MUSIC TECH STARTUPS: Kombie, targeting the millennials

Stuart Berwick is the cofounder of Kombie, an app mostly aimed at younger users. It lets them record and mesh themselves to any video. «It’s a really simple concept but it actually does a number of things. With Kombie you can record yourself in and out, and it loops around, so it’s really engaging. With other apps you record yourself on some music and then you share it. We have the video too, so it’s much more powerful. You can do comedy as well, or take any video you like from your camera».

Why is video so important?

«Video is communication right now. The cocreation generation, they don’t text. Communication is now done by video, and it’s going to be like that for the next 4 or 5 years. There are 80 billions plays a day for videos, all over the world.

We touch on all of those, and it’s really fun. We were however a little bit concerned of how this would affect kids’ brains, seeing themselves together with Beyonce. We showed this to a child psychologist who explained us the potential for learning, from mimicry for example, or for learning ABCs, 123s, learning languages. The acceleration in learning is huge. It’s fun but we have an educational, serious side that we’re working on now».

How does Kombie work?

«Kombie already comes with a few videos, uploaded by the community and that’s going to get more open. We don’t want to restrict creativity, we want anybody to be able to upload anything because this could become anything. We don’t want to say this is a music app, or a movie app. It can be used for so many different things. We’re going to see what comes of it, it could become a political thing: you could take bits from a politician and add reactions».

How was the process of creating Kombie?

«Kombie has been built four times – we got it wrong four times, it’s been a long journey but we finally got it right. We had very understanding investors and worked very hard. Anybody who has a startup and says they have an amazing run, they are lying. We had the concept but we had a terrible user experience. I learnt to design and we worked on that. Finally we got it amazing but it took a long time.

A lot of investors asked us what we sell. We sell boredom. These kids have so many things to do, it’s impossible for them to be bored. You have to create something that’s mindblowing for them. We don’t solve problems so much, it’s the users who we care about. We want to get to a point where you look exactly the same as the singer, we’re not gonna stop until your video looks exactly the same. It’s steps, you can’t just get there straight away».

What is the most difficult thing in being a startup?

«Some people swim around startups and take money from them instead of actually helping. The hardest thing however is to focus on the product, not getting swept over by things, focus on the user and what people actually want. The hardest thing is to get that right and not to lose focus on what you’re actually doing. If you have something good it will grow. We do a lot of comparison with the music industry: if you make a good song, people are going to listen to it, if you have a good product people are going to use it. Trust what you’re doing, listen to your users and don’t get swayed by outside influences».

Did your first versions try to do too much?

«Exactly. Friends and other people said “if you just added this, it would be interesting”. We then took some roads we shouldn’t have and turned down some big things. We know exactly what we’re doing now».

What kind of feedback have you had?

«Every time we show it to somebody they say “We could use it for this”. We’re trying to do some good with Kombie. People don’t remember what the ice bucket challenge was for. If that was done with Kombie it would be more powerful. For any charity we’ll do all the work for free. I think that we can spread messages easily, if you can get people to personalize messages and spread the word with a social avalanche».

How do you plan on earning from Kombie?

«There’s no paid layer right now. Kombie is an app but it’s actually technology, we did it SDK so it could be put in any other app. We have a potential for other applications. The focus however is on the user.

However, we’re mostly about doing some good. Millennials will give a tablet to their kids, if they can interact and learn in the meantime it’s better than having them zone out to cartoons».