Myxt is a collaborative workplace app for audio creators – which was built to confront the industry-wide problem of file sharing. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Myxt founder Chris Wetherell to learn more.
Chris Wetherell’s Background
What is Wetherell’s background? “I was a Cub Scout, then a Boy Scout, and now a CEO. In actuality, I’ve had a fairly long career in software development and music that first came together when I was pursuing my Bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley. I studied Computer Science and Music, but my knack for the former eventually brought me into the early years of Google. In my time as an engineer at Google, I used their famous “20% time” policy to build an RSS aggregator called Google Reader. I was actually a touring musician for two bands at the same time as Google Reader started maturing into a full-fledged arm of the company. It was a lot to balance – literally at one point taking a work call from behind a drum set before counting in the band,” said Wetherell. “For what was to come, Google Reader was an early window for me and my teams to see how information spreads online. It made sense when I eventually moved to Twitter to help build a retweet button. After Twitter, I spent a few years building startups such as Thing Labs, Avocado Software, and a geographic data analysis platform called Tierra.”
Formation Of Myxt
How did the idea for Myxt come together? “When I was working with these companies, I was still heavily invested in music. Again, phone in one hand, drumsticks in the other. I was creating my own music, helping produce albums for other artists, and finding it where I could. Funny enough, as a musician, I kept running into software problems. Files would go missing or I wouldn’t know where someone left feedback. I was helping produce a rap album with Marty Grimes, and every day something would break and we wouldn’t be able to listen to something we had just created. I kept wishing for magic buttons to solve my woes in audio production and collaboration. Then, it dawned on me that I was the one who had to build the magic button. I knew the problem and what the software to fix it would look like,” Wetherell reflected. “We first set out to tackle file sharing, and made an experience that was meant for audio creators. Once we had built that core product, we began layering new tools that folks in our industry would look for once a file had been shared: time-stamped commenting, AI mastering, lyric transcription, video export/promotional tools, foldering, playlists, and controls on engagement.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for Myxt? “We just formally launched this past April and that was our biggest moment yet. It was important for us to share our product with the world and to hear back from them that, yes, this was something that they’d been looking for too. Selfishly, as a musician, it was awesome to finally have those tools. Those magic buttons that I always wanted are now at my disposal. Seeing that come to life was really rewarding,” Wetherell shared.
Challenges Faced
What are some of the challenges Wetherell faced in building the company and has the current macroeconomic climate affected the company? “I think it goes without saying but a huge problem in the economy of this industry is that independent artists are widely underpaid and people don’t have to pay much for music. It hasn’t presented a challenge for our company so much, but it is of course on our mind in how we think about pricing and the future pipeline of products,” Wetherell acknowledged. “Then, there’s also the amount of work that we could take on. Once we created our core platform the assembly line of things we could do with Myxt grew substantially. Deciding what jobs needed to be done first for our current and potential users is a huge undertaking. The more feedback we get and more we hear from folks in our industry, the longer the list becomes. However, we feel really confident in the products we built at launch and those we have in the pipeline. Building a company is about being comfortable with there being little fires around you and deciding which ones need to be tended to first.”
Core Products
What are Myxt’s core products and features?
Storage and organization built for audio
— Myxt’s platform – which is available on web, desktop, and mobile devices – forms a single location to stream tracks, organize files, and backup their library.
— Users can create inboxes to receive and organize inbound tracks from others.
— All tracks can be transcribed automatically and annotated with notes or time-stamped comments.
— Its tools aim to alleviate industry-wide challenges such as version tracking, transferring large files, and visibility into who has viewed or downloaded a track.
Features to share tracks with collaborators and followers
— Tracks can be shared as secure links for others to react, add notes, or provide time-stamped feedback on any file, with the option to download any file.
— Shared spaces called “Groups” are for creators and their collaborators to work on a project. Anyone in a Group can manage, edit, or provide feedback on files in the shared library.
— When ready for promotion, produce videos, visualizers, static images, or lyric videos accompanied by the track.
Creative tools for enhancing projects
— Users can quickly integrate creative feedback or inspiration by adding a live voice recording to their library or on top of a track, or with Myxt’s AI-supported mastering tool.
— Provide Myxt with a reference track and Myxt will master a version to match the dynamics, stereo image, and frequency response.
“At Myxt, we think that sharing the experience of making music is just as important as promoting the final project. With projects like Mac DeMarco’s nine hour demo album, I think we will see this trend of sharing unreleased projects or unpolished cuts of hit songs grow steadily in the coming years,” Wetherell commented. “It’s why we think combining tools for storage, sharing, and promotion on one platform is so important. Myxt is able to easily facilitate that process for artists, so they can grow their career.”
Customer Success Stories
When I asked Wetherell about a customer success story, he cited a couple of examples:
SquaddaB is an Oakland-based rapper and producer who, after a short hiatus, has used Myxt to share mixtapes with his fan base ahead of his upcoming album. Myxt was able to help Squadda keep a repository of all the tracks he has made or is currently working on. Everything from a demo fresh out of the studio, to tracks his collaborators have sent to his Myxt inbox, to finalized masters. With an organized library, Squadda could quickly select tracks for his playlist – aptly called “MyxtTapes” – and promote them to his community with shareable links and video export tools featured within the app.
Similarly, in Mexico City, Carlos Calderon and his band Mengers are preparing for the release of their next album. Myxt came to Mengers and Carlos at a time where managing their tracks and collaborating while working remotely was inhibiting their creative process. With the ability to create folders and track versions, the band was immediately relieved of their challenges of file storage and sharing. But while working together in a hybrid environment, it was Myxt’s collaborative tools like time-stamped commenting and voice recordings that proved to be a game changer for them.
Funding
The company recently disclosed a seed round of $2 million earlier this year in a round led by Accel and Quiet Capital.
Total Addressable Market
Q:) What total addressable market (TAM) size is Myxt pursuing?
“Our customer base is anyone who works in audio, our solution can scale from independent music creators to management teams at the major labels. This puts us in a wide addressable market that only grows with the expansion of the audio industry and creator economy,” Wetherell assessed.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Myxt from its competition? “There are few tools that facilitate the process of the moment you’ve finished recording something – either in the studio or on voice memo – through to the moment you want to promote and track your engagement. Myxt aims to fill every step in between,” Wetherell explained. “In terms of file sharing alone, current solutions for audio creators and their management teams are limited to email, text, Dropbox, WeTransfer – and none of these solutions were made for audio files. Then you look at the tools meant for audio and it’s incredibly fragmented, artists have to piecemeal solutions together to promote their work. Myxt is more than just a repository for audio. We’ve solved a broken process for audio creators and combined it with additional tools that will help their career and creative process.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Myxt’s future company goals? “In the near future, we’re hoping to announce integrations with other leading audio and AI softwares that empower audio creators. We also would like to partner with existing tools that musicians use in their day to day and make the handoff experience more seamless. For example, using Myxt to move a project from a DAW to distribution platforms,” Wetherell concluded.
