Feedback app for aspiring musicians wins Startup Weekend Adelaide

A web platform to connect amateur musicians to professional reviewers has taken out top honours at whirlwind start-up building event Startup Weekend Adelaide.

Musio will be a web, tablet and mobile app and allows musicians to upload their music and share it privately with professional reviewers.

Founder Mal Chia told StartupSmart that he and co-founder Oli Young had been tossing around the idea for a while.

“It’s something that has been germinating between Oli and myself, and we’ve been talking about it for a few months. So the StartUp Weekend, we looked at as a springboard, and the kick-in-the-arse we needed to go and do it,” Chia says.

They recruited team members Luke Scholefield, who got the iOS prototype running, and Joseph Marafioti, who refined the user experience and interface, at the weekend.

The user pays per review, with reviewers setting their own rate and Musio taking 15%. Chia says while the rates will differ, most of the musicians and reviewers he’s spoken to agree the likely cost will range between $35 and $50.

Chia says he had the idea for the service a few years ago.

“I spent 10 years of my life producing music and this was the biggest problem I had, struggling to get quality feedback. I’d get to a point where I didn’t know how to make it any better, but the feedback I’d get from friends and peers wasn’t enough for me to able to do anything with it,” Chia says.

The team plan to launch Musio in six to eight weeks. Young will focus on developing the technology, and Chia will recruit musicians on “both sides of the coin”.

“The idea is pretty simple, but the strength of the idea is the reviewers. So a lot of our time and attention will be spent on nurturing that community of reviewers,” Chia says, adding they’ve already got some excellent artists on board.

“We’re going to be starting first in the electronic music scene, mainly because that’s the industry I know best and have the best connections in. But it’s also about market size, that’s the scene most ripe for this with the rate of bedroom producing skyrocketing all over the world,” Chia says.

Musio plans to be global from day one, and Chia’s already liaising with people in the UK to ensure they develop an international cohort of reviewers.