Technology 기업들에 대한 블로그를 운영하고 있는 Milov Patel과 뮤직쉐이크에 대해서 인터뷰를 하였다.

I was lucky to be able to get a hold of Kihong Bae the Director of Musicshake.com on Monday. I got a chance to talk with him about the new website, and the recent US launch they just went through. Musicshake was a TechCrunch 40 finalist, and definitely deserved it. I tried out the program and messed around with it for a good amount of time, and I can say I was impressed. Read the interview to get some more information about the company.
Milov Patel: Can please provide us with some information on your personal background in business and entrepreneurship.
Kihong Bae: I am a Korean by birth, but I grew up in Spain so I was exposed to diversity ever since I was small. I did my undergrad in Korea, and master’s at Stanford which is where I was mesmerized by the dynamics of Silicon Valley. Just seeing all these entrepreneurs on campus (Jerry Yang, Larry Page etc..) stimulated my entrepreneurial juices. After school, I worked for a PKI security startup called ValiCert which later got acquire by Tumbleweed Communications. Then went back to Korea to work with friends from MIT on a Korean Supply Chain Management solutions startup that’s still around. After 3 yrs at Zionex (the Supply Chain Management Company), I decided to get some exposure to the corporate world and worked as the Senior Marketing Manager at Microsoft Korea. I am currently doing my MBA at Wharton School, and working part-time as Musicshake’s Director.
Milov Patel: Lets talk about musicshake.com – can you tell me a bit more about it?
Kihong Bae: Musicshake is the world’s first UGM (User Generated Music) creation solution developed to provide music composing solutions for the general public without any musical knowledge or expertise to create professional quality music by utilizing various pattern-combination methods. It’s the only complete end to end online music creation solution in the market today. Although there are genre specific music creation tools that enable users to combine specific beats and sounds, users still need specific knowledge about music making in order to create quality music contents. By utilizing various pattern combination methods, which are powered by the proprietary Music Pattern Database and Mu-bot (Music Robot) Algorithms, users with no previous musical education can create music online that can be utilized to increase their presence on the web. Users can play Musicshake as if they play online games and as a result of playing the game, they can create their personalized music content.
Milov Patel: What led you to creating musicshake.com?
Kihong Bae: The idea has been around for a long time. We’ve done about 5 years of R&D; on this. The pain was that we wanted to be very creative and wanted to make our own music however, the current solutions out there in the market specifically required the end user to have professional knowledge on music and we definitely were no musicians. So we decided to make a tool that any average person could use, everyday to make his/her own music with simple clicks.
Milov Patel: It seems your business model is really aligned with a Web 2.0 style. How do you guys expect to make revenue?
Kihong Bae: Not sure if you saw the presentation video, but there was a part where I specifically said that we had SEVERAL business models. End users can play around with Musicshake client and mix/make as many songs as they want and upload it on the server side. However, when they decided that they really like what they have made, and would like to download the music as mp3 file on their PC / PDA / mobile phone / iPod, that’s when you need to pay a fee. And you can use these tunes as your ringtones/ring-back tones/background music for blogs etc. We also are in discussion with music labels where we copyright music parts from existing artists and provide these as premium music patterns at a fee based plan. The truly revolutionary approach in the business model is that once you make a song and pay/download it, the end user owns the IP of the song. When somebody else downloads the song, the fee is shared between Musicshake and the original maker of the song.
Milov Patel: How many employees do you have currently? Do you feel it’s important for your employees to share the same drive that you have?
Kihong Bae: We currently have 17 full-time employees and several in-house/outsourced part-time musicians who work on making the music modules. We are a small startup based in South Korea and if there is one things that we invest heavily is our own people. We truly believe that PEOPLE is what can make or break a startup especially at the critical stage that Musicshake is at currently. We make sure we share the same feelings, share the same vision and goals about the company but at the same time make every effort to make this journey a worthwhile one for each individual. It’s like riding a rollercoaster…when you go up, everybody gets excited with butterflies in their stomach. When you go down, once again everybody feels the thrill and adrenaline rush. We definitely are one team that shares the drive that I have.
Milov Patel: What would you say are the most important elements to have a flourishing startup?
Kihong Bae: Once again, I must say that the most critical element is the people. Good people can make things happen in the worst times, bad people can break things up even in the best times. Another things that I think is critical for a flourishing startup company is the ability to execute. There are too many people out there who say too much and do nothing! I would say we need people with the ‘ready, shoot , aim’ mentality rather than ‘ready, aim, shoot’. This is a fast changing industry, you can’t spend tons of time preparing and predicting the future. You should just do it, and make modifications as you go along. I am happy Musicshake has far more people with the ‘just do it’ mentality’ than ones without it.
Milov Patel: What would you like people to remember most about musicshake.com?
Kihong Bae: When people think musicshake.com, I would like people to think of the company that truly revolutionized the music industry. Think about what you can do when you can make your own music, and what kind of earthquakes you can create by becoming an artist in just a matter of minutes -> the realization of the so-called ‘No-brainer Musician Project’ is what we strive to do

Musicshake 발표가 끝난 후 San Jose Mercury News의 기자가 다가와서 간단히 인터뷰 요청을 하였다. SJ Mercury와 같이 영향력있는 매체에서 인터뷰 요청을 한다는 뜻은, 발표를 굉장히 잘했고 좋은 기술 기반의 제품을 가지고 있다는 의미이다. 윤형식 사장님 aka Blue과 멋진 인터뷰를 하였다고 생각한다 ㅎㅎㅎ

드뎌 기대 만빵 TechCrunch40가 시작되었다. 주말에 샌프란시스코에서 뮤직쉐이크 코리아 팀과 만나서 일단 바로 발표 준비에 들어갔다. 윤형식 사장님과 나한테 주어진 시간은 총 8분. 과연 8분안에 2,000명의 관객 – 그것도 그냥 관객이 아니라 실리콘 밸리에서 가장 영향력 있는 venture capitalist들, 구글, 마이크로소프트, 야후 등 굴지의 IT 기업의 높으신 분들과 press를 감동 시킬 수 있을까? 한 20번 정도 반복해서 연습했을까? 그 정도 연습하니까 이제는 입에서 영어 발표가 술술술 나오는거 같더라. 결론을 간단히 말하자면, TechCrunch40의 뮤직쉐이크 발표는 대박이었다. 전 세계에서 온 40개의 벤처기업이 발표를 하였지만 뮤직쉐이크같이 재미있고, 관객을 감동시킬 수 있었던 제품과 기술은 단 하나도 없었다. 발표가 끝나자 마자 Palace Hotel의 참석자들이 우리와 한마디라도 더 하려고 줄을 서서 (정말로 줄을 섰다) 기다렸다. 정말 자랑스러운 순간이었다. 나 스스로의 성취감, 대한민국 IT 기술을 실리콘 밸리에 알릴 수 있었던 애국심 그리고 이 자랑스러운 순간을 함께할 수 있었던 와이프에 대한 고마움 등..기분 좋은 순간이었다.

어제 새벽 2시반, 캘리포니아 서부 시간으로 11시반에 TechCrunch의 사장 Heather Harde한테 이메일이 왔다.
Congratulations! We are thrilled to invite you to present at TechCrunch20. 최종 관문을 통과하고 마지막 20개 기업으로 뽑히는 위대한 순간이었다. 자다가 새벽에 BlackBerry를 통해서 이메일을 확인하였는데 아침에 일어나자마자 이 소식을 기다리고 있는 뮤직쉐이크의 사장님과 이사님 그리고 LA에 있는 내 파트너 John한테 이 기쁜 소식을 전달하였다. 이제 9월17일 / 18일 양일 동안 세계 최강의 벤처기업들과 경쟁을 해야한다. 쉽지는 않겠지만 승산은 충분히 있다고 생각하며 열심히 준비를 해야겠다.

하여튼 오랜만에 샌프란시스코로 날라가는구나…Silicon Valley를 다시 방문하고 Stanford 대학도 다시 갈 수 있겠군…