SoundOut is a web based music technology and data company using crowdsourcing and the wisdom of crowds to predict the market potential and demographic resonance of new music.

SoundOut is 100% powered by over 300,000 music consumers who review and rate new music, with a database of over 10 million track reviews over 43 different genres.

SoundOut helps artists to select their strongest singles, decide where to focus their marketing efforts and identify which demographics they should be targeting. Major record labels use SoundOut to decide on new releases and signings for many of the biggest artists in the world. Also, hundreds of radio stations worldwide rely on SoundOut’s weekly research updates to help direct their playlist decisions. SoundOut are also expanding into the retail vertical and are conducting extensive trials with a number of major apparel retailers to predict consumer demand for new collections before bulk orders are placed.

Key Information

Founded: 2006 (originally named ‘SliceThePie’) by David Courtier-Dutton
Website: www.soundout.com/www.soundoutretail.com
10 employees, based in the UK with a global customer base
Turnover: Predicted £2m in 2013
Sector: Data Analytics

David Courtier-Dutton – CEO and Founder
David is Chief Executive Officer and Founder of SoundOut. David began his career as a lawyer before transitioning into corporate finance, working on M&A and flotation’s. His first entrepreneurial venture was SliceThePie, the world’s first crowdfunding platform for independent artists. SoundOut evolved from SliceThePie due to the success of their unique data analytics and review filter to find the world’s most talented independent artists. David is an inspiring leader who believes in hiring young, bright employees who flourish in an entrepreneurial environment where ‘there are no boundaries.’

Ecosystem Economics™
Through utilising the theory of Ecosystem Economics™, companies like SoundOut have succeeded by organising the economics for each party in the core transaction taking place within their chosen industry. One of their key strategies early on was realising that in order to get to market quickly and efficiently, they would need to get the Radio stations to break ranks with the Record Labels (the ‘Goliaths’), who were cumbersome and slow to move.

SoundOut achieved this by bringing the vital tools and enabling technologies that record companies and large corporates needed in order to survive in an ever-changing digital economy. SoundOut has also been able to implement the Ecosystem Economics™ model by equipping each stakeholder – whether it be the record company, independent artists, the music fans/reviewers or the entrepreneur, with enabling technology.

As SoundOut developed its offering, it moved from vulnerability through to being viewed as a strategic value propostion to Goliath, as well as intrinsic financial value to achieve network effects or ‘lock in’ by bringing digital revenues to Goliath. They have also secured their position as an operating system that is vital to the overall efficiency of their chosen ecosystem.