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Guest post by James Martin of MidemAfter leaving Universal Music France in 2013, David Weiszfeld founded an artist management company with its own system for monitoring its artists’ activity on social media, streaming playlists and more. Called Soundcharts, this system proved so useful that Weiszfeld decided to make it his new startup venture. Four years later, last June, Soundcharts won the 10th edition of Midemlab. Here, as the call for entries for the 2018 edition of Midem’s world-renowned startup competition opens, Weiszfeld tells us what’s coming next.midemblog: How would you describe Soundcharts?David Weiszfeld: We are the market intelligence and productivity platform of the music industry. By market intelligence, we mean that we monitor the global consumption and engagement (social metrics, charts positions, playlists on DSPs and airplay from global stations). By productivity/workflow, we mean that we don’t show the data in a raw spreadsheet-looking format, but rather help our users work more efficiently by showing the right data at the right time (alerts, reports, in depth views, overviews etc).> Why did you decide to launch your own business?
Having started working in the industry in 2004, I was dealing with downsizing like most companies, having to multitask. Automating some of the workflow was a necessity. When I left Universal in 2013, I created bSHARP, an artist management and consulting company. As a two-person setup, we had to be even more productive. Soundcharts became an internal project used exclusively by my bSHARP team and a few friends. But when more and more people started to use it, I became fascinated by how people work, and so started to develop the system’s visibility for all professionals in the new global market.> What does it take to launch a startup today?
A team, patience and execution. The idea is just the first part. Most startups fail because of a lack of product-market fit; but execution is a close second. Finding and growing talent, trying to look at the long term while dealing with today’s priorities, are all key, I’d say.> What are the specific challenges faced by music startups?
