# Trying to create a Soundcloud alternative



## SongBox (Dec 10, 2018)

Hi everyone, my name is Mick and I'm a software developer from Scotland. Last night on reddit I posted this thread which kinda kicked off and to my surprise I got a few people offering me advice on where else I should post. One person said I should definitely post here.

Anyway... My app is SongBox. It started out as a place to privately share music, but I got more and more requests to make a public facing side to it, and then more requests to be able embed your tracks on other sites.

SO.. in between my day job and having young family I have managed to get these updates shipped.

SongBox is going strong and I'd love to hear what you all think.

Cheers


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## dflood (Dec 10, 2018)

Well I'm not a pro but It sounds like you have a good business case. A hosting service with secure sharing options, no advertising, and better audio quality should be of interest to the folks on this site. I put up my first arrangement on SoundCloud yesterday and it was immediately spammed, presumably by bots, offering me dubious services and promises. There are some other no nonsense hosting services out there, but most of the developers that market on this site still use SoundCloud, as do the members for sharing compositions. So your embed capabilities should be of interest. Your Q&A on reddit was pretty informative. Hopefully you will generate some interest here as well. Best of luck with it!


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## dflood (Dec 10, 2018)

Hi Mick,
I tried out a free account, uploaded a song and embedded it to a post on my blog. Worked flawlessly. I really like the uncluttered interface.


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## Henu (Dec 10, 2018)

I'm asked for my phone number for "notifications" before I have even uploaded a single song?


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## mr.vad0614 (Dec 11, 2018)

I've just signed up as I have been looking for something exactly like this, as I want to come away from SoundCloud now being as commercial as it is...So this is absolutely perfect for me! Thank you for informing us all about this wonderful app you've created, I can't wait to upload my music to it and start sharing!


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## ScoringFilm (Dec 11, 2018)

@SongBox; looks great. What kind of resolutions and formats does this host (e.g. 16 bit, 44 KHz, Wave, Flac etc).

Regards,

J


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## d.healey (Dec 11, 2018)

I click get started and the next page says join songbox, but the rest of the page is empty. I disable my ad-blocker and I can see the form. Why is it blocked though...

How do I sign-up without giving you a phone number?

Where is your privacy policy and T&Cs?


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Hi everyone. First off thanks for the amazing feedback. I need it - good or bad - bring it on!
I'll reply to each of you individually but just wanted to post this to say thanks.


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Thanks a lot! I feel like my point of differentiation will be on my privacy focus and no ads etc. I'm perturbed at hearing you were spammed after using Soundcloud. How can anyone think that's a decent experience? Madness. Anyway cheers again for the kind words!



dflood said:


> Well I'm not a pro but It sounds like you have a good business case. A hosting service with secure sharing options, no advertising, and better audio quality should be of interest to the folks on this site. I put up my first arrangement on SoundCloud yesterday and it was immediately spammed, presumably by bots, offering me dubious services and promises. There are some other no nonsense hosting services out there, but most of the developers that market on this site still use SoundCloud, as do the members for sharing compositions. So your embed capabilities should be of interest. Your Q&A on reddit was pretty informative. Hopefully you will generate some interest here as well. Best of luck with it!


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

I was nervous reading this. Normally I expect to see "I tried a free account and [some bug happened here]". I'm over the moon to hear your experience was great. Is there any way I could get a link to the page it's on? Just to see it in the wild?



dflood said:


> Hi Mick,
> I tried out a free account, uploaded a song and embedded it to a post on my blog. Worked flawlessly. I really like the uncluttered interface.


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Yup - you're not the first person to comment on this and I'm going to rectify it. My thinking here is that the USP of songbox is the fact that I send you notifications when something happens on your account; like someone plays your track or accesses your page. I've had some feedback that some people don't value this, so I'm working on making phone number optional - but obviously on the understanding that then you can't get the cool real time notifications.

Thanks for your feedback!



Henu said:


> I'm asked for my phone number for "notifications" before I have even uploaded a single song?


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Thanks, and I understand that. In most of my... stuff... that I put out I use the term "music creators". So I know exactly what you mean but I had to roll with something in terms of a brand. I hear you though!



expecto said:


> I don't like the equating of song with music but appreciate another platform to use


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

AMAZING! Thank you so much this kind of comment makes me feel like I haven't just wasted a year of my life building this thing. Love it! Thanks!



mr.vad0614 said:


> I've just signed up as I have been looking for something exactly like this, as I want to come away from SoundCloud now being as commercial as it is...So this is absolutely perfect for me! Thank you for informing us all about this wonderful app you've created, I can't wait to upload my music to it and start sharing!


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## rrichard63 (Dec 11, 2018)

Henu said:


> I'm asked for my phone number for "notifications" before I have even uploaded a single song?


In this specific case, it might be legitimate. I'd like to hear from Mick about the motivation. But, more generally, when sites demand a phone number I give them one I know to be fallacious.

EDIT Mick has already described the original motivation and I didn't see it before posting.


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Right now you can upload any type of audio file. However I will probably need to break out larger file sized into the "pro" or "business" plan. I'm actually really unsure of how to work this right now but as far as you're concerned, you can upload anything. Thanks!



ScoringFilm said:


> @SongBox; looks great. What kind of resolutions and formats does this host (e.g. 16 bit, 44 KHz, Wave, Flac etc).
> 
> Regards,
> 
> J


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

That's bizarre. I genuinely don't know why that would be happening but it sounds like something I need to investigate. Would you mind telling me what ad blocker you're using?

Thanks!



d.healey said:


> I click get started and the next page says join songbox, but the rest of the page is empty. I disable my ad-blocker and I can see the form. Why is it blocked though...
> 
> How do I sign-up without giving you a phone number?
> 
> Where is your privacy policy and T&Cs?


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Hi, I actually addressed this a few posts up the page. I promise it's legitimate however a couple of people have made a similar point. So I am going to work on removing this as a requirement on the understanding that it means you won't get the real time notifications.



rrichard63 said:


> In this specific case, it might be legitimate. I'd like to hear from Mick about the motivation. But, more generally, when sites demand a phone number I give them one I know to be fallacious.


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## MartinH. (Dec 11, 2018)

"Wrecking Ball by songbox"... I could have sworn that song was made by someone else...
Under what license did the original artist release it? CC-BY-ND? I doubt it, but even if that was the case, it's incorrectly attributed...


Edit: might be useful for artists if there were more detailed options to select how various credits are presented, in case they're hosting "covers" of other artist's work.


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## d.healey (Dec 11, 2018)

SongBox said:


> That's bizarre. I genuinely don't know why that would be happening but it sounds like something I need to investigate. Would you mind telling me what ad blocker you're using?


I use the Firefox AdGuard extension.


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## Kony (Dec 11, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Hi, I actually addressed this a few posts up the page. I promise it's legitimate however a couple of people have made a similar point. So I am going to work on removing this as a requirement on the understanding that it means you won't get the real time notifications.


Is it not possible to simply remove the phone number field and add email instead? That way, you can get notifications via email if you want them.


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Very good idea, and very good point. I'm going to add this to my feature backlog. 

Thanks a lot!



MartinH. said:


> "Wrecking Ball by songbox"... I could have sworn that song was made by someone else...
> Under what license did the original artist release it? CC-BY-ND? I doubt it, but even if that was the case, it's incorrectly attributed...
> 
> 
> Edit: might be useful for artists if there were more detailed options to select how various credits are presented, in case they're hosting "covers" of other artist's work.


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Yup - completely possible and that's, in a round about way, what I'm going to do. I've started work tonight on a new "notification preferences" section of the user account section. It'll all be tailorable in there.

Thanks!



Kony said:


> Is it not possible to simply remove the phone number field and add email instead? That way, you can get notifications via email if you want them.


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## Kony (Dec 11, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Yup - completely possible and that's, in a round about way, what I'm going to do. I've started work tonight on a new "notification preferences" section of the user account section. It'll all be tailorable in there.
> 
> Thanks!


Great - thanks! I will sign up but I will wait until the phone number requirement has been removed


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Excellent. If it's OK with you I'll message you on here when that's done.

If I may explain why I can't just rip it out tonight: There's a lot of logic in place right now to verify the phone number exists and is valid, and also to send you out a PIN then make sure you enter the PIN etc etc. So its actually quite a big job to make this optional. But it absolutely is on the cards.

Thanks again.



Kony said:


> Great - thanks! I will sign up but I will wait until the phone number requirement has been removed


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## Kony (Dec 11, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Excellent. If it's OK with you I'll message you on here when that's done.
> 
> If I may explain why I can't just rip it out tonight: There's a lot of logic in place right now to verify the phone number exists and is valid, and also to send you out a PIN then make sure you enter the PIN etc etc. So its actually quite a big job to make this optional. But it absolutely is on the cards.
> 
> Thanks again.


No problem - it's all good and I can wait. It's refreshing and encouraging to see a site owner/developer respond positively to a request like this and I really hope SongBox has a bright future


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

Well I'm a huge believer in the user experience and listening to the people who will actually use the product. Thanks so much.



Kony said:


> No problem - it's all good and I can wait. It's refreshing and encouraging to see a site owner/developer respond positively to a request like this and I really hope SongBox has a bright future


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## dflood (Dec 11, 2018)

SongBox said:


> I was nervous reading this. Normally I expect to see "I tried a free account and [some bug happened here]". I'm over the moon to hear your experience was great. Is there any way I could get a link to the page it's on? Just to see it in the wild?


@SongBox http://www.coastwood.ca/2018/12/09/the-mist-covered-mountains/


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

I'm not blowing smoke up your ass here but that was quite a special moment for me. That's the first time I've seen a songbox embed in the wild and the music... I live 2 minutes away from Loch Lomond. I love traditional Scottish music. Amazing. Well played man.

I have the volume low on my machine just now as my family are sleeping, but it sounds really excellent. What plugins are you using there?





dflood said:


> @SongBox http://www.coastwood.ca/2018/12/09/the-mist-covered-mountains/


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## dflood (Dec 11, 2018)

SongBox said:


> What plugins are you using there?


Thanks so much for the kind words! I do love Scotland. My people hail from Cape Breton Island, which as you know is just a piece of the Highlands that floated over to Canada. 
The Uillean pipes and one accordion are Ilya Effimov, a second accordion is @Polkasound's Melodious Button Box, the fiddle is Bolder Sounds Fiddle!, the low and tin whistles as well as the bodhran are from Eduardo Taliorantes's Celtic Era library, and the snares and guitars are recorded audio loops.


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## SongBox (Dec 11, 2018)

I'm pretty impressed man! If you listen to the "Wrecking Ball" cover on songbox, I performed/recorded/mixed all of that myself in my home studio and I was pretty pleased with it. but I could never do anything at the complexity of what you've done. I imagine a lot of the people on here will be amazing. Looking forward to hearing more.





dflood said:


> Thanks so much for the kind words! I do love Scotland. My people hail from Cape Breton Island, which as you know is just a piece of the Highlands that floated over to Canada.
> The Uillean pipes and one accordion are Ilya Effimov, a second accordion is @Polkasound's Melodious Button Box, the fiddle is Bolder Sounds Fiddle!, the low and tin whistles as well as the bodhran are from Eduardo Taliorantes's Celtic Era library, and the snares and guitars are recorded audio loops.


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## Fab (Dec 12, 2018)

d.healey said:


> I use the Firefox AdGuard extension.



How does it compare to Ublock origin?


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## d.healey (Dec 12, 2018)

Fab said:


> How does it compare to Ublock origin?


I'd never heard of that one (sounds like a toilet cleaner  ) so I can't compare them.


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## Fab (Dec 12, 2018)

d.healey said:


> I'd never heard of that one (sounds like a toilet cleaner  ) so I can't compare them.



...one might say it's 'tough on stubborn adverts'. ay ay?

It is quite a few years old but it was the first I found that worked for most cases.


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

Hello again everyone  I need help.

I am naming my plans for SongBox and I have so far "lite" the is free tier.

I then have "Enthusiast", "Pro" and I'm stuck for the top tier level. I can't think of a word. Any ideas?

In summary I have three tiers and where I am now is

Enthusiast
Pro
???

I'm open to other suggestions. Really stuck here.

Cheers


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## Luke W (Dec 12, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Hello again everyone  I need help.
> 
> I am naming my plans for SongBox and I have so far "lite" the is free tier.
> 
> ...


Maybe "Pro" should be the top tier? Make the middle one "Intermediate" or something?


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

Luke W said:


> Maybe "Pro" should be the top tier? Make the middle one "Intermediate" or something?


Yeah that's something I've been playing with in my mind. Here's my thinking, the middle plan is the one that will be marked as "most popular" - and I'd quite like that to be "pro".

However I might just be getting in my own way with that mindset.


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## Steinmetzify (Dec 12, 2018)

Name the last one Gods of SongBox!

Looking forward to checking out your site man, SC is just pissing me off lately.

EDIT: Does this support BBS and Xenforo hosting? Meaning can I post a link on either forum type and have a player come up or no?


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

Thanks. I'm surprised at how much Soundcloud have dropped the ball. I'm hearing so much bad stuff about them since I've come out of the woodwork with SongBox.

I'm not sure what you mean about your hosting question. I'll need to go and do my homework.

Cheers

ps - Gods of songbox LOL I like!



Steinmetzify said:


> Name the last one Gods of SongBox!
> 
> Looking forward to checking out your site man, SC is just pissing me off lately.
> 
> EDIT: Does this support BBS and Xenforo hosting? Meaning can I post a link on either forum type and have a player come up or no?


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## Steinmetzify (Dec 12, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Thanks. I'm surprised at how much Soundcloud have dropped the ball. I'm hearing so much bad stuff about them since I've come out of the woodwork with SongBox.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean about your hosting question. I'll need to go and do my homework.
> 
> ...




Like this.....this is a Xenforo forum, and that means I can 'embed' a SC player in here with a track, like this:



Pops up with a player, see? Can yours do that or is there a code in place that we can use to do so?

(Sorry if this is bad form, man....don't mean to be linking SC stuff in your thread)


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

haha no it's all good. If my software can't currently do this then I'll just make sure it does in the near future.




Steinmetzify said:


> Like this.....this is a Xenforo forum, and that means I can 'embed' a SC player in here with a track, like this:
> 
> 
> Pops up with a player, see? Can yours do that or is there a code in place that we can use to do so?
> ...


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## kclements (Dec 12, 2018)

How about Pro Plus or Pro+


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

I've got "Pro+" in just now as a placeholder but there's a medicine here in the UK called ProPlus so that's annoying me.

I'm maybe going to go with "Legend" so I'd have Enthusiast, Pro and Legend.

Someone talk me out of that, quick.



kclements said:


> How about Pro Plus or Pro+


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## TheSigillite (Dec 12, 2018)

How about "Master" Tier... be a Master of SongBox. since it's one of the final stages of producing a song anyways.

Even "Producer", however, I feel this would conflict with Pro.


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

Trying something


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

Master.... I like that. Especially with the audio tie-in!




TheSigillite said:


> How about "Master" Tier... be a Master of SongBox. since it's one of the final stages of producing a song anyways.
> 
> Even "Producer", however, I feel this would conflict with Pro.


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

Could you paste in the actual text you use to make that soundcloud embed appear?




Steinmetzify said:


> Like this.....this is a Xenforo forum, and that means I can 'embed' a SC player in here with a track, like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## MartinH. (Dec 12, 2018)

Can the forum embedding be solved solely on your end, or is this like a "xenforo plugin" thing that handles media embeds? Or is there a standard for how sites can provide embedding information to other sites so that the forum would automatically handle this the right way if you follow a certain standard? 

Regarding tier names, I'm always a bit sceptical when something offers "lifetime" access for anything. It's not a sustainable business model for things that cost money to be kept running, so I always get a sense of "desperation and imminent shutdown" from such sites or services. One of them is "filter forge", which fairly aggressively advertises those lifetime update plans, and I interpreted that as a bad sign.

That said, I suggest lite, pro, pro plus / pro vip. Otherwise from names alone it can be ambiguous which the highest one is, if you want the middle one to be pro (which I agree with).


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## MartinH. (Dec 12, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Could you paste in the actual text you use to make that soundcloud embed appear?



If you quote the reply in text-only mode it should be this: 

```
[MEDIA=soundcloud]id=steinmetzify%2Ffretless132jammy;track_id=509266854[/MEDIA]
```

I assume the forum makes these automatically from the regular soundcloud urls.


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

Two great points here

1) No. I've just been doing my research and I alone cannot make a BBcode. There seems to be an approved list. So I would need to do a lot of work (which is fine, I will) to get songbox embeds as an approved Become thing.

2) Yes. I agree with the tier name things although most marketeers (I'm not one) will say you should always have a "crazy" option in your pricing plans. if for no other reason than to make your desired plan look better.



MartinH. said:


> Can the forum embedding be solved solely on your end, or is this like a "xenforo plugin" thing that handles media embeds? Or is there a standard for how sites can provide embedding information to other sites so that the forum would automatically handle this the right way if you follow a certain standard?
> 
> Regarding tier names, I'm always a bit sceptical when something offers "lifetime" access for anything. It's not a sustainable business model for things that cost money to be kept running, so I always get a sense of "desperation and imminent shutdown" from such sites or services. One of them is "filter forge", which fairly aggressively advertises those lifetime update plans, and I interpreted that as a bad sign.
> 
> That said, I suggest lite, pro, pro plus / pro vip. Otherwise from names alone it can be ambiguous which the highest one is, if you want the middle one to be pro (which I agree with).


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## SongBox (Dec 12, 2018)

Yeah I've just been digging and it seems I'd need to get songbox listed as an approved embed source. I'll do more digging. Seems like a useful thing.



MartinH. said:


> If you quote the reply in text-only mode it should be this:
> 
> ```
> [MEDIA=soundcloud]id=steinmetzify%2Ffretless132jammy;track_id=509266854[/MEDIA]
> ...


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## Kony (Dec 12, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Yeah I've just been digging and it seems I'd need to get songbox listed as an approved embed source. I'll do more digging. Seems like a useful thing.


To get listed as an approved source will boil down to your site's popularity and usage - and I think the best way to scale up to get there would be to offer a better lite package to begin with.


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## yousuf (Dec 12, 2018)

Maybe a power feature you can add is to designate a link for "mix notes" - meaning the end user receives it, and they can enter in mix notes. This link would only be given for people who you want to solicit mix notes from.


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## gsilbers (Dec 12, 2018)

Being able to embed in WordPress would be great. And a way to customize the player.


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## Saxer (Dec 12, 2018)

Enthusiast
Pro
Top Tier


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## colony nofi (Dec 12, 2018)

Signed up. This looks really interesting. I'm going to look at using it for various things.
Quick comments. Once you are signed in - its VERY hard to upgrade. There's no link I can see from Account menu or Dashboard to upgrade to Pro. You should have an "upgrade to pro" on each and every page for free users. And a way to get to it from account. 
The free tier is not useful enough to gain the traction required to scale your business. Indeed, if you had external investment, I'd argue for offering everyone a usable level of free access. And by usable, I mean a meaningful amount of music that they can upload. Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps a smaller number of subscribers is all you need for a successful business, but I'm not sure... 
Or at least a 30 day free trial of pro?
Or.... 
Anyway. I'll stump up for a month sometime soon to try it out on real world projects.


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## SongBox (Dec 13, 2018)

Hey man thanks for the kinds words and the feedback. I thrive on feedback! I have some good news for you... kinda... the version you're looking at just now is early. the site kinda blew up accidentally last weekend when I got 15 mins of fame on a big reddit channel for musicians.

The new plans are better and the "upgrade" button will be prominent... I promise!!

I'm working on that right now actually.

Thanks so much again! my personal email is [email protected] if you have any other questions / comments.



colony nofi said:


> Signed up. This looks really interesting. I'm going to look at using it for various things.
> Quick comments. Once you are signed in - its VERY hard to upgrade. There's no link I can see from Account menu or Dashboard to upgrade to Pro. You should have an "upgrade to pro" on each and every page for free users. And a way to get to it from account.
> The free tier is not useful enough to gain the traction required to scale your business. Indeed, if you had external investment, I'd argue for offering everyone a usable level of free access. And by usable, I mean a meaningful amount of music that they can upload. Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps a smaller number of subscribers is all you need for a successful business, but I'm not sure...
> Or at least a 30 day free trial of pro?
> ...


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## d.healey (Dec 13, 2018)

Is there a privacy policy/T&Cs link yet?


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## SongBox (Dec 13, 2018)

Working on it 

Privacy policy in a nutshell is SongBox won't pass on your info (any of it) to anyone, ever. Your songs and all rights imaginable under the scope of the known universe are yours and yours alone. SongBox will never use your music and claims no right to use it ever for the rest of eternity.




d.healey said:


> Is there a privacy policy/T&Cs link yet?


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## d.healey (Dec 13, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Working on it
> 
> Privacy policy in a nutshell is SongBox won't pass on your info (any of it) to anyone, ever. Your songs and all rights imaginable under the scope of the known universe are yours and yours alone. SongBox will never use your music and claims no right to use it ever for the rest of eternity.


Sounds good to me


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## Nathanael Iversen (Dec 13, 2018)

Why not rename the bottom free tier "Basic"? Then you don't need a different name for the top tier. Pro is available.....


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## SongBox (Dec 15, 2018)

I've just deployed the latest version of SongBox with the phone number requirement gone. This was a pretty big piece of work and I'm sure there will be a hidden bug or 2 somewhere. Please just gimme a shout if you find any.

this also goes out to @Henu 



d.healey said:


> I click get started and the next page says join songbox, but the rest of the page is empty. I disable my ad-blocker and I can see the form. Why is it blocked though...
> 
> How do I sign-up without giving you a phone number?
> 
> Where is your privacy policy and T&Cs?


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## Vonk (Dec 15, 2018)

I like the clean uncluttered look of the site, and it's undoubtedly a great idea. I wish you every success for your hard work. But (you knew there might be a but didn't you), I think you'll struggle on grounds of competitiveness. A free account at Soundcloud offers three hours of upload, private & public areas and a secure download facility. The next tier up offers 6 hours for £3.75 a month. The next unlimited for £10 a month. A 10/35/70 track limit seems an odd approach. 10 tracks of 20 minutes against 10 of 4 minutes? In the latter case it's not generous. You have professionals on here with hundreds of tracks in their libraries - how will you attract them to use you as a showcase? As an aspiring music library writer I could only mange a single CD hosted on your highest tier because of the track structure.
You offer no downloading facility without paying $50pm/$500 a year. That's not very enticing against £120 for unlimited soundcloud use.
I admire you for your initial stand on advertising, but as someone with a lot of years in the business, I think you'll find it untenable. I had one of my efforts fail through pricing too high. I worry that you won't get the numbers to truly make an impact unless you can match or beat your strongest competitor on price. To offer better value I think you will have to accept a secondary revenue source. If the ads are kept relevant and with no gifs and animation it can be effective without being intrusive. This site is an example. The right ads could even make your site look more professional.
Good grief I never thought I'd speak up for advertisers. I must be rambling, it's getting late. But I worry for your business plan. Only a few make a decent living from their music, and the rest of us tend to grudge every penny....
I respect your effort & enthusiasm. Aspects of Soundcloud are a mess and there is room for a rethink. I hope the project grows and goes well for you.


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## Kony (Dec 15, 2018)

Vonk said:


> A free account at Soundcloud offers three hours of upload, private & public areas and a secure download facility.


And this is why I mentioned earlier that he'd need a better Lite package to draw in new users. Why would anyone move across from Soundcloud when the free option on that site is better? I honestly wish Songbox well but it would definitely need a better Lite option to begin with - and that will help scale up the site from there.


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## SongBox (Dec 15, 2018)

Hi @Kony and @Vonk 

I'm the first to admit that I struggle with pricing. It really is a suck it and see thing for me. 

I completely take onboard what you're saying but (you knew there'd be a but didn't you) I feel strongly that I need to draw my line in the sand and see what happens. The beauty of being small is that I can change and re-align when I have the data.

That being said, I'm not totally stupid (quiet at the back....) and I kinda pretty much totally agree with you. Can you make a suggestion as to what the "lite" tier should be? 

Or what would be more attractive to you in the "Pro" tier?

Both of these points bearing in mind that I need to keep the lights on (servers, databases etc)

Cheers would love to see what your breakdowns of "lite" and "pro" look like.


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## SongBox (Dec 15, 2018)

@Kony and @Vonk I'd also just like to add that soundcloud doesn't have the level of reporting that I have built out. That's kinda my USP - real time alerts as well with exactly who has listened and for how long.


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## Kony (Dec 15, 2018)

It is a good USP but (you knew there'd be a but...) it's not enough to convince struggling artists to invest what is a much more expensive option compared to Soundcloud. At the moment, Soundcloud is mainly offering two tiers (as far as I can see) - free or Pro (unlimited) for $12 per month. It boils down to how many users you're going to be able to attract when your unlimited option is $50 per month. I'm not sure the tracking USP is going to be strong enough to convince users to spend the extra $38 per month.

I would keep it simple and offer two tiers and price according to your competitors. I would also consider (tasteful?) advertising as you need to consider Soundcloud's Premier option which offers the ability to monetise uploads on their site which is based on advertising revenue.


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## Kony (Dec 16, 2018)

SongBox said:


> Hi @Kony and @Vonk
> 
> I'm the first to admit that I struggle with pricing. It really is a suck it and see thing for me.
> 
> ...


I've thought about this a bit and don't know if the pricing is the issue but the business model itself.

If you look at how Soundcloud started in 2008, they were up against MySpace and knew that membership numbers would be a key factor for growth - which is why they had a good free model.

Soundcloud got €2.5 million investor funding in 2009. Soundcloud also got an additional €10 million venture capital in 2010. A lot of that money would have been used to a) stay afloat and b) marketing and product development.

For a new company to go up against a major player already established in this space, a lot of funding is going to be needed. A major long-term source for revenue is going to be advertising (and membership - and licensing), but advertising revenue won't be much of an option without large membership numbers.

In 2011, Soundcloud had 5 millions users - by the following year, there were 15 million Soundcloud members. In other words, something like this would need to scale up massively and quickly and requires large sums of money to do that - especially to compete with a player already dominating the market.

There was a lot of product development going on at the same time in an untested market so the ability to diversify and upscale was high. A lot of the bases have already been covered by now so real-time tracking as a USP isn't going to be enough in my opinion. I'm not sure how big a factor your USP would be for growth. For example, I know some of my tracks are on people's playlists. Would I really need to know if they were playing my tracks every day and at what time?

When investors get pitched for something, one of the first questions they will ask is: "is there a competitor already doing this?" and "what's stopping them from offering the same USP?". In other words, if Songbox were ever to get into a position to eat into Soundcloud's market space (and I honestly and sincerely hope that does happen and Songbox has a bright future), what do you think Soundcloud's response would be?

Having said all that, Soundcloud has had its own issues over the last few years: licensing issues, failed acquisition issues, and closing down offices with staffing cutbacks in a bid to remain profitable. 

If I had the choice, I would offer your USP for free now - go on a massive advertising/marketing campaign, build up some large membership numbers as quickly as possible, and take it from there. I say this because I really do think that, in the space that you're trying to occupy, you need to grow exponentially and quickly in order to have any chance.

Songbox does look good and I honestly wish you massive success - just wanted to elaborate as to why I think the free option has to be better than Soundcloud's.


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## SongBox (Dec 16, 2018)

Hi mate this is all excellent stuff. I don't really get a chance to chat about this sort of stuff with anyone so really appreciate it.

I hear you, I do. However it's also a very strong belief of mine that not doing something just because someone else already is, is not a good reason. In fact with the size of soundcloud and the size of negative sentiment towards them, I feel the opportunity is rich.

Regards funding, I've actually already been through this with a large VC firm here in the uk. They wanted to seed fund me with £30,000 for 8% of the business, giving a valuation of circa £280,000.

I declined the offer as I thought it was too early and I wanted to retain full control - but the lesson I took from it was that I stood in the VC fire pit and survived.

It super early days for songbox and I am ABSOLUTELY going to take onboard your comments and I WILL make changes based on it.

Can't thank you enough even for just engaging with me on it.



Kony said:


> I've thought about this a bit and don't know if the pricing is the issue but the business model itself.
> 
> If you look at how Soundcloud started in 2008, they were up against MySpace and knew that membership numbers would be a key factor for growth - which is why they had a good free model.
> 
> ...


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## Vonk (Dec 16, 2018)

I don't really have anything to add to what Kony is saying, as I share his perspective. 
You might like to go through this old thread, not for the legal comments which seems a misguided debate, but for the occasional perspectives that emerge on the different sound hosting sites and why people choose to use them.
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/soundcloud-beware.54441/


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## d.healey (Dec 16, 2018)

£30,000 for 8% doesn't seem a great deal, you could get a bank loan of 30k (sometimes unsecured), and wouldn't have to offer a percentage of your business.


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## SongBox (Dec 16, 2018)

@Kony @Vonk

Don't let it be said that I don't take feedback... I think I have given myself tendonitis in my wrists but I've overhauled the pricing / plans structure based on your feedback, the feedback of others on some other forums I trust, and common sense.

Let me know what you think.

tl;dr there are now only 3 levels, "lite", "pro" and "all access". I'm now very close to Soundcloud prices and (I believe) offer more.

edited to add: Well ok I think wether I "offer more" or not is up for debate. But I believe what I offer will be of value to a certain type of individual.


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## Kony (Dec 16, 2018)

Wow! I've just had a look at the new pricing structure and the free option is now very impressive and easily beats Soundcloud in my opinion since you are offering tracking for free and the 50 track limit is very good! I'm going to comment some more about some other aspects (not pricing etc) but I have an appointment so I will update a bit later. This is really good though!


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## d.healey (Dec 16, 2018)

I'm still having the adguard issue, I could only see the pro-tier until I disabled the add-on.


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## Kony (Dec 16, 2018)

The large VC's offer will hurt you in the long run - because you will eventually have to pitch for a much larger investment (valuing your company in the £2 million ballpark) and future investors will be put off by the fact that you gave away a considerable chunk of the company for peanuts.

It may be impressive and flattering as a start-up to get an offer valuing the company in the low hundreds of thousands ballpark but really the VC would know that, if successful, your company will be worth at least 10 times that amount in the not-too-distant future. I would go back to the VC and ask for £100K for a 1% stake and see what their counter offer will be.

In other words, after a period of significant growth, the company's future valuation will be much higher and you should prepare to pitch for much larger investments in return for smaller percentages of equity. I'm thinking in terms of £250K for 1% (as an example).

Additionally, you will need heavy investment at some stage so I'm sure you already know you will have to relinquish absolute control - but you can and should always maintain your position as the dominant shareholder. It's your baby after all.

The only other niggle I have is with the branding. The logo is not clear enough for me - I need to see musical notes coming out of the box - so I think it needs a slight redesign. I would make the box bigger, get rid of the lid, and have musical notes where the lid was.

A smaller niggle for me is the image of the girl with the headphones as it's too red and not clear enough. I think the colouring needs to be more opaque for image clarity (especially for viewing on phones etc).


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## erikradbo (Apr 13, 2019)

Whatever happened to this? I signed up and uploaded a track, but doesn't seem to be fully functional yet?


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## X-Bassist (Apr 13, 2019)

SongBox said:


> Hi everyone, my name is Mick and I'm a software developer from Scotland. Last night on reddit I posted this thread which kinda kicked off and to my surprise I got a few people offering me advice on where else I should post. One person said I should definitely post here.
> 
> Anyway... My app is SongBox. It started out as a place to privately share music, but I got more and more requests to make a public facing side to it, and then more requests to be able embed your tracks on other sites.
> 
> ...



Suggestion, there seems to be no way to play back the track from the manage track section (or anywhere on the dashboard). This is sometimes critical when managing tracks with a strange name months later (what song is this?). Please, please add a playback feature on both the dashboard and more importantly manage track page. Thanks.


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## Diablo IV (Apr 13, 2019)

Where is the volume slider?! Are you going to make the same mistake as Soundcloud? I have to lower the damn volume on my interface everything a SC clip plays... sigh...


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## Desire Inspires (Apr 13, 2019)

Nice app. But if it gains any traction, it will become a target just like SoundCloud. Something goes from innocent, to useful, to massive, then to shit from people trying to make easy money. That’s how tech works.

In any case, I hope it takes off and you earn a lot of money from it. There is money to be made and somebody is going to take it. So you might as well grab some of it for yourself.


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