As I was wrapping up my Master’s program, I recruited a couple cohorts and began working on how to outmode record companies and provide a more scalable business model for independent music artists based around performance revenue and merch sales.
We built a prototype for an app we dubbed Crowdsurf, which earned an honorable mention in The Mobile App Competition hosted by BYU’s Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.
Our Competition Prototype
Encouraged, I conducted over 200 interviews and surveys with music venues and independent artists and found an urgent need for geo-specific analytics: 88% of respondents said there is no reliable source for predicting regional interest in a touring artist, and that actual attendance is generally less than half what booking agents promise.
So I isolated an MVP (see video below) and completely rebooted the prototype around a long-term product vision that integrates and streamlines other challenging aspects of booking shows and selling merch.
Current MVP Prototype
