Swiss Startup «iGroove» revolutions music market !
Swiss Startup iGroove offers a digital music label and supports musicians at their daily life. iGroove focuses on innovation, fairness and services. You want to know more? Read the interview and get to know the smart founders behind iGroove.
(The founders of igroove (l.r.): Moris Marchionna, Géraldine Allemann and Dennis Hausammann)
Swiss Startup idea of iGroove is simpel. Support artists in their daily life and sell music via. SMS, ITunes, Spotify etc. The SMS solution is very popular: After choosing on their platform a song you receive the downloadlink. The song can be downloaded immediately. The price is payed by your cell phone bill.
Already 4’500 musicians follow us, which mostly come from Switzerland, offer their songs on iGroove. Extremely interesting is their pricing model: The musicians recieve approximately 92% of the sales. At iTunes the artists receive 70%. Furthermore the contributions are only minimum contributions, which are fixed from the musicians. The customers can pay a higher price and support the musicians even more.
iGroove was founded in 2012 by Dennis Hausammann, Géraldine Allemann and Moris Marchionna and has been founded over STARTUPS.CH as the Global Experts GmbH. Read more about the interesting idea that stands behind iGroove, their culture and how the business model was implemented.
What are the 3 most famous songs, artists and playlists at iGroove?
iGroove: Most people enjoy Hip Hop, especially Swiss Hip Hop is very popular. The famous Zürich rapper Xen rose in the past year thanks to sales on iGroove direct to the 4th place and was awarded by end of the year for the Swiss Music Award.
How does the geographical distribution of users look like?
iGroove: We have several artists from Switzerland, and requests are increasing from abroad. At the moment we have 60% new registrations from Germany.
How did your start look like?
iGroove: We were unhappy with the market offerings. We understand the taff environment because we are musicians and wanted to change the business mode. It is hard to survive from music. We started with a service that enabled the artists to upload free music. Today we are a digital speed label that offers artists to live from music and have the possibility with our services to become famous.
What is special with your business model?
iGroove: Artists don’t have to book the total package, they can choose what satisfies their needs. If someone doesn’t know what he needs, he can asks us. We have introduced a service chat: The artists receive fast and simpel a personal response which is highly appreciated. The booking model via SMS is used by 90% and even more appreciated.
What differentiates you from other music streamings in three words?
iGroove: Innovation, Fairness and the Know-How of the music scene.
How will your portal finance itself longterm, if you have only keep a comission of 8%?
iGroove: The artists have an account, which runs very well beside the the core business like Public Relations, Radiospots and especially Online Marketing for musicians. Since 2015 we are breakeven and could increase in the same year our turnover by 1500%.
What is the willingness to pay within this model?
iGroove: These are professional musicians and they know: You have to invest, that something turns back on you. With the consumers we have the following pictrue: 15% pay more and are willing to support musicians. The highest payment of a song was 400 CHF instead of 1.50 CHF and we are not kidding !
How could you realize a deal with Microsoft Ventures?
iGroove: By accident at Web Conference in Dublin. At the end of the exhibition an employee of Microsoft passed by and was enthusiastic from our business idea. She introduced us the Ventures Programme. It has 500 applications, 100 were interviewed by skype (Elevetor Pitch by skype), afterwards 2o startups were invited to Berlin and at the end we became part of its Venture programme with some other startups.
What were the 3 taffest challenges before, during and after the founding?
iGroove: Definetely the law regulations and the financing. But you grow after crossing borders and have solved all challenges by now pretty well.
How does it look today?
iGroove: For us it is important to keep our quality, especially service, support and trust. This is extremely important to us.
What suggestions would you give to new company founders on their way?
iGroove: Do something you have a passion. Don’t be afraid of challenges, take their key learnings. Do something you believe in and listen to successful people.
Tell me a quote, which you would give to new entrepreneurs which accompanied you over the past years?
iGroove: Do you wanna swim, then jump into the water and don’t sink.
What is your opinion in digital transformation? You are offering a online platform, but are you only using digital marketing campaigns?
iGroove: We only provide digital advertisements which is the presence and future. Efficient are Adwords and Social Media like Facebook.
