Podcast #7 | Jennifer Elias & Garrett Baker : music innovation as seen from Israël and the US

Something new is happening in this episode : I’m chatting with not one but two guests!

I was curious about how the French Music Tech and music innovation in France were faring compared to other markets, and how it was perceived from abroad. To get more insights, I reached out to two specialists in the most prolifics markets in terms of innovation: the US and Israël.

The first person I chat with is Jennifer Elias from Tech It Forward, an agency based in Israel. Along with her co-founder Jessica Rosner, their objective is to help foreign and Israeli startups and tech companies by organising roadshows to meet together, among other activities. Unfortunately this part of the episode is only available in French, please reach out if you’d like to know more!

My second guest is Garrett Baker, Tech Account manager at Rock Paper Scissors, a PR agency based in the US.They work with US companies but also international ones who want to expand in the US. You can listen to Garrett below and reach out directly to him by email for further questions.

These two visions from abroad are very inspiring and enriching to understand better how the French music tech sector is doing, what are our strengths and our weaknesses. Listen to the podcast to know more! You’ll find below a selection of articles  and a lexicon to get all the references!

In this episode we talked about:

• [02:03] Rock Paper Scissors activites and how they work with their clients, including StoryAmp, a DIY PR service founded by RPS
• [08:35] How RPS helps their clients define and execute their strategy, and who these clients are
• [12:32] Do you promote an artist and a company the same way?
• [13:44] France vs USA: differences between the two markets, especially in regards with innovation
• [17:19] Trends and products to look for in the music business
• [24:17] Garrett’s advice for those who are about to launch a product, especially if they aim for the US market
• [26:03] French companies RPS worked / will work / could work with
• [29:32] How innovation in music is supported in the US vs France, and the importance of collaboration

Enjoy this episode!

To go further: a selection of article on the topic of radio

• Forbes : Supersonic Startups: The Techstars Music Class Of 2018 Unveiled
• Techflier : Top 13 Music and Edtech Startups You Need to Know About in 2017
• The Hustle : The EU wants to hang with the big dogs, but their new $2.6B VC fund-fund is small change
• Billboard : Virtual Music Festivals Are Coming: Endless Riff Social Music Platform Now Available on Samsung Gear VR

To understand everything: references and lexicon

• FlipSwitchPR: the company launched by Garrett and Dmitri Vietze, Rock Paper Scissors’ founder, to help international artists with their PR needs. No longer active
• StoryAmp: startup launched by RPS to help artists and press / media to get in touch, with better results
• CD Baby: leadingindependant distribution company, specialized in downloads, CDs and vinyl.
• LyricFind: world leader for lyrics licensing
• Virtex Apps: AR sports game. You pull out your phone at sporting events, it has that field mapped, during timeouts you play mini games that look like you’re on the field.
• Amadeus Code: AI powered songwriting assistant
• Herculus DJ Controller: Manufacturer of controllers and turntables for DJs
• Some media RPS is working with: New-York Times, Billboard, TechCrunch, INC., Fortune…
• Medium: personal blogging platform, created in 2012 by the founders of Twitter and Blogger
• Artificial intelligence : « intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence (NI) displayed by humans and other animals ». These intelligences are able to do a large number of mental operations, calculus and analysis in a short period of time, which is very helpful to power an algorithm to recommend songs to users for example.
• South By Southwest (SXSW): A 10-days long festival and convention happening every year in Austin. It’s a conglomerate of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences.
• Blockchain: one of the key tech trends as we speak, including but not limited to music. It’s « an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way ». It allows for a swift processing and storage of information of any kind, without a central control. It is also a secured database.
• Virtual Reality : « a computer-generated scenario that simulates experience ». For example, attend a festival from your living room!
• Imogen Heap and the Mi.Mu gloves: British singer, very interested in topics related to fair payments to artists, blockchain and technological innovation applied to music. She developped the Mi.Mu gloves who allow their owner to play sounds just by moving their hands.
• Emoticast & TuneMoji: TuneMoji is an app developped by British company Emoticast, allowing users to send gifs with sound. They want to infuse more pop culture into the chat environment. It was founded in 2014 and raised more than 6 millions dollars since then.
• Cinamaker: app allowing users to record and edit multi-cam videos very easily with the quality of a studio.
• Fretello & UberChord: mobile apps dedicated to music learning, especially guitar. Freteapplications mobiles permettant d’apprendre à jouer de la guitare. Fretello is from Austria, founded in 2014. UberChrod is from Germany, founfed in 2014 too.
• Endless Riff: startup specialized in virtual reality applied to concerts. They have a partnership with Rockwood Music Hall in New York, where they recorded more than 100 concerts in VR.
• David Grice & Cognilitics : David Grice is an Australian music tech guru. He’s launching Cognilitics which he hopes will help make smarter cities.
• Vertigo: The app mentionned by Garrett when he talks about the possibiliy to join a friend in a virtual room to listen to their music.
• Diggers Factory: French startup helping artists press their albums on vinyls, based on pre-orders from theDiggers community.You can read our interview of Diggers Factory’s co-founder, Alexis Castiel.
• Soundcharts: French startup offering a tracking and analysis tool for artists, labels and more. They collect data from multiple sources like streaming, social networks… They won MidemLab startup competition in 2017, and  raised more than $3.5 millions since there creation in 2015.
• Deedo: French startup developping a pan-african music streaming service. The service is available in France and several African markets.
• Blitzr: French music startup who was working on improving the quality and management of music metadata. They stopped in 2017.
• TechStars Music: music branch of the world famous accelerator Techstars. They work with the biggest companies in the music business and is investing 120,000 dollars in the 10 startups that are part of each batch.
• Project Music: dedicated music accelerator from the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.
• 2112 Chicago : incubator dedicated to companies working in music, cinema, and creative industries, based in Chicago.
• Midem: one of the biggest international music business convention, every year in Cannes before the Festival.
• MaMAFestival & Convention Several days of concerts, networking events and conferences, every October in Paris.

What’s next?

If you liked this episode, please subscribe to the podcast for more episodes in French and English. You can do so on:  Soundcloud, iTunes and your favorite podcast provider. Please do not hesitate to send me your comments, questions, suggestions as well.

Happy listening!

Musique de générique : Long Time Expected, par Zweeback. Source : Bandcamp, license Creative Commons. Téléchargement.

This post is also available in: English