Bridging Data & Creativity: A Startup Story

It was 2016 when Chartmetric was founded. It began in borrowed office space in northern California, where an ex-gaming industry executive and a guitar-playing graduate school computer engineer would eat lunch scraps left over from the wealthy venture capital tenants. Chartmetric’s founder had just left a cushy job at a large corporation, initially looking to make an analytics tool that served the K-Pop industry. More simply, he wanted to do something he could look forward to every day.

The founder went to SXSW that year, nervously showing his analytics tool mockups to industry veterans, half of which didn’t even bother to show up to the pre-scheduled meetings. Those that did come were split: a few were encouraging, some were neutral, and most didn’t really see the need for it.

Chartmetric, at its birth, wasn’t of the music business. The company wasn’t even based in an entertainment capital like Los Angeles, New York, or London. Instead, it was based in another center of gravity: Silicon Valley, the world’s tech epicenter. The same industry that helped the recorded music business reverse its downward trajectory is ironically the one with which music continues to struggle with for power.

Despite the tenuous relationship, one fact remains: Computers can do many things that humans can’t. Organizing endless amounts of data from an abundance of sources is one of them, and that problem continues to get more complex in the entertainment industry.

There have been other music analytics tools before Chartmetric — Next Big Sound and Musicmetric are notable forebears — and there are many that continue to diversify the space: Nielsen’s Music Connect, SoundCharts, BuzzAngle/Alpha Data, and SpotOnTrack. The world of music business tools is beginning to appear more like the restaurant business: saturated and dizzying for users seeking strategic solutions.

It’s simple to just continue the arms race in such a competitive environment: Add a new data source, develop a new feature, optimize pricing, roll out promotions, schmooze at conferences.

But after three years of profitable operations, we want to share what motivates us. You should know who you choose as your business partner moving forward into the digital world.

So, as we unveil a fancy new logo today, it symbolizes something deeper: our renewed vision for music & data.

We envision an entertainment industry that spends most of its time doing what humans do best: being creative. Whether it's a song, show, or social media campaign, you should be excited to work every day because your imagination is free to run wild. You're not bogged down by time-consuming analysis, disorganized information sources, or data overload. That's a thing of the past. The business insights you receive are not only deep, but they’re also immediately useful — automated, but with a human touch.

If you want to dive deep into numbers, there’s a clean, calm data lake for you to swim around in. But most of all, you don't have to worry about drowning, because it's flowing with, and not against you.

Chartmetric exists to safely navigate creatives into the Information Age, giving artists the freedom to color the world. We believe it’s a tragedy when art doesn’t reach its audience. So, we wrangle the world of 21st century information to see to it that all beauty is brought to the surface. We’re custodians of art and data is our keyring.

So, no: We don’t know how to create a hit record, make an incredible music video, or put on a great concert. Instead, we free up your time so you can do those things. By taming data, composing code, and pulling out business value that wasn’t possible before, we harness the power of technology so you don’t have to deal with 12 open browser tabs with each streaming platform’s artist dashboard, a spreadsheet with tens of thousands of rows of mismatched dates, or a stack of printer paper with weekly social media stats sitting on top of your songwriting book.

We want to unearth actionable insights for you by connecting numbers to narratives, and not let them slip away into the landfill of lost opportunity.

We believe that data vs. gut is a false choice. There's no need for the old school to do battle with the new school. Both mindsets can work together ... if you're willing to make it happen.

Yes, we strive to grow a successful business, but that will simply be a by-product of us bridging data and creativity successfully. So, while we take care of the former, we are enabling you to do the latter — better, faster, stronger.

So stay tuned, more concrete product updates will come your way, as they always have. But we're taking a second now to share not only where we're going, but why we're doing it...and more importantly, if we're the partner you want along for the ride.

This is our guiding light for the future.

We’re Chartmetric. We can’t wait to see what you create.