Just Like Spotify

A close friend sent me this from his son – from YEARS ago.  Sounds a lot like Spotify doesn’t it?

The Rock Rhythm was founded by Luke, an intelligent entrepreneur, on December 26, 2005.  Luke was listening to the radio one day when he realized that he hardly liked anything that was played because none of it was rock.  On that day, he would create a business that sold solely rock music online.  The Rock Rhythm promises to provide high quality rock music at a low price (only fifty cents).

The Rock Rhythm is run by Luke and John.  This music business is an in-home business for both individuals.  John’s computer provides for the music storage because of its 250 GB hard drive.

From his house, John tracks the customer usage and purchases of songs to determine what type of songs appeal most to the customers.  Then, he creates a report with usage statistics of the music, through the use of Microsoft Excel 2003, and sends it to me.  I review the reports, and then search the internet and listen to the radio for new rock songs that the customer may enjoy, according to the reports.  After finding suitable music for our business, I send emails to the artists of those songs in order to obtain their permission to use and sell their songs.  In return for using their songs, I pay a small royalty, or fee to them.  If the artist accepts the deal, I give John the go-ahead to retrieve the music and download it to his computer for our businesses’ usage.  In order to sell our music, we purchased a domain name from www.godaddy.com for only $8.95 per year, and used Yahoo’s free web-page builder to create the site.  After obtaining permission to use the songs, I immediately create a list of all of the new songs that I now have permission for.  I use Microsoft Excel 2003 to create the report, and in the report, I include the following: song name, artist, type of music within the rock genre, and what where on the web the song can be found.  After John receives my report, he downloads all of the music to his computer, scanning them for viruses as they are completed.  He then uses a program called Gold Wave to copy each song and trim them into 30 seconds clips.  He then uploads the 30 second clips onto our website, so the customers can preview the songs before they buy them.  If a customer chooses to buy a song, he can pay for it using a credit card.  The customer’s billing information is sent directly to my computer, and I bill that customer for the songs he purchased.  Directly after I bill the customer, part of the money is automatically transferred to the account of the song’s artist (which I have on record), and the rest is divided evenly among our businesses multiple Key Bank accounts.  Another job of mine is very quick and easy; I am billed $8.95 each year to keep our domain name, so I send in a check.    Once the customer has paid for the song, the song is automatically unlocked for that customer to download from John’s computer.  The security programs on John’s computer protect him and his music so that the customer can not upload anything harmful, but only download the song (one time).  Finally, at the end of each year, John and I get together and analyze our profits and our business in general.  We then decide together if we need to make any software or hardware purchases for our business.

This computer-based system provides for all of our company’s needs at the moment because our business is very small.  The only employees are John and I.  I take care of money and he takes care of the music, as explained above.  Computers make our jobs a lot easier because we can do almost all of the work on them.  One of the best features is the program Microsoft Money 2007, which we configured to automatically pay royalties, and bill accounts of the purchasing customers.  Also, since we have Road Runner internet connections, anything that needs to be done online, like management of the company website, or management of our bank accounts at Key Bank, can be done very efficiently.  Software and hardware purchases that John and I deem necessary can be also purchased online at reduced prices.  If necessary, we can also buy cheap software and hardware from COMP USA which is only about a mile from my house.  Really, the computer-based system allows John and me to remain in our houses.  In turn, this allows both of us more free time to maintain our company.  Lastly, at the end of each year, John and I review the most recent song usage reports that he created to decide which songs can be taken off our site.  The process of looking of looking through the inventory and deleting songs takes about 3 work-days.  We usually work from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Over the next five years, I see our business growing a lot.  Radio stations such as channel 103.1 and many other alternative and modern rock stations are becoming increasingly popular.  Because of the rapid rate at which the music industry is growing, John and I will have to hire other people to help us do our job.  We will also have to purchase new computers to allow for more music storage and to allow our newly hired employees to split up the workload we have and make our business even more efficient.  At the moment, John’s computer has sufficient storage space, but in the future we will need more.  A building might have to be leased in the near future depending on the number of employees that we hire.  It would be easier to communicate to everyone if we were all in the same place.  Another possibility some time in the future is The Rock Rhythm combining forces with Apple.  That may not be for a while though because I, as the company representative, have to speak to Apple’s company representative to see if this is a feasible option.

These new changes will have a significant effect on our computer-based system.  First of all, we need to purchase new computers for storage and other business use.  The new computers will need to have upgraded sound software, large hard drives, and our Road Runner internet connections.  A lot of RAM will also be needed to allow for fast processing of information.  Basically, our computer-based system will need to include many more computers, all having the ability to access to our company’s website and the capacity to do the work John and I have been doing by ourselves.  Security is going to be an issue with our larger computer-based system, so all of the computers will have to have multiple forms of security, including anti-spyware software, anti-virus software, and firewalls in order to protect our computers, music, and money.  All in all, our company is going to grow in size.  The profits of the past year will cover the expenses of the new workers, new computers, and the possible building that we will need.