Originally founded in 2009 with Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer and VC Investors, I am falling He became a creative platform for musicians operated by the owner. “Our clients are a global audience of musicians, composers and producers-from teenagers in their bedrooms after talented professionals in studies of many millions of dollars,” says CEO and co-founder Axel Hensen. “We also use a technological platform called Gorilla Engine to other producers, comparable to a game engine for game studies. Everything we do, follows our maxim” encourage courage and opposite “.
Hensen and I am awaiting coo tolfram knelangen said Entrepreneur The way they launched and achieved a company dealing with “removal of restrictions to make it in the center of Creativity.”
How do you see the place of your organization in the history of creating music?
Wolfram Knelangen: We live and breathe music! Since humanity began to bang a piece of wood into the rhythm, there have been musical instruments. As the technology evolutions, similar tools, and we now build them as a software. We see ourselves in a long tradition of inventors of instruments. In the whole story there was a very special relationship between people playing instruments and those that build them. For example, without an electric guitar and Leo Fender amplifier, there can be no rock’n ‘roll, as we know. Beethoven’s sonata wouldn’t be without the invention of piano forte and its reach from very quiet to very loud.
What is the difference between me and other music creation platforms?
WK: Our telephone card and best-selling product is called a virtual guitarist-you are aware that this is a complete guitar production platform. The guitar is a very complex instrument. Recording and production of guitars in the real world requires time, skills, money and equipment. With a virtual guitarist, we imitate not only the instrument, but also the player’s equipment and studies. In addition, we pre -introduce signals so that they sound great in your production immediately. The composer can in this manner achieve the result much faster. Almost all our products take this approach – this is our specialty. In addition, we distribute the B2B product called Gorilla Engine. It is a technological platform for other audio and music corporations that accelerates product development.
Are you a private company – how does it succeed to introduce innovation?
Axel Hond: Our culture is in a very German way, heavily oriented on engineering. Most members of our band come from music production, DJ -ting and so on. As a team, they are very experienced in terms of what they build and easy methods to build them. This signifies that as people’s trust and teams from their feelings. They can try things quickly and independently without the need for a board approved from many suits. Independence is perhaps our highest value; In fact, about ten years ago as part of the type of existential crisis, we separated from our original institutional investors. We do not allow lazy money to regulate in the company. Our experience has taught us that lazy money can result in many bad decisions. For example, users can love a specific product, but it may possibly be canceled or reduced, because it does not meet the extreme expectations of profitability. This is a phenomenon “Enshittification“As Cory Doctorov calls it, it is a direct result of too much lazy money calling for shots. Today in Uzama there are only owners-operators-flus Hans Zimmer, who is not involved in running the company, but is an ardent supporter of our product philosophy and our approach based on values.
What would you advise other entrepreneurs to run a company without a hierarchical management structure?
WK: Our idea is that there is a work hierarchy, but not a hierarchy of people. The work you would like is structured by so -called roles, and these roles must be full by a person with the highest competences. Whoever plays the role, has absolute power and autonomy, easy methods to do this job. Let’s say there is someone named Nora who is amazing in interface design. As long as the Nora is assigned to the role, it has authority and autonomy in the design of the user interface. So, regardless of whether you are the owner of the company or whether you are entitled MD, you may not say hole easy methods to do its work, e.g. that the interface must be blue as a substitute of green. You can express your opinion, you may support her with advice, but you may’t and you may’t lift it. This is a difficult thing for many traditional managers to just accept, because they are accustomed to having this power to interfere. Nora can be difficult to adapt to this higher level of personal responsibility. This is because he cannot hide “but my boss told me …!” And he must take full responsibility. This requires some exclusion and readiness for personal development from everyone involved.
What advice would you give to the owners of corporations about the adoption of a similar structure?
Ah: First of all, they’ll think deeply in themselves: do we really need it? Giving up control and really strengthening worker position is not only rewriting the ORG chart. This is a steep learning curve and a deep transformation for everyone involved. If you really need to follow this path, the second part of our greatest advice is to search out the right consultants early. We had several slow and painful years of experimenting with this model before we found consultants from Vienna, Dwarves and giants, which helped us start our successful transformation.