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Sorry to hear the news. I interviewed with Earbits at one point and they seemed like really good guys. If I may offer some gentle post-mortem constructive criti

by md224 12y ago

Sorry to hear the news. I interviewed with Earbits at one point and they seemed like really good guys. If I may offer some gentle post-mortem constructive criticism: Earbits seemed very focused on their value proposition to musicians. Their goal seemed to be "the Google AdWords of Music", but here's the thing: if you want to become the Google AdWords of music, you first have to become the Google of Music. The value proposition to the listeners is key. To their credit, Earbits did have a value proposition for listeners: music discovery. But this meant their competition was Pandora, music blogs, Pitchfork.com, word of mouth, and all the other ways we find music in the 21st century. Another commenter here says "music is a tough nut to crack," but the real issue here is that music discovery is a tough nut to crack. You could counter that Earbits differentiated itself by focusing on independent, unsigned artists; that's a noble mission, but if you're going to commit to that as your value proposition, you have to ask yourself if there's a market for it. Is finding unsigned artists really a pain point for most music listeners? I'm not convinced. Anyway, sorry it didn't work out. Wish you guys the best of luck in your future endeavors.

earbitscom 12y ago
You're spot on. Unfortunately, our approach was a double edged sword. No company who licenses a big catalog of music first ever survives to tell the tale. But building a two sided marketplace meant splitting half of our already thin resources in half, switching back and forth between pleasing listeners and pleasing bands, and we just weren't able to build the consumer experience necessary. In retrospect, had we focused on mobile first, built mostly listener features until that product was great, then focus on the artists, we may have had a better shot. The problem with that is, had we not built enough stuff to wow the bands and labels, we would have never gotten the kind of artists we did. We had to prove two different concepts on 1/100th the budget of our competitors, who only serve one side of the market.

by md224 12y ago

earbitscom 12y ago

You're spot on. Unfortunately, our approach was a double edged sword. No company who licenses a big catalog of music first ever survives to tell the tale. But building a two sided marketplace meant splitting half of our already thin resources in half, switching back and forth between pleasing listeners and pleasing bands, and we just weren't able to build the consumer experience necessary. In retrospect, had we focused on mobile first, built mostly listener features until that product was great, then focus on the artists, we may have had a better shot. The problem with that is, had we not built enough stuff to wow the bands and labels, we would have never gotten the kind of artists we did. We had to prove two different concepts on 1/100th the budget of our competitors, who only serve one side of the market.