I’m determined to bring about revolutionary improvements to music technology, says Flutin’s CEO, Vishu Gupta
Brought up in a small city Rohtak in Haryana, Vishu Gupta is a strategist and founding manager for the projects and team at Flutin- a music discovery platform focused on promoting emerging artists. He identifies, qualifies, and secures proper resources and opportunities for the team and company by connecting with great minds and transforming ideas into meaningful stories. At Flutin he aspires to revolutionize the concept of listening and discovering music. Vishu completed his engineering in 2012 from Amity University Noida. Then he served as a Business Manager at Affle for the mobile app development domain for a few years before starting his own company.
Here are a few excerpts from the interview where Vishu speaks about his journey with HelloPost Team:
- Tell us something about yourself and your company.
I’m Vishu Gupta, a part-time entrepreneur, and a full-time innovator. I, along with Prankush Roopanwal, founded Pindrop Music App in 2015, which has recently been rebranded to Flutin App. My sincerest passion lies with music and technology and I’m determined to bring about revolutionary improvements to music technology as well as in the music industry. And I’m trying to do so with Flutin App. We have designed the app to offer a matchless music streaming and music discovery experience with its primary focus on promoting emerging artists. Over the period of the 5 years since it was launched, the app has performed exceptionally well. And, to create another platform for the promotion of emerging artists, we are running an online reality show called HomeStars. The show provides talented artists with a chance to become stars by participating and performing from the comfort of their homes.
2. What inspired you to start Flutin?
Music has always fascinated me. So much that at one point during my college years I aspired to become a musician. And in those days, I discovered the problems an artist with not much in the name of contacts or funds has to face in the industry. So, I identified and thoroughly studied the challenges music listeners and artists were facing. And trust me, there were many. Growing in the music industry with no large funds and contacts to back you up has always been the greatest challenge faced by an artist. Through the app, we wanted to do away with this challenge and make it possible for artists with the potential to gain fame by simply uploading their music. Secondly, we wanted to make the most relevant music available to the listeners. So we developed the feature of mood-based and activity-based music to let the listeners enjoy exactly what they wanted to listen to.
3. How does Flutin work?
Flutin is all about optimizing the technology to create a seamless music streaming experience for listeners. The app learns about the music listening behaviour of listeners and using that algorithm, playlists featuring similar music are curated for them. Interestingly, the app also pushes the relevant music by the lesser-known artists to these playlists, which in turn helps the listeners discover fresh music and promotes the artists among the most relevant audience.
4. How is Flutin working with the music industry?
The process of identifying talent is far more complex than it is generally perceived. Before a singer lends his or her voice to a song, a lengthy process has to be followed. And we, at Flutin, are carrying out multiple activities that bring to the surface a lot of refined artists who do not only have impressive voices and singing skills but are also studio-ready. In that manner, we are doing our bit to introduce truly talented artists to the world by means of music streaming and talent hunts.
5. What were the initial challenges that you have faced in your journey? How did you overcome it?
I was confident about the idea when it first came to me, but the lack of resources was a big hurdle. Moreover, quitting a job to build a startup is a risky step in a country like India. Despite that, I mustered the courage, took the risk and started working on the idea. After a period of struggle, the savings dried up and I contemplated the idea of taking a job to keep going. But fortunately, on the same day when I got a job offer and almost took it, I received a call from our first investor who was convinced to invest in our project by the end of the call. Many small and big challenges followed after that, but I never lost the hope and zeal to continue working on building a platform which would eventually transform music streaming experience around the world.
6. What has been your biggest achievement in this journey?
There are numerous artists who relied on Flutin for their careers and succeeded in establishing themselves as professional musicians. The achievement of each such artist is also a big achievement for Flutin. Besides that, touching the milestone of 10 million app downloads on Playstore and Apple Store combined has also been a great achievement that resulted from the cohesive efforts of the team.
7. Did you raise any funding? If not, then are you eyeing to raise any funding?
The sincerity of our approach and the uniqueness of the product has attracted several investors. We have been funded by GHV Accelerator, SEGA, Sukhbir Singh, and some other HNIs for which we’re truly thankful.
8. How are you planning to set a benchmark among other Industry Players?
A healthy competition among the artists is a thing that the industry lacks and we are trying to fix that. Whether through Flutin App or HomeStars Rapchik, we have always tried to offer talented singers opportunities to make it big in the industry without having to spend a fortune and using contacts to climb up the ladder. So, I’d be really glad if other industry players also shift their focus towards uplifting the artists with no resources and providing them with the exposure they deserve.
9. What are your future plans?
Most of our future plans revolve around creating opportunities for emerging artists and thus making the competition in the music industry healthier. In order to do that, we are mainly focused on lacing Flutin App with some unique features which will be exciting for listeners as well as artists. Besides, a vertical, as well as horizontal growth of the HomeStars program, is also a priority for us. We are hopeful that we will develop this program into a platform that not only creates winners but also promises careers in the industry.
10. As an entrepreneur, what is it that motivates and drives you?
Although there are many things that keep me motivated, I think an opportunity to improve things has been the most effective driving force for me. Whenever I come across an opportunity or stumble upon an idea that might help me get closer to where I ultimately want to be, it works as a great push. Apart from that, watching an artist succeed through our platform has always motivated me to work harder in this direction.
