There is a magical period in a startup’s life when a product first begins to resonate with customers.
But this is preceded by a time that tests the founders’ persistence and ingenuity. The search to find product-market fit is amongst the toughest in the journey. But if you can make it two years, said Dalton Caldwell in his final speech as a Partner at Y Combinator, the odds of success improve dramatically.
When that idea does finally land and customers delight in it, it is pure magic. They then begin to share their excitement, setting in motion a flywheel of growth. As an investor, the best part of my job is witnessing founders transform their vision into a product that people love.
I’ve been lucky to watch Katie, Alex, Andrew and Tim, founders of Songscription, turn their idea into a product that is resonating with musicians around the world: an AI tool that transcribes any audio file into sheet music. With zero marketing spend, they are growing their users 60% month-over-month through word of mouth. Musicians across the world, of all levels, are finding and using Songscription:
- A songwriter composes a piece but doesn’t have time to write it down for others to perform
- A jazz piano player hears an awesome improv, and wants to know what was being played
- Someone wants to learn a piece, but can’t read music and needs to see which keys to play on a piano
Or my favorite use case: music teachers whose students request particular songs, but don’t have the time to transcribe them all by ear, so they use Songscription to instantly transcribe the music for their band, orchestra or individual student.
The Songscription founding team came together with a shared love of music and an obsession for how AI could make creating, playing and learning music more accessible. They are solving a problem that has challenged the field of music information retrieval for decades: converting audio files into clear, editable MIDI and sheet music. They have developed and trained an AI model that enables a Shazam for music transcription for piano, violin, flute, and guitar, with additional instruments coming soon. And since not all users read traditional notation, they’ve also introduced a piano roll feature to make learning how to play accessible for everyone.
Some of the best learning tools are those that teachers find useful but they don’t gatekeep; ambitious self-driven learners can run ahead with them. Tools like Replit and Desmos are used by teachers, but learners are the primary drivers.
Songscription falls nicely in this category, and we’re excited to invest in this team that’s just getting started. As someone who’s trying to pick up the piano, it’s not hard to imagine how AI will transform this industry.
