Ex-NUS undergraduate receives $10,000 seed money in entrepreneurship grant scheme to set up local music discovery website.

It all started when Danny W., back then a National University of Singapore (NUS) undergraduate, saw an advertisement while waiting for a shuttle bus on campus and saw the poster ad of the NUS Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practicum Grant.

Back in college, Danny had several musician friends who aspired to become full time musicians, but they struggled and finally decided to follow the "normal" graduate path and find a stable job. Danny wanted to make a difference, and his vision was to create a digital music platform that focused on local musicians as a means for them to be more easily discovered. By coming in together as a grassroots movement and having a concentrated platform for local musicians, he hoped that aspiring musicians will then be able to reach out to a lot more people than just their friends-zone.

Danny W., creator of iamLOCALIZED.sg

However, putting ideas into action naturally required a financial investment and it had been a tough start for him.

“I was still a student in my final semester and without a penny in my pocket. How will I fund this social project?” Danny asked himself.

So when the opportunity came, he jumped on it and submitted his proposal to set up iamLOCALIZED.sg. After weeks of waiting, he was finally notified that his business plan was selected to receive the $10,000 worth of funding.

He immediately looked for reputable website developers to create a prototype, The Alpha version came out for test drive in January 2012, and then on April 2012, the Beta version finally went online.

Screen shot of the website www.iamLOCALIZED.sg

How did you think your proposal stood out?

I believe the reason for being selected for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practicum Grant was because iamLOCALIZED's main element is that I identified it as an online grassroots movement, where iamLOCALIZED will bring together local musicians and listeners to promote local music. Online grassroots movement is undoubtedly the most happening thing at the moment, and my idea consists of that element. The area I chose, local music, is probably also the reason why my proposal stood out. There have been so many efforts by the organizations and musicians themselves to promote local music. Every time when they are asked what is lacking in the local music scene, their answers have always been more-less the same: "there is no platform that brings local musicians and listeners together". Hence I came up with an idea of having an online music platform specifically just for the local musicians.

It seems that currently there are no revenue streams in your model. How do you plan to be sustainable?

We do know that we need to be able to sustain the website, and most importantly to keep on developing the website for better user experience. Thanks to the grant, the website will still run for the next 2 years and this gives us ample time to experiment a few business models, may it be something that already exists or a totally new innovation. As of now, we are trying out different revenue generation models that would fit well with Singapore market. Music is consumed differently in different countries, and hence we see the importance of not sticking with just one business model. We believe there must be few trials-and-errors, and analyze to figure out what fits well with Singapore market. One revenue stream is through our IALiveSHOW. We have tried it, and currently we are in talks with few prominent venues to hold future IALiveSHOWs.

How can artists be discovered on your website?

At the moment, it's actually just a normal simple search algorithm; no rocket science implemented. Users search band name that they already know. Type the band name or genre, and then it displays the results. 

Discovery can be done through the following features:
- Music Charts: Most Loved Chart, and Most Played Chart of the month
- New Releases: Recent uploaded songs on iamLOCALIZED

- Welcome Playlist: Mix of random playlist upon login
- Artists section: Manually look for artists from A-Z
- Search bar: Type in name of band or music genre 
- IALiveSHOW: Discovery through the live show, or via recorded video of the live show on iamLOCALIZED homepage, or YouTube
- Social Media posts: daily posts on Facebook and Twitter.


We found out from our survey that most of the local listeners have the tendency of not looking for new local acts themselves, but they tend to discover accidentally or they have seen the artists performed somewhere or through recommendation. Not only in Singapore, but this is also happening all over the world in these days. Through the discovery features that we have, especially with the Music Charts, New Releases, Welcome Playlist, and IALiveSHOW, we are actually recommending local music that our local listeners would like hear. We believe in equal promotion, so the amount of promotion each artist get on iamLOCALIZED is more or less equally the same.

Music charts: how does it work? One vote per person? Or multiple votes per person? Is it a weekly or monthly chart?

The music charts is a feature that we hope to bring the competitive spirit into the local music scene. Users can give one vote per song. It is a monthly chart where the Most Played Chart will reset at the end of the month. Most Loved Chart is where you give your votes (showing some loves as we call it) to the song that you like, and it will reset at the end of the year.

How are you working out the licensing issues?

We are currently in touch with COMPASS in how do we stand and go about in terms of music licensing matter. Copyright is a big issue for us because after all, we are promoting original local music. We are also helping aspiring musicians to know about the importance of copyright and protecting their original music, because it is part of the music business element that the aspiring musicians themselves need to know about.

As a new platform, how do you intend to get artists and publishers to join your website?

The main challenge is to convince the musicians that putting their music on iamLOCALIZED is safe, and is beneficial for their exposure. We have realized that, and we are able to convince the musicians that the website is safe. As mentioned before also, we are currently in touch with COMPASS in protecting the musicians’ music.

As for their exposure, IALiveSHOW is definitely the main feature we have. Musicians are able to perform live in venues where people are watching them perform. It is good for the aspiring musicians to be exposed to such atmosphere, and for the existing musicians, it is always good for them to have the opportunity to perform live. From there onwards, it is the musicians’ duty to impress using their music talent.

How is the response so far? Any future targets?

The long term target for iamLOCALIZED is to become the one-stop-shop music channel for local Singapore music. Since the beta went online, we have 70 registered artists and 165 registered listeners. That sum up to a total of 235 registered users. Through those 70 registered artists, there are a total of 101 songs, made in Singapore. By the end of the year, we are targeting to round up the number to 300 registered users. Not so ambitious as one might see, but starting next year we will be going "full force" in promoting the artists and their music through innovative collaborations with various parties.



Music sales/distribution definitely plays a big role as an indicator for the musicians’ existence in the music industry. But for iamLOCALIZED, discovery is the most important factor at the moment. If we are able to engage high numbers of audience to play songs on iamLOCALIZED, we can promote the musicians further and enable them to generate income from music sales/distribution, playing live/tour, royalties, etc. This would empower the musicians to keep doing music, and aspiring musicians to follow the footstep of those successful ones. From here, we can eventually start to have a healthy music scene where you will be able to see local musicians can live from doing music. For iamLOCALIZED, this would be our tipping point where iamLOCALIZED will be able to generate income along with the musicians.

Since your site only focuses on local music, do you think the market supply and demand is big enough for your model to be sustainable?

I believe that the local market supply and demand is not enough for iamLOCALIZED to be sustainable. Other than being able to sustain itself, iamLOCALIZED also needs to grow. Hence we believe there is a need to venture out of Singapore as well. What we are trying to do is to grow along with the musicians. We are also working toward getting collaboration and partnership outside of Singapore. This would open the door for the musicians to showcase themselves outside of Singapore and empower them in bringing good music representing Singapore.

To sustain the interests of listeners, the golden rule for all musicians is to keep challenging themselves to create new music. The same goes to our local musicians. It is not about quantity, but quality, and as a matter of fact considering the population we have, we actually do have quality materials to sustain the interest of users. For musicians, it is a matter of keeping the standard high and create even more quality material.

What is your view on shifting the role of taste making from mainstream media to the average listener?



With the power of social media, the opinion leaders are none other than ourselves. All of us now are giving comments or opinions to almost everything that we're being exposed to on social media platforms.

From what I discovered through research is that what shifted the decision-making in this case is the medium that the consumers use. Consumers have moved from listening to radios, to watching music videos on TV, and they now are able to consume both via the Internet, and more specifically via social media platforms. Consumers are however mostly still influenced by what others recommend. If they used to get recommendations from the DJs on the radio, or the music channels on TV, now most music consumers get recommendations from their Facebook newsfeed, or Tweets, or YouTube recommendation list. Your friends on Facebook are mostly friends you have similar interests. The same goes for the Twitter accounts that you follow. Hence you would likely to get hooked with what your peers are listening/watching. To figure out whether you would like it or now, it is now just a click away.

IALiveShow: how do you intend to bring audiences to the shows? Any plans to monetize this area?

We started IALiveSHOW as part of the discovery feature, and as mentioned before, we are currently in talks with few prominent venues to collaborate with us. We definitely have plans to monetize in this area that would benefit the musicians, venue, and iamLOCALIZED. As this is a grassroots movement, one strategy is revenue sharing with the venue, depending on how many people actually come to the venue to attend IALiveSHOW and watch the artist perform. We have seen this done before in Singapore, and we are definitely going into this direction for IALiveSHOW.

Multi-level marketing: A new radical online distribution model to Tell Your Friends

Social media is the way to go, it seems, as a tool to promote and market one’s music. With streaming platforms such as Youtube, many artistes have found fame online, with close to a million hits or subscribers on their Youtube channel. Most of them, however, have yet to have found fortune, or are still unable to monetize the strong support from social media. A proportion of these artistes still depend on performance fees to generate the bulk of their income, and not through the sales of their music. Tell My Friends (TMF), a new online music distribution model, aims to change all that, says CEO Mr Ben Looi, by providing tools for artistes to get people to go from interest to conversion.

At first, this writer thought that TMF was an online music store like iTunes, but on closer look, we couldn’t find anything that resembles a store on its website. So how is the music sold? Apparently, after an artiste or publisher inks the distribution deal with TMF, they are given unique links for each song that is being sold, and the client would have to market the link themselves by posting it on their own social networks such as blogs, websites and Facebook pages. Their fans will get to purchase the track by clicking on the link, and payment can be done via paypal or credit card. Buyers of the track will in turn, be given another unique link of their own, and if they share it on their social media networks and someone else buys the track from their link, the buyer now also earns a commission for sharing that link. 



Sounds like MLM (Multi-level marketing)? Yes it is. Then is it a scam? Well, during the interview, Ben openly admitted that he knows that MLM has had a bad name, and so he did his due diligence to ensure that his model is legal, and to clarify things further, he even went through the effort to state the distinction between a fraudulent MLM model and a legal one on his website. He also explains that TMF is simple, as you do not have to hit a minimum number of levels in order to get your credits.

We drilled into the ex-SAF officer on how he executed his mantra: “Consume digital products responsibly and get rewarded for it.”

Ben Looi, CEO of Tell My Friends Pte Ltd

Q: What exactly is the business model of Tell-My-Friends? How much does your company make from each sale of a song copy?

The business model is network marketing, also known by other terms such as direct selling and multi-level marketing. The twist is that it is integrated with social networking, hence a more appropriate term is social network marketing. Tell My Friends make 20% from each sale of a song copy.

Q: Who is your core target audience?

As a platform, we are targeting those who currently download stuff for free, either via torrents or illegal file-sharing. As for content, there really isn't a core target audience, because practically anyone, whether you are a social network user or a smartphone user, can be an audience. Tell My Friends is a platform to augment content owners' sales and marketing, so the core audience of our clients differ. For example, if an artiste that sings pop ballads, then the core audience for us would be working young adults. If it's Mandarin oldies, then the core audience will be retirees, housewives etc. If it's Christian worship songs, it would be Christians. The core audience depends on the content, not Tell My Friends.  We also target young people like teenagers and students by facilitating cash payment using prepaid cards.

Q: How did this concept come about? Why the MLM model? What is your company's vision and mission?

I've always enjoyed music, and I have great respect for those who chose to make music their livelihood. Believe me, it's not a very well-paying job, but the passion for the craft is what keeps most musicians going. I was wondering how can I help musicians make a living AND keep the passion, and a big pain point most musicians face is that of online piracy. It's a very pragmatic view if you ask any consumer  "Why would you pay for something when you can get it for free?" and the answer is obvious. The industry has tried to beat piracy using technology like DRM and we know that doesn't work, because anything that is encrypted can be decrypted. It then tried to fight based on price and convenience, driving prices down to the ground at $0.99 plus minimal clicks. That has some positive outcomes, but musicians aren't the ones making money - it's the megastores that does. Then they tried to use legislation and enforcement such as SOPA, which is totally against what the Internet is all about - freedom of choice and expression. Hence, I reframed the problem of piracy - not as a technological or enforcement issue - but as a behavioral problem. Working as a military psychologist for the past 2 years gave me the experience and insight that positive reinforcement of a desired behavior is more effective than punishing or negative reinforcement of an undesired behaviour. With that, I then needed to think of a way to sustain a reward system. After much research of various business models and laws, the solution was found in network marketing or MLM.  My company's vision is summed up as such: Help People. Save Music. Be Rewarded.

Q: How long has TMF started? What is the response so far? What kind of investment costs did you incur in setting up such a business? How long do you expect to break even?

We've started full-time for about 7 months, and we have broken even. The response is good, judging from the interest generated, and conversion is slowly happening. We are still in beat testing, and already we have 210 users and 394 paid downloads - and we haven't even started marketing yet. We will expect a spike in both numbers soon, as we begin our marketing efforts. The investment costs is confidential, but suffice to say we have been very prudent in getting things done with a limited budget and lots of innovation. And of course, goodwill from supporters of our vision.

Q: What is your current catalogue like? Are you working with major and independent labels?

We know we are very new, and no one has an idea of what we are doing! We have met up with a major label as well as industry bodies, and while the local HQ is interested, the inherent legacy corporate structure may not allow major labels to use us at the moment. The independent labels, however, have more autonomy, and are very keen to be on board. We now have mainly independent artistes, both local and overseas, mainly friends, and friends of friends, like Chen Huisi, Matthew Quek, Ko Sherman, Eric Chiryoku, Jai, Jessica Irawan, The Glad Stones, Phoebee Ong, Gilbert Baldoza, Nat Ho and Thomas Ong. The catalogue includes Chinese pop, New Age, English pop, Christian worship, classical, jazz, musicals, Malay pop, Japanese. We also have ebooks lined up.

Q: Could you explain more about the partnership with Music Galaxy Records and Music Publishers Singapore? How does the one-year blanket license work?

Music Galaxy Records is a subsidiary of Tell My Friends. We had to start a content creation arm so that there are songs to sell on Tell My Friends! When we started TMF, we spoke to local industry bodies and societies to understand about royalties and industrial practices. Music Publishers Singapore (MPS) is a society formed by music publishers like Sony ATV, Universal Music Publishers Group, EMI, Warner-Chappell, Touch Music and many more. We know that there are many local artistes who do very good covers of popular songs, but they do not know how to clear the rights to sell them online. Many pop songs on radio today are also covers, thanks to successful shows like Glee, American Idol, The Voice etc. There's always a fresh and new way to interpret the same song. We have made an arrangement through a license from MPS that any cover song submitted by independent artistes and labels will automatically be cleared for mechanical rights licensing as we will apportion the royalties due to publishers have claims to those songs.

Q: How can artists and writers benefit from this? 

Artistes can go ahead and record their songs, whether it's original or a cover version, and sell it via TMF as a one-stop service. The artistes will have the sound recording royalties if it is a cover song, and both sound recording and mechanical royalties if it's an original. Artistes and composers/writers can also collaborate to do a song, and work out an agreement between themselves what portion of the royalties they share, and let TMF know who to pay when the song is sold. It's that simple.

For a cover song, out of a dollar for royalties, a certain percentage goes to the owner of the sound recording, while the remaining is paid to MPS for the song royalty. This is a blanket rate, so the recording artiste will simply have to decide how much they want per song to set the final price of the track. Each song is uploaded by Tell My Friends so that we would have control and this is why we are taking the 20% commission to manage all this for the client. The distributor contact will have a list of songs that they want to sell as a client, and from there the tracking will be done by Tell My Friends to pay MPS. They would have to sign to declare that they are not the composer in the distribution contact. In this way, all administration is taken off artistes’ backs and settled by TMF.

Q: How do you compare yourself with other major online music stores like iTunes? How is your business model different? Ultimately, what does it mean for labels, publishers, artists and writers?

We are different from major online music stores in that we give buyers something that online music stores don't give - cash rewards. Online stores are very much single level market models built with convenience and low price as the selling point. For artistes, there is a fee involved in putting our music on those stores, and will be catalogued in a large, virtual store together with thousands of other artistes and products. Consumers can choose to go spend $0.99 on your song at the major store, or get it for free somewhere, somehow via torrents, or even via USB or email. 

Tell My Friends is not a store, as we do not sell music directly on our platform. We do, however, send out weekly newsletters as a catalogue of songs, and members can buy them. Now, here's where TMF makes the difference. Anyone who buys any song, ebook etc will have a unique link for each product, and you can share the link with your friends, via social networks, email, and even SMS and Whatsapp if you have a smartphone. For those who have a blog, you can even insert the link within your blog, and even create your own music store. Each time anyone buys the song from your link, you get a reward. Even if the person who bought from your link copies what you do and set up his own store, you will still get a reward when someone buys from his link - for up to 10 tiers. You can't do that with iTunes, can you?

What it means for labels is that, while labels generally own the sound recording rights to the song, the artistes under the label will also get a commission each time the song is sold, provided the first link is given to the artistes to seed the market. For example, if MGR paid for and produces a song, and therefore owns the rights of a song sung by Ben Looi, and because the first people to buy the song would be Ben's fans (assuming he has fans...hahaha), Ben earns a steam of commission, while the label earns royalties. It's a win-win for both.

Q: Are there any listing fees in the distribution contract?

TMF does not act like a retailer, so there are no upfront fees to list songs, but clients are required to take a consignment of at least 50 prepaid TopUp cards with a downpayment of 10% of RSP to be sold for a period of 3 months. The artistes can make $0.50 per card. They can also customize the Topup card with an additional $300 for the mould.

TopUp cards are priced at S$8 for 600 credits. 1 credit = US$0.01. Users can cash out via paypal or cheque. Clients would however have to accumulate a minimum of $15 before cashing out, and can only cash out commissions earned and not topped up.

TopUp Cards from Tell My Friends

Q: What if the artistes’ fanbase does not use Facebook?

TMF has put in a total of 320 social media platforms on which the links can be shared on, so even in a country like China which does not use Facebook, artistes are still able to reach out to that market through other popular local platforms like Weibo.

Q: According to your website, each song is selling for US$1.84. How did you arrive at this price?

No, the song price is not fixed for every song. It depends on what our clients set

as royalties. The principle is nothing less than 50% of retail price goes to royalties, so we first determine what our clients want as royalties for sound and mechanical rights.  Supposing our clients want $1. This would then form 50% of selling price before taxes and transaction fees. 30% or $0.60 will be allocated as commissions for buyers, spread over 10 tiers. The amount per tier is shown on every purchase page you land on selling each song. The remaining 20% goes to TMF for admin costs. So, in this example, the retail price, inclusive of taxes and transaction costs of about 13-15%, will be close to $2.30. Most of our clients set their royalties at about $0.90 to keep the final selling price inclusive of taxes and transaction costs below $2.

Q: Tell us more about the Secret Angel function in your website. Is it a direct donation? Why would consumers choose to donate in this way instead of directly to the charity of their choice? Will the donation be tax deductible for consumers? Do you charge any administrative fees for the donations? How is the charity cause increased the affiliation between the consumer and the artist? Is there supposed to be any deliberate connection?

We are finalising the MOU with a major charity entity who will be partnering us in this Secret Angel function, so the details can't be discussed at the moment, but suffice to say we are doing this as part of our vision - Help People. There will not be any affiliation between the consumer and the artiste under normal circumstances because the artiste is just selling his/her song. Whoever buys that song can choose to direct all future commissions from that purchase to the charity of choice, so it's not the artistes' call or decision to support the charity, but that of the consumer. However, if an artiste DOES want to support a charity through the sale of the song, he can direct TMF to apportion a certain percentage of royalties accrued to the beneficiary, and consumers who buy the song can choose to still keep their share of commissions for own use, or direct their portion of commission to ANOTHER charity. As to the other questions about whether it is tax-deductible and admin fees, we will have to wait till the MOU is signed, as these points are covered in the MOU.

Q: Your site claims that at least 50% of revenue goes back to royalties and about 30% of revenue to go back to consumers in the form of commissions. How do you intend to ensure transparency in reporting in terms of sales and donations?

Each purchase landing page has the breakdown of commissions at each tier. Each time you buy a song, it goes on to your Purchase History. When your link you share generates referral purchases, the commission earned is displayed for each song. Clicking on it will show the breakdown of commissions, i.e., how many and who bought the song that earned you $0.21, $0.11 $0.05 etc etc. The identities of the buyers are partially masked for confidentiality. As for donations, whenever someone donates HIS level to charity, the purchase landing page will highlight the respective tier of commission with an indication of which charity is receiving that share. On the Secret Angel list of charities, it will also show the amount raised and how many "secret Angels" each charity has.

In terms of accounting, we can arrange to have a credit note be given every three months or even every month to the artiste or publisher.

Q: Tell us more about yourself and who makes up the team at TMF. How did you get yourself involved into the music business and why?

I served in the Singapore Armed Forces for 13 years before calling it a day to start Tell My Friends. In my 13 years as an Army officer I've served in various capacities, ranging from direct command in the Infantry, law enforcement as a Military Police, doctrine and capability development for homeland defence, training officer cadets in OCS, and as a defence psychologist. I'm currently the Ops Officer of an Infantry Brigade in NS. The prospect of doing something totally different, challenging and never attempted before was the change I needed, because the notion of staying on for another 13 years in the same environment is not for me. The TMF team is growing day to day, and I guess it's the vision that attracts the right people to my team. We are entirely self-funded at the moment, and we are able to sustain the business to profitability because everyone in the team contributes and value adds. Pearly, my sister, takes care of business development for TMF and our subsidiary music label, Music Galaxy Records (MGR). Huisi manages the production of music that MGR produces, Chris takes care of the technical development, overseeing and coordinating with my vendors who do the programming. Andy markets Tell My Friends to international artistes to put their content with us, and a few friends who are helping out with the user experience design and other stuff to make us look pretty. Justin is taking care of the PR, and we work with an IP lawyer as well as a patent lawyer for the legal mumbo jumbo stuff. We are currently developing an arrangement with a music marketing manager in the Netherlands to cover Europe and a few potential partners to bring Tell My Friends to the Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan.  We got involved in the music business because music is very important to everyone - it represents the soul of life, and we all need music to be with us all the time - to celebrate life's finest moments, and to comfort and sooth the pain and sorrows. We need to keep music alive.

Q: How much do you think digital sales would make up the music market in the next three to five years in Singapore? How about in Asia?

Increasingly with smartphones, personal media devices and other gadgets converging, products will be consumed in the digital form - videos, books, music. Singapore is a small market with high computer literacy, online banking and credit card subscription, which is not representative of other Asian markets. Digital sales will increase at least 10 to 20% year on year in Singapore if piracy wasn't so rampant. That said, there isn't really a music industry in Singapore today, although there is a vibrant music scene. Most major labels have moved operations to Malaysia as the local market is many times bigger than Singapore. Digital sales in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines still has not been significant as credit card subscription is low. For example, 70% of mobile phone users in Malaysia and Indonesia are on prepaid plans, unlike Singapore where most are on postpaid plans. Cash will continue to be the preferred payment method regionally, and unless you have a complementary system other than just Paypal and online banking, people will continue to buy music in its physical form of a CD, go home and rip it to digital format, and since it's already ripped, they might as well share it with friends.

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Ben is optimistic on the potential success of this model. His target is to have five major artistes to be on the catalogue by the end of the year, and as long as he has some success stories, he’s confident that the floodgates will open.

“It’s a chicken and egg thing, currently I have no customer base, and no content, it’s just a platform. So now it’s a matter of building content and getting buy in from artistes. It’s a challenge but I love the challenge because it’s something so new. So far the response has been positive, and people have been keen in coming in, like Nat Ho, who recorded the song with us. I need content. I tried talking to some labels, but because I’m so new, so nobody wants to bother with me, so I created a label to create content. We actually commission songs for private investors. Songs are intellectual property and we sell the intellectual property. We, as a label, get the singer, band, audio engineer and producer to create the recording. Because the investor bears the financial risk of paying everything upfront, they own the intellectual property for 70 years. They are actually creating jobs. Roughly we are selling the package for about $15,000, and the royalties generated will all be returned to the investor. MPS still gets paid if it’s a cover song.

Eventually, how I measure the success of TMF would be to enable at least one artist from Singapore to make it big overseas.”

This entrepreneur has big dreams for local artistes, and we hope that he makes it big too.