Posts from Music

Many people who follow tech know that Spotify has filed a complaint with the European Commission regarding the challenges that Spotify has doing business in the iOS app store.

I am very sympathetic to Spotify’s complaint. In my post last week on The Warren Breakup Plan, I wrote:

The mobile app stores, in particular, have always seemed to me to be a constraint on innovation vs a contributor to it.

Spotify has a huge user base and brings in billions of dollars of revenues every year but it has a challenging business model. Let’s say that 70cents of every dollar they bring in goes to labels and artists. That seems fair given that the artists are the ones producing the content we listen to on Spotify. But if they also have to share 30cents of every dollar with Apple, that really does not leave them much money to build and maintain their software, market to new users, pay for servers and bandwidth, and more.

You might say “well that’s what they signed up for” and you would be right except that their number one competitor is Apple. So their number one competitor does not pay the 30% app store fee, meaning that they have a competitive advantage.

But this is about more than money. If you look at the web page Spotify put up to explain how challenging it has been to do business with Apple, you will see numerous instances of Apple not approving app upgrades.

We see this with our portfolio companies a fair bit too. Apple has complete control over what gets into their app stores and what does not. And the process can be arbitrary and frustrating. But that is how it works and our portfolio companies are reluctant to make any noises publicly for fear of making their situation with Apple even worse.

I am not a fan of Warren’s idea of breaking up companies like Apple.

I like my partner Albert’s ideas better which he expressed in a tweet last week:

A better set of policies to restore competition in the digital age would be (1) consumer right to API access (2) consumer right to side load apps (3) restored ability for small companies to go public / sensible regulation of crypto currencies. https://t.co/4bOFTnZ5NK

— Albert Wenger (@albertwenger) March 12, 2019

If it was the law of the land that any company could side load any application onto the iPhone or any iOS device, including third party app stores, we would have a much more competitive market with a lot more innovation, and Spotify would not have to go to the European Commission to deal with this nonsense.

This is the kind of Kickstarter project I really like. Small, offbeat, and totally awesome. I just backed it this morning.

Our portfolio company SoundCloud launched an important new feature today. Distribution.

There are plenty of services a musician can use to get their music onto the major streaming music services. There has been CDBaby, TuneCore, DistroKid, and many more. So why do musicians need another option?

Because if you grow up on SoundCloud, starting in your bedroom or parent’s basement, and you have all your music there, it is nice to be able to send some of it, or all of it, to Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Spotify, Tencent, and many more.

This service is free if you have a SoundCloud Pro or Pro Unlimited account.

Here’s the value proposition (from SoundCloud’s blog post):

With the first and only distribution tool built directly into a streaming platform, you can think of your SoundCloud account as mission control for your music: the only place where you can share tracks instantly, connect with your fans, manage your content, and get paid for your plays – everywhere. Simply choose from your uploaded tracks and albums and distribute to all major music services while keeping 100% of your rights and payouts (we take nothing) and getting streamlined payments directly from SoundCloud.

I am excited to see this launch as it is a key piece of SoundCloud’s position in the market, as the place creators go to start sharing their music, and stay to manage it as they grow their fan bases and careers.

I backed this documentary project on Kickstarter this week:

This film is about a bunch of things that get me going; entrepreneurship, the unlikely winner, rock, reggae, and live music.

I can’t wait until it is made and I can watch it.

I’ve written about this Android feature before. I am a bit obsessed about it.

When you are in a place where music is playing, the Android operating system notifies you what is “now playing.”

I have two things I would love to know how to do with this information.

1/ Access it via an API so I can favorite it in my preferred streaming service (which is SoundCloud but Spotify and Apple Music would be great too).

2/ See the history someplace on the web so I can search it by time, place, artist, song, etc.

This is an example of where taking an app like Shazam or Soundhound and turning it into a feature in the operating system can open up a lot of potential additional functionality.

At the Code Media conference a few months, Peter Kafka interviewed Kerry Trainor, CEO of our portfolio company SoundCloud.

It’s a great conversation about the past and future of SoundCloud and also the past and future of the music business.

Sonos priced it’s initial public offering last night at $15/share and will start trading today under the ticker SONO.

I am very fond of this company and the products it makes. The Gotham Gal and I are surely one of the company’s best customers.

I am not an investor in Sonos, nor is USV, and this post is not a recommendation to purchase the stock. It is a love letter to the company.

The love affair started twelve years ago, in March of 2006.

The marketing folks at Sonos reached out to me and suggested that they sponsor the music picks I used to run on the sidebar on the AVC blog.

I said yes and Sonos ads started appearing on the AVC blog that month.

I also received a test unit and reviewed the Sonos product here on AVC later that month.

A year later, I visited Sonos at their headquarters in Santa Barbara California.

Over the years, we have purchased so many Sonos devices that I have lost count. We use them everywhere.

I have also written about Sonos dozens of times here at AVC.

There have been many attempts to build a home music device that is better than Sonos.

They have all failed.

It is possible that Apple will get it right with the HomePod.

But they haven’t done that yet.

And even if they do, we will likely stay with Sonos as it works so well for us and we have them everywhere.

And now Sonos is a public company. Well played Sonos.

Speaking of doing things on our phones, I made this playlist on my phone on the train ride into NYC yesterday morning.

It was inspired by the Donald Glover/Childish Gambino track of the same name that kicks off the playlist.

I got off the train into a steamy NYC and I’m gonna need this playlist to get through the week.

Maybe you will too.

Dylan is a musician, an entrepreneur, a hacker, and a geek. That’s quite a combination and a good one at that.

He’s come up with a better way for live musicians to play their back tracks without the need for a computer and lots of cables.

It is called The Backtrack Box and he’s raising funds to manufacture it on Kickstarter.

I backed this project earlier this week and think it is the perfect Kickstarter project; creative, unique, and something that should exist in the world.