The Story of Musicube's AI Metadata Mastery & Songtradr Acquisition

Of course, funding a startup means a lot ofwork, a lot of no sleep, just doing all the time, struggling around and stuff like that. But it was always like, okay, but we wantto pay correctly. We want to pay everyone who's working withus. And we always want to try to have that amountof money that our team is happy with their job.

And this is how we want to worship their engagement. There's not a lot of transparency in the musicindustry. It's really worth to figure out what actuallyhappened when people succeed. Today we're launching a new episode serieswith exits. Agnes Chung is our first guest.

She built Musicube together with her co-founderand sold it to SoundTradr. Hey guys and welcome back to Sound Connectionspodcast. Today we're going to have the first episodein a new series called the Exit Series. And I'm very lucky to have Agnes Chung heretoday. Welcome Agnes. Yeah.Hi Jakob. Nice to meet you and thanks for having metoday.

Yes. You are the founder and co -founder of aninteresting company called Music Cube. And you're here today because you have notonly created a great company, you've also sold a company. to SunkTrader. And this is going to be a part of a new serieswe're doing in order to really focus on the actual journeys of going through that processbecause it's really hard to understand.

So thank you so much for opening up and sharingwith us today. Agnes, for the audience, could you explaina bit what MusicCube does? Yeah, so we founded MusicCube in December2019 here in Hamburg in Germany and we had the vision that we wanted to have good musicto be found. So we wanted to have an enhanced music searchby training an AI to help us to find the right music for the perfect situation and the bestfitted brand and stuff you have.

Hmm. That's interesting. And we'll go much more into the company todaybecause that's what we're going to talk about. But also to understand a bit more about you,who are you and where are you from? You said you're from Hamburg, but can youexplain a tiny bit about who you are? Yeah, for sure. So I started musicology and a bit of computerscience, so there where it comes to music and tech.

And I started working in Hamburg for a companycalled Fornonet. They were dealing a lot with metadata andsurfaces for labels, for shops and for radio stations and this is where I've got my firsttouchdown with metadata and music and I somehow made the experience of a product management,communication and the music tech field.

It's really something which hits me hard. So I wanted to stay there and stayed therefor more than 15 years right now. So I'm really one of the older ones in themusic industry and this is where we... where my colleague and I, David and I thought,okay, maybe we should do something out of this metadata and provide a better music set. Hmm.

So you said you come from musicology. Can you go all the way back? So how did you get to know music? How do you get involved with the music aspect? Oh, really? Once a really long story. Okay. So let's do the medium story. The medium story. Yes. So I was always interested in music. I'm a musician by myself, so I play oboe andpiano. I've listened to all the kind of music.

I went to concerts like MC Hammer, VanillaIce. It was really, it's like really the earlydays. But I always... stay connected with music. And my former idea was to be a music therapist,but in the days they taught me how to music therapist. It's not that easy. So I decided to study musicology and somehowI moved from Frankfurt where I was born and lived to Hamburg and started as a systematicmusicology, but it's more about music, social game, music psychology.

So how music affects us in any way. So. But then it was a job for students and I startedwith PhonoNet and then all this computer internet stuff coming up and I was like, okay, thisis something really interesting. And this is why I just added computer scienceas well. And I studied a bit of programming. I'm not the coder at all, but I do understandthe processes and can speak to developers and stuff like that.

So this was really helpful. for being on platforms, on internet platforms,dealing with metadata and stuff like that. So somehow I have a really straightforwardcareer in the music industry, not jumping around and doing different kinds of stuff. It's really like always staying put in thismusic tech services environment.

Yeah. Okay. So what we're going to talk about today isMusicCube and it's a really interesting company. But before we go into the depths of what you'redoing, let's actually just take the whole chronology of the company. At one point, there was some sort of processwhere you were thinking about starting a company. Could you start from there and then we'lljust move all the way through?

Okay. So to be an entrepreneur was never the thingfor me. It was just I want to do my job and I wantto do it in the music industry. Somehow David and I, we worked together inour former company and we had some conversations about how is it this music search? Why are we dealing with so much metadata,but we do not have the possibility to find good songs or songs from artists we do notknow.

Or why is it, for example, in the former years,if you searched for Regrubin on Amazon, it was just one Linkin Park fan compilation,but nothing else from his really huge discography. And we were like, why is it? Why is it so? And then we started to rethink about metadata,how we can use them, because we saw there's a lot. We started from the point of thinking thereare contributors to a song like Red Rubin as a producer or some guitarist or, you know,Dave Crowe.

We know a lot of those kind of artists playingaround and we know they do a lot of this playing around in different kinds of bands and constellations. And why is it not a why are we not able tofind similar songs? then with the same artist in a streaming platformor on Amazon or whatever. So this is where we started thinking like,okay, what can we do?

And we just, first it was like the idea toconnect contributors with songs and to see how we can involve the music search. But then we were like, okay, it's more Davidbecause he's a Technic guy more. He was like, okay, let's train an AI. And I must repeat, it was December, 2019. So we were before this AI wave and we justthought about.

how could we train an AI to make the bestversion of a music search? And because we are both musicologists, westarted to think, okay, what kind of impact has studies, what kind of impact has psychologyin this kind of music search? And this is why we came around and thinking,okay, let's play around. And this is why we thought, okay, why notfunding a startup?

Because a startup is like an environment whereyou really have to be fast, but you really get enabled to do stuff and... try to make some experiences, play aroundand get supporters and see if the idea is working or not. And this is what we loved about the idea ofbeing in startup, but it was not from the very first beginning of our funding.

We were like, okay, now we fund a startup. It was like just we fund a company. And then we started going around and lookingaround, especially in the city of Hamburg, what kind of funding programs are there, whatkind of support we can get. And this is where we started. having funding programs like incubators, accelerators, and they had this idea of, okay, maybe we want to play the startup game and to see howfar we can get with being a startup and playing this kind of game because we know what a middle-sized company is like because we experienced it from the former company and now this wascompletely, totally new and we just jumped into the really ice -cold water, so to say.

But did you keep your old job while you weresort of doing this incubation thing or did you just cold plunge right into it? It was mixed so David left already the company. This is why he was open to think about newstuff and to think about new ideas what he can do and we just met here and there anddrank a beer and talked about how bad it is with the metadata and stuff and then we werelike, okay, why not funding something together?

I was still in my job, but I was a bit onthe jump because I wanted to experience something new to make a new something new as a job. So I was like, okay, let's try and then wefunded and then I was like, I think half of a year I just worked still with a former company and then I left them and we get there as consultants as well because a startup as being a startup,you know, you always have those financial challenges.

And so we were happy that I somehow couldkeep job I had to get some parts of the money intothe company, but to concentrate also on the startup life, so to say. Yeah. What was your personal situation? Did you have family you need to take careof? Were you in a position in life where you couldjust, yeah, let's do this?

What was your personal situation? Yeah, I was in a partnership and it was verysupportive on every side. So we just decided, okay, let's do it. Let's just jump right into it. And... I'm more like the person if I do not try it,then I maybe will regret it later and I don't want to regret something later on. So I really wanted to take some risk. It took me quite a long time to think aboutchanging my job because I had a well, well -defined job.

It was, we had a nice team over there, theformer company. It was all good, but I was somehow like strugglingand saying, okay, where's my next challenge? Maybe I have to change something. And my environment were very supportive inthis and said, okay, let's go. Just what you have. What would you lose? It's just you get more experience. And yes, of course, it's always the questionsof money, the question of financial parts in your life, because you have to live, youhave to have your apartment, you have to eat, you have to meet your friends and stuff likethat.

But they were like, just go for it. And I was like, okay, what really leads mewas to not regret something that I did not try in the past to do. So this is what just give me the energy tosay, okay, let's just Let's go. So walk me specifically about, you know, thejourney here.

So you have, you have a company that's basicallybased around a product or service that you can deliver through AI technology. Like you're a business partner. Did he build it from scratch? Like what happened in the process of, okay,we have an idea. We're going to pursue it to actually creatingit. Can you walk me through? Yeah. So we really started from scratch. My partner was because he is the technician'spart of us and you really know.

really knew what he wants to try. And we always had a good team around us, avery supportive team. And from the very beginning, there were someAI developer, they said, okay, it's really fascinating what you want to do. Let's do it together. And therefore we had the support to reallydevelop the AI and train the AI completely by ourself and not relying on some other programsand apps, so to say.

And this is where we started and I do notknow how often we retrained the AI because then the training data was not correctly orthe results were not as satisfied as we wanted to have them. Then we just started again and thinking ofcategorization is really something psychological as well because we as human, we need thosecategorization, but we need to have them open as well.

But how to describe a song and What is, if a metal listener is describinga song happy, does he means the same happy and the same song as a jazz listener woulddescribe the song happy? So this is where we come up like, we can'tjust say it's happy because what is happy? So this is very philosophical at the end,but this was really something where we struggled around to see how we can get the best outof all the experience we all have in our team and to really build up this.

AI was really good training material withreally good stuff we thought about. I don't know how many studies the guys readthrough to see, okay, what is categorization, how to describe songs in the best way. So that is for everyone understandable andusable. That makes sense. So I'm curious.

So you said you have a good team and you havethese AI developers that want to join. What was the incentive? Like, were you able to provide pay for them? Or was it equity? Like, what was the... What made it attractive for them to be onboard? So David and I, we were no greenhorns, newhorns,whatever you say to it, for being in the job world.

So we had some experience and really had agood imagination of what, how we want to work. And of course, funding a startup means a lotof work, a lot of no sleep. just doing all the time, straggling aroundand stuff like that. But it was always like, okay, but we wantto pay correctly. We want to pay everyone who's working withus and we always want to try to have that amount of money that our team is happy withtheir job.

And this is how we want to worship their engagement for our startup because it's not usual to be a developer and say, okay, I work for astartup where you never know where this journey is going to. And they take the risk as well to say, okay,I work with you full time and let's see how we do it. And this was somehow the motor also to say,okay, this is why we want to achieve something.

And this is what David and me drives all thetime to see, okay, where we can get the money, how we can get to pay the team and how canwe pay ourselves as well because David was family, me living already. We were both settled already and we didn'twant to lose that as well. And we had a good imagination of how we wantto work.

And of course we had weekends, we had nightshifts, we have everything, but also to see, okay, it's something like we really want todo. And to see that there's then a pause on thenext day or that we can take just a take off to say, okay, no, I have to rest. I have to just get by myself altogether andto see what we can do. But it was already, it was always importantfor us to.

pay properly for everyone working for us andwith us. And the money you get to do that, is thatfrom incubators or did you work with investors? How did you do that? From the very first beginning, we had a businesseditor, which is really nice that you see that there's someone from the family, friendsand foes who really supports you with your idea.

That's also really something really cool. And then we really get into the funding programswhich Hamburg provides and they are really from the incubator to the accelerator to reallya huge innovation funding program. So it was for the very first beginning it was Next Media from the Hamburg Creative Gesellschaft.

There where we really learn how to pitch,what is a pitch deck, what is a cap table, what do you have to consider as being a funder,how do you play the startup game and everything like this really basics. information afterwards we really get fromone day to another to the accelerator program which was next media accelerator this wasmuch future there we started to talk to investors and really play this startup pitch investorgame and to see okay how do investors rely on that and then we got to the um oh i don'tknow how to call them in english it's in german it's a um efb innovation and support bank, something like that, you know, Watzhunsförderbank.

They had this program where we really justslide into it and there we found our one investor, which is Holger Hübner from the Wacken Festival,who supported us very highly and appreciated what we do. And this was really like to have this, okay,okay, there's someone who believes in your idea, just go on because the struggle wasalways to find customers and bigger customers.

But with this funding programs, which reallytakes a lot of time to sell out the forms, make some talks with themto prove that you're really good for them. That was really what takes the most of thetime, but it was worth it because therefore we get the money and the support in everykind of niche you can think of as being a startup and then concentrate on the customerson the other side and on the product for sure.

Can you walk me through, and it's okay ifyou're not comfortable answering, can you walk me through... sort of the steps of money you got, like howmuch did he get at the end and like where did that come in the journey? So I'm not that good in financial. This was all David's part, so I really can'tsay the exact numbers, but it was like increasing numbers of money from program to program.

So the incubator was really small. It was like 15 ,000 after three months andgetting really a lot of support. Then the NMA and therefore I really strugglewith numbers, but... they watch much higher and they get partsof MusicCube as well and as well for the EFB. They really pumped a lot of money in and wereally have to prove every, we have to show every milestone.

We have to say, okay, this is where we areat the moment. And there we get a lot of money as well. We were in some applications for EU fundingprograms as well, but those were all skipped because then we got acquired and this is howit does like work. So this is like, you, You can really get the money out of fundingprograms.

It's never that enough that you say, okay,now I never have to bother about customers or stuff like that. But that's a good basic for you to developthe product as well as you can, because this was always our goal to have the best productwe can deliver and to concentrate everything on the product and not building a prototypeof a product and go out and let's just see if it works.

But it was always our goal to see, okay, the prototype is really working well, so whatis the next step of it? And then to get the customers and partnerson the journey in developing our product. Yeah. It almost seems, while you're speaking, likethese funding mechanisms almost consider you like a research product as well.

Is that correctly understood? Because, you know, these funding programs,are they very designed for startups or are they like innovative product developments,like kind of research based? What was their... The metrics they invested. It a good mix. So the incubator and accelerator program wasreally like supporting you as a startup and to see how you can develop yourself as beinga startup and to get you the network of investors and partners and to see how you can just beable to develop your business further on.

The EFB program was really like supportingus on the innovation level and to see, okay, what is the project you want to achieve andwhere we can give you the money to achieve. this project goal. So this was really like, they were going intoour product. Um, but the other both were really like thetypical, I would say, incubator accelerator and support programs you can get if you'relooking for that.

We haven't talked specifically about yourposition, but can we talk a bit about what was your role in the company and sort of whatkind of team did you build over time? Like how did it look, how did MusicCube lookbefore like before you got acquired? So we were really like one of those developertech stuff buildings. So and I was nearly one of the persons whodid nothing for the tech side.

I was more responsible for the business development and communication because I love to... I love to have a network and to see how thisnetwork is evolving. The idea from me as being a former productmanager was always like, I want to get the customers on board for our product. To just develop something what the customersreally can use and not like, okay, we have an idea and here we go and you have to useit as it is.

But we always were eager to say, okay, dearcustomer, what do you want to do? What is your need? of this, we had this idea and we had thisproduct, but how we can fit our product to your best purposes and your challenges youhave. And this is where we thought about, and thiswas my role somehow to get the partners on board, to get the customers on board, to strugglewith them, but also to spare with them the idea and to see how we can provide the producton its best version for the customers.

And we talked to... labels and to publishers so the music industryis really a broad range of different kind of roles so and this where this was alwaysour challenge because we had the idea of okay, we had an AI who takes songs and wewant to provide a music search but a label owner would like to have some other tags likean publisher and we're dealing anyway with this metadata challenge of having this blackbox and do not know to whom the song belongs how are the payments for the songs and stuff like that.

So this was really like to adjust every kindto every kind of customers we have. And this was really the challenge we haveto not lose our story and to not lose our idea and version, but also to get the customershappy on a way on that. Yeah. And can you explain to me, what was it exactlythat you did for the customers with that searching in their internal catalog?

synchronization purposes, what was your purpose? The idea was like, okay, we started with thisvision of good music deserves to be found. And we had this, of course, this huge storythat someday Spotify will acquire us or will be our customer and use our search possibilitiesto get to the people the best fitted music.

So this was the bigger story behind that. The story for the label owner and the publisherwas to achieve that Spotify is able to find your music You have to take your catalog youhave to know yourself What is in your own catalog because we know all the stories about? Long forgotten songs from any artists whodied already then just grab it out.

That's okay. Oh, here's a song we can use it's a bitlike the Beatles and now and then they just had the song and never known what to do withthat so this was the idea of just making every song in your catalog visiblebecause just because of the track name or the artist you do not know what kind of songis behind that and it could be some working title which is abc123 and you do not knowwhat's behind that song and this is why we want to make it more to make a song more visible.

for artists, for label owners, for publishersto recognize, ah, okay, this is the song I have in my catalog. Maybe this would be a fit for a sync businessopportunity, or maybe this would be a song for the next concert or stuff like that. So this is what we aimed for, and this ishow we talk to potential customers at the end to show them, okay, we can make your catalogmore visible.

We can help you to sort it out, to deleteduplicates, to help you enrich metadata and stuff like that. Hmm. That's interesting. And so you started having a great product,you start selling it and your team gets bigger. At what point does it seem like there's anopportunity to get acquired?

Can you walk me through that conversation? How do they notice you? Yeah, the funny thing is acquisition was neverour thing. We didn't fund it MusiCube with the idea ofan exit. We know that exit is an opportunity for everystartup to do so, but as you also know, there's not so much exits in the music industry.

It's getting more, but it's a very beginningwas like, it's a mystery at all. So, and it was really like, so we never thoughtof an exit and it just hit us a bit by surprise because we talked to song trailer becausewe wanted to acquire them as customers. So over the network, someone pointed themout to me and we were like, We were in the very first year, we were alwaysconcentrating on Germany because this is where our network were, this is where we know howthe business is running.

And then we thought, okay, maybe Europe, maybeUS, maybe to see and what are the other music markets in the world. And then we started to reach out to the US. But funny enough, there was a German guy pointingme out to Songtrade and telling me, maybe that could be something interesting for youto speak to them. And somehow... It worked.

We speak to them. We did tests, but always having in mind, okay,that would be great to have them as customers for Musicube and never of being like acquiredor whatever. This was really far, far away from us. And then it turned out that they were interestedin inquiring us and we were like, yeah, okay. And then we started to think around and like,okay, David A and I, we had...

It's not true that we never thought aboutexits because we had some conversations beforehand and we were like, to whom we wanted to besold to? Do we go to with everyone? Like, I don't know, with some screwed platformsor where we do not know the people or we do not have the knowledge of them?

Or when do we do an exit? And would we say no if there's an exit wherewe like, okay, we don't want them as a partner? Or they just want to, do we want them to havejust our product and leave the team and everyone behind and just sell the product or what? It was like this kind of thinking. And then we were like, okay, SongTrader wasoffering us this exit opportunity.

And we were like, okay, SongTrader somehowshare the vision, which are really nice guys. They really comes from a startup themselves. So they really know what kind of struggleswe have and everything. And the biggest point. were like, yeah, okay, yeah, of course theywanted our product, but they wanted us as a whole team. And this is the most thing we can pay backfor our team to say, okay, you trusted in us three years, struggling with us in thestartup world and in this fast environment, and now we can just offer you a contract withSongTrader to work on our product, but in a SongTrader environment.

And this is really some of the best casesI experienced an exit could look. like to just move your team and your producttogether in a new company and stop struggling about financial stuff. And this was really like, yay. This was where we thought, okay, this is reallysomething where we can say yes to.

Yeah. That makes sense. This is interesting. And we'll stay here a bit and I'll ask somequestions and if you don't want to answer them, just answer in a political way and thenwe'll try to navigate. Then we're trying to navigate through it,right? I think it's important that at least you getto ask the question. So what happened? Song Trader, did they buy everything fromeveryone?

Or like what was ... You can just have someshort answers and answer politically if you don't want to answer them. But did they buy the whole thing? What was the process there? They buy the whole thing. They really get everything from us. As I said, they get the team and they getthe product and we moved. We are still here in Hamburg. We are still a company called Musicube inGermany. We have contracts with our team, but we hadthis mother company above us from SongTrader and they just, we are part of SongTrader,we're part of the SongTrader family, but we are a unit in ourself.

And this makes it really comfortable becauseit really stays as it was, working with them, David as a head of tech stuff for our team. So I just changed my role a bit in betweenSongTrader, but, um, The team with the AI developers and the dataspecialists and everyone stayed with David and we are now the AI and search stuff.

So this is where we are and they really getus as a company. They get the whole company with everything. That's amazing. And the purchase for you, like, and again,you don't need to answer fully, but like, was it that you got like cash and then yougot some equity and song trader?

Like what was the sort of general structureof the deal? Yeah, think this is the general way to doso to just, of course you get the cash somehow because you're at your participation and thecompanies as well as all the funding programs who got participation as well. And the investors for sure, this is the normalway I guess, if when startup got acquired.

The funny thing is it was like more or lessthe first time for some of the parts like, oh, okay, you got acquired. Oh, okay, let's check what we have to do becausethey were really like, okay, we do not know ourselves and as investors what we have tocheck for now. And this was really like some weird situationswhere we're like, why? Because they always supported us hype.

They were always the people who helped usto do it. know really everything. And then they were like, okay, now that wehave to check again. So, and this was really a bit fun, but yeah,it's like everybody get paid out in our company who invested in our company. And yeah, that's the way it was.

And for you personally, has that been like,you know, very important money that's changed the situations around you? Like where are you generally speaking financiallypositioned after this acquisition? I gained millions of euros at the moment becauseI was, we tell the story like I'm the co -founder of music club, but at the moment where wereally funded music cube, it was only David.

So for me, it was really hard to get intothe company and sign some parts of the company because the German law is a bit very complicatedon that. Like I do not know. I think it's in every European country theway it's not that easy going like in the U S. Sometimes I wished, okay, let's just fundin the US, it seems somehow easier. But with the German law and tax law and everything, it was really a struggle with them, so I get only virtual parts of Musicube and therefore,so to say, less money.

But even so, we hadn't... I mean, we were a startup funded by Acquisitionthree years ago. We did not really bring the huge customer. We did not bring the bigger customer. We had some smaller customers, but not thathuge amount of income in a year because we really made a lot with funding programs andstuff like that.

So yeah, the most people are coming in asking,now you have millions, what do you do? Did you stop working or whatever? And I was like, no, I would never stop workingbecause therefore I love working too much and therefore I would more look for supportingother, which I do already. So with supporting... being a jury member with music works and stufflike that to just get my knowledge back to the community.

But of course it's a very comfortable situationto know that on the one side, your very beloved product is now on a very safe howl where reallyeverybody's interested in not just dissolving it, but further developing on and on. So our product OIA search is getting betterand better and better with every term we do.

And to know that the team is safe. so to say. And of course I have the solution where Ican say, okay, let's do a little bit more traveling than I did the years before or somethinglike that, you know, so be a bit more safe on that. But yeah, it's not like that the stories youhear from Hollywood movies and stuff like that, not for us at the moment.

No, but the generally speaking quite fake. And I think it's also important to see thatthere's different you know, variations of it. The most important thing is you created somethingof immense value that keeps on bringing value. But also generally speaking, the music industry,also when you are successful and get acquired, it doesn't necessarily always compare to exitsand other technology fields that, you know, that is super like consumer facing that wayand stuff.

Cool. But explain to me a bit, because I have afew friends that's also been acquired and I haven't really talked so much, well, a tinybit about them, how they're day -to -day life changed? Because it's kind of like sometimes it's justso much in the little head that keep on working. But like, what did that mean for you? Did your day -to -day life change with yourwork or was it just the same with your leadership?

What happened for you after that position? So me, it changed a lot because David andI, we are still general manager of Musicube and we all have all the responsibilities forour team here and do have the financial part as well. but all we said goodbye to was all this fundingsupport programs that was really huge.

Now then we realized how much time we spentfor checking what kind of funding programs is a right fund for us. Writing all the stuff, filling out the forms,this was really a huge amount where we just drop off. So, and for me, as I said, David is the headof all the AI stuff with our team.

This is a very technical. and I moved a little bit through Song Trader. So Song Trader is really a huge company inthe US and there were different possibilities for me to see what can I do, where do I goon to and now I'm in the innovation and strategy parts of Song Trader which is really interestingand somehow links to being a funder to be have a startup to see how this music techworld really further develop on and this is my journey just to go ahead.

So still being part of the music cube team,just dealing with every administration and stuff we have to deal here in Germany to bea company with a team, but on the other side to go on and to see, okay, what does this innovation and strategy parts in within Songtrader, what can we do with them or how can I getthis AI search more innovative and go on with the development as well.

And this is really... where everything links together because Ihave the knowledge of AI, I have the knowledge of startups, and to see how I can bring thisinto SongTrader and to get them furthermore ahead. Yeah. So for me, it changed a lot, so to say, butstill be the same as Musicube, but also have this other part of the company.

But I like that. I like the challenges to have different kindsof roles to see. what kind of work there is because this iswhat I love being an entrepreneur with in startup because you asked me for my role andof course we have this official definition because every investor wants to know okaywho is the person for tech, who is the person for financial, who is the person for communicationand blah and they really want to see for each role a person so we were onlytwo that this was already like okay why are you only two persons and not three and wewere like come on we are like two now.

So we just can do it whatever we want to do. But I like this having like not a strict role,but to say, okay, I can do some stuff more or less and being a bit free for how I wantto work and what I want to work on. So, and this is what I love being an entrepreneur. And this is also what I love staying withSongTrader and have this so to say double role.

But this is my personal thing that I, thisis how I want to work. So yeah. It's been really interesting hearing aboutmusic cube story and your part in it. And we sort of soon closing the podcast, butI would like to leave sort of the episode with some advice from your side.

Was there something particular about the processof the acquisition that surprised you? That you didn't think, you know, was goingto happen? Like something that they could be nice forpeople to know about that process. It was a bit of a lot and... On the other side, it's very subjective andit's very fitted on new parts of companies.

So we were a German company acquired by anUS company that always bring up the language barrier. So because every contact we have with partners,with customers, they were of course all in German because they were all German partners. And then now we have this US company and wetry to think, okay, now we have to translate really everything.

And this was really like, this was the... huge struggle we have to just see okay howis German tax law how is the US tax law what do we do with this was really this is somethingwhere you can't be prepared and that can't be some advice but the advice from my sidewould be to you always have to provide a lot of information and try really to be prettyclean as a company with no legal pending with nothing open so in Germany a handshake issomething like a signature on the contract but this doesn't count for any other country so wereally has to rethink the contracts, we really has to rethink everything but we always tryto be pretty clean and to have no stuff where

we like okay this is something like a grayzone. We really try to be yeah to be clear withanybody and with everybody because at the end during the acquisition it really paidout that we have the contract that we had names that we had already on place and that makes it a lot more easier but on theother side then we had this OS law and our law and then we just started some things.

Again, that was really huge. But it was okay because we know why we doit and what we do it for and yeah, we were like, okay, this is really the way to go therenow. I can't give any general advice because Ithink this is really something very subjective, but as I said, try to be pretty clean as astartup, as a company from the very beginning.

Have all the paperwork together and then itwould be a little bit easier to go through this acquisition process. And have good lawyers. At the end, who really can provide supportand really... really has a knowledge in the German law andthe US law and acquisition because this is really something very special.

Yeah. Well, thank you, Agnes. It's been a pleasure deep diving a bit intoyour story and what you do. And it's really interesting that we sort oflaunching this series and we're starting with you about exits. Oh, thank you for the honor. Because yeah, absolutely. I'm just going to reiterate, it is importantto have more information on understanding what happens in the music industry.

It is a complicated industry when comes toinformation and knowledge, relationships. And... What you guys have done with Musicube is aninteresting thing because that's what a lot of entrepreneurs strive for. Creating something big that has meaning andbe put into a context later that as a big whole creates value.

And you've been able to do that. What's your future? Are you one point going to start somethingagain or? Yeah, this is a question that I'm really askinga lot of because as I said from the beginning, I was not like, okay, I want to be an entrepreneurand I go on and on and on. I really have to believe in the product andthe idea. And somehow I'm like, okay, I really enjoyedthis time now being just one part of SongTrader and not struggling too much around.

But on the other hand, I was like, okay, itcould be really interesting to do it again and to see how this journey would developon and would it be the same end or what would be the next steps? How would it feel like if you have the startupand your product and really get... customers on your side and really get biggeras a company. That is really an experience.

I'm looking forward to it somehow, but onthe other hand, I'm really happy at the moment where I am. And I'm not too sure if I want to give upthat too soon, but I think if there's an idea coming by or if there's something developing,I would... I wouldn't say no from the very first beginningas I did in the former years.

Asking me in the former years, like, do youwant to be an entrepreneur? Do you want to fund something? I was always like, oh no, I don'twant to do that. But now with this experience, it was like,it was fun. It was really tiring, but it was also goodto make the experience and I would never miss the experience. Even so, we really had a good result. So this was really, for sure we didn't failin this.

thinking of failure was always the companyasked. So how do we look like if we fail? How do we look like if we say, okay, thisidea was really something for the garbage, so we can't do anything. That was really something where I don't wantto believe. I didn't want to believe it, but it couldhappen somehow. It couldn't, but I was like, yeah, okay, no,just stay on the positive side on the life and just believe in the idea.

And this is why I have such good experience. for that but yeah you never know. Maybe, maybe I would go on with the next startup. Maybe. That's great, Agnes. Thank you so much for being on the Sound Connectionspodcast. Thank you so much for the opportunity.