Business Plan

Musicking.com

Prepared by Christina Hough

April 1, 2015

Table of Contents
Executive Summary..............................................................3
Vision Statement..................................................................4

The Product.......................................................................... 4
Product Services and Features..................................................................4
Technical Considerations...........................................................................6
Legal Considerations................................................................................. 6

Market Landscape.................................................................7
Business Goals.....................................................................7
Promotions........................................................................... 8
In-Person Outreach.................................................................................... 8
Online Promotions..................................................................................... 9

Promotions Budget.............................................................11
Conclusion.......................................................................... 12

Executive Summary
Musicking.com is a web app and social media platform for adult music
learners. While learning an instrument is difficult, the goal of
Musicking.com is to help music learners, or musickers, stay

motivated to practice and improve, by making the learning process

more tangible and shareable.
Many music teachers report that their adult students are among the
most self-critical adults are more likely to have clear ideas of what
they want to achieve musically, but become discouraged when the
necessary technical skills develop slowly. Musicking.com is designed to
help make the learning process itself a means of creative and reflective
self-expression, by giving music learners tools for illustrating and
sharing their work.
As a web app and social media platform, Musicking works in two ways:
1. It is a journal for recording your musical goals, and your
progress towards these goals. When you practice, go to the
app and log the hours youve practiced, and what you worked on.
You will be able to see your progress as a multimedia timeline.
You can add to this your own commentary in the form of video or
audio recordings, and written posts. This lets you demonstrate
your thinking and tell your own story as a context for your music
making. Your efforts are reflected in a visually interesting
representation of your hours practiced, as well as in your
chronological collection of recordings and comments. The longer
you use the app, the richer and more interesting your timeline
will become.
2. It is a support network, where musickers can connect
with one another and share their advice and experience.
Musicking.com includes public forums, user groups and virtual
events where musickers can show off their work, seek feedback
and advice on a work-in-progress, or compete against each other
in musical games. Learners and teachers can also connect here,
as teachers are given the option to identify themselves as such
and link to their own products or services in their profile.
Learners can also choose a paid subscription level which offers
some of the benefits of a private teacher at a lower cost: basic
subscription levels guarantee that an experienced music teacher
will periodically view recordings on their Timeline and set
personalized challenges that will help them reach their musical
goals.
Musicking is ideal for people who are teaching themselves to sing or
play an instrument, or for people studying with a teacher. Musicians at
any skill level can benefit, because theres always room to push your
skill farther, or take on a new learning challenge. In addition, Musicking
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is a great place for skilled musicians and teachers to advertise their

expertise and find new business.

Vision Statement
The key to playing an instrument well is regular practice, but finding
the motivation to stick to a regular practice routine can be challenging.
This is true for many music learners, but perhaps especially for people
who are teaching themselves. Our website will help motivate music
learners by allowing them to track their practicing, and show off their
progress, and offer one another advice and encouragement. We aim to
create a community whose members are motivated to guide and
inspire one another in their music making.

The Product
Musicking.com helps motivate adult music learners by encouraging
them to share their progress and their musical insights with others. You
can do this in two ways. One is by creating your Musicking Timeline, a
visually rich, multimedia documentation of the work youve put into
your music. You can share it with your teacher, your friends, or make it
viewable by other musickers.
The second way is to participate in the Musicking community.
Musickers can read and participate in forum discussions, join groups,
and participate in virtual events where they can share works-inprogress, polished pieces, or compete in musical games! Events are
created by musickers for musickers, and are one of the best ways to
overcome stage fright and get encouragement and feedback from
your peers.
Musicking.com is also a great place for students to find teachers, and
vice versa. Any musickers can register a music teacher and advertise
their services through participation in the Musicking community. They
can also purchase a teachers subscription and take advantage of our
services for teachers, or apply to work for Musicking.com as an online
music coach.
For busy students, the music coaching available through a students
subscription might be the perfect compromise between scheduling
regular private lessons and trying to learn on your own.
Product Services and Features
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The Musicking Timeline: Whenever you practice, youll open the app
and enter how long youve practiced. You can also make blog-style
entries describing your goals and approaches, and upload audio or
video recordings demonstrating your progress. Your Musicking Timeline
displays this information in a visually interesting way, allowing you to
share your accomplishments with your friends. The longer you use the
app, the richer and more interesting your timeline will become.
Forums: These allow for public discussion of topics of interest to
musickers. Forums are organized according to medium of music
performance (the instrument they play, for example), or musical style.
Forums and subforums take into account the diversity of the Musicking
community, while allowing members with shared interests and
experiences to find one another.
Groups: Groups offer an even more flexible way for musickers to
organize themselves according to interest, location, or any other
criteria. They are user-generated entities, and can be either public or
private.
Virtual Events: Virtual Events can be created by any user.
Participants upload audio or video recordings of themselves within a
specified time period, and may listen to and comment on the
recordings of others during that time. When the event expires, the
recordings and comments are deleted (though you can always upload
your performance to your Timeline if you want it to live on!)
Events can adhere to any theme or special rules as designated by the
event creator, who will have a moderators powers to remove
comments or recordings as appropriate. They can also be public or by
invitation only, and the organizer can specify a maximum number of
participants and have them register in advance.
There are four types of virtual events:
Virtual WIP Workshops: These events are for participants to
share works-in-progress and get feedback and advice from other
participants.
Virtual Masterclasses: Similar to the WIP Workshop, these
events are created by users who have registered as music
teachers, and may be free or paid. The event organizer is
expected to offer feedback to each participant.

Virtual Open Mic Nights: Participants share recordings, but are

not expected to offer any feedback beyond optional
congratulations and virtual applause!
Virtual Competitions: Its up to the event organizer to provide
rules and a method for choosing a winner (if applicable). Virtual
Competitions can range from fun music games to American Idolstyle face-offs if the organizer so chooses.
Subscriptions: There will be two categories of subscriptions available
to musickers: teachers subscriptions and students subscriptions.
Students: For a very affordable monthly subscription, a
musicker can get a music teacher to regularly listen to or watch
their recording and leave detailed feedback, as well as a
personalized study plan to work on for next time. A higher
subscription level will include real time online music lessons
which can be scheduled for whenever is convenient for the
teacher and student.
Teachers: Music teachers can register as a teacher for free, and
include a bio a list of credentials, or a link to their website in their
profile. Their user name and avatar will be labeled Music
Teacher, and they are welcome to use their (productive and
non-spammy) participation in the community to draw new
business.
They can also purchase a teachers subscription, which allows
them to organize and collect fees from paid Virtual
Masterclasses, and use Musicking.coms scheduling and payment
management system to organize private music lessons (either inperson or via Skype). They will also be allowed to organize music
competitions to promote their lesson materials prize giveaways
will otherwise not be allowed in Virtual Competitions and have
those competitions appear in our Giveaways list.
Any music teacher may also apply to work for Musicking.com as
an online music coach.
Technical Considerations
Musicking.com will consist of a responsive web app, and a mobile app
with the ability to push and pull practice log information associated
with the users account. The user will be able to enter a new practice
log while the device is offline, but will need an Internet connection in
order to sync to the users account.

Legal Considerations
Musicking.com will adhere to all privacy laws, copyright laws, and laws
governing the use of childrens personal information.
We will consult mechanical license administrators with respect to
covers of copyright material that appear on our website, and will pay
the required licensing fees (similar to Banjohangout.orgs
arrangement). A copyright notice will be displayed every time a user
uploads a recording, and there will be clearly-states procedures for
rights holders who wish to have illegal recordings removed from the
site.
We will also host both audio and video content, and will need to
encode both in such a way as to play in all reasonably modern
browsers.

Market Landscape
Musicking.coms closest competition consists of a series of community
forums (such as Banjo Hangout, Piano World, and Violinist.com) and
online music schools (such as LessonFace). There are also a few mobile
apps for logging music practice sessions (such as the unimaginatively
named Music Practice).
Online forums for music makers often host lively communities, but
their features are limited by their grassroots nature. They usually use
outdated forum designs, ad banners to generate revenue or pay for
hosting, and new features are limited by the coding skills and available
free time of each forums members. They are often extremely niche,
focusing on a single instrument, and usually have an implied focus on
a single musical style, or constellation of related styles.
Online music schools are similar to in-person music schools. Though
there are challenges associated with teaching music over Skype or
similar video conferencing technology, there is clearly a market for it.
The benefit to both teachers and students is greater scheduling
flexibility, no travel time, and the ability to stay with the same teacher
regardless of changes in location.
We believe there is an opportunity for Musicking.com to find a niche
that offers even greater flexibility at a lower cost compared to a private

lesson, with the restriction that the coaching is asynchronous rather

than real-time. Fitocracy appears to follow a similar model for fitness
coaching, advertising personalized fitness coaching for as little as $1 a
month. We should be able to charge even somewhat more than that,
while still offering a service that is appealing to enthusiastic but busy
music learners.
Apps for logging music practices tend to be very basic after all, they
are simply the digital version of the lesson notebooks that music
teachers have been using for years. Musicking.coms Timeline will be
much more visually appealing and interactive, transforming the music
notebook from a simple personal reminder to a shareable part of
someones online identity.

Business Goals
Musicking.com will follow a freemium business model in order to
generate revenue. There will eventually be two types of subscriptions:
one type for music students, and one for music teachers. However, the
key early goal will be to grow the community, since a lively community
is important for a successful user experience.
The success of the web app will be measured against the following
objectives:
Within the first ten days of the websites launch, at least 300
people will create user accounts.
Within the first six months of the websites launch, it will have at
least 5,000 active users, with active user defined as an
account-holding user who logs on at least once every two weeks.

Within the first six months of the websites launch, 80% of

account holders will have used the app to set at least 2 goals,
and at least 60% of account holders will have registered some
other type of activity in relation to this goal (i.e. record whatever
form of progress the designers choose to let the users track).
Within the first three years of the websites launch, it will begin
generating enough money to pay all operational expenses,
including the salary of at least one full-time community manager.

The first two objectives are ways to measure the viability and vibrancy
of the community, which is expected to be central to the user
experience. The third measures the usefulness of the goal- setting

tools. The final objective is vital to the financial sustainability of the

project.

Promotions
The promotions strategy will involve reaching out to both music
teachers and existing music-making communities, both in-person and
online. The messaging overall is that Musicking.com is a diverse
community where all kinds of music makers can challenge and inspire
one another. Our members range from complete beginners to
professional music teachers and musicians, and all kinds of styles and
approaches are welcome.
We may also explore parallels between staying physically active and
staying musically active, citing research that musical training may help
protect against the effects of aging on the brain.
In-Person Outreach
Local music-making communities. A section of the website will be a
directory of local events and meetups for amateur musicians. We will
contact the organizers of as many such local events as we can find,
and invite them to add their club/meetup/event.
We will assign a budget of $3,000 to hire someone to research,
contact, and follow up with these communities as necessary.
Music educator conferences and music tradeshows. Messaging
will stress the value of creating a Musicking account for both students
and teachers. For students, we stress the value of staying active in
music throughout your life, and the value of the Musicking Timeline
(which can be set to private) for making effort and progress more
tangible to students. For teachers, we talk about the practicalities of
offering online private music lessons, and stress the value of
registering as a teacher on our site for finding new business and
demonstrating expertise.
We would ideally like to focus on events for musicians, private music
teachers, and adult learners, but further research will help us
understand where best to focus.
We will assign a budget of $5,115 to cover the cost of researching and
exhibiting at 2 events.

Online Promotions
Paid advertising: We will use a Google Adwords campaign to target
relevant search keywords, setting aside a budget of $11,475 to
research, buy and monitor ads for one year.
Social media hashtag-of-the-month: As part of our routine
community management, we will also come up with at least one new
theme/hashtag a month for example, To read or not to read?
#MusicNotationAndMe. Users will be encouraged to share their
thoughts and/or recordings on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using
this hashtag.
This tactic relies on users to promote the website to their own
networks, while providing content that is engaging and interactive. As
with the example above, inoffensively controversial topics that cover
the diversity of musical backgrounds might prove particularly effective
in soliciting comments.
We will assign a budget of $12,000 over one year for a community
manager to create, promote and manage these campaigns.
Musicking Together Virtual Collaboration Contest: This campaign
will be aimed at any musicians over the age of 18, but with the primary
goal being press coverage. In addition to our regular messaging, we
will also use this campaign to promote a better understanding of
Creative Commons licensing.
The campaign: we will commission a songwriter to write a song
consisting of lyrics, melody, and basic harmonic arrangement.
We will also pay the songwriter or another musician to record a
video of it. We will post the video on YouTube with a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, and issue the
following invitation:
For musicians: Record yourself performing along to the original
video. Any type of contribution is fine vocal, instrumental,
interpretive danceits up to you! Upload your video to YouTube
or your audio track to SoundCloud, add the tag
MusickingTogether, and include the following text in the
description: [Creative Commons Attribution license covering the
recording + Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
license covering the song itself, with appropriate legal wording].

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For producers: Search YouTube and SoundCloud for the tag

MusickingTogether, and use the recordings to create your own
mix of the song! Upload your mix to YouTube or SoundCloud, and
include the following text in the description: [same license
information as specified for musicians]. Also, for each
contribution you used, list the contributors user name and a link
to the original material on YouTube or SoundCloud. Remember,
theyve given you permission to use their recordings, but only if
you give them credit!
The contest will be promoted as much as possible in the media (social
and otherwise), and directly to music-making communities. Promising
recordings will be Tweeted with the hashtag #MusickingTogether.
Winners will be chosen from among the mixes, and the producer and
each contributor will win a years free website subscription, as well as
special branded merchandise.
We will consult with a lawyer regarding our interpretation of copyright
law, but we believe this will allow others to legally record and remix the
song while we retain the license to use it for commercial purposes
(according to the terms of our contract with the songwriter), while also
legally allowing us to use the communitys contributions for our own
promotional purposes.
Winning videos will be required to cite each of their sources as per
their Creative Commons license. Improperly licensed mixes, and mixes
including improperly licensed contributions, will not be considered as
contest entries.
The legal implications of the Creative Commons Free Culture license
will be explained in the contest rules in plain English:
Using the license above means that you cant legally refuse us
the right to use your mix, even if we use it to promote our
website.
If youd rather use a different type of Creative Commons license
for your mix, thats fine, but it means your mix wont be
considered as an entry in the contest.
Dont forget that its still illegal for you to sell your arrangement
of the song, or use the song for any other commercial purpose.
You are free to distribute your arrangement non-commercially
regardless of the license you choose to use.

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We will assign a budget of $6,075. This will cover the commission fee,
hiring the songwriter and a videographer/editor to shoot the initial
video, and hiring a publicist to promote the contest for 6 weeks.

Promotions Budget

(Continued on next page)

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Conclusion
Musicians are notoriously difficult to sell digital products to. However,
given its appeal to a broad range of music-makers, Musicking.com will
be in a much better position than most digital products in this category
to attract and retain a broad user base. Our Timeline and Virtual Events
represent an innovative approach to online music learning that will
benefit self-taught musicians, music students, and professional
teachers alike. They will be the starting point for building a broad,

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diverse musical community, while specific learning needs and musical

niches can find expression in user groups and forum discussions.
There is clearly a widespread interest in the music learning and music
making as social, communal activities, as demonstrated by both the
vibrancy of many online music forums, and the popularity of activities
like pub ukulele nights. Musicking.com will be well-positioned to tap
into this enthusiasm, becoming an online hub for music teachers and
music learners, helping to sustain peoples interest in a long-term,
active engagement with music making.

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