Radio by the people, for the people
The advent of on-demand music streaming technology is incredible.
Enabled by mobile devices, we now have instant access to the world’s entire catalogued history of music. It’s completely reversed the rapid decline of the music industry, created a market valued over $100 Billion, and in its wake changed the way we listen to music forever.
But what if I told you music streaming was just the tip of the iceberg?
What if I told you that there are ways to listen to music that you’ve never experienced. What if I told you that on-demand music streaming was actually the foundation for a new future where we get to listen with anyone anytime and shape the music played around us.
Problem
Since their advent, music streaming services have long sought to personalize the user experience by adapting to each user’s specific preferences. While this personalization has led to fantastic algorithmically curated playlists, it has unfortunately led to a listening experience that is siloed and devoid of cross-user feedback loops.
Why
Music is a social art form, best when shared and consumed by the masses. Today, native sharing and communication features are nonexistent within the world’s biggest music streaming platforms. If there were a system that enabled the billions of global music streamers to listen and share music together it could facilitate billions of dollars in new economic activity.
How
The two most frequently used types of applications are music and communication apps. For this example, we’re going to use Snapchat as a comparable because they employ a similar framework to accomplish a similar goal of enhancing communication. Snapchat made communication easier by adding tools to the camera. By reimagining what the camera could be, they designed distribution channels for photos and videos to actually act as mediums of communication. Brassroots does the same with music. By adding tools to the music player, we are effectively creating dynamic communication mediums around music content. The best place for communication with music is a music app, period. Every other system that has attempted music communication has failed because their platform becomes secondary to the music listening experience itself. Simply put, users have to leave non-music apps to play the music they discover.
Until now, we’ve never seen a complete music streaming application fully commit to facilitating communication at scale. People shared photos before and after Snapchat, just as people will continue to share music after Brassroots. The key metric for Snap is how much more people share images with the introduction of their technology which streamlines the process. Unique modalities, such as ‘Selfies’ are now a ubiquitous action due to reimagining the camera. Brassroots reimagines the music player, by focusing on streamlining the native processes, creating utility, and totally unique opportunities for value.
Vision
A complete music streaming platform where users can listen to music together, synchronously in-real-time, share music asynchronously in group chats with their friends, and easily create collaborative playlists for any occasion. Brassroots is the new radio where anybody can be a DJ for anybody in the world, all you have to do is press play.
The Brassroots Platform is built on 3 Principles
- Anyone can listen to any song, anywhere, with anyone
- Crowdsourced sessions are better than autonomous stations
- Music is best shared on a music app
Feature Comparison
Preliminary Research
Business Model
User Flows
