An interview with the Airborne founders. Local startup

Some good friends of mine have just launched their startup, Airborne, and there’s already some great hype around it. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear about the startup over the years whilst they’ve been building it and I’ve been dying to tell you all about it because I think it has legs, in fact, I think that with the right marketing they might be onto something really big and the awesomeness is compounded by the fact that it’s local!

Casual one sentence: A way for musicians to share their music and for fans to receive it – for only one dollar!

The idea in a video:

I sent some questions through to Justin, Ruark and the crew, and here’s what they had to say:

What made you build Airborne Music? Do you have a passion for music, was it a gap, did you see a system that you thought could be bettered?

A tricky one to answer. Many have suggested that the two industries most ripe for disruption are the banking and music industries. It’s no secret that the music industry is sick, so the opportunity to do something revolutionary is there but I think Airborne happened to be one of those right idea, for the right people, at the right time kind of things.

It doesn’t hurt that music is a pretty damn fascinating business though.

How many people work for Airborne Music? What does everyone do?

Our full-time staff in Cape Town is 5. As with most start-ups we wear many hats day-to-day but we comprise of specialists in roles like product design, Artist acquisition, Carrier growth, marketing and strategic planning. Our ‘extended family’ includes 12 others dotted around Europe where our heavy lifting engineering unit and corporate structure is based.

How did you fund the project, who paid the salaries and did you do client work or salaried work to fund it? Do you have investors?

For the first 3 years, while Airborne was a dream, we paid the bills (mostly) through our work at RUBIKS ROOM which built up a somewhat impressive roster of client work over the years. It was a good for us to experiment with various design and build methodologies before we started building our baby. In 2011 Airborne finally got traction when I managed to convince a beloved band of friends and fools to back the company and development of the first version of the Network (A0M1).

How long did it take you to conceptualize the platform?

Airborne began as a tag-line (music is the virus and the virus is Airborne) and design concept about 4 years ago. We’ve constantly refined and distilled the dream into an idea, and from an idea into a plan which is now a dream, realised.

If I might humbly espouse some advice on this point -

Take considerable time to mentally prototype your idea before jumping out of an aircraft with your first idea for a parachute. Discuss it with interesting people, draw pictures and model things. You can have many ideas about one idea.

How long did it take you to build the platform?

Start to finish, probably about 6 months. It’s just the first version of the Network though, we call it A0M1. We’ve received a lot of thoughtful and constructive feedback about the interface in particular and we’re already developing an enhancement update which will include a proper discovery mechanism and some pretty cool enhancements for web and mobile.

What are the 3 most important lessons you learnt from building Airborne Music?

Always have a plan B (and C, D, E, etc.) – it’s important to be responsive to change and always think a few moves ahead. Things seldom turn out the way you planned.

Fairness is the best foundation upon which to build your house. Be fair with your Crew, Investors and Partners.

Be open and communicative.

What 3 things would you change if you could do it again?

I thought about this for quite a while, there isn’t anything I would change, even the difficult times were good learning and growing experiences. If I could pick one thing -

I would start the setup of the corporate structure and payment gateways sooner (never under estimate the ability of bureaucrats to piss on your parade).

Did anyone inspire you to build Airborne Music?

No one individual stands out in this regard. If anything the passion of the team behind it and feedback from Artists and fans was the most inspiring for me.

Are you aiming to capture the local market first and then the International, or the other way around? Why?

We have our eye’s set on the worldwide market from day one. Music is universal and one of the things we want to do with Airborne is to open the biggest music market the world has ever known. That said, we’re working very hard in the local scene but with the view to expose local Artists to international fans and local fans to international Artists. If that makes sense?

Would you sell a portion of the platform to a 3^rd party or do you want to hold 100% shares? And, why?

There may come a time when we decide to sell Airborne but for the moment we are focused on building something of value, something that can make an indelible mark on the future of music.

Where do you see Airborne Music a year from now?

Ready to scale, 2012 is the year of refinement, preparation and bridge-building. We’d like to see a quarter million Carriers by year end but the focus is definitely on preparing for aggressive worldwide expansion in 2013.

How many cups of Vida coffee do you think you consumed, as a team, over the months/years of building Airborne?

Good Lord, we probably burn through a 100 cups a month between us. Over the years… that’s a scary thought.

When you aren’t working, how do you switch off?

Good question, not exactly sure. Sometimes the best thing to do is to try and achieve balance by exposing yourself to new things outside of the working cocoon but when you love what you’re doing, and it’s new every day it doesn’t feel like “work”.

Are you hiring?

Yep! We’re looking for interns to assist with Artists Acquisition in the short term but if there are any sheet-hot designers out there, drop us a mail on iwanttowork@airbornemusic.com.

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Really awesome team, really awesome project, I wish them all the best and hope that their dream comes true!

PS. I’ll be getting some free vouchers to try out the system, so keep posted!