Seriously. Music is one of the world’s biggest draws, and what if there was a search engine dedicated to music alone: a search and discovery platform for music creators, producers, songwriters and artists – and of course music aficionados, and we all know that the world is full of them, as well.
That’s what Trakstream is all about. It’s a subscription-based streaming service designed to help creatives locate those styles and sounds they need, using searchable keywords or terms denoting specific musical characteristics.
In other words, it’s a search engine that speaks the language of music, and nothing like being about to do a search in a language you understand, what, eh?
Founder Conrad Dimanche is no stranger to music. He worked with Diddy for ten years as Executive Producer, and as Senior Director of A&R for Bad Boy Records, managing the production on platinum albums for artists like Danity Kane, Day 26, Young Joc, Diddy, Notorious B.I.G., Carl Thomas, Black Rob, and many more. He knows music and tells us more about his new service.
Tell us about the service.
Imagine a search engine that existed exclusively for music creators. Trakstream, a cloud-based platform with intuitive search and discovery features, is a subscription-based streaming service prepared to change the way musicians are collaborating and sharing their talent with other artists and the rest of the world. Trakstream fills this need by enabling veteran or emerging artists, musicians, songwriters, and producers, to locate specific styles or sounds from a user-populated database using searchable keywords or terms denoting specific musical characteristics.
How is it different?
For song creators, music discovery utilizing social networks, hosting, and email services,is often time-consuming and limited. The TrakStream search engine was developed solely with the creative process in mind, providing on-demand search results for the mobile user.
What market are you attacking and how big is it?
The computer electronics market, focusing primarily on software, hardware and instrument buyers. The retail market for music instruments in the U.S. alone is $7bn annually (2014).
What is the business model?
Under a partial freemium model, users without a paid subscription are welcome to search and stream music at no charge. Being that Trakstream is a platform built around user-generated content as part of the creative process, there’s no need to acquire licenses from music publishers. Users who wish to access the TrakStream user management tools have two monthly subscription options:
- Monthly usage “streamer” fee: $2.99 per month – search and stream content, create playlists, and engage with the Trakstream community by sending private messages to other users.
- Monthly usage “creator” fee: $3.99 per month – includes all streamer features. In addition users can upload music files and gain a valuable listing in the Trakstream database.
From your data, what genre of music is most popular?
The most searched and uploaded genres of music on TrakStream are Hip Hop, Pop, R&B and EDM.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months? We plan within the next six months to conclude our public beta launch, grow our advisory board, secure the funding necessary for growth strategy, and show a 25% growth rate in daily users.
If you could be put in touch with one investor in the New York community who would it be and why?
We’re interested in working with investors who are familiar with the potential of streaming technology as the primary delivery method of music, and who can recognize the value of user-generated content when building a monetization strategy.
Why did you launch in New York?
If you want to attract international music creators, there are few places better than NYC to establish your home base. Besides, our three cofounders are all native New Yorkers, so launching at home only makes sense.
Which is your favorite NY spot when you feel like discovering some new music?
S.O.B’s in downtown Manhattan is a great place to discover new music.
