SoundSurf (formerly CreamFloats)
Transforming Ideas to Reality
How do you translate the potent seed of a business idea to come alive and become a fully-functional music platform?
Here’s the story of how we did it.
Context
The cream of music is out there waiting to be found. CreamFloats aims to disrupt the music industry with a platform that will bridge the gap between up and coming artists, recording studios and the listeners — all without the backing of record label companies.
Our client had the potent seed of a music revolution but struggling to turn the dream into reality. With no deep knowledge of technology, our client came to us only with an idea. Just like giving birth to a baby, working on the project came with big challenges. There was a long list of features that will cater to different targeted user types (Listeners, Artists and Stages). Vital to making the business idea work was to overcome the lack of payment gateways that will allow micro-transactions at cheap processing fees and the implementation of payment splits between three parties (the platform, the artist and the stages) at the point of purchase.
From Zero To Hero
Adopting an agile approach to change management, we divided the project into three releases, with each release delivering a specific objective.
At phase one, we designed and built the web application from scratch. We released the platform for artists to sign up and upload their albums, EPs or singles, as well as music videos. The platform also allows artists to add details of their gigs. Artists have their own gigs page where other users can check a list side by side with a map showing where each of their gigs will be held.
Adding features for Listeners that allows them to explore and support artists on the platform was the objective for the second release. We tackled the micro-transaction problem by designing a credit system where users can top up their balance, use it to purchase music and withdraw any time. We added charts where listeners can check which music are trending in the platform on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Another important feature during this stage was implementing a social interaction between the users where anyone can follow, like and share music, posts and status messages within the platform and externally to other social media websites.
The milestones completed during the final release dealt with features that allow the Stage users to upload their own recorded video of collaborating artist and tag that artist on the uploaded video. CreamFloats enables artists and stages to agree with a payment split contract. At the point of purchase, the money is immediately split and added to the respective party according to the agreed terms.
The Start of Something Big
The platform has been released in several steps and is now fully operational at soundsurf.com. The first wave of artists has started to upload content on the platform and gave positive feedback. With the platform being fully functional, the marketing team is now well positioned to advertise and get more artists and stages to join and upload more content. What used to be a dream is now a real business which the client is cultivating to grow. A potential music revolution has only just begun.
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