We're excited to tell you about the upcoming event that we'll be attending this week! SPR has been invited take part in Techmanity, a Silicon Valley Tech Conference held at the San Jose Convention Center. Coincidently, it happens to fall on October 1st, one year to the very day of my father's passing, which I find both ironic and amazing in itself. It also happens to be our first major conference since launching in 2013.
So what is Techmanity? Techmanity is about the up and coming technology that improves human creativity, productivity and the quality of life. SPR will be a part of the Startlandia Exhibit, which will be showcasing "the most dangerous and disruptive new start-ups."
So if you're in the San Jose area, feel free stop by and say hello to me and my co-founder. We'd love to meet you! We'll also be giving away SPR T-Shirts and SPR Credits as well. And as always, thank you for being a part of our SPR family. None of this would be happening without you.
I had to consider many things from both an artist and a consumer point-of-view when it came to creating SmartPhoneRecords. I thought about all of the things that frustrated me as a musician, as well as someone who enjoys listening to music. I felt that even though SPR would be like David fighting against two Goliaths (i.e.,competing with giants like iTunes and Google Play) it was actually SPR who had the advantage. And that advantage was our ability to allow musicians a platform to distribute music without having to rely on a third party. In other words, convenience and independence. Additionally, we decided early on to design it with cross-platform capabilities. The fact that we were not exclusive to any one device meant that we could instantly reach more people simply by being accessible to more than one demographic.
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| Cross-platform |
This is significant because what it essentially does is provide users the ability to sell their music to both iPhone and Android users, something neither Google Play or iTunes is structured to do. We still have yet to release a Windows or Blackberry version, but nevertheless, I find comfort in knowing that we are well on our way revolutionizing the digital distribution process.
Thank you for sharing your time.
Building the first prototype for SPR was rough. I had done much on my own, but I knew the day would come when I would need assistance to proceed any further, so I began searching for developers. I skimmed the internet and made contact with several app companies, all to discover one very intriguing commonality. Each one was reluctant to take chances. Time and time again I was asked "Is there anything like your app in the store already?", "Which app is it most functionally similar to?" Or, my personal favorite, "Can you show me something like it?", to which I would benevolently reply, "No I can't, because it's the first of its kind." What bothered me the most about this question was the lack of vision by the very people who were suppose to be visionaries.
Moreover, you wouldn't believe how many times I was told that the idea just simply wouldn't work. And each time I would think, "It doesn't matter what you think, if I'm paying you to make it, just make it!!" But it was only later that I realized, after finally finding the perfect team, that it actually did matter. Working beside people that shared my vision and were willing to go the distance to see it through was the key to turning my dream into a reality.
After my initial thought about how I would create SPR, I began doing a lot of research on the history and future of technology in relation to the record industry. While surfing the web I stumbled across a Huffington Post article titled "You're Out: 20 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade." Lo and behold, smack dab in the middle of the list was number 10, the compact disk. The first thought that came to mind was wondering how artists were going to send their music to distributors once CDs, in fact, became obsolete. This only helped reaffirm my belief that artists needed a new approach to getting their music out to the masses.
Ultimately, the CD will become obsolete, but the smartphone, however, will last for generations to come. And while there are many factors that helped keep my vision for SPR alive, this article somehow seemed to reassure me that I was headed in the right direction. See you next week.
A couple of weeks ago I shared my first "wouldn't that be cool if" moment that sparked the idea of creating SmartPhoneRecords. Having the ability to sell music straight from a smartphone was just what us music artists needed, but where would I begin and what would I call it? Since the idea was to create a platform exclusively for smartphone use, and since I had an iPhone, I originally named the app iPhoneRecords.
But what I wanted was something more universal, and the truth was, not everyone had the ever-so-popular Apple product. The last thing I wanted to do was limit the amount of people that could possibly benefit from using it, which is why, my friends, we call it SmartPhoneRecords.
Thanks for reading. See you next week.
