is under construction — expect it by the end of this month.
Now it’s your turn. We need your help, as our community. We need your ideas, suggestions, your critique! Do you like the Soniq Stars idea? Do you hate it? Do you have some tips? Share with us. Talk to us. We aren’t that stupid to ignore our community!
Oh, and bear in mind that this is our vision of the product-to-be, and visions tend to change over time, as they become clearer. The only thing we can say for certain right now is that we’re working hard on building a talent show platform, because we like to underpromise and overdeliver!
