Building a Music Tech Company Before the Market Was Ready

Jakob

Okay, I will start in five seconds.

Jakob

Vijay, it's so good to have you in the studio. Welcome.

Vijay

Thanks Jacob.

Jakob

We've had a small conversation already, but I'm really interested to talk about your journey as an entrepreneur in India within music tech. You've had a rich career beyond music tech, but you've also done really well in music tech, built OK Listen and sold to AWOL in twenty three. So I think this conversation today is about being your entrepreneurial journey and also the music industry in India and trying to understand that in depth. For the people who don't know you, who are you and what do you do?

Vijay

Okay, so yeah, I mean, I like to kind of call myself as somebody who likes tinkering around ideas at the intersection of technology and innovation and now music. I've had a fairly large amount of experience, nearly about 30 years of experience, out of which a large portion of it was dedicated to OK Listen, nearly about 12 years. Before that, worked with several corporates and startups, and that's where I think the whole seed of entrepreneurship was growing. And now of course I'm still doing a little bit more work on music tech in some areas. So yeah, largely I think it's just the whole, the entrepreneurship mindset was more I think cultivated rather than born with.

Jakob

Hm. Because you built a company in two thousand twelve, if I remember correctly, that turnout well, at the end a distribution company focused on independent musicians in India and got acquired by AWOL. But if you look at your career, that doesn't necessarily naturally lead to the music industry. So could you tell about how you went into this specific field?

Vijay

Yeah.

Vijay

Yeah, so I did my engineering and did my management degree and then joined like a large corporate trade. Think working in just one year after my post-graduation and doing my management degree, I realized that working in a large company is going to be a little kind of, you difficult to work with, especially at the start of your career. So within the first year, I actually ended up joining a startup called bazi.com, which was in the auction space, which eventually got acquired by eBay. And I think that's when I really enjoyed, started really enjoying working in the whole startup ecosystem, very early on. So that's when I kind of moved a couple of companies and a bunch of that. But at the underlying thing, music has always been a huge sort of a passion ever since engineering college, know, as I was growing up and you know, we always had music at home. My dad was much a lot into classical Indian classical music. So music was very much a part of the from a consumption pattern was very much there. And weirdly enough, just seeing my dad buy a lot of music. So we used to have spool tapes and stuff like that. The day I started working, I actually started buying music. So I still remember I paid nearly about, I would say, 30 % of my salary on just buying my first CD, was Hell Feasers Over by Eagles. So I always bought music. And I think that somewhere kind of resonated with me as I went along. And so working in a couple of digital companies, digital startups, and one of the large corporates, was at a mobile gaming company. I was leading the operations for that. And I actually happened to stumble upon a very interesting band called Them Clones and I wanted to buy their music and I realized that there was no digital way to do that and I was quite surprised because we were in 2012, know, internet was fairly, you know, accessible in India but music was not able to sold online and so I reached out to the band and they said, you know, they will kind of send it by post and stuff like that and I kind of said, okay fine, I'll send it across and they send the CD, you know, will...

Vijay

Was at home, so I missed the delivery and the CD went back to the end. And then I figured that why doesn't this happen digitally? And I just realized, did some research and figured that there was nobody doing like a digital sale of music. And I think that was probably the moment at which somehow my itch to start my own company and solve a problem that I was trying solve for myself really came together. And I said, okay, let me just try and start a So I think that's how I started OKListen, which was actually when we started we were more of a pay per download store.

Jakob

Mm.

Vijay

This was pretty much the pre-streaming era. The only people who were doing it was Amazon and Apple. That's when you could buy MP3 files or AAC files from these stores. So we started out as a pay per download and then eventually moved to distribution. But that's how I came across my entrepreneurship journey. I think I was trying to scratch and I did not do a lot of research. I'll be very honest about the fact that I did not do a lot of research to figure out how big the market was, what could be the money that I could make, nothing of that sort. It was just a thing that I said, okay, this could be interesting to solve for myself. Let me just go and solve it. So that's how it started.

Jakob

We'll get back to the specifics of you founding the journey. But one of the things we had in our conversation before the call or before the recording was that the payment I wouldn't call it the payment willingness of the Indian market, but the fact that India in general doesn't pay money for music at scale, seems like a problem. Was that less of a problem in the down download area than it is now in streaming?

Vijay

Well, no, I think it was, I would say still around because what was happening is that we were only working with independent artists and most of these independent artists had like a relatively smaller base because independent music was just about growing and in that smaller base of fans, there was maybe an even more smaller percentage of fans who were willing to buy music. So I think that problem was there. The problem has got more acute now because the accessibility to music has just exploded because of streaming. It was not that situation when it was a pay per download. The access was pretty much to the top metros people who were exposed to these independent bands and who loved the music and then would have the urge to buy their music. So I think the problem persisted then as well, which is that it's become even more bigger because... There are lot many consumers today than they were here, I would say.

Jakob

Hm. Wha what's the consumption pattern of small niche independent in India? Because again, from the outside it seems like you know, India is a country of scale. But is there still room for niche audiences? Is that a thing in India?

Vijay

Yeah, I think it's growing and I think I would attribute streaming to accelerate that consumption. It's still maybe in the single digit numbers, but you have to really understand India as a market where we are a very... in a film music dominated country. A lot of the music discovery in India was through films. So other than Indian classical music which had its own sort of discovery element to it, which was mostly live performances, but

Jakob

Yeah.

Vijay

Regular music was very film driven. And I think, I feel COVID really kind of changed the needle because what's happened is that, you know, post COVID there are a lot more musicians putting out music really. And also the film industry has seen a little bit of a decline. So there are not as many movies coming as earlier. And even the film industry today is experimenting with a lot of talent, right? And in a lot of cases, it's a lot of independent musicians as well, you know. So therefore, in general, independent musicians are getting a lot more, I would say, exposure today. And so I think the consumption of independent music is definitely on the rise right now, for sure.

Jakob

Hm. Hmm. Going big back to you starting the company, again, you know, the way that I've been able to read your story from my own research is it seems like you jumped full into founding okay listen and but not necessarily been able to do that as a full time thing for long term. Like d tr try to tell about how you started, how you went about it and how that journey was.

Vijay

Yeah, so when I look back, was a little scary, actually. So I started, like I said, you know, I just identified the problem and I just like dived into it. I quit my job, went and met, went to a couple of music festivals, met a lot of musicians. And firstly, I wanted to check with these musicians, are they willing to kind of, you know, give their music to be sold? And a lot of them are saying, hey, there's nobody doing this. So we are more than happy to do that if you are willing to invest in the platform. So having got the feedback from the musicians, then I went back, partnered with the developer, partnered with the designer and sort of we went live in July 2012 with just about seven bands and I think one of the bands is a very established band called Indian Ocean and we had one or two of one of their double album really and what happened was that we actually paid them at the end of the month. They had sold like I think about 12 or 15 units or whatever. And we had paid them immediately at the end of the month, we just settled their payment, whatever was due to them. And they were actually quite shocked because they said that they had never seen money come to them without any follow up. So they gave us a shout out on Facebook and that kind of took off the journey of more bands starting to work with us. And so I think it went well for a while and I think then I also got like a co-founder, a technical co-founder, somewhere around 2013. That's also at the end of 2013 is when we partnered with the Orchard. which helped us distribute the pay per download music to Amazon, mp3 stores and Apple stores. Also that partnership was very interesting and it would eventually be the reason why we actually got acquired later. So we did that and it was going fine but we realized that we were actually hitting a limit in terms of how much we could scale because we were not able to invest in Asmos technology because we were not making a lot of money. We were just making like around 10 to 15 percent of what the user

Vijay

Were paying and because we were promising a lot more portion to the artists. So at that point we decided that we'll go and raise some capital. So we went out, spoke to a bunch of VCs, a couple of people, because at time I think the funding space was not as mature as it is today. And the common feedback we got was that this is too niche an area, so doesn't seem like that you will get scale. If you want to get funded, then it's best you kind of shift to like a Bollywood or the film music. sort of thing, And which is not what excited me and my co-founder. So we kind of stayed away from it. And eventually we realized that nobody was going to fund us. And so we said, this is going to get a little... Because I was staring at the bottom of my bank balance, because it was two years since I had run OK Listen. And, you know, so we said, OK, maybe we just shut it down. Because, let's... It's a good shot. We gave it a shot. You know, it's not working. So we spoke to a couple of artists and the common feedback we got from these artists is that whatever, do whatever you can, keep this alive because this is the best thing that has happened to independent music for a long time. So that feedback really sort of resonated and sort of felt very good for us. So what we did was we then took up day jobs, both me and my co-founder. He went back to his family business. I started working for corporates. But then I hired a youngster who then kept the ball rolling at the, just keeping lights on really. then, and that's the model I followed. for nearly five years from 2014 to 2019. kind of, know, did a day job, continued with OKLISM and I also hired a couple of more people because the business was able to sustain, you know, a bunch of employees who were kind of increasing in revenue. And then 2019 is when I came back to it full time because, you know, I realized that it was time to kind of scale it. We were getting a lot of traction. So essentially it was like a five years of a very painful period of, you know, struggling with a day job and running people can listen in alive. And I think that was probably the most challenging part of the whole journey.

Jakob

That's so interesting and usually this doesn't work. Like in order to have a founder journey and build a company it requires full attention for a long time. So what was it about that model that worked? Why did it succeed in spite of you needing to shift your focus that much or have it that divided?

Vijay

Personally, think it was the right thing for the market at that point in time. Because I don't think even if we had thrown capital at the problem, we would have scaled the business. I don't think the market was even ready. So, I mean, and this is of course just a hindsight thing, insight that I have is, while it just felt right because musicians wanted the platform,

Jakob

Yes.

Vijay

And I needed to take up a job and we said, okay, we can try and make this work. But that was probably the right thing to do because some of these things just take time. there's not a lot of revenue, but there is a gap that you're trying to solve. And it just, you have to be patient enough to wait on the sidelines to see a slow, a gradual increase in the market. And that's at some point you feel, okay, now I think it's time for us to scale and then you can sort of fire up engine room. But so I think that's the only reason I think it worked because if the market was very large and we had played a very kind of a hibernating sort of a role, would have been just like, we would have been history. But I think it just was the right thing. that we ended up doing probably.

Jakob

Hmm. Could you tell a bit about what you personally went through? Because, you know, again, these are my assumptions. When you look at the levels of responsibilities you've had in your corporate life, like these are not small positions, like you've had significant roles in big corporates and in startups that has what I can imagine been very demanding. So it's not just because you've had like a side job, like you've had actual impactful leadership positions while you were running this. Like how did that look for you, like work wise, stress wise, pressure wise?

Vijay

Yeah, I mean, I think it was very stressful both from a professional standpoint and a personal standpoint because till say 2012-2014, two years, I literally was working 14 to 16 hours a day and I have to be super thankful to my wife because she was super supportive. Our daughter was born in 2008, so she was just about four years old. So she pretty much supported a lot in that phase really, right? working in 2014 to 2019. I think that was even more stressful because I was doing a day job then I had to come back and you know also then dedicate time. So I think it was stressful no doubt right. I think in the first formative years the stress was more about the financial impact on my savings.

Jakob

Mm.

Vijay

And I think in the five years that I did a dual thing, it was just the pressure of trying to do, you're really stretched trying to, you know, keep your own gig going and also do a day job, which is really demanding. Like you said, I was leading a couple of projects, so it was fairly demanding that way. So it was personally very taxing. In the five years that I did a dual thing and it was I think professionally in terms of financially it was very taxing. But somewhere I feel, you know, it's and I think this is something that you can only experience once you become a founder is that. When you're really passionate about something, it's that what keeps you going. I mean, it's a very hard journey, but when you look back, of course, it looks, I mean, it feels nice. But I think there's that thing of thing, okay, you are onto something, you're trying to solve something. Because we used to get really excited by fans saying, we loved your website, we loved the music, I discovered this artist. So that kind of gave us a lot of kick, I would say. what kept us going but yeah but the pain was real I mean I think can't take away from the fact that it was quite a difficult time actually.

Jakob

We'll touch upon you upon your journey again, but one of the things that I keep on meeting on this podcast, again I've done a hundred and sixty episodes now and I also have a career in music tech on the side, is the value of the journey from a capitalistic perspective. Like, you know, music tech in general i you know, has limited opportunities when it comes to financial upside of selling a company. but then yourself also mentioned that

Vijay

Yes.

Jakob

India, at least at that time, but also now perhaps still have a fairly under I'll call it immature, maybe that's the wrong word, but like capitalization to the music industry. So did this journey make sense? Like, you know, this twelve year journey, do you think that financially made sense for you to have that much stress and effort?

Vijay

If I just look at it from a financial perspective, I think the answer is no. I mean, my estimate is that if I had stuck to a corporate career for 12 years, I think I would have maybe made a lot more money. But Would I do it again? I mean, looking back, I surely will, because I think the kind of personal satisfaction it gives you, it's just unmatched in a corporate career. So yes, it's a hard choice. And I think it is definitely not for the faint hearted. And I think it's a very difficult step to take. a lot of my colleagues and my friends keep talking about ideas and that's brewing inside their brain and stuff like that. But I think it's very difficult for someone

Jakob

Mm.

Vijay

say okay you know what I'm chop this cushy job and give it a shot. I that thing is definitely the one that's worth doing but yeah but a financial perspective it's it was not a good idea but I think today if you look at it the situation is very different you know like I would say today becoming an entrepreneur is not as hard in terms of a financial thing because if you have the right idea, if you there are a lot of people willing to fund you, there is enough maturity in the market that you will be able to see some traction and either shut down very quickly if you feel there is no product market fit or at least get some good feedback from market to kind of know, I trade or change your product or whatever and just go ahead. So I think the situation now is far better compared to I would say like you know like 12 years back. 12 seconds.

Jakob

Yeah, y you know, I'm also I'm also fairly technical and I can also see now just with what's available of technology, the barrier of getting capital is maybe less so you can bootstrap a lot more, you can take higher risk and where the actual effort is mostly your effort, and you can do it with a leaner, smaller team. so I'm also I'm a total fan of how technology has changed that because the risk is so big when you're an entrepreneur, but if you can lower the financial risk a tiny bit, I think that can also make it much more attractive, especially in a space with music technology where the return might not be as comparable to the cost. But you say you still you still believe in it and maybe more so now than before, music technology is still attractive. If you were a founding member of Music Tech India, can you walk me through

Vijay

Yes, absolutely.

Jakob

The reasoning for that, what is it you believe is attractive enough to form an association around this?

Vijay

So I think we actually formed this association primarily to kind of be like a sounding board, like a guiding board for some of the new entrepreneurs who are coming in essentially. Because I think one of the challenges about the music business is that anybody who listens to a lot of music feels that they can solve the problems in the music industry. And that gives, the barrier to think that you can solve a problem in the music industry is very low because you just will say, oh, I am like a huge music fan. So we realized that a lot of people were actually spending time and effort and money in trying to solve problems which could be very, very difficult. Or there could be some industry situations which... they had no control of and were not able to change. So the idea was to set up a bunch of people who have been in the entrepreneurial area in the music business for a while and just people come and pitch ideas and talk about what they're building and then we just give them feedback. So it just helps them to get a little bit more like a reality check on what they're trying to build. then obviously if there is something interesting then we can sort of guide them to people who would be willing to either give them their first set of, be their first set of customers or maybe people who want to invest in this area. I think that's where we are trying to make sure that it's like an ecosystem that is more like a friend rather than an institution.

Jakob

Hm. Yeah, it makes sense. I think the music industry very much so is people who pursue entrepreneurial pursuits out of passion for music, out of passion for solving the problems, where Amplitude Ventures is a venture studio that I lead. We work in many different industries and we meet with a lot of different founders that are not for music, traditional industries, fintech, agriculture, whatever it is. And a lot of these entrepreneurs are very motivated about the opportunity, the financial opportunity of solving a problem. music oftentimes is you're passionate about the content. You're passionate about what music is and therefore you build businesses to solve that problem rather than for the financial return of building a company around that. And even though that's beautiful and I love that to some degree, that also means that oftentimes you go into it with a bigger naivety than what others might do. You yourself said, you know, you didn't necessarily scope the market. You didn't really see

Vijay

All

Jakob

Was this realistic because the love for solving the problem was so big and maybe overshadowed what usually lies before that, which is can I make money? And I think associations helping people navigate that are becoming quite key. I've also become very active in music technology in Norway for that very reason. Just because if we want to make this a better place in the future, having places of information and experience to be shared is quite essential for making this better.

Vijay

Yeah.

Jakob

So what is it you see we'll come back to your journey in two seconds, but what is it you see in India right now when it comes to music tech? Like, are there a lot of entrepreneurs pursuing this space? Do you believe that a lot of projects will be successful? What is sort of the status quo right

Vijay

Yeah, I think you know, mean, um, so. It is improving, I would say. But I think a bunch of people are trying to work on the fan engagement space right now. So from that perspective, I know that a bunch of people entrepreneurs in India who are trying to figure out how to best engage, let artists engage with fans. There are a couple of people who are actually building interesting tools like a DAW, which is a DAW station that plugs into your existing sort of player or whatever. So there are, I think, there are interesting things happening, but I think it's probably not at the cutting edge of music and tech as we see it in the West. But I think this is just a curve that we'll have to go through as we churn through some of the ideas that are coming right now, some of the problems that people are solving to be able to get into larger... I would say music tech opportunity. So for example, I had Mansoor on your podcast earlier. I Mansoor is doing a great job with Beethoven. So that's a great example. There's Madverse which is opening up a new distribution platform which is one of the early, late entrants into this space so to speak. But on the fan engagement space there are a bunch of startups who are doing some stuff. So yeah, I think we are seeing a lot of activity but I feel we are a couple of years away from building really cutting edge music tech companies in India.

Jakob

So try to explain to me a tiny bit for people who don't know India, including myself, I don't know too well even though I have some exposure, the relationship between innovation versus execution. Because India the last thirty years when it comes to execution have been world class, right? If you want to get something done, go to India. But what's India's relationship with innovation? So you say you are cutting edge, something new. Is there a difference in how that works, culturally, in tech?

Vijay

I think that statement that I made is not true for in general tech. There's a lot of stuff happening, let's say in the finance space, in the payment space, in e-commerce, in quick commerce. There's a lot of stuff happening which is like we're launching ideas and products and services even at scale. In India first, even before it's launched in the West really, Like, quick commerce is like a huge thing in India right now. I don't think quick commerce is even like, touching anywhere in the West at the scale at which we are seeing right now. So yeah, in general tech, I think we are very good at innovation. You know, I think India is really at par in the West in terms of being able to kind of innovate. But my specific thing was around music. I think that seems a little bit of a challenge, you know. And also I think, I don't know, Maybe it's the right time, but the idea is, I don't talk about it, I mean, is that music in general is being a little hard to monetize in India. And I think, and that is probably the fundamental reason, according to me, that money doesn't flow into either the innovation or the startups around the music space, because the market is not growing rapidly. It is sort of, I would say, crawling to a certain extent.

Jakob

Mm.

Vijay

And coupled with the fact that over the last couple of years, a lot of local DSP platforms have either shut down or they have just gone to paid only. So due to which the overall market, I think, has shrunk already, which is definitely a challenging time for people to invest in innovation. Because when chips come down, people tend to take the sentiment is that, OK, let's hold it out for a while and then come back.

Jakob

You know, I might be wrong about this because I don't know the sort of macro economic perspective of music in India, but one of the things that I at least see from the outside is a lot of these big players, let's say Spotify, they're really fighting to take a position in India and have done so for many, many years. And music in general has been commoditized by streaming platforms and so the value of the associated value to music has definitely decreased the last twenty, twenty five years. But I know especially in these sorts of markets that are a bit on tap, like India's definitely taking streaming now, but there tends to be a push towards making this really affordable and basically subsidizing the entry into a new market where Indian would be one of them. So is it again, this is a question because I don't know, the subsidization of streaming platforms to become very, very accessible and affordable in India, has that been a part of making it even less possible to monetize music? Or what's the underlying factor as you see it?

Vijay

Yeah, I think the larger challenge has been that, you know, and this is not only true for music, it's true with a lot of, you know, I would say digital offerings in India, where you want to be able to reach a certain scale before you start monetizing, you know, and I think we've seen that across, especially, you know, everybody calls it the geo effect, which is after 2016 when internet became really cheap in India. Today on the internet, I think India is probably one of the lowest priced countries. from terms of internet access. I think that's when digital products or services have really exploded. And I think in general, the philosophy is that I need a larger audience to experiment or try the product after which they might be convinced so with music specifically, what's happening is that the same services are available across different companies. So whether it's YouTube music, Amazon music, Spotify. you know, Apple, everybody has the same music, right? So I think that's what makes it even challenging or to be able to have one platform convert into a paid user. So I think Spotify specifically has done a great job at kind of changing the mindset in terms of being able to just open up an app and listen to music. And I think over the last couple of years, they have done a very good job in terms of at least shifting the needle in terms of people wanting to pay for subscriptions. So I think I can completely imagine how difficult it must have been for them. But I think there are signs now that there are more people willing to pay. Of course, as a percentage, it's still...

Vijay

much lower than any global standards. But that needle is moving. When you're looking at a very large population, even if the needle moves by a little bit, I think it can make a significant impact. I feel, yes, the size of the market definitely sort of needs the fact that you need to be able to open up a very subsidized layer of your service for a while. And then you can start slowly counting on. And I think that's where I think all these platforms are now moving towards. And hopefully, maybe I would say

Jakob

Mm.

Vijay

four or five years, you'll see a far better maturity model in terms of paying for access than what we have today.

Jakob

That makes sense. Back to your founder journey. So as far as I can see in two thousand nineteen you found it attractive enough to go back and work full time at OK Listen. Like what was that decision? Like how did that look for you?

Vijay

So, the decision also was driven by the fact that we actually had a term sheet from one of the Indian DSPs, which eventually did not materialize, honestly. But we got enough feedback from them to say that, why don't you come here full time and just drive this journey because we see potential. And I think that was probably a... the most important feedback for me to say that there was validation from an investor. My point was not that it was an Indian DSP, but any external investor giving you confidence that, okay, now this business can scale, can do wonders with your confidence level. So, I thought, okay, this is great. Now that we have that validation, then just let me just come to this. So, I think that was a reason I kind of took that shift and just quit my full-time day job and came to Okhilesan full-time. And while that term sheet did not work out for us, we were lucky because COVID hit in 2020 and We were very fortunate during the COVID period because there was so much music that was coming out and we had already set kind of the organic base for artists to kind of reach out to us. So we just kind of exploded in COVID. And I think in hindsight again, I don't know whether it was pure luck, but I was there to kind of manage it full time with the whole team. So that kind of really helped.

Jakob

And were you the CEO of the company the whole time, also while you were working those five years? Yeah. Okay, so it's coming back in and full focus and that must have been a risk I guess. You've had five years with stable income and some reliability going back into being a founder. How did that look for you?

Vijay

Yes, I was.

Vijay

Well, like I said, it was not as bad because I had a financial cushion which I had built over the last five years. So it didn't feel that bad. But we were seeing growth. were, revenue was increasing month on month. We had more artists coming in, a couple of the team members were doing very well in terms of communicating to artists that, hey, this is a great place to come and distribute the music. So I think that the numbers were looking far better than, let's say, what it was in 2012 to 2014. So it didn't feel like much of a risk, honestly. It just felt that this could be the last push. or another push that I could give wholeheartedly. And I think somewhere at the back of my mind, honestly, and I think it was probably because we had that term sheet from the Indian DSP, I felt that, you know, it could be the time that I could really push harder and maybe get an exit, right? So, I mean, I'm just thinking at the back of my mind maybe that was something I felt could be a reason where I got a lot more conviction to come back and I could pull down.

Jakob

a weird question, but I think it's interesting. About, you know, maybe we can get an exit, was that also some sort of trying to justify the cost of the journey? Like, okay, I need to have a return investment to make this make sense.

Vijay

Yeah, I mean, I think yes, it is. Also, what I felt is, somewhere I also owed it to the team because, thankfully, I had a very good team and most of them. joined Beolive for the passion of music, stuck around and continued to kind of, you know, do very well. And in fact, one of my team members went and joined Spotify because, you know, he got a really good role there. He joined Spotify. So the market was opening up and, you know, a couple of them decided to stay back, you know, and I thought, maybe, I mean, while yes, it was also for me that I had to figure out a way to kind of justify the time that I had spent, but also for the team that I felt that, you know, if we do get

Jakob

Mm.

Vijay

a very small exit or whatever exit then it could be worth a little bit more of the time that they spent there. So I think yeah, it was at the back of my mind to justify this from a slightly from a financial perspective as well.

Jakob

Hm. So for the three years you rejoined the company full time and to you exited, right? That there was a three year period where you before you ended up selling the company, right?

Vijay

That's right, yeah.

Jakob

Yeah. And was that a longer journey than expected when you came back and said, Okay, maybe we can exit this?

Vijay

Yeah, I think it was a little frustrating experience because what happened is that, you know, my team had complete control over the operations and all of that stuff. So a lot of my time was just spent meeting up with, you know, potential investors, you know, and stuff like that. And it was frustrating because, you know, the process just took really long. You know, it's kind of... kind of dragged along and we could have to wait months to either get to move to the next step or face rejection. So I think it was more frustrating, know, though that a couple of years because I was looking at a problem. where I had very little control. So weirdly enough, the business was doing very well. I mean, we were growing. But I was focused on trying to figure out either we get an investment or an exit. And that part turned out to be a little bit more frustrating. But I was still thankful that I had a good team taking care of the whole business. And I could then just focus on this pretty much full time.

Jakob

Hmm. So s so that's also a quite sort of unusual position to be in, right? Because in most founder journeys, they're so stock in operations as well that it's really hard to get the time to look outwards. And you know, that's also been my final journey has been a big issue and that's only something I've really figured out the last year of how to get out of operations to actually be able to think bigger, to travel, to talk with owners and investors. So was that the majority of your time like you spent on like how do we how do we get this to the next step? Is that what you spent the three years on? Now, what was that journey?

Vijay

Yeah, pretty much actually, know. So I would say I was spending maybe like 20, 25 percent of the time in operations or business, but 75 percent of the time was spent in talking to people, figuring out how we could either get in, get in money as an investment to make the business bigger and take it to the next level or, you know, have conversations with people who are interested in buying us out. And yeah, pretty much that was where I was focusing my time.

Jakob

Hmm.

Jakob

Was the whole journey bootstrapped more or less? Or did you take in capital early on?

Vijay

No, I didn't take any capital. was pretty much a bootstrap.

Jakob

Yeah. And you know, obviously that's quite difficult to do. Is that you say to yourself that the sort of the market has matured. Do you believe that had something to do with the timing of the market? Or has that changed now?

Vijay

yeah, absolutely. I think it's just the timing of the market. It has changed now, for sure. But I don't think, you know, music tech or the music investment in music businesses is as mature as the, in general, say consumer tech or health tech in India. I would say pure tech, consumer tech, health tech, you know, is a lot of people are getting funded because... there are genuinely a lot of people trying to solve very different problems. Whereas in music tech what happens is that the focus is relatively very small because there are not as many problems. mean, the fundamental problem being people paying for music access really. That's the largest problem. And you can't go and solve that because you can't go and solve that for Spotify. But so you solve other things like, you know, maybe look at maybe curating music venues or curating, a curator or, you know, helping artists have more live gigs, you know, or reach out to fans. So lot of areas around there. But I think the maturity curve is definitely more than what it was, say, five, six years back. But it's not nowhere close to what consumer tech, health tech sees in India.

Jakob

Hmm. But founders today in India in the music and audio tech space, do you see them getting capped?

Vijay

It's tough, but yeah, some of them do get and in some cases there are artists who have done very well for themselves are putting in money, which is sometimes hard to see, because then that's like a true validation that the artist himself or herself believes in the problem that the entrepreneur is trying to fix. Not many instances, but yeah, that's...

Jakob

Hmm.

Vijay

there have been one or two cases. But, largely I think it is still not as easy, but it is easier than like say five, six years back.

Jakob

Yeah. So you ended up selling the company to AWOL and Sony which also owned the Orchard and that I guess that's the whole combination and AWOL that got sold to Sony. Like try to explain that journey and how that conversation came about.

Vijay

Yeah, so like I said, you know, I mean, I was trying to figure out, you know, what was going on and everything of, you know, I mean, who could we talk to and stuff like that. And I remember early 2021 is when we read that Sony was acquiring Aval, right. And I was like, oh, and we always respected Aval quite a bit because we are big fans of how, you know, the Aval brand was turning out to be the kind of artists they were putting out. was fascinating to see from here. And so when we figured this out, I kind of reached out to, you know, people. and you were orchard. And weirdly enough, it was the orchard global team that was actually negotiating the deal, right? They were negotiating on behalf of Sony to kind of close the transaction. So I kind of just sent a feeler that, hey, look, I mean... I know this because they, while they announced the deal, think they had like a, they had a cooling, there are periods where I think the anti-competitive commission in the UK had to approve it or, know, so they had like a, I would say six, eight month period. or till the time I think it was completely cleared off by all authorities really, right? And so I had just sent a feeler that, hey, look, whenever this thing happens, do you think it might be a good idea for them to acquire us and launch in India because it'll be very interesting. And so the feedback I got from the Orchard team was that this could be something we might consider. But it's too early for us to kind of think about it right now because there are a lot of things, a lot of moving parts. So said, OK, great. I mean, even if it's on your radar, we'll hang around and we'll maybe come back to you after some time. So that's exactly what we did. But of course, we were trying out a lot of other conversations as well. And when I restarted after, I think, about six, seven months when the deal was completely cleared, we got a very positive feedback saying, this thing definitely looks like we can evaluate it. And I would say this was probably

Vijay

third quarter of 2021. And so that's how the conversation started. then, you know, it took a long while. know, it's only being Sony. Obviously, they had a lot of people who had to be pulled in to kind of have a conversation. And because we were based in India, it made a lot of sense for the Indian entity to acquire us, because that would be a little bit more tax friendly. And so there was Sony India that also then came into the picture. So the whole process took a really long time. Like I said, maybe it started out in third quarter of 2021. And eventually we got acquired in like second quarter of 2023. So it was a fairly long conversation and period. But yeah, think the odd shirt connection definitely helped us for sure.

Jakob

So when such a acquisition talk takes so long, like one and a half years, that maybe also affects, you know, the effort put into raising capital. Like were was that a compromise to the business as well? That okay, we might get acquired so you start acting in a different way. Like what was the what was the how did that change the business while you were maybe getting acquired?

Vijay

No, actually thanks for bringing that up really because it did. Mean, know, it's like, you know, sometimes you're very, you're feeling very positive because something is going to happen. But so you kind of then get a little bit swayed by that kind of, you know, wave really. And your business gets affected. And it did. And weirdly enough for us, what happened also is that around that time is when, you know, Tunecore became a little bullish. India, CD Baby started having operations in India. So we were facing competition as well, and we were seeing that impact on the business. And we were not able to push as much because we were not able to. Invest more money because that was not nobody would give us that because we were having a very you know advanced conversation with the Sony team so it was I mean it was a very weird time where at one side there was a lot of positivity but on the other side we were seeing business slip away you know and some of the metrics were looking down you know And what we did is we relate that information back and we said, look, hey, this is the situation here. And if we don't close it, then we don't want to be sort of, measured on what is happening right now because it's a very difficult period for us because we are not able to put in money. And thankfully, think there, I think the Sony team really understood that. They said, that's fine. This is the process, we'll take time. And we got an assurance that they're not going to walk away. They said, whatever is the shortfall you see right now, that's OK with us. It's just a part of every transaction. In some cases, it does happen.

Vijay

So I think after that reassurance we were a little, you know, like, but it took a while for that reassurance to come in. But yeah, it was a very difficult time and weirdly nobody has asked us this question. So it's interesting for me to relive that time because it was a very weird thing. We had, we were a little bit on a celebratory mode, but at the same time we were kind of worried that, you we are not, the numbers are not looking very strong.

Jakob

No, it sounds extremely conflictful. Because, you know, the ultimate consequence of not growing and not staying competitive is dying, right? So like it might be that the exit itself would be the one that could kill you, which I can imagine is a very weird place to be in. But the acquisition ended up happening. Do you believe that was a success for your team?

Vijay

Absolutely.

Vijay

I think yes, at least I would like to believe it was because I think after having worked for many years as a very frugal company, as a very frugal startup, getting like an opportunity to work in a very large company like Sony, getting access to global resources, being in office. Filled with people who are trying to solve issues for the global, for the music industry, especially the exposure to a global team and kind of the artists of doing, I think that experience just, it was a very different phase, you know, for the team and I think all of them sort of thrived on it really, right? And I think it was a great, the exposure was fantastic. I think I couldn't have asked for a better sort of landing for the team. Sometimes you might end up going into an acquisition, going into a company which may not have the right kind of, I would say the levers of the value system really. But I think there we were super happy with the whole Evol exposure. And I think the global team was very, very warm and welcoming to us. And we got great help in just getting used to the Evol ecosystem because... The business was very different. It was a little different than what we were just used to doing, mass distribution. There it was a very curated place. It was a little different, but it very interesting.

Jakob

And you ended up having a role after the acquisition in AWOL as well. And was that in order to integrate the company into their way of doing things?

Vijay

Yes, that's right. So I had a commitment to stay for about a year and I stayed for nearly 18 months. But yeah, I think the idea was, you know, let's kind of, you know, get the whole... Because it was like a very... I think it was largely an accounting exercise really because we really had to merge all the accounts from a financial perspective very well. From a business side also, what would happen is that we actually had to shed out... shed off some artists. Because we had a very long tail of artists, which didn't make sense for AWOL. So we had to really figure out what was the right way to kind of, know, ask them to migrate and figure out what was the right process to migrate the artists who want to move on, whom we want to keep on AWOL. So I think it was very operational, you know, hand-holding that really required somebody who understood the OKLIS and the systems very well. So, I think the large part of my time in the first year was spent in just making sure that we were kind of... making everything in a seamless way.

Jakob

Hm. But yeah, position was ahead of India and South Asia. So I can imagine there was more to the job than just integrating your ecosystem into theirs.

Vijay

Yeah, absolutely. Mean, while this was something, it ended up being like a small part, we really had to launch the brand into India, talk to lot of artists, also identifying. Think one of the challenges in the licensing model, which is what largely the AWAL model works around is where you are really investing some money in artists or at least asking budding artists to come and join you, is that you are as responsible for their growth in terms of their earning capability as much as the artist themselves is. So you really have to be able to make the right choices of picking up the artists, make sure that they are also aligned towards really hustling in the first couple of years to kind of... increase your fan base, grow your consumption, all that stuff. It was a very different approach towards the artist signing. And so that was quite, quite new to us. And for all of us where, you know, really we went all across the independent sector to kind of, you know, bring in a bunch of artists on the web.

Jakob

So what was your angle in AWOL? Because you and if you look at your career, you come from heavy operator, heavy leader, heavy business, heavy technology. But then AWOL, at least as I understand the brand, is like heavy ANR focused as well, right? It's really about developing the career and obviously you have operations and business associated to it. But again, my association to AWOL like you must have been very, very hands-on also with the music to some degree. Like you were really looking at

Vijay

Yeah.

Jakob

Does this musically this artist have relevance? But what w how did that look for you? Did you have a was that a big part of your role?

Vijay

Not as, so the way I was, so. I think because of the age that I'm at, really felt my team members were far more closer to the musicians in terms of just the age group and the kind of music they divide to all of that stuff. So largely the core A &R decisions, I think the conversations were led by them. And while of course I played a role, but... I would because I think I'm not very good at ANR specifically. That's not one of my forties. But I think my team was. Was learning all that very well and the A-Vol team really helped us to understand what's the A &R journey. But at the end of the day, it's the financials that have to make sense. It has to be made sure that it aligns with the larger vision. For those, think from a business standpoint, from a strategy standpoint is where I think I contributed a lot. The core A &R process, while I was overseeing it, it was largely led by the team because I think they were far better off being closer to the artists than I was.

Jakob

Hmm. A weird question, but this is my own personal sort of curiosity. It might also be relevant for listeners. My business partner, he's from India, and we talk a lot about, you know, the differences in cultures and the way that he describes it, I might be wrong, because India is of course a very big country. Is that in tr traditionally in India you specialize a lot. Like it is, it's sort of like you pick a lane, you really stick to it, and you become really, really good if you want to have a corporate career. And there's less so jumping between industries and trying something new, which is which is you see a lot of entrepreneurs doing. Like, was that a very challenging cultural thing for you to be able to have such a rich career before then a founder, then in the music company? How is that shift for you? And how is that generally in India? Is that is that a thing?

Vijay

Yeah, I don't think I am... My experience is like a normal behavior. Know, you're right. Think largely when I see a lot of my friends and stuff like that, it's either, somebody who's doing, let's say IT will stick to the IT industry for a very long time. You somebody who's doing marketing will spend a lot of time in a specific organization and then maybe move to a marketing role in a different organization. Right. So yeah, it's a specialty driven thing or it's an industry driven sort of thing. Right. That's how the careers move in India. So, but I think that's changing now, honestly, if you ask me, right? Because a lot of the new companies that are being founded today don't have very bracketed roles. They can't afford to hire one person like marketing and then three people in this team and one person in say, know, media buying and another three people under that team. So think that doesn't work that way, right? So I think the new companies that are coming up have far more, I would say... across like, know, inter department sort of responsibilities. So they are not as specialized. So, but at the same time, they could be very good at, but largely they could be specialized in an industry, right? So somebody who's doing some crazy work in a quick commerce could end up, you know, moving to another quick commerce player for a better job. So yeah, so I think it's changing a little bit. But so for me, I think yes. I think once an entrepreneur, what I realized is that once an entrepreneur you realize that when you join a corporate, there is a lethargy in execution. And it's for the right reasons because when you're working in large corporation, it has to follow a process. But sometimes you just can't.

Vijay

Adapt to it because you feel that you could do these things much faster. So I think that's the cultural thing that tends to affect entrepreneurs moving back to corporates because you are used to executing very fast. When you move to a corporate you feel that you have to really slow down. I think that's the challenge that you have to either get used to or then you just bail out.

Jakob

Hmm. That makes a whole lot of sense. So when I look at least at LinkedIn, it's not totally clear for me what you're spending your time on now. So what are you doing these days?

Vijay

So I was actually consulting with a bunch of folks and right now I'm building on an idea in the lyrics space actually. So I would say, know, I'm just trying to do something because I just feel that and this is just conversations around with a lot of Indian... content owners and stuff like that where they are struggling with, you know, lyrics as a piece problem that they're trying to face. So I'm just trying to, you know, try and see if I can solve a problem for that. And the other friend of mine, we're just trying to solve something in the health tech space, largely from a, you know, for caregivers who are actually taking care of elderly parents and support. There's a lot of gap in how that process is managed in India. So, yeah, I mean, so I think, like you just said, and technologies got so advanced, you it's your back. Barrier to experiment, try out a couple of ideas using say a plot code or whatever is very, very relatively easy, especially if you come from a product standpoint and you are able to do that much quicker and then you get quick validation saying, will this work, will this not work kind of thing. So yeah, think so that's what's keeping me busy. I don't know, let's see if when time comes, we'll kind of figure it out to launch it. But the idea is just to now keep gnawing at a problem and see if I can find a solution. It's very similar to my early OKLISM days where you spot a problem, you want to fix it. It just gives you a lot of satisfaction just trying to solve a problem. And yeah, if a business emerges, great, nothing like it.

Jakob

Amazing. So basically you're on the tr on the entrepreneurial path again. And that's what's scratching.

Vijay

Yeah, I think I just realized that gives me a lot of joy so might as well keep doing that.

Jakob

Vijay, thank you so much for joining the call today and having a talk with me. I've learned a lot and I think it's really interesting to follow India and South Asia and what's happening in the music industry. Obviously it's an enormous market, very, very developed market, but in music there's a lot of things that's not yet manifested itself in the commercial potential. And I think that the global scene will benefit from that. Like again, globally music are undervalued and there's a big difference between what the actual human value is of the industry and what the financial value is. And I look forward to markets contributing to that growth enormously, for example, India. So this can be more attractive. It's a great space to be in, but as you yourself point out, maybe it's not comparable to what other industries might provide of financial upside. But I hope myself that In a few decades that might change, but it takes time. It takes a lot of time.

Vijay

No, absolutely. I am hopeful and I am very positive in general and I think yeah, very interesting times for sure. I think there is a lot of potential in India.

Jakob

Yeah. Thank you so much for the call. Thank you so much for joining and we'll talk soon.

Vijay

Thanks, Anupam. All right. Likewise. OK, all the best.

Jakob

Okay, just stop it.