From a youthful age, Dominic Go was drawn to new music. Living just a quarter-mile from the College of Notre Dame campus, he could listen to the Preventing Irish marching band actively playing on football video game days. Even though he failed to played tuba or any other brass instrument for that make any difference, he sang. All. The. Time.
“I was number seven in a relatives of 8 children, and I was generally singing,” he stated. “I was the annoying minimal brother.”
In sixth grade, Go’s tunes instructor inspired his mother and father to enroll the crooner in voice and piano lessons. They followed the advice and quickly Go was playing piano and guitar, singing, and dreaming of being a specialist musician.
When faculty rolled about, because his father labored in Notre Dame’s Place of work of Information Technologies, Go certified for tuition aid. “That was really hard to go up but so was a diploma from Notre Dame,” he reported.
On campus, Go majored in music and political science. In addition to his official musical training and effectiveness, which leaned seriously on opera and a classical strategy, he joined the Notre Dame Glee Club and The Undertones. Whilst the all-male Glee Club executed conventional and barber shop quartet tunes, The Undertones have been an all-male pop-singing a capella group whose on-campus gigs were sellouts. He also done in regional musical theater as a side gig.
He located much more than his voice at Notre Dame, he identified Colleen Huml. They’ve since married. “She was the director of Harmonia, the all-ladies a capella team and I was the director of The Undertones. We experienced our individual Pitch Perfect aggressive thing going on, but ultimately, we received together and started off executing jointly.”
A passion for the new music business
Following graduating, Go was originally on the fence about pursuing a skilled music job. “I experienced my doubts. It is a very binary sector. Both you’re exceptionally rich or you live in poverty, there’s not a great deal in involving,” he stated. “Even touring musicians do it for the enthusiasm. There’s just not plenty of revenue in it.”
He ultimately determined to give it a go. “I experienced dedicated my time at Notre Dame to songs, placing apart my other passions. So I had to consider,” he mentioned.
Extra roles at regional musical theater and performances at bars and clubs adopted. And when Better Entire world Books — an on the net applied bookstore with a social conscience — made available him a work as a challenge supervisor with a versatile routine, he accepted.
His working day work was great and he bought the prospect to take a look at yet another fascination — technology, particularly data evaluation and coding. For the next 16 months, Go labored on the tech side of Superior Planet Guides below the tutelage of his 1st manager, Paul Drake.
“He was remarkable. He by some means noticed probable in me, and so he granted me the autonomy to follow my desire,” Go explained. “But I nevertheless experienced a passion for the new music industry. I just experienced to go at it from yet another way.”
Go formalized his technological teaching, moved to greater institutions, and inevitably cultivated more than 10 decades of working experience in the field. In the course of this interval of experienced development in the area of technological innovation, the profits disparity in the new music industry — owing largely because if an artist wanted to make it to the large time, they had to go through a “kingmaker” — bothered him.
‘Tech could be the solution’
“Back in the early times, talented musicians had to have a significant record label guiding them to spend all of the upfront expenditures of recording, promoting, booking appearances, and running distribution channels or information and afterwards CDs. When Pandora was established in 2000 and Spotify in 2006, they solved the distribution difficulty by disrupting the music field with livestreaming. But there was even now a big difficulty. Independent artists however weren’t generating any funds,” Go mentioned. “That was a issue for me. I considered probably tech could be the option.”
His “aha” second on how to share the wealth with all songs artists arrived during a journey to Asheville, North Carolina. “I heard a busker singing on a road corner and was floored. The male nailed his tune. I needed to idea him but did not have any hard cash and there was no Venmo at the time. I felt seriously undesirable, but it produced me think about a new way to pay back artists.”
The new way in the long run became Go’s firm Tambr, which he commenced constructing in 2015. In 2018, he accomplished the prototype and launched the system and application. Tambr’s mission is to give all musicians a way to be heard though enabling them to monetize their songs in a new and fair way. Supporters then also experienced a way to obtain and aid rising talent and founded regional bands.
Tambr operates as a freemium model. You can find no charge to musicians who use the platform, and they keep complete ownership of their music. Consumers can hear for absolutely free but advertisements are component of their experience. Premium end users who fork out $7.99 a month never listen to adverts, and they can pay attention to audio offline and again the artist of their selecting. This directs $2 a month of their subscription to their favourite artist.
Go said some folks roll their eyes at Tambr becoming just a further streaming assistance. But when they recognize 25% of the membership goes straight to an artist, they are all in. “We’re not attempting to differentiate on price tag. We’re less costly than Spotify and Pandora, but extra expensive than a support like Ultimate Guitar Tabs. The rate is genuinely about trying to uncover a balance in the marketplace relative to our competition.”
To get traction, Go approached musician buddies from his Notre Dame days as properly as from his skilled career. A lot of gladly uploaded their audio. Go, meanwhile, continued to iterate on the platform. In 2021, he extra livestream abilities. Performers embraced it, some undertaking additional produced sets from a club or other location, when other artists streamed from their properties. Listeners can donate to artists with just a click on. The Tambr app is available on Google Enjoy and the App Retail outlet.

“Some musicians are livestreaming performances each and every 7 days. They are definitely thrilled to have a new instrument. That is the most gratifying point for me.”
Upscaling Tambr
In 2021, Go also gained a Master’s in Small business Administration from the University of Chicago. He laughed at how that arrived about. “My spouse desired to go to healthcare school and enable me know she’d be investing a good deal of time studying for the MCA. I desired to spend time with her, so I resolved to examine for the GMAT, the preparatory test for graduate school. I had no intention of going again to faculty. When I acquired a top rated rating, I didn’t want to waste it. I concentrated in economics and entrepreneurship and beloved it.”
His MBA was nicely-timed he is now focused on upscaling Tambr. In the early times, $200,000 from mates and loved ones funded the organization. Today, it really is cashflow constructive. Go is planning to launch a $700,000 pre-seed funding round, with proceeds directed at person expansion.
“To give new musicians a route to build their professions and thus have real impression on the artist community, we need to have hundreds of hundreds of end users,” he said. “Fortuitously, it is incredibly doable.”
Regional bands typically have followings of 20,000 in addition on social media platforms like Instagram. Converting them to top quality Tambr subscribers can crank out sizeable revenue. “If just 1,000 enthusiasts join Tambr as high quality customers and designate the band, which is $2,000 in predictable regular monthly money. There are other ways for musicians to make money on Tambr these kinds of as immediate donations and items sales.”
Fundraising has been Tambr’s largest problem the place is crowded with Spotify, TikTok, Apple, and Amazon. Tambr isn’t just after the masses, while. Its goal is the more youthful audience that enjoys locating new bands and solo musicians and appreciates the social mission of supporting emerging artists.
“When people today say, ‘Do we need to have yet another music streaming provider?’ my response is, ‘Did we need to have a different shoe business?’ and then I stage to Allbirds, which also has a social mission and is quite productive. They also have a good merchandise. As a purchaser solution corporation, we have to deliver on just about every working experience,” Go explained.
It is really been worthwhile for Go to see the pleasure of taking part artists. “Some musicians are livestreaming performances every single week. They are really enthusiastic to have a new device. Which is the most gratifying factor for me,” he reported. “I’ve also identified a good deal of new tunes myself.”
His suggestions to many others who aspiration of starting off a company: Be open to suggestions.
“I spent way also much time not taking feedback. It is your little one and when you get feedback it feels like a own attack. … Learn how to discern practical and not-useful suggestions. Startups are a tough journey. We all will need advice.”
Originally posted by at ideacenter.nd.edu on June 22, 2022.
