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Turntable.fm raising $5-10 M. at $40 M. Valuation
- jakemcgraw 15y agoNeeds: - Pro interface (just a list of users, not all this animated nonsense) - Embeddable images in chat - Sponsored rooms
- orenmazor 15y agoso like IRC + shoutcast? something about the way turntable presents things makes it a lot more fun. edit: for perspective, think of it as farmville for music/dj nerds. my dj friends are loving turntable for the 'test out a playlist on a group' factor.
- misterstartups 15y agoI expect they'll get more, but that was quick!
- bproper 15y agoThey may end up raising more, but from what I hear, they are choosing VCs based on who can secure them top engineering talent for critical positions, not who cuts the biggest check. That's the lay of the land in Silicon Alley right now. Tech talent is worth its weight in gold.
- johnx123-up 15y agoAny idea, how did they pitch?
- rokhayakebe 15y agothey are choosing VCs based on who can secure them top engineering talent for critical positions I hear all this talk about top engineering talent. What is the difference between these guys and the rest of the engineers in the valley? Most startups do not do anything specially intelligent so what difference does it make? Note:I am not being sarcastic. I am just curious.
- apgwoz 15y ago> guys and the rest of the engineers in the valley? Location. They're in NYC.
- earbitscom 15y agoThis is the best explanation to your question that I know of. http://www.quora.com/LikeALittle-startup/Why-do-you-need-gold-medalist-programmers-in-your-team-to-build-something-like-LikeALittle http://www.quora.com/LikeALittle-startup/Why-do-you-need-gol...
- rokhayakebe 15y agoThanks. Great comments, but I doubt they answer the question.
- earbitscom 15y agoThe question was why do you need top engineering talent to build a website whose technology is not that complex. The point is that building technology that has to scale at the rate that Turntable (and LikeALittle) is growing is a very serious challenge that you can't afford to screw up. It takes serious tech chops, even if the app is not that complex.
- pclark 15y agoDo good engineers really care who your VCs are? What influence can a VC have over a possible hire? (just curious.)
- earbitscom 15y agoVC's have access to more information about a company than employees do. If you have the choice of places to work, do you want to work at a company vetted by Sequoia, who has the best deal flow there is, or vetted by a VC you've never heard of? Do you want to work for one whose follow-on war chest is hundreds of millions, or just a few million? One who will be able to help in crucial times, or one who adds no value? One whose involvement alone brings press at every new product announcement, or one who gets no extra attention from media? All things being equal, the value for an employee of working at a company with a top VC ought to be near the same as it is for the founders (with a little less upside).
- eli 15y agoAm I crazy for thinking that it's inevitable they get sued by the recording industry?
- timjahn 15y agoMy thoughts exactly.
- mrspandex 15y agoAren't they licensing all that content? I imagine they wouldn't be sued for what they were attempting to do, but for what users are capable of exploiting.
- jsavimbi 15y agoThey're paying for content that they provide from the catalog, but I'm not sure if they're paying any fees for the mashups, bootlegs and whatnots that I upload on my own account. Also, Indie While You Indie is teh best room on there.
- anateus 15y agoThey're using MediaNet (http://www.mndigital.com/ http://www.mndigital.com/) as their primary content/license provider, so they're likely fine esp if they comply with takedown notices of user-uploaded content.
- ethank 15y agoTHey are, but remains up to question if they are paying per stream properly. I'm sure they talked to Medianet and hence its now US only. Medianet, ironically, was a label lead initiative :)
- eli 15y agoDidn't it take months of license negotiations for Google to offer the ability to store and stream music you already own to your own device? Turntable seems a fair bit more ambitious than that.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI'd like to see Google implement a similar feature for Google+ by integrating it with Google Music. They could implement it in Hangout somehow.
- ry0ohki 15y agoI was thinking Google Hangouts may be the thing that prevents Turntable.fm from gaining more traction, you can essentially already "ghetto dj" in a hangout by playing YouTube videos of music.
- trimis 15y agoI don't see it that way. Turntable has its focus on turning people into DJs and finding rooms (genres) of music suitable to your tastes. The DJ queue system works well, and the feedback system too, as does finding a track to play. I wouldn't last long if I had to sort through a YT results page.
- apgwoz 15y agoWait. Digital YouTube party via hangout? (http://xkcd.com/920/ http://xkcd.com/920/) Mind blown.
- richcollins 15y agoIt's not a Pivot when you do something completely new.
- timjahn 15y agoLet's make a new buzzword for that, then, heh.
- bproper 15y agoSame team, same investors, same capital. New code, new idea. Uber-Pivot?
- fraserharris 15y agoRestart, redo
- 3pt14159 15y agoWow, I don't even know what Turntable is from their website because I'm Canadian.
- jonknee 15y agoI'm from the US and don't know what it is because it uses Facebook login. Oh well.
- nirvdrum 15y agoI was in the same boat. Especially since they request the offline data access permission. I finally relented by creating a crap Facebook account. I'd have been happier just giving them my email address and setting up a login in a more traditional manner.
- dmix 15y agoI'm from Canada and have used Turntable.fm without tunneling.
- kareemm 15y agoNot anymore you don't: "We're very sorry, but while we would love to let you in and rock out with us, we need to currently restrict turntable access to only the United States due to licensing constraints. We are working very hard to try and get you in as soon as possible. If you believe this is a mistake and you are located in the United States, please e-mail help [at sign] turntable dot fm Again, sorry, and we hope to see you soon. Billy Chasen CEO"
- conversionrater 15y agoCongrats to Turntable on the success thus far. It's definitely a fun product with a lot of potential for where they can take it. Let's hope that there aren't legal troubles down the road.
- lachenmayer 15y ago100 days and $100,000 to get a company into beta, a working product that can be released to users for feedback. In this day and age, do you really need $100,000 to get a company into beta? What are they spending all that money on, apart from a swanky office?
- eli 15y agoWell, do you need to hire any design or development or bizdev or legal help? Are the founders all willing to work without a paycheck and benefits for 100 days? $100,000 isn't really very much money.
- jamiequint 15y agoIts not a pivot, its a completely different business with the same founders.
- frankdenbow 15y agoReally interested to see who ends up funding their round. So many investors have told me that they want nothing to do with the music industry (streaming rights especially are not too attractive a proposition) and won't fund anything. On the other hand, they don't want to be the ones to miss a gold mine because they are stuck in thinking from 10 years ago about an evolving industry. If Turntable can do one thing, I would hope it would be to help foster a more creative community around music application creation. Having that community have the blessing of the music industry themselves would be the ultimate goal along with changing the licensing structure for developers (David Isrealite of the NMPA talked about this here: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/others/president-of-nmpa-calls-for-blanket-licensing-1005238782.story http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/others/president-of-nmpa-call...). The amazing innovation I have seen at 2 MusicHackday.org events lets me know that there is so much that will be done with music in the future, if developers and entrepreneurs are given the ability to pursue these dreams without fear of prosecution.
- grantismo 15y agoI'll be interested in seeing how turntable.fm evolves. I love the idea, but if I'm interested in background music, I find it can often be inconsistent. It'd be cool if more rooms had a single DJ, so at least you knew what to expect.
- hammock 15y agoGo to tha "Ambient Chillout & Trip-hop" station, that's all u ever need
- hammock 15y agoI am talking to one of the tt devs right now, he says it's just a rumor and this article is bogus.
- devinfoley 15y agohttp://www.businessinsider.com/turntablefm-rumored-to-be-raising-5-10-million-at-a-40-million-valuation-2011-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/turntablefm-rumored-to-be-rai... Confirmed: 7.5M at 37.5M valuation. I'd be very interested in seeing how this played out for the investors in StickyBits.