In part two of our Granicus Group profile series, we dig a little deeper into the inner workings of EarBuds, the social music platform that allows users to simultaneously listen to the same streams, and share the music they love instantly thanks to their cross-platform functionality. Since their birth, in 2017, they have partnered with celebrities, sports figures and influencers such as recording artist, Nelly, NFL quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Baker Mayfield, and professional snowboarder, Danny Davis. For more stories that pertain to this series, check out our other Granicus Portfolio Profiles.
1. Company’s Elevator Pitch
EarBuds is the social music platform that enables users to simultaneously listen to the same streams as their friends, favorite musicians and other celebrities in real-time, wherever they are, whatever they’re doing. Use your voice and photos, save songs, share songs and DM for a deeper social music experience. Music is better together.
2. Who?
Jason Fox: Founder and CEO
Chris Gannett: President
Katie Corbell: Project Leader
Dave Ransom: Head of Product
Sean Moubry: Head of Engineering
Dalton Cherry: Senior Software Engineer
Ben Kimble: Software Engineer
3. Why?
The future of music lies in group synchronous experiences, affinity-based community-building at scale, and the creation of reliable income sources for the middle tier of music creators.
We endorse the concept that streaming delivers fame, while niche communities deliver fandom. And it’s fandom where an artist and a fan get the most value. EarBuds is focused first and foremost on serving the “squeezed” mid-tier of artists to (1) help them bridge the gap that exists between superstars – who get enough streaming scale to earn a meaningful income – and the youngest artists – who can now reach global audiences in ways they could never do pre-streaming, and (2) dramatically expand their funnel for acquiring new fans.
4. How?
We’re on a mission to bring people together through music. EarBuds is the first social music app to enable 70% of the world’s music subscribers to listen together through direct integrations with Spotify and Apple Music today, Pandora and Amazon Music coming soon, with more streaming music services to follow.
Today, the EarBuds experience is more live than a podcast, more personal than streaming radio, more interactive than Twitter, and more inclusive than any group listening experience.
5. Company influences?
Snapchat
Napster
Netflix
Amazon
6. Personal influences?
Jesus Christ
Muhammad Ali
Steve Jobs
7. Where do you see the business in 3-5 years?
As time stays finite, content is exploding: the average consumer spends over seven hours a day gobbling up digital media, up from three hours a day just a few years ago. Meanwhile, most musicians don’t make much money from streaming their recorded content — an artist makes +/- $0.004 per stream, meaning an artist needs ~3,500,000 streams just to earn the minimum wage of $15,000 per year. So unless you’re a superstar act, it’s tough to make a living on streaming revenue.
EarBuds is on a mission to transform the way streaming music content is experienced, and to enable reliable sources of income and community-building for creator talent on our platform. We endorse the concept that streaming delivers fame, while niche delivers fandom. And it’s fandom where an artist and a fan get the most value. We will be the place where anyone interested in music can use their hustle and savvy alongside our social, voice, community and commerce tools to amass a following and monetize that following. Even more specifically, we will be the most hospitable place for emerging and independent artists to unlock their full potential.
If the major DSPs are the top of artists’ funnels for discovery, EarBuds’ tools and platform will be there to help creators better coalesce and transact with their communities.
Open positions!
8. Why Granicus Group invested?
Granicus believes in the power of social and interactive communities. Creating an environment for users to connect with other people, follow their favourite people and athletes, and combine the power of social and music, allows the entire music-listening process to be more social. That is was EarBuds is creating.
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