The MusicSpoke platform is a premium marketplace for artist-owned sheet music by professional composers. Think of it as the Amazon or Etsy of the sheet music world. The marketplace runs on certain principles and are fairly simple. Composers can go on and list their scores on the platform once they have been reviewed.  Buyers, on the other hand, can go to the website, listen to the scores, and purchase the digital copy of the sheet.

MusicSpoke has a community orientation to it. It reviews the composers before on-boarding them to ensure trust and authenticity. Buyers can gauge the score as the audio and the sheet music (perusal score) are available side by side. Thus, buyers precisely know what they are buying.

MusicSpoke Co-Founders Kurt Knecht and Jennifer Rosenblatt

Solving for a broken marketplace

Jennifer Rosenblatt and Kurt Knecht are the married duo that co-founded MusicSpoke in 2014. The idea came about when Kurt noticed some unique challenges in the sheet music segment of the music industry.  These challenges included copyright issues, dead scores and inequitable sharing of proceeds.

Some of the accomplished composers such as Sydney Guillaume, Jake Runestad and Stephen Paulus responded to these pressures by publishing their own scores through their own websites rather than going through traditional publishers.

The MusicSpoke platform came about as a more organized response to these pressures and as a synthesis of the couple’s expertise – Kurt’s music background and Jennifer’s business experience. Kurt is a world-renowned composer and performer who has sold 100,000+ copies while Jennifer has successfully built and sold Argyle Octopus Press, an award-winning marketing company, in five years. Jennifer has also been active in the start-up ecosystem for 7+ years now. She has leveraged her experience to develop MusicSpoke since its inception by participating in accelerators and incubators such as Pipeline Entrepreneurs, ScaleUP KC!, and NMotion Accelerator.

Democratizing Sheet Music

The sheet music end of the music industry is little known and archaic in its functioning. There are traditional publishers through which most of the scores are channelled as physical copies. These business models involve the composer handing the copyrights over to the publisher and getting a fraction of the sales, typically 4% to 10%. The public availability of the score depends on the publishers. It could easily go out of print and not be revived since they are circulated via physical copies. The composer also has little information on the end-users of the scores. Thus, composers had little money coming in with no control over their own work.

Kurt writes “MusicSpoke is committed to three basic ideas which are absolutely antithetical to ‘traditional’ publishers. The composer should maintain copyright and control of his/her work. The composer should get a fair share of the profits from sales of his/her works. The composer should be able to find out who is purchasing and performing his/her music.”

With these ideas, the founders aspire to democratize sheet music and empower composers with MusicSpoke. Composers get upto 70% of the proceeds and retain the copyrights to their work. Since the scores are digital, they remain publicly available as long as the site lists them, solving for the out-of-print risk.

Apart from empowering composers, Kurt and Jennifer are focused on developing a strong community as well. Their marketplace is designed in a way where information about the buyer is shared with the composers. While the MusicSpoke team extends customer support, the composers and the musicians can also get in touch and contribute.

MusicSpoke Stall at Central/North Central ACDA 2018 in Chicago (PC: MusicSpoke’s Facebook Page)

An organic result of the marketplace has been composers promoting each other’s works. MusicSpoke also strategically promotes the work of the composers based on the geographical area in which the promotion is taking place. This allows the composers to collaborate with local artists. There is also a private Facebook group dedicated to facilitating a conversation among composers.

One of the more nuanced aspects of the platform is the opportunity for composers to share across a wide variety of genres, including the ones traditional publishers shy away from such as art songs. Thus, composers can build and maintain their entire portfolio on the platform.

MusicSpoke is committed to protecting the integrity of the works produced by artists. They initially password protected the PDFs that contained the sheet music in order fight copyrights and piracy issues. However, as customers started complaining about accessibility, a conscious decision was made to reduce friction in the accessibility to the document and to add copyright labels to the score. It shows the exact number of permissible copies that can be made based on the number of copies that are purchased.

Gaining tempo

While most of their funding has been through grants and investments from investors such LaunchKC and Invest Nebraska, the duo has been able to reinvest the profits made. MusicSpoke takes a 30% commission from the sales proceeds, allowing the composer to rake in 70%.

The platform has grown  300%+ annually since its inception. What started off as a small platform with 16 composers and 72 scores in 2014 has now grown into a lively marketplace with 130+ composers, 1100+ scores and 11,000+ buyers. MusicSpoke initially started off with choral music and has steadily evolved to cover 7+ genres such as chamber music, orchestra, string orchestra and organ. Grammy® award-winning composer Charles Bruffy and composer Brandon Elliott have their own dedicated series.

Artists at the MusicSpoke stall – WACDA 2018 (PC: MusicSpoke’s Facebook Page)

The sheet music segment is truly one of the last areas in the music industry to be disrupted by technology and new business models. While there are other online platforms such Sheet Music Plus and Musicnotes, MusicSpoke is dedicated to composers and doesn’t have listings by publishers. As the community increases and the platform grows, MusicSpoke could potentially disrupt the US $1B sheet music industry. MusicSpoke is rapidly expanding into new genres and continues to actively promote the platform as well as the composers. It has also succeeded in creating a vibrant community of composers and artists. The future of this space is also closely linked to trends in the broader music industry. While copyright violations and piracy continue to be a major challenge, MusicSpoke is empowering composers by helping them realize a larger share of their work.

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Heather Spalding and Joel Teply, co-founders of Cambrian (PC: Cambrian Facebook Page)

Cambrian

Cambrian was cofounded by a power couple – Heather Spalding and Joel Teply. Joel’s tech knowledge and Heather’s neuroscience background synthesized into making a great augmented reality product. Heather was previously a neuroscience researcher at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Joel Teply is a techie who has worked at firms such as VML and EyeVerify.

In 2011, their common interest in computer vision got them brainstorming about various use-cases. After settling down on home improvement visualization, Joel built an app called Wall Painter. As they were going through a transition themselves in terms of painting and decorating their new home, they understood the challenges involved. Their app was primarily focused on DIYers (Do It Yourself). The app was an overnight success with over 12,000 users. There was a lot of interest in the app from paint companies across the world.

This interest and success got them to form Cambrian. Heather and Joel continued with their jobs while pursuing Cambrian during the nights and over the weekends. This went on for a few years till Heather left the Medical Center and joined Cambrian full time in 2016. Later that year, Joel also joined Cambrian full time.

Cambrian has been very active in the Kansas City start-up ecosystem. In 2017, Cambrian won $100,000 as a part of the LaunchKC grand prize. Joel and Heather have also been invited at various forums in Kansas City such as ACG Kansas City, 1 Billion Bits and the Regnier Institute to talk to other entrepreneurs and developers. Heather was also part of the fifth cohort of ScaleUP! Kansas City, a program focused on helping entrepreneurs scale up their business by providing them with the necessary tools and networks. Earlier this year, Cambrian featured in Startland News’ ‘Top Kansas City startups to watch in 2018’ list.

Joel (left) addressing a group of developers at 1 Billion Bits; Heather (right) addressing a gathering at 1 Million Cups. (PC: Cambrian Facebook Page)

Home Harmony

Cambrian has a home improvement visualizing app called Home Harmony that helps you see what a particular type of flooring or paint would look like in a specific area of your home given the setting. Using computer vision and machine learning, the augmented reality representation is as realistic as possible.

The app is very easy to use. All you have to do is hold up the phone, click a picture, select the colour, tap on the space to be modified, and viola, you can see what it will look like in your living room or bed room. The app also shows you what it would look like under various lighting conditions that are experienced. The representation is able to go around objects such as wall hangings and furniture. If there is a painting on the wall, the app is able to represent what the paint will look like while going around the object.

The Home Harmony app has colour options from paint companies such as Behr, Benjamin Moore, Prestige, Prestige Designers, Sherwin Williams and Valspar while the flooring options are from Shaw. The app also helps you calculate the amount of paint that would be required. The response to the app has been incredible. The Home Harmony app has over 100,000 installs on android with a rating of 3.8. The app is also very user friendly in terms of permissions.

Realistic depiction by the Home Harmony App (PC: Cambrian Website)

The DIY Revolution

The ‘Do-It-Yourself’ (DIY) projects have been a strong force for over a hundred years. In the 1970’s, there was a wave of DIY material and content being created. With the rise of modern technology, this has gone digital with dedicated sites such as instructables.com and doityourself.com.

This revolution is driven by two factors – cost and the desire for creativity. DIY activities tend to achieve the end objectives at a fraction of the cost of hiring someone else to do it. DIY activities also tend to be an opportunity for creative expression. With the rise of mundane and repetitive tasks, this is a good way to relax and explore.

Cambrian is a critical addition to this larger ecosystem. While there are platforms that provide high quality content, there is a gap that has existed for a long time – the gap between imagination and reality. Augmented Reality (AR) is able to solve this gap and make the experience much smoother for customers. Cambrian is able to bridge that gap by helping the user visualize. While we may be able to visualize what that colour or flooring might look like, we’re not sure what it would actually look like. Making decisions based on a tiny sample is difficult. Cambrian solves this visualization challenge.

Painting isn’t one of those activities that happen very often. Based on various factors such as the number of people living, the usage pattern, and the weather conditions, homes are painted anywhere between every two to ten years. If you pick the wrong colour, you’re pretty much stuck with it for a long time to come.

Team Cambrian (PC: Cambrian Facebook Page)

The Future

There is intense competition in the home improvement augmented reality space. With paint companies launching their own apps and third parties also developing their app, the market is very competitive. Cambrian has made a strategic move by developing their own Software Development Kit (SDK). Cambrian is able to licence its SDK to other companies interested in developing an app or platform. Apart from their own app, Cambrian has clients who have similar apps powered by Cambrian. Prestige Paints is one such client whose app Prestige ColorPic is powered by Cambrian.

Cambrian is looking to expand into areas such as furniture, countertops, and appliances among others. In various interviews, Heather has indicated that a round of funding may be around the corner. They have a solid product which is helping customers make better decisions while helping companies service their clients better.

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Kevin Williams, Founder and CEO, WISE

A WISE Origin

Kevin Williams, founder and CEO of WISE, is a serial entrepreneur with many patents to his credit. His previous venture was WillCo Technologies, a cybersecurity workforce credentialing service provider that won major contracts from the Department of Defence and serves over 1.5 million registered users. He sold a majority stake in WillCo Technologies to Metisentry LLC in 2017 to focus on WISE (WillCo Intelligent Stored Energy).

The origin of WISE goes back to 2009 when Kevin got interested in smart grids. He found the need to diversify from just software products at WillCo Technologies. While studying the electric grid, he realized how little it had evolved since it was first created. Electricity is generated in large quantities and is simply transmitted from the generation plants to distributors and on to the final consumer. He found two gaps in the model – storage and a two-way communication mechanism in the supply chain. There is a real need to be able to store electricity to solve problems such as erratic power supply and meeting peak requirement. There is also a need to have a two-way communication mechanism through the supply chain to bring about efficiencies in the system. This helps utility companies understand their customers better and make better decisions. Kevin found a company in Colorado that helped engineer the product. WISE has also brought on Evocativo as their engineering partner.

WISE Concept Diagram

 The WISE Controller and POD

WISE is essentially an electricity storage unit combined with IoT capabilities.

It is built with patented technology to create a distributed energy source system. There are two parts to the system – the WISE Power On Demand (POD) and the WISE Controller. The POD is the storage unit. The storage unit gets charged from the regular source of energy and stores that energy. It does so with a series-tied lithium-ion battery bank combined with an ultracapacitor bank. It then goes on to provide energy to the house or business unit when required. The fascinating thing about this is that while it can be used to charge electric vehicles, it can also draw power from electric vehicles and charge itself.

The WISE Controller is the IoT solution. It helps connect the smart devices at home while also monitoring and tracking their energy usage. By connecting all the devices, it allows one to control and monitor these devices from a single point (app or platform). For example, if you’ve forgotten to switch off the light, you can simply do so with a click of a button. The heavily protected IoT system is currently under development.

The capacity of the product is 4-5 kWh (Kilowatt Hours). This is enough to power the house for a day and meet the peak hour requirements. Consumers can also do an energy assessment on the WISE website to understand their requirements. Those that have a higher requirement, can get series-tied versions of the model.

Team WISE discussing adding cellular functionality with the AT&T Team

The WISE Impact

WISE can potentially enhance the quality of life while lowering the electricity bills and reducing the environmental impact. It allows you to have your house heated or cooled before you’ve arrived and provides you numerous ways to enhance your life.

Home batteries help in areas prone to power cuts as consumers can now store whatever little electricity they get for later use. It also helps reduce costs in areas where energy prices fluctuate. Its helps with peak shaving whereby energy consumption during peak hours can be reduced resulting in savings. WISE also analyses your energy usage and shows you ways by which you can alter your energy consumption to save money.

Energy storage help bridge the mismatch between power generation from renewables such as solar or wind, and power consumption. This enables one to reduce their carbon footprint by shifting to other sources of energy without disrupting power supply.

A combination of various elements in its product allows WISE to have multiple revenue streams. While hardware sales is a revenue stream, software sales is also a major and recurrent revenue stream. Customers pay a monthly subscription fee ranging between $9.95 – $24.95 per month for the WISE IoT platform. There is also a component of revenue from the distributors by way of license fees. The product is to be distributed across 500 territories through a network of dealers and partners who are predominantly HVAC (Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), solar, and electrical contractors. The system is installed by these distributors. A 3-year license is priced at $5,000. WISE has a goal of producing modular storage at $7,500 – $8,000 (installed).

Kevin Williams with President Obama

 The WISE Future

WISE is not the first to offer an energy storage solution. It is going up against giants such as Mercedes, BMW, Tesla, LG and Panasonic while also competing with start-ups such as Orison. These giants have advantages such as brand recognition, greater financial capacity, and existing distribution channels. However, what differentiates WISE from most of these players is the ‘intelligent’ element brought in by IoT.

While this segment is currently driven by the appeal of energy independence, the economics is yet to catch up. Various sources estimate that it could take up to 10 years to make up the savings. That is roughly equivalent to the life of the battery itself. Adding maintenance and decreasing efficiency of the battery over its lifetime could make things more difficult. However, as prices of various components continue to decline, perhaps there could be a time where the general applicability would be economically viable. As of now, the target customers are in areas with high electricity costs or unsteady supply, or are consumers who want to rely completely on alternative energy sources.

With a clear problem statement, a founder with a solid track record, and patented technology, WISE is out to solve a real challenge that can help improve the lives of individuals and the energy storage industry.

[Disclaimer: The above content is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as an endorsement or investment, financial or any other advice.]

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Technology has created several wonders! We now have devices, online services and high tech machinery to make our lives comfortable. However, when it comes to empowering the differently-abled, we are still living in a Civil War era, if you will.

According to the 2010 US Census, 3.3 million people in the age range of 15 years and older use a wheelchair. Another 10 million use canes, crutches, or walkers. That is about one for every five Americans struggling to walk. But the axillary underarm crutches are the same technology we have since the 1800s.

Anyone who has ever used crutches can vouch for the real pain they are! They strain your arms, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. They even have a negative impact on your posture causing long-term health problems.  It is unacceptable how something so central to people’s lives can garner so little attention.

It is high time conditions improve for the betterment of the differently-abled.

As Max Younger CIO and Co-Founder of Mobility Designed says, “The status quo is not good enough.”

To forge the much-required change, Mobility Designed created M+D crutches.

How it all began…

The idea for M+D crutches originated from a very emotional place – Max’s love for his father.

In August 2008, Max Younger’s father became an above the knee amputee and had to permanently resort to using walking aids. Excessive usage of crutches caused damage to his father’s nerves in the hands and the wrists. Watching his father constantly struggle with the crutches motivated Max to work towards changing the traditional, under-arm crutch technology.

Max had recently graduated with an Industrial Design degree when he bought a studio space and turned it into an idea incubator. Along with his wife and college sweetheart Liliana, Max started working towards redesigning the conventional crutch.

In order to build an efficient product, Max and Liliana studied how people move and rest their body weight. The duo also collaborated with Physical and Occupational Therapists throughout the product development process. They noticed that supporting the body weight on armpits caused pain in the hands and health complications in the long run.

Based on the ideas, Max started building prototype after prototype with materials from his garage and basement. After about 1200 to 1500 ideas over several years, Max came up with a design that uses elbows and forearms to support the body weight.

There was yet another hurdle to be conquered. Like many entrepreneurs, Max learned that designing a good product isn’t enough. Marketing the product is important too.

Lilliana took an entrepreneurship business program at the University of Missouri, Kansas City to help Max with marketing and running the startup. Thus, Mobility Designed LLC was born in 2015, with Liliana Younger as Co-founder and CEO.

Their first baby? M+D crutches!

PC: Mobility Designed

What makes M+D crutches more efficient?

M+D crutches provide users with offset handles and adjustable pivots for better control and movement. They remove strain off the user’s wrists and hands and enable them to move freely. Even while doing everyday chores like preparing food in the kitchen, users can reach for things while still supporting their body weight.

M+D crutches can be adjusted to suit the needs of people who are 4’11” all the way to 6’8”. 

As a designer, Younger believes “form follows function.” Therefore, the product was designed by giving each feature the utmost importance. All elements of M+D crutch are there for a reason, not just for style or aesthetics. Even the rubber feet on the bottom of the crutches were redesigned to provide better cushioning and more grip.

Watch Max and Liliana Younger explain how M+D crutches transform people’s lives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZF1WoBU18Y&pbjreload=10

What do people have to say about M+D’s crutches?

M+D crutches are very well received by people. Based on a user survey, 71 percent of the users reported that they “do not hurt at all” in their hands/wrists when using the product.  As a result, the medical device startup had no trouble gaining momentum.

In April 2017, Mobility Designed raised a funding of nearly $900,000 from Innovation in Motion and other local investors. Later in June 2017, the startup announced that its total funding round has topped $1 million.

Currently, M+D crutches are sold in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Meanwhile, Liliana stepped down as the CEO to assume the role of a member of the Board of Directors.

The Kansas City medical device startup appointed Dan Alcazar, a serial entrepreneur as its CEO. Alcazar is a well-known name in the entrepreneur world with experience growing early-stage, mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies.

What’s next for Mobility Designed?

The startup holds three design patents, and has three pending utility patents, along with foreign filings in several countries. Mobility Designed is in the process of launching a national network of retailers to facilitate people who would like to try the crutches before buying them.

It is painful to watch our loved ones struggle with ordinary crutches. You can now put a smile on their faces with M+D crutches. Watch them walk, run, and carry out everyday chores effortlessly!

The post A Different Design for the Differently-abled: The M+D Crutch appeared first on Techweek.