As the I.T. industry continues to play a strong hand in businesses worldwide, more tech-based entrepreneurs are entering the startup game, determined to commandeer the next big idea.
One such entrepreneur is Giles Butler, a 28-year-old former Music Production and Audio Engineering student whose team took out the top spot at Sydney Startup Weekend. The team came up with SoundNinja, a browser plug-in that aims to make it easier for users to find music artists and their tracks.
“Essentially it’s a browser add-on that finds artist names within website text and lets readers preview the latest songs by these artists without leaving the page,” Giles tells Dynamic Business.
“For instance, in an online music review, our add-on would find and highlight the names of any artists mentioned. An in-browser preview can be activated by hovering the mouse over highlighted names, and once the user opts to play a preview a player appears in the top corner of the browser window, so as not to obstruct the article itself.”
It’s a concept that has the potential to drive Giles’ tech career into the big time, a path he has inadvertently been working towards since he realised his passion.
“I was interested in design and technology from a very young age as I was lucky enough to be surrounded by computers growing up. It wasn’t until I started studying Music Production and Audio Engineering at university that I got my first taste of working in the creative industry, I was designing the print work for a UK record label and artist management company when they asked me to manage their website,” Giles says.
“One thing led to another and before I knew it they had me fixing bugs in the code, creating landing pages and developing MySpace sites. As soon as I’d had that first taste of developing for the web something clicked inside me and I realised how amazing it was to be able to program on my computer, see it come to life and then share it with the world.”
After learning his trade as a junior in digital agencies in the UK, Giles began contracting and working for clients worldwide. The pinnacle of his career, Giles says, is landing the Lead Frontend Developer role on the rebrand of Commbank.com.au last year. That pinnacle could very well be dwarfed if this new venture goes according to plan.
The idea for SoundNinja came, of all places, from a science fiction novel.
“The concept for SoundNinja was originally conceived by my co-founder, Ross Dyson, who funnily enough thought of it whilst reading a sci-fi book which mentioned a related feature,” Giles says.
“He then realised it was annoying to search for artist names he found mentioned online whilst reading an article. He would either lose the place he was at in the text or forget about the artist by the time he had finished reading the rest of the article.”
After building the initial concept within 54 hours at Sydney Startup Weekend, Giles says he took a few extra weeks “ironing out some bugs and polishing it into a beta product”. The beta is currently gathering feedback from an invite-only group of testers.
Giles and his team, consisting of CEO Ross and COO Nic Slattery, have now entered an all-important phase for any startup: the acquisition of expansion contracts and partnerships.
“To start with we will rely on a revenue-sharing partnership with Apple and their iTunes store, as we grow we will integrate with other digital music platforms and providers. We have also identified a number of other exciting revenue streams by developing new features that will help us expand into other markets,” Giles says.
“We are in the very early stages of talking to a major partner on the iPhone and iPad who is interested in using our technology within their own apps, but I can’t disclose anymore just yet.”
While SoundNinja’s primary focus currently relates to the music industry, Giles says the plan is to tackle television and film data before exploring other industries where they can apply their technology.
“The long term goal is to change the way users interact with content online by enhancing their user experience in an unobtrusive way and our overall vision is to make a big impact in the digital content arena; music is just the beginning for us!”
As the digital arena continues to expand, the number of players in the game is growing. It’s a very competitive industry; one that Giles says is filled with pitfalls for startups.
“I must have worked on hundreds of different ideas before SoundNinja and I’ve learned so much along the way just by trial and error, but I wouldn’t have got to this stage without failing first, and that is very important. There are so many pitfalls in the startup phase to be aware of, enough to write a book on, but the one piece of advice that’s stuck with me is to have a great team around you and make sure the culture of the team works well,” Giles says.
“A great team can make anything happen together as they will have the belief and strength to get through the hard times. I’m lucky enough to have found two exceptional co-founders with SoundNinja, so my advice for other start-ups would be to really invest in your team and company culture.”
