The Rise of Functional Music in Wellness Spaces

freddie

Good battle.

jakob

Sorry? Yeah, no, I think works well. We've been using it for two years. It was sort of a bit interesting two years ago, but now it's stable.

freddie

I must say, like I hadn't done a podcast on Riverside for a bit of time. And then I did one, I think it was maybe a week and a half ago on Riverside. was like, this is so much better than what it has been. And like now actually there's no point of doing it on zoom. is, this is a professional podcast platform. sense.

jakob

100%, not as much better. Cool. Well, I think we'll jump right into it. I normally ask the guests to introduce themselves, that will come natural, so I'll just say that, but let's start in five seconds.

freddie

Step.

jakob

By the way, before we start, now your camera's zoomed so much in that I can't see your shirt, which I think probably would be nice for you. I don't know if it's...

freddie

Sure, let me see. I don't know how it's... I didn't actually mean it to zoom, it just zoomed. Let me see if I can figure it out. Is it better from an optics perspective, by the way?

jakob

It is, yeah. There we go.

freddie

That's a bit too much. I went straight to the left. Let me just.

jakob

Assyl.

freddie

I'll keep on center stage. doesn't mean I don't need the shirt to be in it. I just grab something off just quickly.

jakob

Okay, great. I'll start in five seconds.

jakob

Hello guys and welcome back to the podcast. Today we have Freddie in the studio. We've already had a nice conversation and today we're going to talk about something that I don't know much about, is wellness and music. Freddie, the people who don't know you, who are you and what do you do?

freddie

Thank you very much for having me.

freddie

Sure, happy to. So yeah, thank you again for having me. I'll immediately challenge you and say, you know, plenty about wellness. If you're sleeping at night, if you're breathing generally, then you are hopefully living in a healthy and well environment on your good days at the very least. let's hopefully throughout the conversation, add a little bit of some of the science and understanding behind that. my background, obviously my name is Freddie Moross. I come from a music rights family, essentially my father founded a company called Cutting Edge Group, is the leading provider of music for film, television, advertising and gaming globally. Sisters both work in that business and I had the great privilege of watching them all build it for ourselves growing up and was desperate to join them for many, many years. But my father said, no, go away, go find something and do something so you're not just joining without being able to contribute. And so I became a chartered accountant. at PwC for my SINs, so a little bit of a finance background. And once I finally qualified and joined his business, I entered the wellness music space because it was something that they had recently invested in. And I had the opportunity to start seeing behind the curtain to some degree and start with the great privilege of owning music assets in the space. it's been a great, you know, six years or so of building a wellness music company out of the background of... essentially of an asset company and into distribution and software. So we now have a music software business essentially.

jakob

Hmm, and that's called Myndstream.

freddie

Exactly. So Myndstream is a streaming platform we built to take music assets into different functional spaces. So anywhere where there is potential for intentional audio and you're trying to drive outcome, that's kind of where we specialize. it's essentially the soundtracks. We're trying to shift away from this idea of sonic wallpaper. So I don't know if you're a massive spar goer, but that was the first market we decided to try and enter and disrupt. We felt for too long, there was... the same CDs on repeat, or maybe it's the concierge service who does your FMB within a hotel and you've just got one or two mood media channels that are being applied for your spa which have minimal rotation and you're just keeping them there as a way to reduce the amount of cost you spend as the payer of the hotel or the spa. We felt like there was an opportunity to start being much more intentional about how you deliver an audio experience and actually soundtrack a guest journey and... understand about the outcomes you're trying to drive. So as far often it's deep relaxation as an example, but really starting from mapping the moment they first encounter your brand, start the booking, get into the location, go through the treatment. Everything should be a soundtrack to some degree, which is where we come back to our experience from film and television.

jakob

Interesting. Yeah, know, music does really change places. This is not related to spa, but I remember my, when I was sort of working at a building market 15 years ago as my first like a real job, full time, they had this sort of playlist on and I was working there every single day. was the worst music I've ever heard. And it was just like for six months repeat of like the most grueling music ever. obviously music can, can affect a lot. so What is the of the science behind music and spas, for example? Like, what are you guys trying to do? What helps the spa?

freddie

And just on that comment, one of the things that I get told quite frequently is, know, music can do no harm as a concept because it's so universal. Most people listen to music all the time and we think of it usually as a positive in our lives. But I hear a lot of stories where actually it can be quite stressful music and it can definitely have its moments where if it's programmed incorrectly, it can be more of a harmful device than a positive. And I find that really interesting because in spas, for instance, know, the harm there, let's say you have poorly programmed music that doesn't fit the environment, the treatment room is an example. You know, what are the challenges there? You could have an unhappy guest. I mean, when we were starting to do our research here, we had so many stories of experiences where ads would play in the middle of a free YouTube or free Spotify account being used in a professional music environment and obviously the licensing challenge there, regardless of the licensing issues, you know, from a guest experience, that's, that's a terrible experience. If you've paid for a professional massage and all of sudden you're being advertised to as a, an interstitial between your kind of calming playlist. It's a, it's a poor experience. So that can leave a bad taste. It can leave bad reviews. can shift the way people are considering your business and your professional elements. So just as a starting point from an experience perspective, having things considered in a safeguarded environment, which everything is built for the intention of improving the ambience, the actual experience you'll go through and you know it's going to be reliant. That can become the baseline. And then from there, what you can start thinking about is all the different touch points that can make music a far more valuable part of your experience. So now it's not just saying we need spa music to sound like spa music and make sure it's commercially licensed. It can be how does this spa music in the Waldorf sound different to what you'd experience in the Ritz-Carlton and make it branded? How does it make, how does this Ritz-Carlton in Paris sound different to the one in Maui? Because it now becomes geographically relevant and cultural while still maintaining a sense of the brand. How does it become the potential to create an upsell and drive ROI for the spa by maybe doing a pre and a post ritual where you can have maybe some somatic breath work before you go into your experience. You're in a state of, a bit more of a state of rest as opposed to

freddie

Maybe you've just jumped off of a stressful train journey and you're running into your massage because you're late. It's not the optimal point to experience the spa environment. know, music, and I appreciate you asked the question about what is the science. But as a starting point, music has the ability to set the tone. And so what we're considering in the spa environment specifically is at our starting point, the first industry that we really started building within. is what do you want the tone to be? Let's make that very intentional as a starting point and then let's match the guest experience so you're constantly being able to build towards an outcome, whatever that may be. yeah, the opportunities just to create a strong ambiance are relatively endless and they're done very well with the other sensors. think audio is probably the last sense which really needed some support, particularly in the hospitality world.

jakob

So try to explain the different scenarios where you'd be using this. Would that also be in commercial shopping settings or where are you considering yourself to be placed the best?

freddie

Yeah, think from our side, we don't tend to get into retail too much, but retail is, I think, the most significant background music market in the world at this point. So certainly that is a place where there's a lot more traffic, there's a lot more usage, and there's a lot of interesting papers around the impact music can have on one's psychology and purchasing decisions and a variety of other things that are not only in retail, but also in, you know... gaming floors for casinos and a variety of other places. know, there's as many areas where background audio and ambiance are considered and delivered to try and drive value for commerce. Our main markets, we started in spa and hospitality and what we started really within the superniche of spa, gradually growing into hospitality as an extension of our core market within spa. And then from there have been looking at our general expansion into healthcare and education. Our goal when we set out this business was we believed in the power of music fundamentally and we felt like music should be a prescribable part of care. But in order to achieve that, you need quite a lot of things, not just music rights management capability, which is what we started with. We needed to develop enterprise grade software. We needed to be able to scale that globally. We needed to have all the appropriate safeguarding and data tracking that we have now. in order to be able to deliver that into a regulated environment like healthcare and education. So we decided to start in Spa because we could do it in a commercially viable market, we could do it in a bootstrap manner, and we could grow with a kind of an infrastructure that allowed us to enter a market with as really a capable partner. So we started doing that last year after the first kind of five or so years of building our core stack in one market.

jakob

I can imagine commercially that it can be difficult to sort of operate in a niche market because, know, as a platform and as a sort of asset owner, the components of what you need to have in place doesn't necessarily become smaller just because you operate in a more niche segment. So how are we able to sort of navigate the, you know, I'll assume and call it like a smaller market than other sort of functional music and still operate in a way that's sensible.

freddie

You know, I actually, I'm a big advocate for the super niche. think you're, if you're solving problems that are real problems and you get to speak to your customers on a daily basis, when you're starting out, you're still listening to one problem at a time. Regardless of how large the potential serviceable market is, it just changes your financial structuring to some degree and how you're trying to resource effectively. We took a bit of a unique approach to some degree for a startup. We didn't raise institutional capital. We didn't want to get into a venture cycle. I never really liked the idea of, you know, trying to outgrow dilution because I felt like it put pressure in particular moments where maybe you needed patience or at least very least you lose a little bit of control and flexibility. I've been quite lucky to be able to grow into a super niche market and find a product market fit relatively swiftly by focusing on specific problems and solving those problems. The, I guess the interesting part of it is how much commonality is there in those problems with other people's problems that allow you to then expand your serviceable market at the right time. So what scale potential could you be in? It comes down to the very simple question of what's your ambition level, first of all. If you're comfortable just building a small, good spa music business, it's getting that to be the best spa music business in the world. That can be a really good business. can be very cashflow positive. It's a strong software business, quite sticky, customers who love you. that could be a great business for someone. you if you start with that in mind and say, I'm going to focus on one problem and one market segment and make that a fantastic or the world leading business in that area. It's just then your ambition levels may take over and say, well, if I can do it in spa, can I do it in hotels? And if I can do it in spa and hotels, can I do it in hospitals? And if I can do it in hospitals, can I do it in schools? And if there's enough for the commonality in the problem set, then you're in a good place to scale. quite a significant business, which could be good for someone else or could be bad for someone else, depends on what your interests are. But we set out very early and we were very clear on what the problem sets were and the commonalities between those, because we had a certain level of ambition and desire to make a real difference and create impact in the world. that was, we're a very mission driven company. We believe in the power of music and we want to get it into as many years as possible to try and help improve care outcomes. So we were conscious of...

freddie

you know, where our big lofty goals were, but also starting small enough that we could actually solve problems early. So I'm actually a big advocate for the start small and scale at the right time, but we're in the privileged position to do that because we haven't had to raise venture.

jakob

It's interesting. You know, I also really appreciate the niches and that's usually where I operate and where I appreciate the most. But there's also the danger of that, you know, niches being more powerful players and sort of forcing the dynamic to be interesting. For example, we've had Ole Sass on the podcast who's sort of CEO of Soundtrack, arguably the now the large sort of retail functional music platform and company in the world. Like how do you, how do you consider yourself in comparison to such companies and how they try to know, grow market share, is their primary ambition.

freddie

I consider ourselves Niche because we are, smaller, we're niche and we're solving smaller problems in our own way. And I think one of the core differences is we started as an asset business as opposed to as a distribution business and a streaming business. And that gave us a unique advantage because we can be quite savvy about our licensing and our pricing and we can solve the right problems at the right price. so, you know, we work alongside Soundtrack in several partners. We have common distribution, same with any other kind of streaming partner who's playing in our space because we are very, very focused on just our area of music, which is functional music. And we are doing what we need to do to become the best in the world at how we deliver functional music into spaces. So I see that as a compliment to the skill sets of a soundtrack who have managed to achieve incredible scale, empowering countless retail businesses to one, pay artists appropriately, which... I've always been quite inspired by their mission in doing that. they were really, you know, he held the flag for that for many years and did so publicly, which I think anyone who's getting into the commercial licensing space for music appreciates, first of all. And they built great software, know, spitting out a Spotify for business. know, they have some of the best user experiences and how you can craft playlists and bring your own musical taste into a place. And, you know, if you have a coffee shop, there is no better platform in the world than Soundtrack the Ratt. certainly sort of soundtrack, sorry, which that is clear to me. If you're a hotel business, I think again, you would benefit from looking at soundtrack because I think you probably could make your FMV places sound much better. You can bring some of your own tastes in and with the right kind of controls in place to ensure you're not letting an individual GM or person behind the bar make possibly the wrong selections for your brand with the right controls in place. You're in really good spot. Our specialty is how we're delivering functional music into the room environment and into the spa environment. And certainly I think we can compliment the likes of soundtrack and how we do that.

jakob

Amazing, very good answer. Okay, interesting. Explain the concept of wellness to me. Again, you started the episode by saying if you sleep well or if you sleep, there's an element of wellness to it so you would know something. But let's try to go a tiny bit basic. What do you mean by wellness? What does that mean?

freddie

That's a really good question. You know, there are many definitions I could possibly reach out to you. I'd encourage anyone, if you're looking for like the scientific definitions to search out the Global Wellness Institute. If you want to kind of go into the broad categories of definitions of wellness or start defining into different areas of wellness, they have an incredible initiative program that really clearly defines all areas of wellness with common language. But for me, on a personal basis, without wanting to echo a definition, which I'll probably get wrong. hence why I immediately passed the buck there. For me, the idea of wellness is living, simply daily living and thinking with a long-term view. It's trying to make better, healthy decisions and trying to literally live well, as much of a copper answer as that might be. So I started this particular conversation with, if you sleep, you are somewhat participating in wellness because... all of us could possibly sleep better. And if we just take the moment to turn off our screens a little bit earlier, if we start winding down for bed that little bit quicker, then you're making a good healthy decision to improve your overall health outcomes. And therefore you're participating in wellness, which I think is quite a powerful thing. think most of us get, or at least I did before I entered this industry, I assumed wellness had to be... an hour's worth of meditation every morning, or I had to be doing yoga and be able to do a crow pose or whatever. I don't think even that's real pose. It might be. But you have to do something that makes you proactively in that industry and you have to live with a certain level of spirituality or you have to live in a certain level of consciousness. I now don't necessarily subscribe to that same belief. think all of us could do with living just a little bit more intentionally. And if you're living a little bit more intentionally to take better care of yourself and those around you, then I think you're participating in wellness.

jakob

Could you describe to me sort of some of the financial metrics that are for the argument of wellness in, for example, these spaces you operate in? Because I understand the argument of happy customers and everything around that, which is about creating a great brand and an experience. But what are the financial outcomes that come from investing into the space as a, for example, a spa or a hotel?

freddie

Yeah, essentially a higher propensity to spend wellness customers, travelers specifically in the hospitality sector spend 40 % more than non-wellness travelers. You're talking about people. If my definition of wellness is intention, essentially, you're talking about people who are investing with intention. So that's the main metric of value is you're essentially finding a category of consumers who are deeply invested in themselves and having the best kind of experiences to improve outcomes and so you're looking at a demographic of individuals with a higher propensity to spend on experiences one particularly in the luxury categories of wellness. know price tends not to be an overall determining barrier it's not a limiting factor so you've all of a sudden got the opportunity to do some pretty special things and you're looking for people who are wanting to create long-term habit shifts as well you know we're not talking about flash in the pan one-time experiences. You wellness means long-term health improvements for the most part, or long-term improvements to lifestyle. And therefore you have the opportunity not only to support an individual who has a higher propensity to spend in the moment. You're looking for someone who's also interested in a relationship where if you find and you are the trusted source for improving their relationship with themselves, then you create loyalty. You create a relationship with this individual. So for me, it's the most exciting. potential demographic you could be supporting the kind of wellness enthusiasts because you are looking to one, improve and make an impact on someone's life and allow them to live better. You're also creating, doing something in a commercially viable market. think, you know, the wellness industry, again, look at our friends at GWI. I think it's at $6.8 trillion now in total economic value. It's a huge industry, exceptionally for traffic across multiple different facets. You know, this is no longer the kind of the woo. spin-offs or on the fringes of society. This is a very critical component of the fabric of who we are as people. So I think anyone who's ignoring the wellness traveler is possibly missing a trick.

jakob

That's a very surprising number to me. Could you break that down, like the sort of the, what we say, six trillion in that space? What does that entail?

freddie

6.8 trillion. If you don't mind me bringing up a quick graphic to help me go through it, I won't put it onto the screen, but I'll make sure I don't get my numbers wrong in front of me. But again, the Global Wellness Institute have a wonderful bubble chart. So this is actually $6.8 trillion in total global wellness economy in 2024. So that number is actually likely to have increased since, but including within that, you're looking at the personal care and beauty industry, wellness tourism industry, you're looking at... healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss, physical activity, wellness, real estate, and a variety of other specific industries that make up slightly smaller niches. I mean, just to sort of reference a couple physical activity is a, know, a $1.144 billion industry. So that's you're looking at one trillion of that is just in the physical activity space. So there's a great bubble chart right on the homepage of the global wellness Institute. Again, every year they, the Institute gives out all of their research for free. So feel free to just. jump on there and start drilling into some of these numbers. yeah, these numbers are staggering. It's a very significant industry. It's been growing considerably. I think when I started in the industry, it was closer to four trillion. So the financially savvy of you can calculate a very quick keger in your head, but it's growing at a rate of knots and it's not going to stop.

jakob

Amazing. Even though that is true, like you still operate in sort of music technology and sort of the environment of music technology, generally speaking, is, it's called interesting when it comes to sort of the, how customers are quenching to paying for products and paying for services versus, you know, other industries. How do you experience customers' willingness to pay for these products? Are they more skeptical to music and the costs associated to it than other products they might be buying?

freddie

Gosh, absolutely, yes. We are constantly making budgets for ourselves, which we have to do. Artists aren't paid enough, as a general rule, and particularly in the commercial environments, they haven't been paid enough. The budgets that hospitality groups have been used to paying in music are a fraction of what music is valued in the entertainment space, as an example. And my question is, is the music any less valuable than hospitality is? as the soundtrack to a TV show. Probably not at the same level of margin shift or the multiples that are earned in terms of the budget. So yeah, I think there's a lot of work to be done to showcase the ROI that music can drive for an individual and you have to frame it in the right contexts, particularly in our space of music technology and music technology to drive an outcome. There are kind of two layers to that. have one, what's the physiological or psychological benefit for a user. listening to music, are you actually improving outcomes? know, all of those kinds of objective measures are clearly important for adoption and adherence. but then there's also like the budget and commercial side of things. Are you driving an ROI? Does those improvements mean that you can charge more, you know, have repeat custom a variety of other things. there's, there's two, two kinds of areas to building budget, in these spaces. But, yes, we come up against it all the time. we, you know, in spas there was next to no budget when we were starting because people, I can't tell you how many CD players we've displaced in spa environments as a simple rule that were bought 15 years ago. If someone was paying commercial licenses, they were pairing it for as few channels as they possibly could with as few zones as they possibly could because they were on a cost saving mission. I can tell you in film and television, you don't cost save through music. mean, yes, if your director says, I want the stones and you can't afford the stones, then yeah, you've got to find an alternative. You invest in the soundtrack in order to drive return because music is valuable. creates value for others and it creates value for experiences. you know, there's a reason why that exists and that we're lucky to understand the commercial structures of how to make music valuable. That was our starting point. There's music rights management infrastructure. We're good at commercializing music assets at Cutting Edge. So it was just a case of applying some of the way of thinking and telling the right stories so that we're starting in the right places with good partners who have been willing to invest with us and also

freddie

you know, not asking for the moon and the sun at the starting point. You we're not coming in and charging egregious prices. We're an accessible and affordable streaming platform. We're showcasing value immediately. And then we're building budgets with you for the benefit of both partners. We're a value provider. We're not trying to steal budget from people. We're just trying to build it.

jakob

I have the luxury of speaking with an incredible amount of startups in the music tech space. I here and there meet companies, you know, building streaming platforms and obviously the licensing cost and just the permissions of building a streaming services is insane. And what I'm hearing now is maybe the reason why you can operate in a niche the way that you do is the connection with the asset. assets that you guys can manage because as I understand the landscape of licensing and stream platforms, just getting started with something tangible can cost tens of millions of dollars and basically makes any business model that wants to be lean virtually impossible. So do you believe you could have managed this without also having assets or do you think one of the contributing factors to you guys being able to operate in niches is that fact?

freddie

Absolutely not. We definitely would not exist if we didn't start with assets. It's very, very hard if you're reliant on third party licensing. even the structure of how we price is because we own the assets. Everything has been built off of that as our kind of competitive advantage and our lean approach has just been taking full advantage of it. yeah, I am hyper aware of when I get to sit back and say, you we haven't had to go over venture and we don't have to go into the growth fighter. This is an exceptionally privileged environment to be growing a business from. And I'm super conscious of that, but I'm taking full advantage of it in terms of the way we think about music, taking it into the industries we get to support, the way we're pricing for those industries, the way that we're able to grow budgets with them. It's all leveraging that kind of that starting point and making it into something that can create value for the industry. So yes, you're spot on. That's exactly why we're able to turn to the industry the way we have and why we've been able to exist as we do.

jakob

But I think that's the beauty and I think also more founders should think about that. building businesses in this space, well in any space, is incredibly hard as an entrepreneur. Like I've been doing this for way too many years and I feel much older than I actually am because of that. And I'm constantly thinking about these sort of unfair advantage situations when we build businesses. Usually that sort of stems from past experiences. We've been helping building more than 50 companies. So we have insights people might not have and sort of can cross. cross-pollinate things a lot. And that's sort building our sort of unfair advantage. But you need to take advantage of those because it is so hard. And I would say in streaming, it's probably virtually impossible building in a niche. And that's why you can also win the market. But what is the long-term intention of building such a company? Is that just building a healthy, profitable company? Is it something that sort of owners want to sell off at one point? Like what's the financial goal?

freddie

You know, we've got our goals. We've got, we've got kind of, they shift and change based off of, the opportunities we're seeing in the market and how we're being adopted to some degree. I always say if we're going to be a spa music business, we're going to be the best spa music business. If we get to be more, that's fantastic. And the way we've positioned ourselves and structured is that we're never living at, we're never limiting our potential, but we're never forgetting where we come from. we have, know, owners of the company aren't putting pressure on us to drive to an exit within three to five years. That's again, one of the great privileges of being built out in the way that we have. We're an incubator business within a family-owned structure owned by my father and my sisters and management who've been with him for decades at this point. So again, we're at a very, very unique and very exciting position where we get to be flexible to some degree. And we certainly have a vision for where we want to take things, but We're taking it one day at a time at the same time.

jakob

And how do you feel comfortable in the role as like a founder and CEO of this? Like I can imagine that it's, you know, any founder journey is really, really difficult, but then you also live in a, dynamic that might also affect relationships and like how you need to consider yourself.

freddie

I can't imagine anyone sitting in the role of founder and say, using the word comfortable. It is an incredibly challenging and stressful thing to do to build a business. Most importantly, it's because you're completely out of your depth constantly. I think at least, at least I haven't found ground that I can stand on yet comfortably and feel like I am capable and confident and know everything. I'm constantly learning and this is why I get to... I have the privilege of hiring incredible people who cover off many of my weaknesses and allow me to kind of continue to develop in the areas I need to. So yeah, how am I sort of thriving in the role? I'd say more kind of, it's a mixture of surviving and thriving at the same time. I think, hello.

jakob

It's cool, we'll cut that off so you just finish your sentence.

freddie

Yeah, I learned it from the two of you. What's your name? Axel. Good to meet you Axel.

jakob

Then you're not doing anything. You have to see the Then it's a start in the world.

freddie

Very sweet.

jakob

Luca, will you cut that out?

freddie

Yeah, well good is actually oldest

jakob

He's the oldest, yeah. It's like nine degrees Celsius and he asked if he could run out in t-shirt instead.

freddie

Tell me you're in Norway without telling me that's perfect. I love that.

jakob

Sorry, we cut you off, but.

freddie

Yeah, all good. I can't remember where I was exactly. Yeah, essentially more of the same in terms of. I'm really, think, I, when I was, and I don't want to give you too much, boring context of how I grew up and all that stuff. Cause I'm sure your listeners will immediately turn off, complete disinterest. Know, I, I always grew up, you know, one watching my father build a great business and my grandfather as well was an entrepreneur and built incredible stuff. And I've got a lot of that in my, in, the blood and family around me. And they were all, I always looked at them, these incredible, inspiring figures and desperate to learn from them and spend my early sort days in schools doing any idea I possibly could as kind of the learning ground and so and that coupled with possibly a slightly problematic sense of authority and challenging authority and not necessarily feeling like I fit in with the core. I went and worked with PwC for instance and that was really hard to try and fit into a bureaucratic environment. For me at least, I couldn't see another path. I really wanted to build something. I wanted to be a founder. I wanted to try and create something that didn't exist in the world. And I think if you don't have that, then founder life is probably not the thing that you should do because it is really tough. And there are so many moments where you'll be confronted by challenges you didn't even know could exist. And you have to find this. New layer of resilience that is, you know, it really, it really tests you. And I love it because it does test me. And I was actually, I went through one of these moments the last eight weeks or so. And when we had, was, one was a positive moment and one was a negative moment. And they're both conflated the exact same time where we had like these opportunities that I didn't expect to come, you know, be available to us for maybe another 18 months or so. They came a bit quicker than I expected, which is

freddie

Really cool, but also you have resource constraints, which you need to be very cognizant of and you don't want to go in the wrong pace with the wrong resourcing and the wrong things in place. So that comes with structural challenges that you need to be cognizant of. But so that was the positive thing. And at the same time, I had personnel shifts. I had one executive leader who'd been with us from zero to one, essentially, who wanted to go off and build his own thing. And he was ready to go and take a leap. And I was like, okay, that's great. Always inspired by people who want to be entrepreneurs. But the timing was like challenging. And also we had another kind of key individual who was kind of running a lot of the finance department who was also looking to leave as well. So, you know, who just handed a herno. So we were sort of like in this space where I had opportunities to scale, but also had structural things to consider internally with particularly two key highs, one of which is in my discipline of finance, but One of which was out of my comfort zone. Was a very technical exit. It the head of privacy technology. So, you know, that is those, the least last eight weeks, I think have probably been the hardest moments of, my, my career so far in a really good way. Know, I was, was one of the things that I did as a, as a response to, this, chat's evening is I decided to have meetings with every single stakeholder in our business, know, employee or external, whoever, whoever's kind of. Been touched by this guy Will who's just heading off to go do his thing and he's a, he was a, you know, he is, sorry, he's not gone, he's still around. He is a fantastic individual, super smart, very charming, know, great product and technology leader. Have no doubt he's going to be incredibly successful because he deserves every bit of success. But people like that in an organization, they're enigmatic. They are, they set culture, they set tone, they make people feel comfortable. He was a leader. People wanted to follow him. So, you know, the concern as a founder in that space is, okay, I'm going to have an exodus on my hands. You know, if this person leaves, then what are the signals? You know, what is everyone else going to think of the business at the same time as things are starting to go really well? I'm like, I don't know how to handle this. And so I decided, you know, to handle this, I just be honest and be transparent with people. And I sat down and I explained to them what was going on and, know,

freddie

Why I was excited about it, why it gave us an opportunity to start thinking, you know, about the next phase and actually position ourselves for growth. Cause in our phase of scale, you know, having one head of product and technology was going to be a limiting fact that we needed a product and technology to be split. Needed to split our engineering and product up to one. So these are things we were thinking about anyway. And with Will going, we had the chance to do that, but I had to put trust and faith into those who someone even in the business at this stage, because, you know, they just, they were just about to hand their notice in to come join us. And, person who recruited them was no longer going to be in the door. So before they did that, I wanted them to have all the facts and thankfully, they decided to still choose us and they're to be here in the next month or so, and we're to be good. But, you know, those are tough moments and you, the, comment I used when I was in those, reflecting on it is those are the moments you get to earn. People's respect, you know, in the hard moments. It wouldn't be worth anything if it wasn't really challenging and if you didn't have something to step up to. I'm proud of that we managed to get through that moment and still feel like we're going in the right direction and it didn't still armament in any meaningful way, which definitely could have. So it was a moment where I can reflect on nearly out the other side of the eight weeks where I'm... proud of how we've dealt with it so far. And I'm excited about what it means going forward. And yeah, the kind of phrase that I frame around is those are the, those hard moments are where you get to earn it. But to come back to your actual question at the top of this is, you know, how do you feel in your seat and how do you get comfortable with being a founder and a CEO and a software business? No idea. If you find anyone else who knows the answer to that, please, please let me have a chat with you. So because it's, I think it's comfortable being uncomfortable is the way I would frame it.

jakob

No, yeah, I completely agree. Don't know anyone who enjoys it for the comfortable, easy life. Think it brings a lot of flexibility and freedom, sure. I don't think it's a complete trade-off. Think, speaking, it's much harder than it should be. But that's just the name of the game. Again, I tend to compare it to sportsmanship, like elite athletes. It's you know... Most of them will never achieve the pinnacle of success. Most of them will not even be able to sustain themselves and their families. But that's sort of the price you pay. And I think they can be found a lot of enjoyment in the pursuit as well. It doesn't need to be the pinnacle. And it rarely becomes that. So even in my career, like the last 14 years, like I've worked with so many different people, if not hundreds, then close to it. And I would say I can maybe... five people I've worked with have actually really, really made it. At that percentage point, it's very small. It's probably like 2%. So you need to be willing to be a part of those 98 % and also find some sort of enjoyment with it. If not, it's just going to be too long and hard. That's just how it is.

freddie

Yeah, I find a lot of, um, I find a lot of pride in it. Think, um, I think that's where I come back to. It's like, work, look around the office, you see people that had this one moment recently, um, where one of the people who works in our marketing department, um, posted on our Instagram that she was like, we had this, uh, one of, uh, these guys, unfortunately he was out skiing and twisted his knee really badly, did his MCL and ACL. He's a big sportsman and he, uh, he can't, he can't walk or run at the minute. And it's, it's been really, really challenging for him. And, I was away traveling somewhere. I saw on Instagram that the marketing department had actually just gone to him in his house in Oxford and stayed for the weekend. They were all out of the pub, having a good time. And I just, I just like, and there was nothing to it. Just saw it on Instagram. Was just like, you know, it's really cool that I can, you know, I've had the opportunity to bring people together, to work towards a singular mission and that they've actually just found in a friendship in one another as well. And that level of support for one another is like, I find that those moments, I feel really a sense of pride and also responsibility. Cause I think the other part about being a founder is you're accountable for a lot and you're responsible for a lot and everyone who joins your business, are, they need to feed their families, much like you need to feed yours. And feel that sense of obligation and responsibility quite deeply. And it's important in every decision we make from. Whether or not you consider capital and injections to scale or dilute or to, you know, just, should I buy a hoodie? With my MindStream logo on it, every decision is weighted to capital constraint and cash flow management and making sure we're taking appropriate risk at the right times. Specifically because the obligation there is that to ensure that you're not going to be in a position where one of those people who've invested in you and in your business and wanting to build their skills in your business. They're not going to be able to feed their family because you made the wrong decision. So a lot of obligation, lot of responsibility, a lot of weight in this role, but that's a dual effect. And I say that responsibility is more of a positive thing than a negative thing, as long as you're generally moving in the right direction and making more good decisions than bad, which as long as there's some momentum there, usually you are. So yeah, I find a lot of pride in the role and I enjoy it. I enjoy it, certainly. It's a nice building.

freddie

I'm also lucky in the business I work in music and wellnesses. What else could I do that I would find such a sense of purpose and work with things that I love so much. It's, yeah, I certainly feel lucky about it.

jakob

Freddie, it's been a pleasure learning a bit about wellness and music and the business model and sort of the realities of building such a business. It's not something I think about every single day other than sort of in the practicals of how I enjoy myself is I listen to a lot of sort of background music that I'm very particular about in order to put myself in the same mood. But I oftentimes also maybe don't think about it enough as a niche and the opportunities there. For any founder, before we round off this interview, for any founder who would like to pursue businesses in wellness music, what would your advice be? Where would there be problems to be attacked that hasn't fully been solved yet?

freddie

I would steer clear of generative. I don't think volume is the challenge in our sector. I think there's plenty of music to go around. I would focus on distribution. Simple. What matters is getting the right music from the right ears. I think once you've got the pipes, you can play the right quality music. I see the incredible stuff that's happening with Suno and all the other generative platforms that are scaling. Incredibly well and certainly as someone who enjoys listening to many men by 50 Cent reimagined as in a jazz trio, know, it's cool, it's fun. In this particular category of music for functional music, my view is that technology should be there to improve the efficiency of the distribution and also making sure it's the right music for the right ears. If anyone's trying to solve more problems, there's plenty of problems to solve, lots of industries to break into. As we discussed earlier, it's definitely not easy when you have to be reliant on rights owners. My view is technology is there to support the distribution of art and art should come from an artist. And so at the end of the day, you need to be making sure that you're taking care of those artists because they have an incredible...incredibly stacked deck against them at times. And if we can create more commercial value for them, I think that's certainly an obligation.

jakob

Amazing. Thank you for you so much for joining today and thank you for sharing your journey.

freddie

Of course, thanks for having me.

jakob

Perfect, thanks man. TITLES Episode 148 – Jakob x Freddie Moross Episode Title Options Episode 147: Freddie Moross: Designing Music for Wellness and Hospitality Episode 147: Freddie Moross: The Rise of Functional Music in Wellness Spaces Episode 147: Freddie Moross: Turning Music Into Infrastructure for Wellness Episode 147: Freddie Moross: How Sound Shapes the Modern Spa Experience Episode 147: Freddie Moross: Building a Wellness Music Platform From the Ground Up Thumbnail Title Options Music Designed for Healing The Science of Sound Sound That Changes Wellness Music Built for Relaxation The Power of Wellness Sound