1. Senior Project – Computer Science and Economics (ID) - 2015
SoundByte: iOS Mobile Application For Music Discovery
Project Author: Jeffrey T. Cohen
Advisor: Prof. Matthew Anderson
Overview
Customers
In order to test my idea as a hypothesis, I created a series of twelve questions and used those questions to interview potential users of SoundByte. The questions were intended to inform me on the behavior of the respondents music discovery tendencies, beliefs, and behaviors.
When conducting consumer interviews it is imperative to ask questions in a nonbiased manner to get genuine responses. If the interviewee thinks the interviewer is searching for a specific answer, their responses are likely to be skewed. Therefore, I created the questions below with the intention of not alluding to any specific responses.
Customer Interview Questions
Are you an avid music listener?
What services do you use to listen to music?
How do you discover music?
How often do you and friends share music?
What apps do you use to share music with peers? Why?
What are the benefits and negatives of the those apps?
How much time do you spend on new music per week?
Do you find that your time spent looking for new music is well-spent?
How long does it take when listening to a song to realize that you like or dislike it?
What do you think of your peer’s music tastes?
What percentage of the time do you and your friends agree on a song being good or bad?
Which one is better for reliability on finding music, music websites / services or friends?
Objective
To create a technically viable solution to optimize music discovery efficiency.
Hypothesis
Avid music listeners want a simple way to share and discover music with their peers in a timely manner.
Solution
Creating SoundByte, an iOS mobile application that is intended to optimize user experience and efficiency for music discovery. The application has a simple interface and revolves around creating a peer-to-peer network that relies on users sharing 30-second song clips with their respective followers.
Value Proposition
“Soundbyte provides the simplest and fastest way to discover music from the people that know you best, without any extra nonsense.”
Build
View
Model / Database
Controller
User
Sees
Updates
Manipulates
Uses
Model-View-Controller Design
For my iOS application, I am using a Model-view-controller (MVC) for my architectural design. The MVC design divides the software application into three interconnected parts to enhance simplicity and efficiency.
The Process
When an entrepreneur decides to pursue an idea like SoundByte, they often fall into a trap known as the startup loop of despair[1]. The diagram in Figure 1 shows the vicious and expensive cycle of conceiving an idea, building a product, branding the product, and then seeking out customers (as seen below).
Figure 1. Startup Loop of Despair, Diana Kander, All In Startup (2014)
The much more methodical solution, the startup loop[1], demonstrates a less expensive and more efficient alternative. The process revolves around coming up with an idea, asking potential customers if they see the idea as a viable solution to a pain or if it could provide added value to their lives. If the responses suggest that the entrepreneur's idea is indeed viable, then that entrepreneur should move into the building process, followed by the branding process (as seen below).
Model – Organizes data, rules, and logic for SoundByte. Communicates with Parse.com and other APIs for querying information from the database.
View – Visual representation of output information for the user based on changes in the model. The view is responsible for all user interactions.
Controller – Can send commands to the model to update the model’s state. It can also send commands to the view to change the view’s presentation of the model.
Customers (Cont.)
The graphs in this section outline some of the interview responses among the 12 respondents.
Brand / Future Work
After building the product, an entrepreneur has to build a brand behind the product with various marketing tactics. Knowing the customers that your product appeals to is essential when trying target certain consumer bases. In the future, once I have built the application, I will have to work on branding the product.
References
[1] Kander, Diana. All in Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything Is On the Line. Wiley, 2014.
Figure 2. Startup Loop, Diana Kander, All In Startup (2014)