by Dave Mainella

One of the promising young companies to make an appearance at this past week’s TechCrunch Disrupt was Vinylmint, an online service aimed at facilitating digital collaboration between music professionals.  Headed by CEO and producer Byron Morgan, Vinylmint can serve as an online home base where audio can be uploaded and musicians can meet, resulting in inspired musical collaborations from around the world.

Dave Mainella had the chance to talk with Bryon Morgan on the behalf of SoundCtrl…

SoundCtrl – What did you think of the TechCrunch Disrupt experience?

Byron Morgan – I thought TechCrunch was awesome.  For us, one of the youngest companies participating in the battlefield, it was great exposure.  We got about 400 people to sign up to the site.  We got a ton of fan fare on Twitter.  I even had a woman ask me to marry her.

SC – Did you say yes?

BM – No.  I don’t know if my girlfriend would like that.

SC – When was Vinylmint’s launch?

BM – We officially launched May 21st.  We’ve had people signing up for our early access period for about a month.

SC – Are you looking to secure funding?

BM - Yes, we’re looking to raise about $1 million in the next 18 months.  Preferably $500k before we enter an accelerated program this summer, and hopefully another $500k to $750k after the accelerated.

SC – By what means?

BM – Basically angel funds at the moment.  Due to the TechCrunch event, we’ve built relationships with VC firms, but those relationships will probably be fostered at a later date.  Early on we’re looking at some angel funds.

SC - Who is the Vinylmint targeted user?  Music producers like yourself?

BM – I definitely see music producers as a part of the community.  But to create music, there are multiple people that participate in the process.  They include musicians, songwriters, amateurs, engineers, and people like myself who are arrangers of the music.  I see Vinylmint as a way for music professionals to find one another, and possibly for talent agencies to find and communicate with new talent.

SC – I’ve read that you’re working on a “discovery aspect” of Vinylmint.  What might that entail?

BM – One of the big features we’re working on is being able to find others through the types of recordings and sounds they create.  Through the development of a sound library, people will be able to socially collaborate through the content they create.  It’s a new way of discovering one another, rather than actually just finding someone through a profile.  And then through that discovery, individuals can then read up on the people creating the content and invite them to sessions accordingly.

SC – When you’re talking about a global scale, that can be pretty impressive and comprehensive.

BM -  Absolutely.  Just think about it.  You find a cellist from Japan who’s creating a crazy sound, then you have a Nigerian vocalist who’s creating a new style of singing.  Just imagine the sounds you could get from connecting those two.  You’re generating brand new sounds, and brand new ways to think about music, to think about creativity in general.

SC – How do you generate revenue?

BM – We have a Freemium model, and then subscription tiers following.  You get a certain amount of space to manage and grow projects.  And then once you exceed that, of course, you have to pay.

SC – Is Vinylmint a stand-alone service?  Do you envision integration with other services, social media platforms like Facebook?

BM – Currently we are a stand-alone web application.  But, because Facebook has essentially become more of a content distributor, what we want to do is fine ways to integrate with Facebook to distribute content.  Maybe that comes through distributing through Spotify or one of the plethora of companies that are already distributing through them.  We do want to look to distribute through sites like Facebook and Twitter and Soundcloud.  Again, they are distributors of new media today.  For us, we’re just a part of that supply chain at the current moment.  Hopefully we can distribute accordingly through those sites as we grow.

SC – Vinylmint seems to be more than just a storage platform, like Dropbox, correct?

BM – Yes.  Our goal is to help musicians collaborate at the point of inspiration.  Music is at its best at the point of inspiration.

For more information visit vinylmint.com.

Dave Mainella is a musician, producer, composer, and writer living in
New York. He graduated from New York University in 2011 with a Jazz
Studies degree. See what he’s up to @DaveMainella.

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