FaveFest: Our journey and what it taught us
In our previous post, we presented our idea about “FaveFest”. Just a quick reminder: Through our services the audience will be able to discover new music artists and vote for them. The most upvoted artists will be featured in the annual FaveFest Festival.
Our start-up has also been an intensive course of entrepreneurship for us. In this article we will explore what we learned, and we will share our tips with our fellow start uppers.
We would like to thank once more Betty Tsakarestou etty Tsakarestou (Professor) and Domnika Skreta (Instructor) for their useful insights and support.
Our project is part of StartupLab by ADandPRLAB at Panteion University and our team (Τhe Marvels) consists of Rebecca Bacharnikou, Maria Kakoliri, Nena Nicolaou, Dimitris Troupos.
- Brainstorming
Our team gathered together in order to come up with an innovative idea that Will make a difference in the music industry. We did our research and we tried to create a startup that would actually help all those music artists who are talented but face a lot of difficulties due to the lack of job opportunities in the music industry.
At first, we thought to make a startup that would book music artists to perform in music stages, restaurants, bars but that idea didn’t really excite us so we rejected it.
After many hours of brainstorming we ended up creating the FAVEFEST, a music festival that only new talented artists would perform live in a big stage and they would become well known through our application and site where they can upload their work and the audience would discover new music tracks and rate their favorite artists to sea them perform live.
2. Research, research, research
Our research consisted of three vital parts. Secondary Research is always the first step because it is the cheaper form of research and there are lots of valuable information out there that are relevant to your idea. Search the web. Which are the basic trends? What does your target group like? International organizations issue analytical reports. You will help your cause immensely if you dig into them.We chose to study The Infinite Dial Surveyand Deezer Survey, because their finding were relevant to our music project.
Competition is a vital part of your research. You need to know if there are direct competitors (businesses that do exactly what you do) and indirect ones. In our case there were no direct competitors.
Last but not least: Primary research. Our customer base consists of artists and the audience. We decided to perform a quantitative research to discover some insights about our target group and understand their needs. We were glad to see thatalthough there are many existing media for artists to promote their work, 3 out of 4 are looking intensively for additional ways to communicate their projects. Additionally, the majority would be willing to invest some money to create a profile in our platform platform. The vast majority were also very keen on participating in a festival where the headliners would be selected by the audience.
A second questionnaire was shared with the audience. All the respondents claimed they are interested in discovering new music. The vast majority said that they would be interested both in an application and a festival for new artists.
3. Who is your customer? Personas & Customer Journey
We target both New unknown artists and people who love discovering New music. That’s why we created two Personas, Petros and Anna. Petros is a young music writer and singer who is ambitious and finally wants to make a living from what he really loves, music. The other persona is Anna, a young student who loves discovering New music tracks and New artists but sometimes finds it Hard.
We analyzed their Customer Journey Map through these stages : awareness, investigation, acquisition, loyalty and completion. From that mapping of their journey we learned a lot of things about how our startup Will engage them and we understood better the cause of this startup and the needs of our customers.
4. Business Model and Value Proposition
We create our Business Model Canvas via Stratygazer. This contains nine basic building blocks: Value Propositions, Customer Relationships, Customer Segments, Channels, Revenue streams, Key Activities, Key Resources, Key Partnerships and Cost Structure.
- Value Propositions: The value proposition provides a unique value of our idea.
“We bring to light exceptionally talented artists and give audience the chance to create their dream festival, based on their music preferences”
- Customer Relationships: The Customer Relationships describe the types of relationships establishes with specific Customer Segments.
- Customer Segments: Customer segments is one of the most significant part in our business model canvas.
Customer Segmentation: Artists (Musicians) & Audience (Music Fan)
- Channels: Channels are about the path that connect the Startup’s services to customers. Our Channels: Website & Application
- Channels: Channels are about the path that connect the Startup’s services to customers
- Revenue streams: Revenue is the amount of money that is brought into our startup company. Our primary Revenue streams: Membership fees, Advertising, Sponsors and ticket sales.
- Key Activities: Any Key Activities play an important role for our startup. Our Key Activities: Software Development & Grow user base
- Key Resources: The main Key Resources of our idea are: Participation & Τalended people
- Key Partnerships: Key Partners are the relationships that we have with other business. The main Partners of our startup are: Production companies, Media / Press and Labels.
- Cost Structure: The main Structure of our startup are Software development and marketing activities.
Value Proposition
We have create two value Proposition maps for every customer segemant.
Value Proposition for Artists (Musician)
Gain: Support, Fame & Recognition, Collaborations, Reliability
Jobs: Collaborate with other musicians, Produce music, Build a music brand name
Pains: Self doubt, The business model in the music industry, Afraid that people are going to steal their work, Few job opportunities
Gain creator: Provide full service music management, Give them the opportunity perform at a music festival
Pain relievels: Broad copyright protection, Promote their work thought platform, Consulting
Product / Services: A usable platform, A wide range of features to create the account profile
Value Proposition for Audience (Music Fan)
Gain: Engage in the music industry, Discover new artists
Jobs: Listen to music, Connect with other music fans
Pains: Difficulty to find new music, The business model in music industry, Low Budget
Gain creator: Providing access to a huge music library, Interaction with artists
Pain relievels: Ability to discover and vote new musicians
Product / Services: A mobile application
5. Monetization
Based on primary research findings and the competitors’ pricing we specified our revenue streams. Our Professor, Betty Tsakarestou, had already emphasized that “An idea doesn’t become a business unless it is financially sustainable”. Our revenue will consist of membership fees, sales of festival tickets and sponsorships.
6. Execution
Τhe stage of execution is really important for our Startup. Through that we visualized our idea and progressed to user testing.
There is a wide range of prototyping software available on the Internet. Nevertheless, we used Tilda (Website) and proto.iο (Application), through which we familiriazed with the principles of web design.
At the same time we applied the heuristic techniques that we were taught during the previous semester, so as to establish a more user friendly experience.
7. Let the users test the prototype.
So, by this point we had developed our prototypes. The reason why lots of start uppers don’t feel very confident to invite users to test their software, is that at this stage websites and apps are mere prototypes. They are not fully functionable and they are far from perfect. However, this is a fear to overcome. Prototypes are meant to be tested by people, otherwise you are not going to get any feedback! A small group of testers will point out both elements that you were already planning to include in the next phase of development and improvements that had never crossed your mind. An important tip is to also perform a usability test of your own. There are articles and free tutorials that will help you anticipate some of the users comments and you can even make some improvements prior to the actual user testing.
8. Convincing them is not the point. The point is to convince them in 4 minutes.
We had put in all the hard work. We believed our idea was fresh and we had ensured that our project included all necessary components. However, the first crash test for any idea is the time you share it with the world, aka pitching. No matter how well-thought your actual project is, you need to be profoundly prepared for the pitching session. Usually, startup eventsdefine a fixed number of minutes for each team to present their idea. Time can be as limited as 4 minutes. In this limited time window teams need to address everything that is important. Why is your idea unique/innovative/fresh? Why is it relevant to customers? What makes you believe it is going to be a success? What is the competition and how are you going to get the first 100 users? Which are your revenue streams? These are some of the questions you need to have answered by the time you wrap up your presentation. Having a good idea is not enough. Investors and judging committees will not be confident to endorse your idea unless your project is well-rounded. The real challenge is to cover all of these points -and then some- in just 4 minutes.
